The Saturday Gallery
  • Home
  • Art for Sale
  • Articles
    • Articles
    • Emmabella's Alphabet Books
    • Illustrated Versions
  • Information
    • About Us
    • Payment
    • Postage and packing
    • Terms and conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • FAQs
    • Art techniques
    • Artists' Biographies
    • Punch Cartoonists' Biographies
  • Contact us

Articles

A Drink at the Kings Arms, Cartmel

28/4/2017

 
Today, we are blessed (or not) with a variety of convenient ways to communicate with each other. We can text, tweet and message and if the matter is urgent we can always fall back on ancient technology and make a phone call. In short, we can make contact and are contactable in return wherever we are at any time, instantly.
It hasn’t always been this way. Back in the olden days (the 1960s or 1970s, say) if you wanted to communicate your whereabouts to the person you shared a house with, for example, the most expedient way would have been to leave them a note (look it up, kids).
Picture
Here is just such a note and at first glance it appears to be nothing more than a mundane piece of domestic detritus. The author, as we can see, is off to the post office and the K.A. for a drink. We don’t need to bother Bletchley Park to conclude that in this instance, K.A. stands for Kings Arms.
The note isn’t signed but I know who wrote it. I know because this is on the other side:
Picture
The author was an artist called Sydney Buckley and the note was left for his sister with whom he shared a house at Cartmel in Cumbria. News of Buckley’s whereabouts was written on the reverse of this fine woodblock print titled Cornish Pattern which was designed and printed by Buckley perhaps in the 1940s or 1950s. The scene, typical of Cornwall, is of the rambling rooftops of a town edging on to a beach. In flavour and form it has the feel of Port Isaac, perhaps.
It is showing some minor evidence of foxing and this may have existed when Buckley penned the note to his sister. Even so, it is a curious item to use to leave a note. Was there no other paper in the house? Buckley was a noted artist and printmaker (you can see two examples of his etched work on our website here and here) so it seems unlikely that the household was devoid of unused paper.
This piece came from a larger collection of prints I bought about ten years ago, all by Buckley. There were ten or so copies of Cornish Pattern and I kept two. One is in mint condition with signature and title and the other is the copy illustrated above.
Retained purely for its curiosity value, I was recently reminded of Buckley’s note when I acquired another small collection of artworks. These are all drawings and all by the same unknown hand (one of the many lost artists for whom the term ‘20th Century British School’ was invented).
Here is one of the drawings:
Picture
As we can see, it’s a competent, rapidly executed pencil sketch of a house. It is not fundamentally exciting as an image unless you happen to live in the depicted house, I suppose. Even so, the artist, for whatever reason, took the time and trouble to record the scene.
The artist also used the reverse of the sheet for this:
Picture
As the handwriting isn’t as clear as Buckley’s, here’s a transcript:
'Bill, do you think the tyres could do with a change round?
Driver’s door lock stiff.
Brakes?'
Another note on the reverse of another artwork. It is possible with this example that the note preceded the drawing – at this remove there is no way of knowing for sure. But if the drawing came first, again, one has to ask why?
Perhaps the artist dropped the car off at the garage and left the note on the car seat intending for Bill to read the message and then keep the note. This certainly didn’t happen – perhaps Bill didn’t turn the note over to see what was on the other side. Who knows?
So many questions raised from two simple relics, each no more than forty of fifty years old, from a time before the age of instant communication. What, I wonder, did Buckley have to drink at the Kings Arms? And the enigmatic ‘Brakes?’ in the second message. Check the brakes? Fix the brakes? Sabotage the brakes? We’ll never know.

