Is imitation really flattery?

 It's been a while since I last made a blog post but those who have been following the website or my exploits on various Facebook pages will fully understand that my time is limited. Even the On Location pages of the website you will notice that recent explorations onto the fells haven't been posted purely due to this shortage of time.
 Many of you will realise that work has been progressing really well on my Wainwrights in Colour project and at last after all this time there is light at the end of the tunnel. I am truly grateful to those last few customers who have been patiently awaiting the completion of their fells.
 Recent wandering over the fells have meant that I now only have 2 references left to tick off, and one of those is a confirmation of a view which I possibly got wrong. Some long days and a few cracking nights wild camping have resulted in some wonderful experiences which when time allows I will share in full.

Sunset on Coniston Old Man 24.7.14

 

However, it was following the receipt of the Wainwright Society Newsletter in my inbox this morning that I felt motivated to write this blog post.

 The Wainwright's in Colour Project has been my life for the past 8 years, providing my sole income as well as all the stress and concern that comes with that challenge. In all the years since AW published the seven Pictorial Guides it seems that no-one had come up with the idea of painting the views as they are today. Many people have complimented me on coming up with such a unique take on these wonderful works so much so that as you maybe aware I have had some excellent coverage in local and national press as well as being filmed by the BBC. It has turned out to be a mammoth task, getting to the locations, photographing the scenes from exactly the same viewpoint as Wainwright and then interpreting the vista as a scaled watercolour. The sales of the work and the pre-orders for the forthcoming work speak for themselves. I was just so fortunate as a professional artist to by chance come up with this idea and bring it to life.

 My format of framing all the sketches for each fell as a montage complete with hand-painted title really shows off the watercolours to their best and the fact that I personally hand cut each mount individually and then frame them totally "in house" means that this is truly an artists work.



Green Gable fully framed.

I am currently in the process of designing the final layout of the book, like AW, this is fully under my control and I am really proud of what I have achieved.

Arnison Crag- the page from the book.

So, from reading the fore mentioned newsletter another artist has taken it upon himself to undertake the exact same "project" the only difference is that he is using oils as a medium and not watercolours. Now I fully realise that my idea cannot be copyrighted after all the views that AW drew are there for all to photograph, sketch etc. What I do find galling is that this artist has obviously copied my idea instead of coming up with his own original and unique painting project of the Lakeland Fells. Even the way he has mounted the sketches as a montage in a cream mount complete with what looks like a photocopied title underneath copies my layout. So far he has only completed Arnison Crag (he began his project in March 2014- about 8 years behind me) and his images bear little accuracy to AW's view despite his statement "As part of an on-going project I intend to re-visit AW's viewpoints with the aid of his guidebooks and paint them as they are today." unquote.  Sounds familiar?

 In some ways I wish him the best of luck, no one more than me understands the challenge he has set himself. Perhaps when The Wainwright's in Colour book comes out I will sell him a copy and save him some ground work.

 Does all of this make me sound like a bitter old man? I hope not. I'm not bitter after all, sooner or later someone is going to question this artist and say "aren't you just copying Andy Beck's excellent idea?"

 Of course, if I was really bitter I wouldn't share with you this artists website so you can take a look for yourselves: www.simon-whitfield-artist.com.

 By the way, do remember where you heard about the idea first. :)

 Feel free to post a comment either here or on The Teesdale Gallery Facebook page.

 

80th Anniversary Celebrations

7th June was the day in 1930 that Alfred Wainwright and his cousin Eric Beardsall rode the bus from their home town, Blackburn in Lancashire to Windermere in the Lake District. The walking holiday that followed would change AW's life forever. To mark this special occasion The Wainwright Society organised a full day of events to re-trace AW's trip to the fells. After an initial meet-up at Windermere we were transported by modern coach to Blackburn from where we set out in classic coaches to re-enact the journey.

Dressed in period costume we ventured forth changing buses at Preston and stopping for tea at the Midland Hotel, Morcambe before alighting at Windermere. Just as AW did we then took the short walk up to Orrest Head.

Just as in 1930 the sun shone and the distant fells were on full show. A few short speeches and a photo call and then down to Windermere for tea. A fine way to celebrate this day. To see the full album of photos visit the website: http://www.theteesdalegallery.co.uk/ and go to the "On Location page" where the webpage can be found for this event.

Evening on the Howgills

As part of this years Wainwright Society Challenge "The Best of the Rest" we had opted to walk the route up to Black Force. This route would be  new to us and loked interesting with the possibility of a bit of scrambling up alongside the gill. We chose to go over later in the day as the air would have been a bit cooler for the dogs. Also, after looking at the map I judged that the fells here would have been good to view the sun going down behind the Lake District Fells.

Not every thing went according to plan as you will see by visitng the full photo report on the website. Still, it was a great way to spend a couple of hours on some quiet fells, in fact we saw no one else during our time walking.

Evening on the Howgills

Too nice an evening to miss the chance to get a short walk in so I headed off west to visit the Howgills, the range of fells between the Pennines and the Lake District Fells. Wainwright even wrote a book on walks in these quiet hills so I took the chance to follow one of his shorter routes from that book. Very enjoyable it was too, easy walking but with some interesting geology, wildlife and views. The walks in the Howgills and in AW's other books such as Limestone Country and the Outlying Fells of the Lake District will all be covered by members of the Wainwright Society as part of this years "challenge". Why not check it out, a good chance to explore different areas and raise money for a good cause at the same time?

Yes, I mean "Ewe"!

The photos from this evenings outing can be found by clicking here and following the Fell End link.

Window to the world

Heading to the Easter weekend is an opportunity to give the window diplays at the gallery a fresh look. Even though we use this Blog, the gallery website and Facebook to keep our customers informed of what is going on here at The Teesdale Gallery the windows are still an important "front" top the shop itself. the idea is to give passers-by a clue as to what we do- not just paintings in a gallery you know!

A Walkers Window.

What better than a "Wainwright" window? Teesdale draws a lot of outdoor types but I dont suppose I will be able to sell the old pair of boots in the display but you never can tell!

The waterfalls of Teesdale

 It's not often that I get out walking with a group of other walkers but today was different. The impressive waterfalls here such as High Force, Low Force and Cauldron Snout often feature on the Wainwright Society Forum mostly posted by myself and Gary Richardson on his website mywainwrights. Consequently a few fellow members of the forum organised to come over to Teesdale and see some of these sights for themselves. We only did a couple of short walks but the weather was very favourable with some bright sunshine in between snow showers. We paid visits to Gibson's Cave, Low Force and of course High Force.
I think we may get to see return visits from some of these visitors.

More photos of the day are now on my website- click here.