Nicholas De Lacy-Brown | The Daily Norm

Jul 18

Art-in-Amalfi – Painting 4: Positano IV (Yellow Vespa)

As much as Capri may have entranced me, it was Positano that we returned to at the end of the day, the beautiful clustered town gripping for dear life onto the steep mountain slopes of Italy’s stunning Amalfi Coast. And such is the geography of that nature-defying location, that almost everywhere you go in Positano, you end up gazing in wonder at incredible views, either across the sea, the valley in which the bulk of the town is situated, or up at the vast mountains rising almost unendingly up behind it. No wonder then that I was inspired to paint so much when I stayed on the Amalfi Coast and although I was only painting with a small travelling watercolour book and a box of gouache paints, I got the most out of my limited materials.

This fourth and final painting of Positano is loosely based on a charming walk we took along the upper mountain road, where the town feels more authentic and Italian when compared with the tourist-centric core of the town down by the sea. This area, being Italy, was full of all of the characteristics which make a place intrinsically Italian – gossiping old women sitting outside their homes, old men propping up the bar and drinking espresso, and outside one of the most Italian sights of all – the Vespa. This painting captures the moment when we stumbled into a perfect specimen of Vespa – a bright yellow one which, when propped up by the side of this incredible mountainous view, just begged to be painted. And here is the result.

Positano IV (Yellow Vespa) (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jul 11

Art-in-Amalfi – Painting 3: Positano III (cluster on the upper road)

Following hot on the heels of my photographic post on Positano’s upper mountain passages is the third of my Positano paintings it inspired. Unlike my previous two works of Positano, both of which included the sea and the beach as prominent compositional elements, this one concentrates solely on Positano’s mountainous backdrop as it focuses on a cluster of houses on the town’s upper mountain road. With its resulting rocky background and not a slice of sea or sky in sight, the group of pastel houses collected onto the mountain side is even more striking set against these dark and looming surroundings, emphasising just how striking a sight is created by a small town built upon the steep sides of huge imposing mountains.

I kept this painting as simple as possible, and even though the mountains have the appearance of craggy complexity, the brain is doing most of the work here – for in reality I have painted neither shade nor light into the purple mountain – only the impression of texture as created by the strategic placement of green detailing indicating where the mountain’s verdant plant life would be. It’s an effect which I find altogether pleasing, and a simplicity which ultimately does all of the work which a more detailed illustration would provide. Yet in this simpler form it seems altogether cleaner and more contemporary – and for that reason I love it.

Positano III (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jul 9

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Art-in-Amalfi – Painting 2: Positano II (the other side of town)

So excited was I by my first gouache interpretation of the Italian town of Positano, that as soon as I had completed it, I started another. This one is based on the other side of town, Positano viewed from the densely packed cluster of houses which had inspired the first painting, with only the rooftops of that view visible in the immediate foreground. Otherwise, the town’s iconic domed duomo takes centre stage in this depiction of the town, alongside a number of buildings which, like before, are stripped back to their basic cubic elements, devoid of all of the architectural details which might have spoilt the simplicity of the image. Meanwhile, in the background, the awe-inspiring silhouette of the Amalfi Coast’s mountainous scenery fades gradually off into the background, towards the little white-washed down of Praiano.

Positano II (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jul 3

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Art-in-Amalfi – Painting 1: Positano I (viewed from the beach)

Having seen my post of photos on yesterday’s Daily Norm, and perhaps even my photos of the incredible views which we were lucky enough to enjoy for our week’s stay at the Palazzo Talamo Hotel, you will easy to understand why I was inspired to create by the town of Positano on Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Not only is the town a picture perfect dazzlement of beautiful houses clustered against a vast imposing mountain backdrop, but it is also a riot of pastel colours in an otherwise natural landscape of verdant greenery and sheer greyish purple rock. The most striking thing about Positano is the fact that the small town appears to defy nature as a small cluster of dwellings clinging, almost like limpits, to the sheer side of the otherwise inhospitable mountain sides. The effect is a stark and beautiful contrast between the man-made regularised geometric forms of buildings and the irregular looming presence of the nature-made mountains, and it was this contrast which struck me the most as I set about painting my first homage to the town.

Positano I (viewed from the beach) (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Stretched out on the beach a day after our arrival, I started work on this piece: Positano I (viewed from the beach). Using simplified geometric forms and stripping away all of the details which otherwise characterise the houses and hotels of Positano (windows, balconies and so on), this painting purposefully reduces the buildings of Positano to their most basic cubic form in order to emphasise the contrast between rigid geometry and rugged mountain, all the while expressing the beauty of Positano’s very colourful cluster of houses. The result is a painting I love. Made in gouache on paper, for me its colours and sunshine brightness sum up the mediterranean mood, while the geometric gathering of cubes echoes the shape of this small town which makes it so unique on much publicised postcards and travel guides throughout the world.

