Rob Miller Paintings

Swirral Edge Helvellyn

robartmiller@gmail.com (Rob Miller) — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 15:51:48 GMT

Helvellyns Swirral Edge

I snapped this image of the new Iconic Ridge painting Swirral Edge Helvellyn this lunch time. I was hoping that prints would be available however I decided on making a second Iconic Ridge of Swirral Edge. My reason was that though the ground in normal weather is fine and grippy Swirral Edge has some major exposure. So on a poor day of rain or snow you have to take extra care. I also wanted to show that Swirral Edge is far from an easy return route to Striding Edge. So all in all theres two Iconic Swirral Edges on the drawing board so to speak. Maybe we could vote on the best one or both

Rob

Borrowdale Valley

robartmiller@gmail.com (Rob Miller) — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 08:45:16 GMT

Borrowdale Valley Remembered

Borrowdale remembered. Oil on canvas 40x50cm Borrowdale is a lovely place to paint. This piece is part of a new group of valley paintings of the NW Lakes A work in progress and a part of the developing Valleys group.

New Lake District Work

robartmiller@gmail.com (Rob Miller) — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 12:42:14 GMT

This is a subtitle for your new post

The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.

Painting Lancashires Summertime

robartmiller@gmail.com (Rob Miller) — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 09:05:36 GMT

Heatwave Along the Cart track . A Lancashire Summertime Painting

Painting the Lancashire Summertime . On the Heights Track near Boardmans Heights Farm . Withnell Oil on Board pochade 24 x 30 cm Painted with palette knife

I made this small painting after my slow walk along the carttrack tiwards West Barn the sun beating down on the dusy track temperature 28C. Immediatly reminded of my days painting in Andalucia despite the heat I enjoyed makng this. After only a few days the grasses were tinder dry.

Langdale Pikes New work on the easel

robartmiller@gmail.com (Rob Miller) — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 11:29:06 GMT

Commissions Lakeland Fells Langdale Pikes

New work on the easel today. The Langdale Pikes. In its second-third stage of painting.

Its always a pleasure to make a new Langdale Pikes piece, for one the Langdales look so different throughout the seasons and their South facing slopes catch all the permutations in light that the revolving earth can throw at them. As well as that I have fond memories of walking the Langdales Circuit, climbing with mates on the crags and camping and singing away back in the ODG in the late 60's early 70's.

Borrowale

robartmiller@gmail.com (Rob Miller) — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 13:03:31 GMT

This is a subtitle for your new post

Great to be back down Lingholm and Borrowdale way working outside. This is “Valley light Borrowdale” in mixed media 28x19 cm

A painting of the Derwent Fells . Dale Head from Low Snab

robartmiller@gmail.com (Rob Miller) — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 18:54:16 GMT

I managed to get away from the Lingholm Garden on my last visit to paint up towards Braithwaite and paint Dale Head and Hindscarth which is a lovely looking Fell and a great walk.

Lake District Art Lingholm Garden Update artist Rob Miller

By Rob Miller, Sep 19 2017 11:42AM

Since my last Lingholm article, almost a year ago I have spent some time developing a number of new lines and themes based around the views of the Main house from the Walled kitchen Garden. I have also revisited the Local fells and meandered alongside the Lake shore. I've also spent some time making a series of en plain air pochades 24x30cm of the small areas of the Garden and Green house on the micro areas that interested me visually. On any normal day my artistic focus is usually and totally based on my views of a landscape or a coastal scene. Its work that I have been engaged in for some years. So it was a good and valid use of time to tear myself away and explore afresh all the new challenges that engaging within a micro landscape would throw up.

The image above is one of five studies in Wallace Seymour acrylic paint titled "Kitchen Gardens, East Gate and flower bed". The warm Victorian Manchester brick stands out against the cool Cumbrian blue slate and local stone of the main house and chimneys in the background. It replicates a part of the Lakeland gardening theme of the grand houses. The theme starts with the taming of nature, then containment and finally its replacement. A riot of blue and mauve flowers contrast with a shock of yellows constrained in tidy edged flower beds. For the painter at first sight it seems that the canvas has been made, that the colours are already chosen, that the structures of planting determine each brushstrokes and that its only the movement of plants in the wind, the changing light and seasons that create nuances and circumstances to be explored. On a deeper level I also became very interested in the individual shaped/ forms of flowers such as this study below titled "Lingholm Kitchen Garden Allium." Plants also compete for light and space and I was interested to see how they work together as in the lower oil titled "Lingholm Kitchen Garden Daisies and Carnations"

The problem with painting flowers is that there are so much going on with all the structural aspects of each plants, the bed layout, the colour, form seasonal changes. Though the studies in both acrylics and oils had helped me to look at the House and Garden I felt that they were to detailed. I felt myself moving more towards a colourist abstraction as in the detail below titled "Lingholm Kitchen Garden Sunlight and wind North Bed June 17"

This abstraction fitted into the direction that I needed my work to go in. I need the viewer to recognise Lingholm and the plants as well as taking an abstracted visual journey. The whole issue of developing a body of work on the estate was about creating a 20C impression that moved 2D art further along the continuum of modernism since Lakeland artwork was begun by the likes of Beatrice Potter in the 19C. It became important to me, whilst I sat painting amongst the flowers to represent their colour as well as the overall feeling of joy that emanated from the Kitchen and from the garden as people enjoyed their day. The flowers created a warm colourfield that lift the cool lakeland greys.