Nails in My Feet by Crowded House - The Illustrated Version

24/4/2017

 
My life is a
Thimbleby, Lincolnshire watercolour painting
You crawl through the
Jesus College Gate, Cambridge by M Oliver Rae, etching (detail)
Slip across the
A Scene from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, 1709, engraving (detail)
and into the reception room
You enter the place of endless persuasion
Like a knock on the
Peter Toseland watercolour, Shovells, Hastings (detail)
When there's
Earl of Essex from Shakespeare's Henry V, 1791 engraving (detail)
or more things to do
Who is that
Punch cartoon, telephone
You my companion
Run to the
Punch cartoon by Jack Butler Yeats, bathroom (detail)
on a burning
Beach Donkeys, watercolour, detail
And it brings me relief
Pass through the
Blinkensop Castle, Northumberland, 1783 ebgraving (detail)
To find my intentions
Punch cartoon by Morrow, Giotto
round in a strange
Punch cartoon by J B Yeats, Mesmerise (detail)
state
I
Lalau, Poeme Symbolique, print (detail)
There is no connection
A million points of
A Scene from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1740 engraving (detail)
And a conversation I can't
Punch cartoon by F H Townsend, Cook (detail)
Cast me off one day
To lose my inhibitions
Sit like a lap
Orlando Greenwood drawing, Dog Chewing a Shoe (detail)
on a matron's
Arthur Heslop drawing, The Discus Thrower (detail)
Wear the nails on your
Study of a Female Nude, pencil drawing (detail)
I woke up the
Anne Hathaway's Cottage, Stratford upon Avon etching by Sydney Buckley
Stumbled in
Reverend John Kidde, 1822 portrait engraving
The
A Scene from Shakespeare's Hamlet, c.1780 engraving (detail)
went on and everybody screamed
Jachimo from Shakespeare's Cymbeline, c. 1780 engraving
The savage review
It left me
Engraving, A Scene from Henry VI, Part 3, 1709 (detail)
Dr Butts from Shakespeare's Henry VIII, 1790 engraving (detail)
it warms my
Colonel Richard Lovelace, 1794 portrait engraving (detail)
to see that you can do it too
Total
Engraving, A Scene from Shakespeare's Henry V, 1785 (detail)
Your
A Scene from Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, 1786 engraving (detail)
is so tender
Your
Watercolour wash, Female Nude Study, c.1950 (detail)
is like
Pont y Garth, North Wales, watercolour painting
on a
A Scene from Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra, 1709 engraving (detail)
Watercolour painting, Sandsend Cliff, 1911 (detail)
And it brings me relief
And it brings me relief
And it brings me relief

Karl Salsbury Wood - windmills and etchings

14/4/2017

 
The reputation of Karl Salsbury Wood (1888-1958) largely rests upon a remarkable series of paintings he produced between the late 1920s and his death in 1958. For almost thirty years Wood cycled around Britain in an attempt to visually record every existing windmill in the country. Wood’s plan was to publish a book titled The Twilight of the Mills containing his illustrations and written notes.
In addition to being a talented (and clearly driven) painter, Wood was also a printmaker, as the small collection of etchings on our site illustrates (the full selection can be seen here).
The subjects of the etchings reflect Wood’s interest in architecture and architectural details. Structures – castles, churches, inns and the ubiquitous windmills – are predominantly the focal point; the edges of the buildings straining up against the edges of the etching plate. A tree or two might act as the frame for a country church but it was unusual for Wood to record the bigger picture – the landscape the buildings exist within.
A Windmill in a Landscape by Karl Salsbury Wood, etching
The prints provide a useful insight into the way in which etchings are created. The etching process, though time-consuming, is relatively straightforward. A metal plate is coated in a layer of acid resistant wax, a design is then drawn on to the wax through to the metal plate and the plate is then immersed in acid. This bites away at the metal elements exposed by the artist’s design; the longer the plate is immersed the deeper the lines will be etched and the darker they will print. The etched image is constructed in stages (known as states), the various elements of the picture being worked on systematically until the finished image is arrived at.
Kalr Salsbury Wood, Windmill with Pigs, etching
Windmill with Pigs (above) is clearly at a very early, rudimentary stage – just the outlines of the windmill and the pigs have been bitten. This print is numbered 1/1 which presumably means this is the first impression Wood took from the first state of the print.
Karl Salsbury Wood, A Windmill, etching
Here, Wood continues to develop a design in a third impression. As with Windmill with Pigs, major outlines were defined in the first impression, perhaps more detail was added to the windmill in the second and it is probable that the first elements of the sky were added in the third.
Windmill etching by Karl Salsbury Wood
States were completed, impressions were taken and the images continued to form and grow. Occasional mishaps clearly happened, too. The print above appears not to have been fully pressed as the left hand plate edge is entirely absent.
Eventually, after many decisions regarding the location of the lines to be etched and the depth to which they should be bitten, a finished work of art was produced.
A Windmill, 1934, Karle Salsbury Wood etching
Perhaps Wood made these etchings (based on the paintings and sketches he undertook on his journeys around the country) as a means of raising funds towards the publication of The Twilight of the Mills. Regrettably, as we discuss in the artist’s biographical notes here, the book was never published.