As with all of my travel-inspired art works, this painting gave me great satisfaction to create, all the more so because it was started on the beach and completed on my balcony with a view. Now who can ask for a better art studio than that?

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jun 23

Desert Discovery of a Catalan Cactus

Now that the huge stresses and celebrations of my London solo exhibition of paintings and prints at The Strand Gallery in May have finally started to calm down, and those 42 sold artworks have comfortably found their new homes, I am moving on to a new even more positive period of creativity as I start to work towards new goals and projects. Foremost amongst them is printmaking, not least because in September I will be exhibiting with the East London Printmakers in London Bridge. This means that my paintbrushes are temporarily down, and instead I am spending more and more hours scratching into hard metals, carving into wood, dipping in acids and turning the stiff wheel of a printpress as I continue making new prints for these forthcoming shows.

Readers of The Daily Norm will know that I have been making gradual progress with my printmaking since I started dabbling in this extensive medium over a year ago. Now as well as etching, which has always been my favourite medium in which to work (largely because it enables me to capture all of the detail I love to pack into an artwork), I have also stated working with multi-plate woodcutting which has given me equal pleasure.

Desert Discovery of a Catalan Cactus (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, etching and aquatint)

But in this next print in my series featuring the Norms, the little white blobs who are at the centre of this blog, I have returned to the medium of etching, here using aquatint for the tone, and zinc as the metal basis from which the image is transferred to paper. This latest print, Desert Discovery of a Catalan Cactus, was inspired by my February trip to Barcelona, and shows the Norms, in an arid dry desert, stumbling upon a cactus which bears a striking resemblance to Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia cathedral.

Illustrating Gaudi’s masterpiece as a plant isn’t too far from the truth either – Gaudi famously drew inspiration from nature in designing his buildings, and here I am simply taking his most famous building back to nature, albeit that the familiar cranes which surround the still incompleted building are still present.

If you would like to purchase a copy of this limited edition print, contact me through my website www.delacy-brown.com.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jun 17

Norms in Dubrovnik | Up the Cable Car

Like us, Norms do enjoy a good view. After all, their faces feature not the nose or mouth of humans (although rumour has it that these intriguing little creatures eat through pores that open in what would approximately be the location of a mouth on a human face), but two huge wide eyes, which are perfect for taking in the most stunning of sights. And where better to indulge their view-loving tendencies than from the Dubrovnik cable car, where the very best aerial view of the city can be admired.

Of course these Norms are a squishy lot, and that means that when it came to filling the cable car, rather a lot could fit in. That didn’t mean it was particularly comfortable for the tightly packed Norms however, and as this much happier lone Norm photographs the city from atop the hill, he cannot help but notice how those poor cable-car Norms look rather more concerned with the crush they’re enduring than the view below them. Still, they’re almost at the top, and once they get there they can enjoy one of the most unrivaled views of the Adriatic.

Norms in Dubrovnik take the Cable Car (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen and ink on paper)

And there ends my four-piece collection of Dubrovnik Norm sketches. I hope you enjoyed it!

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jun 13

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Norms in Dubrovnik | Life’s a Beach

There is nothing that Norms like more than a good day out at the beach. Their little round tummies sit particularly well with lounging around by the seaside, although they have to be careful to protect their pearly-white skin. I’m not sure that the bottle of factor 15 seen in this little sketch would provide apt protection to these reckless beach-going Norms. But Norms can’t be mistaken for being lazy. They love the water too, and bobbing around in warm seas is one of their particularly favourite occupations, not least in waters so clear and clean as Dubrovnik’s, particularly when the waters, and the beach benefits from a sensational backdrop of the city like this one.

So in my latest Norm sketch, we see the Norms in the midsts of a day of seaside happiness: one is sketching, sat up on the rocks, another teaching his baby Norm how to float with the help of a safety ring. On the water’s edge two little Norms are building sand castles from the rather limited stocks of sand to be found on Dubrovnik’s otherwise pebbly beach, and two more are being conscientiously healthy by playing ball games in between swims. One more Norm is about to go snorkelling in waters which are so clear as to afford him a great view of the fish within, while another is more concerned with that amazing city view, and has swum out quite far to get the very best vantage point.

Norms on Dubrovnik Beach (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen and ink on paper)

Life truly is a beach for this little group of holidaying sun-loving Norms.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jun 11

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My Dubrovnik Sketchbook (Part 3) – Viewed from the beach

My third and final post sharing extracts from my progressively filled new sketchbook are those pages which I sketched while on the beach adjacent to the old walled city of Dubrovnik. I was a little reticent at first to take my sketchbook on the beach – I envisaged grease splodges from suntan cream and grains of sand getting into the binding. But then owing to the unique position of Dubrovnik’s beach right next to the city affording views over its world-recognisable skyline, who could resist? And so taking extra caution with my sketchbook, I stretched out like a sun-loving cat on my lounger and propped my sketchbook up on my knees and drew.