The greys here are not the drab urban grey of a dull day. Generally its fair to say that a typical start to a lakeland summers day is a soft silvery one that turns gold as the suns strength grows. Its a subject matter that has attracted painters and poets to this iconic part of the world and has contributed to world heritage award for this very beautiful landscape.As in my oil painting below titled "Early Morning down by the Lake at Lingholm"

Grey mist lies over the valleys and lakes, it's the hope of the suns presence to warm the coolness of the day that makes the expectation poetic. How the tendrils of mist lift aloft to show towering steep crags and shrouded woods. Cool silvers changing subtly the wonderful bright tones of the day. Whether you see this from the Lake shore or from your boat as in the pochade oil painting below titled "Causey Pike and the Lingholm Foreshore viewed from Mid Lake" The lakeland artists day is one of continued visual fascination throughout the day.

Towards the end of June I was fortunate to meet with met with some members of the Keswick Art Society and we arranged along with the Seymour Family for me to give a talk in the Stone Room on the "Derwentwater Fells triptychs" and their preparation. Alongside Pip and Rebecca from Wallace Seymour fine art who gave a talk on their amazing fine art materials. After which we enjoyed a plate each of the mouth watering Lingholm Kitchen Scones and tea. At some point I hope to make the notes I kept into a further article on this site.

The area surrounding Lingholm is full of wonderful places to explore, walk and paint both along Derwentwater from Newlands down to the Castle Crag and beyond. As ever I made use of this when I packed my pochade box of paints to get out and about. I produced a number of smaller paintings in oils. An example is the painting in oils titled "Dalehead in July" below.

All the works featured in this article are available directly from myself and can be seen at the Lingholm Kitchen where prints are available.

Lake District Art Flower Bed CottageStyle Lingholm Garden

Lake District Art Blue Allium Lingholm Garden

Lake District Art Allium Lingholm Garden

Lake District Art Lingholm Garden East Gate Watercolour

0 comments

Filed under: Lake District Art

Water Lillies Bryony's Garden Lingholm oil on board 24x30cm Rob Miller

By Rob Miller, Aug 22 2017 01:14PM

This palette knife painting in oils is off a peaceful part of the grounds at Lingholm. The garden is dedicated to the memory of Bryony Kemp who sadly died aged 16 following a riding accident. The pond is situated near to what was the Chapel with the waterlilies make a central feature. See http://viscountrochdale.com/photos/ for more information

Waterlilies Bryony's Garden Lingholm

Bryony with her older brother St John Kemp outside Lingholm

The gate to the garden

0 comments

Two paintings of Derwentwater titled "early morning summertime"

By Rob Miller, Aug 14 2017 08:54PM

It was great to be back with my pochade box and gear painting along the Derwentwater shore line. I should have been painting the complexities of the garden but I had left the rabbits in peace and had decided that early morning quiet time for me, was best spent on the shores of Derwent water . It’s a natural place for contemplation a soft breeze rippling the surface of the lake moving the reflections of the Lingholm Islands muted mauves indistinct in front of the distant Walla Crag all waiting for the first gentle rays of the sun. I could almost see Beatrice Potter sitting further along the shoreline watercolours in hand as she painted Herbert’s Island. Here are two of my oil paintings; pochade’s in oils 30x24 cm

Filed under: Oil painting Lingholm , Painting of Derwentwater

Older

New developments

robartmiller@gmail.com (Rob Miller) — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 15:46:22 GMT

A return to the Western Isles

A return to the Western Isles is looking on the cards with a umber of commissions based around that wonderfully visual place Ardnamurchan. My visit may have to be either a digital one or a memory one or possible both. As due to corvid restrictions travel at the moment is limited. None the less its good to be having positive conversations about developing new work. I've worked up a series of charcoal drawings so far based on and around Portuairk.

Because visiting has been difficult I've taken up reading again Night Falls on Ardnamurchan is a story written by and about a crofting family. That is the Son on finding his fathers notebook-log decides to use it as a base for making a picture of his Fathers life, the last man to practice crofting. 'A hard life' is easy to say but for me unimaginable, hard to do, difficult gruelling week in week out. I can emphasis totally with developing, attachment, a sense or love of a place. I've wandered around crofts, like I have abandoned Farm in the Lancashire Pennines and elsewhere and read books on the hardships of the people up until the 1980's. Alasdair Maclean provides

a real insight.