ACEO Hats

Well into the new year now and deep in winter weather here in middle England.  The studio is too cold and I'm moving to the warmer kitchen table to work, which means I need to work smaller than usual.  Coincides nicely because I've just become fascinated with ACEOs again.  Not something I've done for many years.

What is an ACEO?  The term is an acronym for Art Cards Edition or Original and they measure 2.5 x 3.5 inches (65 x 90 mm) They are wonderful because they are a means of collecting original works of art at an affordable price. A gorgeous burst of colour to cheer the dull days which won't burst the bank.

Dull day, doesn't quite cover it here just now.  Rain one day, high winds the next.  Today it's freezing!  No snow yet, but just a matter of time I think. Warm hats weather.  The summer sun-hat is in cold store for a while, but I can look forward to warmer days by painting it.  Click here for more information about my little ACEO collection.

Gift voucher certificates, Custom painting from photo

 It's now too close to Christmas for me to accept any further painting commissions for delivery this year.  However, I'll be emailing my 'Gift Voucher Certificates for custom paintings from photos' right upto and including Christmas Eve, 24th December 2014

For further information please checkout my Gift Certificate page on this blog, or my Etsy shop, alternatively just drop me an email for last minute giving!

A murder of Magpies - mixed media art

Mixed media painting by Bee Skelton

We only saw one or two magpies in the garden when we first came to the house last year, but since then my husband has dangled several bird feeders from every tree and the magpie population has soared, as have all the other wild bird species we attract.  But I really am in two minds about them.  It seems to me the collective noun for magpies is quite apt;  a 'murder' of magpies.  The magpie diet is incredibly varied and as well as the seeds and nuts we give them, they're quite partial to picking off other creatures in our wild life garden.

Nature really is red in tooth and claw and the bloody colour and these birds inspired my latest painting.  It's a mixed media collage piece on gessoed board and I used ripped pieces of one of my printed papers for the background, then added the birds and details with acrylic paint and inks.  You can see more information or buy the finished painting by clicking here.

Sea boats and the setting sun - seascape painting

Seascape sunset with boats at rest

I'd no idea where this painting was going when I started.  I began with a mix of phthalo blue, cadmium yellow and white underpainting then added some elements of painted papers from my stash.  Some how I started day dreaming about Cornwall again and off I went to the sea side just as the sun was setting.  I love that place.

For more information about this seacape painting or to buy please click here.

Research into Lilian Lancaster, still life and portrait painter 1887 - 1973

Woman in striped dress

I recently acquired a collection of art work by Lilian Lancaster and want to challenge people of the internet to help me research more about her life and art.  There is very little information about her online that I've been able to find so far, but will add more details as they are discovered.  I hope that by chance people will find this page and perhaps add what they may know about her, in order to help develop a fuller biography of this interesting woman and artist. 

Leonard

When I Googled her name the first link I found was this single item in the BBC - Your Paintings website.  It shows one of her portraits, The Boy and the Cat painted 1933, clearly in the style of the paintings I own and showing the dates she lived 1887-1973.  If those dates are accurate (will need to verify) it's a starting point.  This painting is said to be in the collection of the Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool .  Contact with the curator may provide more information.

There is information about another rather colourful
LILIAN LANCASTER [TENNANT] [1852-1939] a Victorian pantomime artiste and humorous map maker.  From this very interesting article by Roderick M. Barron I found that the two Lilians were related. 

According to Mr Barron, it seems the elder Lilian had two nieces, Dora and Lilian, the daughters of her elder brother, William James Lancaster. He mentions that Lilian junior was a noted artist, who studied at the Slade under Walter Sickert. In 1921 she married Alfred Clive Gardiner [1891-1960], a well- known poster artist and designer for London Transport and noted book illustrator. He later became Principal of Goldsmiths’ College, London and they had two children. In 1914 Dora married the important sculptor, Edmund Thomas Wyatt Ware (d.1960) and they also had two children.

