The even number side of Wood Street is now complete, scanned and ready be turned into prints. I just have to decide on the scale for the prints. It’s either going to be half or three quarters the original size which equates to widths of 53 cm or 79 cm. I haven’t decided yet.
Having now completed the panoramic I had to decide how I was going to digitise it for placing on the website and for producing Giclée prints. Some artists prefer to photograph their work others prefer to scan. I haven’t had much success photographing my work. I find lighting difficult and get problems with shadows and reflections as well as parallax issues and blurring. Scanning art work is by no means straightforward, however since watching a Youtube video on how to do it properly, scanning is my preferred method of digitising. However, when you have a picture like this one that is over 1 metre in length, scanning does present challenges. In the end, I scanned it on an A4 scanner in six sections and stitched them together using Gimp. So I’m all ready now to get prints prepared.
Progressing with the painting. I’m working on a smaller scale than I have previously for a whole street panoramic because I’m not painting it in modules, scanning and reducing down. I’ve tried to maintain a good level of detail as that’s what I enjoy most about painting buildings. This has meant that I’ve had to be more disciplined with the brush work.
I have decided to do another Wood Street panoramic. This time however I’m doing the odd number side. I have decided to do it a bit differently to my last one in that rather than do a series of individual pictures which are scanned and then stitched together, I’m going to work on a single large of paper. This approach does present some challenges however. Single sheets of watercolour paper that are sold are not sufficiently wide enough so it has meant that I’ve had to cut a length from a roll. A task that sounds easier than it turned out to be. I then needed to stretch the sheet before painting which involved soaking it in the bath of water and taping it to a board and letting it dry. Stretching is required to reduce the amount of buckling in the paper when I do the wash for the background and to flatten the paper as it has come off a roll it has tendency to remain curved. So this is where I’m at now with the outlines of all the buildings in pen complete ready to start adding the paint.
Swindon artist, Frank Quinton, was a prolific painter from the 80s through to the 2000s. Frank captured many street scenes of Swindon and surrounding area. Frank would often choose subjects that were not obvious candidates for works of art. For example, paintings showing the back streets of Swindon’s terraced houses with the lean tos with corrugated roofs and old sheds and derelict buildings. I thought about Frank when I chose to paint this building. A lovely buiding that has been home in more recent years to night clubs, Groove, Incognito, Fever, The Beach and Boutique Beach not necessarily in that order. I remember going in there in what must have been the late 90s early 2000s when it was a pub called the Litten Tree. Then it was packed with drinkers and doing a roaring trade. However, when I came to produce this picture, the building had been unused for several years and it was in a pretty sorry state. Mandy and Duncan’s website documents the decline in a series of photos taken from 2012 through to 2019. There is a link on Mandy and Duncan’s site to a photograph of this building from the 1930s when it served as the Boy’s YMCA Club.
I did read somewhere that planning permission has been given to turn it into bedsit accommodation. I know people need homes and I’m aware that having people live in the building is better than letting trees grow out of the masonry but it is quite sad in many ways that many the town’s best buildings that were once thriving businesses are being used in this way.
I really did enjoy doing this picture and loved painting the greenery sprouting out of the drain pipes and masonry and I can see why Frank Quinton would paint such buildings. They do have a charm that lends them to being painted even if the finished work can betray the sadness of the dereliction.
I reckon there are many schools, colleges and universities out there that would love to have this building on the front of their prospectus to celebrate their heritage. However, when Swindon College decided to sell up and up sticks and move to their North Star campus, they gave up the opportunity to showcase this wonderful Victorian building.
I’ve no idea about the factors that led to Swindon College’s decision to give up this building but I suspect it had something to do with falling student numbers and having to reduced overheads which forced them to consolidate by moving to a single site. And so it was in 2006, the building was vacated. It is true that the main 1960s campus building that adjoined this one was an eye sore and many in the town breathed a sigh of relief when that was taken down. The fete of this building however was uncertain for a long time. Although after being vacated by the college in 2006 it was in a good state, the following years saw its decline as windows were broken and holes appeared in the roof as it fell prey to urban explorers and vandals. At one time it looked that this building too would need to be demolished. In 2014, English Heritage gave it grade 2 listed status which may have saved it from the bulldozers. Having grade 2 listing in itself is not a guarantee of a secure future for a building though. You only need look at two other grade 2 listed buildings in the town; The Locarno and The Mechanics Institute to see how such structures can be left boarded up, unused and uncared for with no plans to do anything with them.
