The New Shambles

Every Wednesday we try and get to Kendal for the market, 20p for 1lb of potatoes, 30 eggs for £2.50, real bacon with flavour, and a little pot of crayfish tails from the fish monger, though there was something in the paper about a kind of crayfish close to extinction.  They taste good though.  Just down from the butchers is a little alley called the New Shambles, a shop selling really good herbs, another butcher I haven’t tried yet, and a hat shop amongst other things.

People kept asking me why I didn’t paint somewhere warmer or why not wait till its warmer.  With a string vest, t-shirt, fleece, shirt, hoody, overcoat, scarf, hat, one normal glove on the left hand, one fingerless glove on the right hand, long johns, jeans, 2 pairs of socks, waterproof boots with a good lining.  I was quite warm for up to about 4 hours.  But the cold gets in and takes a long time to get out.  I did this in two attempts then glazing back at the studio, the colours have suffered from the photograph, the painting looks much more orange.  The first day on location I concentrated on the shadows and composition, using mostly ultramarine and ochre, as the sun went down I had a clearer idea of what I wanted to paint – the sun going down just as the street lights come on.  I tidied it up with beeswax back at the studio before going out again, added colour; it had snowed since so I had to put snow on the roofs.  Then back to the studio and medium number 2 glaze.

Oil, beeswax and resin on ply

roughly 80cm by 50cm

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