Ruth McCabe: Open Studio and Sale on Saturday 23rd September 2017.

A retrospective showing work in a variety of media, from large to very small will be available to see and buy.

Those curious to explore the journey I’ve made since I began to paint in 1997 will be able to enjoy the collection, arranged chronologically.

A brief intro…

My earliest pieces were often painted in acrylic like these limes, a large piece…

A few years later, having switched to oils, my work was still pursuing figurative forms…

….but also abstraction, like this piece – a response to a walk in spring woodland…

….and this even more abstract response to sunlight on a favourite footpath I walk regularly…

This later oil is based on returning to my Yorkshire roots and shows the beginning of a period in which I enjoyed using texture.

Two more textured oils from this period… “Snow Ewes” and “Spring Surge”

At this time I would often apply white oil, creating texture with the palette knife, then once dry, rub other pigments onto the textured surface with my finger. Loved it!

Boats were a regular subject in these years, loving their rounded forms and general buoyancy! These always sold well and only a few very small works remain like this oil on canvas which was one of a series of pieces painted to show alongside the ceramics of Usch Spettigue.

In 2010 I began exploring the medium of watercolour, in a curious response to the combination of struggling through a long long winter of snow and ice which seemed unwilling to let go its grip, followed immediately by the driest April ever, when trees began shedding their leaves to reduce water loss. Somehow this left me wanting to work in a thin, sparing medium and I persevered through a year of frustration (watercolour is so difficult) until I began to achieve pieces I liked. This early watercolour won its way into The Mall Galleries in the Sunday Times 25th Contemporary Watercolour Competition exhibition. I was thrilled, and doubly delighted to find that they’d chosen my piece to use on the cover of their brochure. How I wish this had led to some interest from a London gallery.

Continuing since 2011 to develop my practice in the use of watercolour, I am grateful to competitions like the Sunday Times and Royal Watercolour Society’s Contemporary competition, in the hope that these prestigious bodies change the art world’s prejudiced view of ‘watercolour’ as the medium for ‘amateur dabbling’. I love its translucency and flow, and never work in a tight, controlled way.

So please come and visit the studio and the two additional spaces I will be setting up to show this collection. I hope to make it an interesting journey for you.

There will also be unframed pieces, cards and some wire works.
Look for the signs to get you to me! Come straight to the studio.

During the painting demo (see poster below), work can still be seen in the cottage.

Ruth McCabe’s OPEN STUDIO AND ART SALE
Saturday 23rd September 2017, 10am until 4pm
Threeways, Coles Hill, Wenhaston IP19 9DS

11am to 12 noon Watercolour demo in the studio: working loosely with this medium. Please email ruth@threeways.mail1.co.uk to book your place since due to space restrictions, only 6 places available, £3.00 per person.

All visitors please come straight to the studio. Other rooms of work will be open for browsing during the demo if you arrive while that is taking place.

www.ruth-mccabe-artist.co.uk
Twitter: @mccabe_ruth
Instagram: @ruthmccabe8420