This story does have a happy ending though. Renovation was completed in 2018 and this building now comprises 24 flats and its future looks secure. In some ways like Gilbert’s Hill School, that is situated just behind this building, it is a shame that it’s no longer going to be used for its intended purpose. However, at least the structure has been saved and the external appearance has been preserved. I have, and I’m sure many others in the town have, fond memories of having lessons in this building and so are pleased it’s all worked out well.
Refs.
Derelict Swindon technical college to be turned into apartments – BBC News
Grade II-listed building in Victoria Road being converted into 24 flats | Swindon Advertiser
I have posted previously about using a digital painting app to produce a sketch prior starting to paint on paper to help inform how I go about producing a physical work. The app I had been using was an old version of Artrage. However, I have discovered while it is a great application, it does have some limitations. Firstly, I find I have to work at low resolution because the application becomes too slow and laggy at higher resolutions. Similarly, when working at a higher resolution, there is a limit to the size of the brushes. As a result, I decided to look into alternatives to Artrage. A web search of free painting apps highlighted an application called Krita. I have been using it a while now and I’ve been amazed by it and it’s hard to believe it’s available free. To test it to the full, I’ve been using it at 600 dots per inch, which is well above the 300 dpi that is considered necessary for giclee printing, and I’ve found I can use it like this on my laptop without issue. I should add, my laptop isn’t especially powerful, new or expensive.
So, this is my latest work of the Jewel In The Crown restaurant on Victoria Road in Swindon. I did the sketch digitally using Krita and then in physical form. I’m enjoying working like this and I’m pleased I discovered Krita. I should say, that I haven’t been able to simulate water colour painting in the way it’s possible with Artrage but I think it’s compensated in other ways.
I can’t believe I’ve lived in Swindon as long as I have without having come across this gem. Tucked away in a side street off Eastcott Road is this charming school building, Gilbert’s Hill Girls’ and Infants’ School. Built in 1880 and enlarged in 1889 and served the community as an infant school until 2000. Despite protests from parents, the school eventually closed with just 34 children on the roll. This was down from figures of over 400 in 1895 and 65 in 1964. It was then developed into flats. However the renovation was undertaken sensitively such that the building retains an almost identical external appearance. Indeed according the the Wiltshire Gazzette and Herald, the last head teacher was invited back by the developer to view completion of the conversion to flats whereupon she gave the renovation her seal of approval.
However, this isn’t the only gem in Dixon Street as immediately opposite is the Swindon Moravion Church which has been welcoming worshipers since 1899.
An increasing amount of artwork is done digitally – drawing or painting on the computer. For my latest piece, Villets House in Cricklade Street, Swindon, I decided to first do a digital painting. I will explain the reason for this. Many artists initially do a rough sketch or smaller/rougher painting before working on the finished work to get an idea of how the finished work will look and experiment with composition, tones and the palette they will use. Painting digitally has the advantage that you don’t use any consumables and so is cheap. It is much quicker and amendments can be easily made – much easier than working with physical materials. And importantly, no mess! This is the first time I’ve tried this and I can report I found it extremely useful.
I will now describe how went about doing this. First I did the pen outline of the building by hand on paper in the normal way. I then scanned this so I had an outline of the pen on a transparent background in a png file. I then imported this into the the Artrage application on my computer and painted it in a watercolour style. Once I was happy with the final result, I then finished painting the pen outline on paper. Doing the painting digitally helped inform the final physical painting and I’m convinced had I not done the digital painting first, the final physical work would not have turned out as good. Here are the two works side by side.
I much prefer the physical version and enjoyed doing the physical version much more so I won’t be locking away the brushes and paint any time soon but I will be taking this approach for future works.
Text has been added to the picture and I’ve now received the finished print from the printers. I’ve used Art4site for the first time. I have to say they were excellent. Prompt service and they were able to advise me on the best dimensions to keep the cost down. Also, they sent me a free sample pack of all their fine art papers. I went with a William Turner watercolour paper which is heavyweight at 300g /sqm and is nicely textured. The colour matching was excellent and the text has come out very crisp and clear. Well I’ve mounted the picture in a frame I made and I’ll be putting it in the Swindon Artists Forum gallery next week. I noticed that this week an unveiling of a new Blue Plaque at Arkells Brewery. Too late for this picture, but if I wanted to update it and add the new building it would be easy. I would just paint the new building by itself, scan and add to the existing picture with a bit of modification of the background. Another advantage preparing the picture in modules rather than painting it on a single large sheet.
