Malcolm Cudmore – Artist

I’ve just returned home from an interesting event at The Ferini Art Gallery in Pakefield, near Lowestoft.  Organised by Waveney and Blyth Arts, local artists were invited to respond to the winning poems in a recent WBA poetry competition.  Over a bowl of home-made soup, we listened to the winning poems and a selection of others inspired by paintings that had been previously shown at The Gallery.

Two of the winning poems were about Benacre Broad, a wonderful area of coastline south of Kessingland and north of Covehithe.  There is a great deal of erosion along this section of the Suffolk coast and the “bones” of trees that once formed the copses that have now fallen into the sea are stranded on the beach there.  I visited the place to observe and photograph some subjects and submitted a couple of small coloured pencil paintings to the event.  The responses are all displayed at The Ferini Art Gallery over this weekend after which the pictures will transfer to Lowestoft Arts Centre (at the Triangle, Lowestoft) to form the February exhibition there.

Unfortunately, I didn’t photograph my artwork before racing off to deliver it last weekend!  Instead – above is a photo of one of the “bone trees” on which I based one of my paintings.

Here is a small drawing that I finished just before Christmas as a present for my brother and sister-in-law.  It shows the tower of St Michael’s in Beccles, Suffolk.  The tower is separate from the church and the title not only refers to the general atmosphere but to the fact that the other three sides of the tower have a clock face on them.  The side of the tower that I’ve drawn is the one that faces away from the main town and across the river Waveney to Norfolk.  I do recall a story that it’s because the founder (a proud Suffolk man!) would not give the time of day to anyone in Norfolk!  However, this is just a kind of early urban myth.  In fact, clocks were very expensive things and there was no point in putting an expensive clock face on the side that virtually no-one in the town would see.  The drawing was worked from photographs I took in late December and, in reality, it is not really possible to see the large first floor arched window as it is obscured by the extensive foliage in the foreground.  Even in winter, the bare trees hide the window – so I exercised artistic license and did some serious, virtual pruning!   The drawing (25.5 cm x 18 cm) is in graphite on some lovely Fabriano Classico 5 (Satinata) paper.

I’m delighted that some of my work is in the Christmas Show at The Cork Brick Gallery in Bungay.   Run by Gill and Ken Skipper in the heart of the town, the gallery always has a good selection of the work of living East Anglian artists and I’m really pleased that I’m included in this show.  The show includes “Good Luck Cork” (CP), “Yellow Bouy” (a small plein air oil landscape) and “Cast Study – Mouth of David” (oil study).  Five of my life studies are in a browser and some of my blank greetings cards are also for sale at the exhibition.  I understand that the Gallery is having a new website created at the moment.  Meanwhile, they can be reached via the Bungay Town website here →

I have now added a series of my original life studies to the “Work For Sale” section.  They are all one-offs and rendered in charcoal, Conté or pastel pencils onto heavy pastel paper.  Each drawing has been spray fixed, has a single card mount and is sealed in a clear cellophane bag.  Each is signed with my monogram.  This is a great way to obtain very reasonably priced (!) original artwork.  The images are tasteful and entirely suitable for domestic or business display.

After mostly printing my own cards for the last few years, I’ve had a selection of my images commercially printed as 5″ x 7″  blank greetings cards.  Printed on quality 350gsm card, they are are complete with white envelopes and in cellophane wrappers.  They can be purchased singly or in packs of 5 and are now listed under the “Work for Sale” menu.  Reasonably priced (and with the generous offer of 5 for the price of 4!), they can be posted anywhere in the UK.  Purchases are made through Paypal.

There is an article about my work in this month’s “Paint” magazine.  “Paint” is published by SAA (The Society for all artists) and I shall be writing further pieces about coloured pencil for the magazine in the future.  SAA is an organisation for all artists regardless of experience or age with over 45,000 members.  “Paint” goes to all of them.  I have attached scans of the two-page article which accompanied an advertisement for Derwent Artist Coloured Pencils – which I used for the work described in the article.  For further information about SAA, click the SAA logo to go to the website.

I’m pleased to say that I have two paintings in the current Black Dog Arts Autumn Exhibition which is at The Fisher Theatre, Bungay until the end of October.  BDA is a relatively new art society for artists and supporters in Bungay with between 70 and 80 members.  I joined earlier this year.  The exhibition space is not huge and BDA Members were restricted to two pieces each.  Mine are the recently finished CP painting of  “The Bridge House, Ambleside”  and the larger, CP on wood painting “Lunch with the Herdwicks” that has just returned from the UKCP Exhibition in London.  My work is exhibited at the foot of the ramp leading to the gallery space and has attracted some very nice comments (still unsold though!).

Incidentally, many organisations and businesses in and around Bungay have Black Dog in their names.  This refers to a famous local story/legend and is nothing to do with the “black dog” of depression as described by Winston Churchill, Stephen Fry and others.  In fact the exhibition is quite joyous!

The Bridge House - Ambleside, Cumbria

Well – finally it’s complete!  Started sometime in the Spring last year and then put aside while we thought about and then actually moved house from Lancashire to Suffolk.  It was brought out again for my demonstrations on the UKCPS stand at the NEC “Art Materials” show last November and put aside once more.  Brought out again for my demonstrations over two weeks at the recent UKCPS 10th Annual Exhibition in London, it was almost finished!  I finally finished it a few days ago and it is now framed and displayed as part of the Black Dog Arts Autumn Exhibition at The Fisher Theatre, Bungay until 30th October.  Phew!  Originally conceived as a follow-up to my Ashness Bridge picture that is now on boxes of Derwent Artist Pencils all over the world, I feel that it is technically more developed and worked to a higher level of detail.  Maybe I’ll redo the Ashness Bridge picture one day!  Now I’m keen to get started on the next one (Slater Bridge, Little Langdale) while the incentive is strong.  For any other CP artists that may be interested, the original image is about 36.5 cm x 25.5 cm and done with Derwent Artist pencils on A3 Canson Bristol board.  I’ve looked back and realised that my first post about this work was on 24th March 2010!!  I’ve got quite a few photos of the work in various stages of completion and plan to put them together as a WIP page under “Stuff for Artists” when I can find the time.

BTW.  It is priced at a £385 for the duration of the exhibition – very reasonable when you consider it took over 60 hours work in total!

I have now created a WIP page under “Stuff for Artists” which brings together all my photos of the progress of this piece.

Philip Glennister, Malcolm Cudmore and Bernard Poulin

I was very pleased to be awarded “Highly Commended” for my mixed media entry at this exhibition.  I was also awarded UKCPS “Signature” status (selected for 3 exhibitions in 5 years).  Actually, I was selected in each of the last three annual exhibitions (I’ve been a member just under three years!).  I received both awards from actor Philip Glennister (TV’s “Ashes to Ashes” and “Life on Mars”) and Canadian artist (UKCPS special guest judge) Bernard Poulin at the Private View on September 18th.

"An Awfully Big Adventure" - CP on prepared wooden panel

I’m really pleased to have been asked to teach a Portrait Workshop using coloured pencils at Walsall Leather Museum on Saturday 17th September. I’ve worked at the Museum on many previous occasions with my “entertainer” hat on – but this is the first time I will have been there as an “artist”. In fact, I’ve just noticed on the Museum’s autumn leaflet that the event is advertised using my Equity name of Malcolm Malan! The Museum is excellent and a magnificent home for the interpretation and promotion of Walsall’s past as a very important centre of leather working. I understand that the all-day workshop is fully booked and I’m really looking forward to it.
The Museum’s website is here.
There’s a link to a pdf of the Museum’s remaining programme for this summer/autumn here.