Artist's bio

Tonie Rigby is a , ' Daily painter. ' with a passion for paint. Since April 2014 she has completed a painting each day, varying size, medium and subject matter , moving in and out of abstraction. Tonie  is currently working on two series of work, ' My North, ' and , ' Poem Lines ( Daily walks.)'

'My North, ' is a series of 100 pieces mainly reflecting on a warm childhood growing up in the Industrial North, surrounded by mills and hills. They are small 15 cm. sq. mixed media pieces that are mainly figurative.

' Poem Lines (Daily walks,) ' are a growing series of  33 inch square contemporary landscapes paintings created in acrylics.Tonie strives  to create these paintings , ' ala prima,' in one sitting, within an hour. That , in a way helps her translate that Daily walk into paint. The name ,' poem lines,' comes from the words and phrases that come to mind whilst painting the piece. They feel like the lines of poems.

Tonie Rigby completed a Fine Art, Drawing and painting honours degree at Huddersfield University in 2002. Since then she has exhibited locally , held pop up galleries at Emmaus Mossley ( where she is a resident artist) and exhibited at Gallery Oldham. She runs her own Art group at Emmaus Mossley, a Community for previously homeless people.

Getting ready for Holmfirth tomorrow

Loved this piece in the display cabinet.

I like....

The fact that it could still be a display cabinet...I haven't radically altered it...

I like the paintings in it..... Some of them are precious to me....

I could try....to decoupage the outside of the cupboard....or the inside....try different sizes of paintings / display cabinets......

Done a Daily walk painting today. Phew....seemed hard...took me ages to get the right balance of
realism and abstraction. Went for another walk and hoped that the painting stayed the same and I
liked it, whilst out. Sun was out, watched cricket at Greenfield . Lovely day.

What do I like about this.....

The size

The simplicity

The textures

I like that it could be a few special places

It's a challenge to switch between the small and the large pieces. I can be much freer ( if that's a word ) with the small pieces, simply because of the physicality of the process, the size of the brushes etc.

I am going to put this one into Holmfirth tomorrow, together with another the same size.It was 

amazing this week to be so undecided about the pieces to put in the show.... I felt that I hadn't got anything to show! Mmmm. Strange. 

Below....My North dailies....these were the reference photos I used. Holidays ! 

First one..Me and Mum playing shops on the beach

Second one.....cold sea...me with a yellow kind of seersucker costume on

Third one...Me huddling into Mum, auntie and cousin.

Cold Summer seas

Memories of playing shops

We used to play shops on the beach...the pebbles were groceries and money . Loved it !

Me huddled into Mum !

Sometimes the memories get mixed up

Lots of rain and sheltering in the amusements !

When I was little my Dad always wore a trilby.

My Dad wore a trilby and an overcoat the same as all the other Dad's !

Made these pieces using photographic paper ( both sides ) sumi ink, pencil, acrylic and varnish. Loved it.

What did I like about them....

The lines in the paint seem to feel like times gone by !

I like the limited palette of acidly pink and sagely green

The ambiguity of the figures

Loved them....TODAY

Done about 60 of, ' My North , ' series and My North display

Worked on the textured images for most of this week, worked back into them quite a few times, so they weren't strictly Daily Paintings. That's Ok. Want to get to the 100 mark now with these images because I want to work out how to show them.....because they are all the same size, if I am not careful the display will be monotonous and repetitive and boring ! That will be the interest then... Getting a display to look interesting, coherent and relevant.Mmmmm, not much to ask then....

I have forgotten all about smog...but it made you see things from your imagination.....

The flats came and replaced the mills

The streets look the same as they did..... Children play as we did

Over time you don't see the flats... they fade

Grey and black blocks

Northern textures

The mills held their own secrets

At times the streets were empty....then the mill shift finished

The prams were outside on the pavements all day

I don't remember my Mum putting a basin on my head to cut my hair, but it looked like she did.

The lines represent the passage of time

L like how the figure has broken up

We watched

Honest, the photos came out like this, missing heads, blurred bodies.

I had tried photocopying two of the pieces , as large as they could go on the machine in the Art shop ( about 12 inches square) ... Really liked them .... The textures were different but exciting. Mmmm...food for thought.

IDEAS FOR DISPLAY

Use furniture as a support...decoupage the photocopies onto a table/ drawers/ cupboard

Use a cupboard as a display cabinet ( like we all had in our front rooms, full of the best china ! )

Decoupage a mirror

Look at displays of photographs

Try a display ladder of some sort... That I can just prop up

Try them all.... And enjoy it.....but finish the 100 before you do....

Tried a cabinet. Painted it grey and black inside. Love it. I like....

The cabinet itself....it was dark brown wood ugh before

I like the paintings in it

I am ok with the fact that you can't quite see all the paintings

It reminds me of the display cabinet that most of us had in the front room ( room was unused apart from visitors ) filled with China that was used at Christmas.....

Love it .....

More of My North

Phewww... It was hard to get the images this week. Keeping in the ,' My North,' series....interest waning slightly. I had wanted to use pencil but then got frustrated with it so added varnish and watercolour. I wanted....figures...little abstract...flavour of the North.......These were the words that came into my mind as I painted.....

Can't find my photos
We did play ring a ring a roses
The girls liked to play Mummies and Daddies
Hopscotch, skipping, 2 balls
Mum wore a headscarf but didn't leave her rollers in like other Mums
She always had a perm, she had the same hairstyle all her life
Mum wore twin sets and pearls
All the photos were posed
We went to the shops every day, the butchers, the grocers, the green grocers
I don't remember any buggies
The transparency of the medium makes me feel like it's the layers of years
I like to find the figure, not impose it
Get the images down and then go back and back looking for a sense  of rightness
Remember it's figures not mills I am looking for
Don't really want sillouettes
An overlay of grey
After a while the image becomes about an arrangement of tones, colour, line, balance
Add in pencil on top of the paint....

We went to the shops every day.

We played Mummies and Daddies

Long Summers of play

Layers of time and sentiment

Dressed up

The flats came

We sat on the kerbstone for a lot of the day

We watched the babies ( dolls ) like our Mums

I like to find a figure

Figures and Mills merge.

The nine of this week.

These paintings aren't meant to be a Social history commentary, they are just drawings and paintings about, ' my North.' Give them time to breath before critiquing them........

My North figures

This week, I am still working ( not the right word really ) on, ' my North,' series. Still small...I have no artistic interest in creating larger work under this heading so just carry on. I have been looking back at old photos, remembering my childhood in, ' my North.' Really most important were the family, friends, people that lived on the streets. I was very lucky.

These were the pieces.... 15 cm. sq.I thought that I would try for one memory per piece, used as a title to help the reading of the work. May change my mind on that one. The work is mainly on photographic paper, sumi ink and acrylic, painted then with clear varnish so I could glaze over. It defo worked , working on 9 at once, keep going back into them round and round.

Kid's played on the streets from dawn till dusk.

I don't remember much colour but lots of warmth.

One, ' mother,' was, 'all mothers.' They spoke with the same voice.

The best fun was popping tar bubbles.

The backs were our playgrounds.

A new donkey stone was to be celebrated.

The shadows of the mills were deep.

A solitary child

The backs were for cricket and for digging. The boys ruled the show.

Working on 9 together worked.

This was the display of Daily paintings I put up at Emmaus Mossley. Because my work is instinctive and intuitive, I often just put it away when I've done it.....to be retrieved days/ weeks / or more later....to see if they stand the test of time....Some do, some don't .