Charlie Yates artist-in-residence
Charlie Yates is the first artist-in-residence at Virgin's luxury hotel in Edinburgh's Old Town.
Picture: Ian Georgeson
Picture: Ian Georgeson
Transcript
00:00 [Music]
00:08 So, my name is Charlie Yates. I'm the artist in residence at Virgin Hotels here.
00:14 I specialise in oil paint. I usually work on different boards, mediums as well as canvas and metal.
00:22 Right now we are in my studio, which I've been granted for the next three months. We're producing as much work as possible.
00:30 A new body of work, which I'll be working on. So, it's more to do with my travels, my experience of how I feel towards a lot of locations that I go to.
00:40 And how I like to capture moments in time with my work.
00:44 I usually use a monochromatic palette, as you can see on these paintings here. These are small additions that I just do as tests.
00:53 You might recognise some of them here as well, but it's more to do with trying to capture how I feel in that moment.
01:02 I do a lot of sketches whenever I'm abroad in my sketchbooks.
01:05 Just trying to find certain quick sketches that I always do from life. It's always good to try and draw as much as I can from life.
01:14 I usually draw from my paintings as well. I use recordings of my voice and how I'm feeling.
01:20 So, I record myself because of my dyslexia. I find that really intuitive. I'm much more of a visual learner, rather than reading and comprehension, etc.
01:30 But I love to just make things a lot more easier for me to understand, such as learning materials, learning techniques.
01:38 I always draw and illustrate how I learn certain techniques in my books, in my sketchbooks, all the time, whenever I'm learning.
01:47 I always like to plan things out. For example, exhibitions, as well as just in general, new ideas, new colours, new techniques that I'm learning.
01:57 I'm always indulging in certain ways of how I'm documenting as much as I can when it comes to my practice.
02:05 I like to keep pushing it. When it comes to painting, I use Michael Harding oil paints.
02:14 Some of them are quite expensive, depending on the series. They go from series 1 to series 7, of how they've been made.
02:22 They can be very, very concentrated. So, ones like these can last me up to a very, very long time.
02:29 I like to express that. Michael Harding has provided the best colours and bright, luminous colours that I like to find.
02:39 Not just that, I always have other oil paints. This one here, I collected when I was on my trip to Japan.
02:46 This is called Kusakabi, which is an amazing, luminous oil paint that you can't get anywhere else in Europe, but you can only get it in Japan, which is beautiful.
02:59 I love collecting loads of other things like that. On the way, I like to grind down, making my own pigments.
03:06 I use really large brushes, such as this one here, to go up and down with a lot of large pieces that I work on.
03:14 So, I'll be working on this station, where I'll be producing some large pieces on canvas, and also just covering the page in paint.
03:23 So, the way I like to work is, I love to cover the whole page in paint first.
03:28 Then what I do is, I tend to take a cloth and I start removing the oil paint with a cloth.
03:33 So, I use a Zest-It cleaner, which is this solvent here. It's more of a brush cleaner.
03:38 It's recyclable, so you can reuse it. So, you leave it overnight and it will dissolve in the jar.
03:44 All the paint will dissolve at the bottom and then you recycle it again.
03:47 So, it's a really good way of continuing my process.
03:52 With that, I like to remove the oil paint off.
03:55 So, I'm basically revealing the image instead of painting straight onto the canvas.
04:00 I like to remove the oil paint off, so draw in reverse.
04:04 So, if you're covering the whole page in graphite and you're rubbing away with an eraser.
04:08 So, it's a similar technique, except I'm always using my finger and using certain finger paintings.
04:13 So, it allows me to have more control of the paint and allows me to really focus on what I can do next with my work
04:20 and how I link my palette with certain monochromatic colours.
04:24 That allows me to control more of what I do as well.
04:28 [Music plays]
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