the windmills of your mind - the illustrated version

13/4/2017

 
Click on the images to see each picture's description
Round, like a
Punch cartoon by F H Townsend, Donkey (detail)
in a spiral,
like a
Punch cartoon by G D Armour, horse and trap (detail)
within a
Punch cartoon by Smith, car and bungalow (detail)
Never ending or beginning
on an ever-spinning
Punch cartoon by J B Yeats, fishermen (detail)
Like a snowball down a
Coniston Old Man, Lake District, watercolour
or a carnival
Suffragette Punch cartoon (detail)
Like a carousel that's turning,
running
Architecture, 1830, engraving (detail)
around the
Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland, c.1840, engraving (detail)
Like a
Punch cartoon by Townsend, Paint Like Reynolds. There's Money in It! (detail)
whose hands are sweeping
past the minutes of its
William Vincent DD, 1822, engraving
And the world is like an
Still Life of Apples, pencil drawing (detail)
Punch cartoon, Rountree, The Egoist (detail)
silently in space
Like the
A Plan of Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire, c.1830, engraving (detail)
that you find
in the
Karl Salsbury Wood, Windmill with Pigs, etching
of your mind
Like a
St Martin's Priory, near Dover, Kent, c.1830 engraving (detail)
that you follow
to a
Picture
of its own
Down a hollow to a
Peveril Castle, Castleton, Derbyshire, c.1830 engraving (detail)
where the sun has never shone
Like a
Harlington Church Porch, Middlesex, 1812 engraving (detail)
that keeps revolving
in a half-forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a
Punch cartoon by Lewis Baumer, golf (detail)
someone tosses in a
Pont y Garth, North Wales, watercolour (detail)
Like a
Picture
whose hands are sweeping
past the minutes of its
Picture
And the world is like an
Picture
Picture
silently in space
Like the
Picture
that you find
in the
Karl Salsbury Wood, A Windmill, etching
of your mind
Engraving, A Scene from Shakespeare's Cymbeline, 1740 (detail)
that jingle in your pocket,
words that jangle in your head
Why did
Sunset on the North York Moors, watercolour (detail)
go so quickly?
Was it something that you said?
Engraving, A Scene from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2, 1786 (detail)
walk along a
The Scar from East Pier, Whitby, watercolour (detail)
and leave their footprints in the
Sandsend Cliff, Yorkshire, watercolour (detail)
Is the sound of distant
Punch cartoon by G L Stampa, drummer (detail)
just the fingers of your
Picture
Picture
in a hallway
or the fragment of a song
Half-remembered names and
H M Brock Punch cartoon, School (detail)
but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over
you were suddenly aware
That the
Autumn River Landscape watercolour (detail)
were turning
to the colour of her
Fernand Simeon, Figures, print (detail)
A circle in a
Hydraulics, 1830 engraving (detail)
a
A Decorative Youth, 1908 Punch cartoon (detail)
within a
Punch cartoon by Reginald Gammon A Different Church  (detail)
Never ending or beginning
on an ever-spinning
Picture
As the images unwind
like the
Barnard Castle, County Durham, 1833 engraving (detail)
that you find
In the
Karl Salsbury Wood, Windmill, etching
of your mind.