My first sketch is not of Dubrovnik itself, but of the verdant island of Lokrum which sits bang opposite the city out at sea and is covered all over with a lustrous growth of greenery. The island is mysteriously beautiful, and while its green colour may not come across in my black and white sketch, hopefully the texture of its rich vegetation does.

The island of Lokrum (Dubrovnik) viewed from the beach (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

For my second sketch, I departed my lounger and went to sit on a nearby rocky pier which affords the most perfect views of the city beyond. And it was this incredible view that I sketched that afternoon, taking a good 20 minutes or so sketching the various details of the city, and getting myself a royally sunburnt shoulder in the meantime!

The Old Port at Dubrovnik, viewed from the City's Beach (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

I’m delighted with these first attempts at proper on-site sketching and miss the very process of taking out my book to start a new scene afresh. But I’m sure that this summer will provide further inspiration for me to fill those pages – and you can be sure that whatever I draw will feature on The Daily Norm!

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jun 5

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Norms in Dubrovnik | Tourist Norms on the City Walls

Dubrovnik is, unsurprisingly, a very popular tourist destination. Thousands pour into the tiny old town encased within its thick stone walls every day, and the thousands have now become tens of thousands owing to the popularity of the TV series, Game of Thrones, which is filmed there. It’s not uncommon to see a whole cluster of cruise liners docked off the coast shunting out boat loads of tourists to explore the city – my taxi driver told me that some days they have to cope with as many as 6 cruise liners, each with several thousand passengers, visiting the city in a single day. And this is on top of the many hundreds of tourists who head to the city every year under their own steam. And where is the first place that these tourist hoards head to? The city walls.

From the unique vantage point offered to us by the Stari Grad Hotel nestled in the centre of the old town, we were able to see several sections of the city walls. When we headed up to breakfast close after 8am the walls were pretty quiet, but by 9pm they were starting to fill, as group after group of tour-led travellers started walking in single file along the top of the narrow walls. By lunchtime there were so many people along the walls that the masses looked like an extra line of masonry.

Tourist Norms visit the Walls of Dubrovnik (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen and ink on paper)

In Norm-world, the Norms are facing exactly the same problems as they too head up the step of Dubrovnik’s walls (bouncing as they go) to visit this renowned medieval attraction. Here in my latest Dubrovnik sketch, we see the Norms being bustled along the walls by various tour guides; a stream of tourist Norms so extensive that you can see them reaching all the way around the walls as far as the eye can see. But just look at the incredible view the Norms get from that unique vantage point: the sea of terracotta roofs on one side, and the sparkling Adriatic on the other. That has to be worth the tourist-Norm cram along the walls of Dubrovnik.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jun 3

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My Dubrovnik Sketchbook (Part 1) – Rooftop panoramas

I’ve always loved stationery: a new tin of pencils, a tray of unsqueezed paint tubes, an unwritten notebook and the thrill of a blank canvas. One item of stationery which gets me truly excited is a fresh new sketchbook, its pages literally begging to be filled with art. So heading to Dubrovnik with a brand new moleskin sketchbook in my bag meant that sooner rather than later, those crisp white pages were going to be filled with reflections on the city. And the first view which I rushed to capture was, perhaps unsurprisingly from my photos on yesterday’s post, the incredible rooftop view from our bedroom at the Stari Grad hotel.

Me sketching on the roof terrace and in our room

Having captured the view of rooftops from one window, together with a slightly wonky rendition of the bell tower of the Franciscan monastery next door, I moved onto the second window from which our corner room benefited, this time undertaking a far more comprehensive roof top view extending almost across the whole of the walled city. From bedroom views, I headed up to the roof terrace, and the hotel’s waiters soon got used to the sight of me taking my breakfast with a sketchbook in one hand and a set of drawing pens in the other. From the breakfast terrace I then completed two views – one looking towards the old port, and another concentrating on the imposing Jesuit church.

View from window of the Stari Grad Hotel, Dubrovnik (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

View from the roof terrace at the Stari Grad Hotel, Dubrovnik (at breakfast) (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

View of Dubrovnik Rooftops from our bedroom at the Stari Grad Hotel (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

Rooftop view with the Jesuit Church, Dubrovnik (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

So following on from my rooftop photography focus yesterday, I therefore thought that today would be a perfect time to share these first sketches with you. They’re by no means perfect works, made quickly and in pen which is of course unforgiving of any mistakes, but they were made in the moment, at speed, and for me carry more memories of a time and an atmosphere than a quickly shot photograph. I hope you like them!

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com