From this I've identified a number of connections to follow up.  Hopefully I will will be able to add further under the headings below:-

• Young Lilian's father, William James Lancaster. 

•  Her connections to the Slade and/or 

•  Walter Sickert.  (31 May 1860 – 22 January 1942)  Sickert was an influential teacher at Westminster School of Art,  The Tate website has interesting insights into Sickert, but nothing to add to Lilian's story directly.

•  Her husband Alfred Clive Gardiner and their two children.  According to the London Transport Museum he was born in Blackburn, Lancashire,  1891 died 1960.  He studied at the Slade 1909-1912 and at the Royal Academy Schools 1913-1914.  He designed posters for the Underground Group and London Transport 1926-1951.  He taught art at Goldsmith's College School of Art from 1929and became its Principal in 1952.  He was an influential British designer and teacher. Elements of Cubism and Futurism can be seen in his posters. He also illustrated a number of books, including 'Leaves in the Wind' (1919). See also ISSUU Artist Biography.  

• There's a short biography of Lilian herself also at ISSUU under L.  From this I learn that Lilian was at the Slade from 1906-1910 under Henry Tonks and Fred Brown.  Then at the Royal Academy Schools from 1910-1914 'Walter Sickert a notable teacher'.  It reports that her son, Stephen Gardiner (writer) 'remembered that Sickert "regarded Lilian as his favourite pupil.  He gave her one of his paintings, nude on bed, Camden Town period.  Most of all she admired the French impressionists and Van Gogh and, of the impressionists Renoir, was certainly an influence" '  This source says she taught at Eastbourne College of art from 1916 - 1921.  She exhibited at the RA Summer Exhibition and NEAC, of which she was a member.  In 1960 after her husbands death she moved to Wytham, Oxfordshire.  Manchester City Art Gallery is said to have acquired her art.  I have now discovered that she lived at the Dower House at Wytham.

•  Goldsmiths College. 

• Her sister Dora Lancaster and her husband Edmund Thomas Wyatt Ware.  Margaret Reade their daughter, born 1916, was also an artist.  Her portrait was used in the Aero chocolate advertising campaigns.

I have now found a reference to Lilian Lancaster on the website of the Modernist Journals Project.  From this I learned that she studied at the Westminster School of Art and at the Slade, and taught at the Brighton and Eastbourne Art Schools. She exhibited her work mainly in London from 1911 to 1939.  It could therefore be that her contact with Walter Sickert was at Westminster.  Her work received serious critical attention from Anthony Ludovici in The New Age for December 12, 1912 at the beginning of her art career.  His critique can be seen on the MJP website.

I am very grateful to Sue Bachorski for getting in touch and providing images of two of Lilian's paintings she recently acquired.  The paintings are in her distinctive style.  Sue tells me they were discovered in a charity shop in the Tunbridge Wells district of the UK.  I am so pleased they have gone to a good home, and with someone who will continue to appreciate this artist's contribution to 20th Century British art.

If you can offer any further insights into the life and work of Lilian Lancaster please email me.

Sea bird art and Cornish daydream

Kittiwake seagull

This mixed media painting of a kittiwake sea gull was inspired by memories of happy seaside holidays.

When the boys were little my absolute favourite place for summer holidays was Mousehole in Cornwall.  We used to stay with a couple providing bread and breakfast accommodation at their cottage on one of the narrow village streets above the harbour.  One of my strongest memories was waking each day to the piercing cries of seagulls.  Some people might find that annoying, but I loved it and everything else about the place;  the tiny harbour beach, sandcastles, buckets and spades, dinghies, searching for crabs in rock pools, Cornish pasties for lunch at Pam's Pantry (I still ate meat in those days), fabulous fresh fish from the Newlyn boats, walks along the coastal path to Lamorna, trips to St Ives and so much more!

Now we're planning our first English family holiday for decades and heading back to Mousehole next year with one of the grown-up boys, who now has a wife and two boys of his own.  So EXCITED!

For information about the painting or to purchase please click here.