subterranean homesick blues - the illustrated version

6/4/2017

 
Johnny's in the
Interior of the Castle Chapel, Newcastle, 1833, engraving (detail)
Mixing up the
Gunning King Punch cartoon, Cod Liver Oil (detail)
I'm on the
Macpherson Punch cartoon, boy and car (detail)
Thinking about the government
The man in the
Lawson Wood Punch cartoon, The Sleepy Sentry (detail)
Portrait of William Vincent DD, 1822 engraving (detail)
out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out
A S Boyd Punch cartoon, mother and boy (detail)
It's somethin' you did
Mr Praise-God Barebone, Leather Seller, c.1810 engraving
knows when
But you're doin' it again
You better
Samuel Howitt Wild Duck engraving (detail)
down the alleyway
Lookin' for a new friend
A man in a coon-skin
Lewis the Dauphin from Shakespeare's King John, c.1790 engraving (detail)
In a
Punch cartoon Gunning King, Pension (detail)
Punch cartoon Morrow, An Irritable Poet, 1920 (detail)
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten
Maggie comes
Rouen (Roan) in France, c.1780 engraving (detail)
Hunger Defeats Life after Francis Barlow (detail)
Edward Harding (1755-1840), Anne, engraving (detail)
full of black soot
Talkin' that the heat put
White Daffodils and Fern Fronds, Gouache, detail
in the bed but
The
Punch Cartoon, Arthur Norris, telephone (detail)
tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must
Julia Dorothy Barnby, Female Nude Drawing (detail)
in early May
Orders from the
Knight after Harding, Lewis the Dauphin engraving (detail)
Look out
Punch cartoon, Please, Mummy, May I Cry? (detail)
Don't matter what you did
Walk on your
Eric Briers, ballet dancers, watercolour (detail)
Don't tie no
A Ballet Dancer, watercolour (detail)
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire
Frank Reynolds Punch Cartoon, teetotaler (detail)
Keep a clean
Cardinal Wolsey from Shakespeare's Henry VIII, engraving (detail)
Wash the plain clothes
You don't need a weather man
To know which way the
Punch Cartoon, Harold Rountree, The Egoist (detail)
Get sick, get well
Hang around an inkwell
Ring
The Town of Ashburton, Devonshire, engraving (detail)
hard to tell
If anything's gonna sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write braille
Get
A Scene from Shakespeare's Cymbeline, 1740 engraving (detail)
jump bail
Join the
Portrait of Lieutenant General Sir Rowland Hill, 1813 engraving
if you fail
Look out
Picture
You're gonna get hit
But losers, cheaters
Six-time users
Hang around the
Punch cartoon by F H Townsend, theatre (detail)
Girl by the whirlpool is
Lookin' for a new
A Scene from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, 1783 engraving (detail)
Don't follow leaders
Watch the pawking metaws
Ah, get born, keep warm
Punch cartoon by Harold Earnshaw, bot and grandpa (detail)
romance, learn to
Iago, Othello, engraving
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a suckcess
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of
Punch cartoon, H M Brock, school (detail)
And they put you on the day shift
Look out
Picture
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a
Punch cartoon by Lewis Baumer, MP and Sufragettes (detail)
Light yourself a
A Scene from Shakespeare's Richard III, 1709 engraving (detail)
Don't wear
Pencil Study of a Sculpture, c.1950, drawing, sandal detail
Try to avoid the scandals
Don't wanna be a
Study of a Female Nude from Behind, 1941 pencil drawing (detail)
You better chew gum
The
Punch cartoon, Morrow, Gardening (detail)
don't work
'Cause the vandals took the
Punch cartoon, Smith, Our Reverend Spoonerist (detail)
    Picture

    Archives

    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017

    Categories

    All
    Art History
    Conservation
    Illustrated Versions
    Punch Cartoons
    The Saturday Gallery

    RSS Feed

Home

art for sale

Articles

About us

Contact

Telephone: +44 (0) 7914 588 524                              Copyright © 2017-2023                               Email: info@saturdaygalleryart.com
  • Home
  • Art for Sale
  • Articles
    • Articles
    • Emmabella's Alphabet Books
    • Illustrated Versions
  • Information
    • About Us
    • Payment
    • Postage and packing
    • Terms and conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • FAQs
    • Art techniques
    • Artists' Biographies
    • Punch Cartoonists' Biographies
  • Contact us