Rick Janson Art Studio

When I titled this painting I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure of where it was. I took a picture en route to Grosmont, where we were to take an hour ride aboard the Flying Scotsman along the North York Moors Railway. Yes, that was one of the trains used in the Harry Potter movies — when we boarded the train we were told that people often dress as characters from the movies at the next station, which was also used in the film. The camera data tells me it was Whitby-Grosmont. We passed Whitby, but only got a glimpse from a great distance. Whitby it wasn’t. Although when I look at other people’s photos of Grosmont, assuming you can find one that isn’t of the historic train station, the buildings don’t look like this.

This row of houses particularly stood out given many of the buildings in the region are of stone, so the overall impression is of brown and gray buildings. This was different. While the colour stood out, so did the odd ornamentation on the buildings, including the Palladian quoins, the triangular corbels and the medallions. It struck me as unusual that such modest houses would carry the weight of such ornamentation, especially off in the in Yorkshire countryside.

So far what people respond to is the colour. Between the green and pink pastel colours, there was a brilliant blue sky to work from, which I built up in layers.

I’ve been reluctant to get into the reference images I brought back from Yorkshire given how different they are from those in Scotland.

This is another of the eight “smalls” (12″ x 12″ paintings) intended for the Scugog Studio Tour May 2-3. So far I have five completed although I just underpainted two more yesterday. The next is not far from completion (maybe today) and goes into far more detail on building ornamentation — this one an entrance to a grand building on Buchanan Street in Glasgow.

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Last night TVO aired an episode of Fake or Fortune that came to Canada. Back in the UK, someone in the UK had purchased a painting purported by Canadian impressionist Helen McNicoll for two and a half thousand pounds. Lately the world has rediscovered McNicoll. The prices are hard to gauge given very few ever make it to auction, but the record appears to be $653,755 paid by a Canadian billionaire that Mould unusually interviews in the show. The collector asserts that he has more paintings by McNicoll than anyone else, including collections in museums and galleries. He says that one day he will pass his collection on to a public gallery. McNicoll died young, having only produced about 300 paintings in her lifetime. The painting in question had been folded over, hiding her signature to make the canvas smaller. It also had a label on the frame that incorrectly spelled her name, and likely did not get the title of the painting correct either. Art dealer and Fake or Fortune co-host Phillip Mould travels to Quebec City, Toronto and Hamilton, the latter where he discovered that McNicoll unusually used a bright pink underpainting in select areas to warm up features, such as a subject’s face. They were also able to tell him the weave count on the canvases McNicoll used, both of which corresponded with the painting in question back in London, England. Having identified that the painting was of bean harvesters, they were able to find a corresponding title in exhibition records in Canada and the UK. The painting had been listed as lost. The National Gallery of Canada is exhibiting a touring show of McNicoll’s work later this spring. To learn more about McNicoll and see some of her work, click here.

Want to see more of my work? Click here.