I have been a friend of Carole Racionzer for some time now and several years ago she also bought my 2012 portrait of my cousin Anna Rendall playing the cello.
The first painting of mine that Carole bought; a portrait of my cousin playing the cello.
I was delighted to learn that she was getting married to Stan in 2017, and when she asked if I could paint a picture as her main wedding present I was happy to help. The idea was that instead of her guests buying wine glasses or kitchen paraphernalia as presents, as a unique and personal alternative they could all chip in for a custom painting. I have long thought that many wedding photographs end up being quite formal, posed and lacking in soul. A party painting like the ones I am known for could provide a lasting memento of the day and it would also reflect the life and joy of their wedding celebration.
Stan and Carole on their wedding day. This scene formed the initial focus of the painting.Chris and Carole at the beginning of the reception, as the painting starts to take shape. Chris’s Hogmanay mural helped create a party ambience in the background, and also helped guests understand what the painting would eventually become.
I decided to paint portraits of all the wedding guests as well as the main wedding party. Carole and Stan hosted their ceremony at Archerfield House in East Lothian, with a handfasting ceremony led by a Humanist minister and their guests arranged around them. It was decided that I would make a picture of that scene and build it on a circular canvas that reflected the shape of the ceremony. I gathered reference photos of the happy couple during the ceremony and then took pictures of as many wedding guests as I could get to pose at the time. I then went down to the reception venue and started the painting in full view of the guests. Throughout the day this painting process provided unique on-site entertainment for the wedding guests; I painted the main wedding party first, starting with the bride and groom before painting Carole’s daughters, the best man, the matron of honour, and the parents of the happy couple. People of all ages are fascinated by the process and the openness of how I do it, and wedding guests were constantly hovering around the easel, watching my progress.
Chris took dozens of photographs of the wedding guests, to be painted into the artwork either during the reception or after the event.The painting underway during the reception. Guests were encouraged to stop by to get their photo taken and to watch the progress.
To add to the ambience of my workspace, I brought four large boards of crowd scenes from my 2013 Hogmanay painting. This gave the guests an idea of the direction in which the wedding painting was going.
Chris adding portraits to the painting in his studio in Leith, using photo reference collected during the wedding reception.
After the event the picture was taken back to the studio in Leith and the longer process of painting all the guests in began.
Once finished it was popped in a custom-made frame to be presented to Carole and Stan and hung in their Perth home. Job done!
The digital flier for the Christmas event, showcasing the neoclassical Georgian building in which we now work.
Celebrating the Season at Leith Custom House
After six years at my previous studio at St Margaret’s House in Edinburgh, I recently moved to Custom House in Leith; a stunning neoclassical pillared building that is a central landmark on the Leith landscape. After a prolonged period as the National Museums of Scotland’s storage facility, this A-List Georgian building is now being managed by the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust who are encouraging a wide variety of creative people to build a new hive of activity in the heart of Leith.
There are two distinct buildings on the site: a the larger, more grand building situated on the corner of the Commercial Street and the Water of Leith, and the “cruiser” store, located behind the main building on a narrow cobbled lane that has been hidden from view for years. My new studio backs directly onto this lane via an extremely handy loading bay and this provides me with much better access for loading my often bulky murals.
Even more exciting however is the nascent creative community that is burgeoning within the space. The Christmas event on 17th and 18th December was the first open studio day that I’d been involved in at the Custom House since the move and therefore I thought I’d celebrate by undertaking my first live painting event in the new space.
Studio manager Sheila Masson at work covering the walls of the loading baywith an undercoat of emulsion.The loading bay makeover fully underway as it is transformed into a Narnia-themed space.
The large loading bay was an extremely bland and tired-looking area so with the blessing of SBHT Director Una Richards, we set out to give it a seasonal makeover. As our new studio opens directly onto this space, I felt it was extremely important it project the creativity and joy that the new building and its new tenants aspire to. I enlisted my studio manager Sheila Masson – a talented artist (as well as a powerful brain) and we started work on the Wednesday afternoon, priming the space in preparation for our plan.
Sheila and Chris adhering to health and safety during extensive spray work in the loading bay.A gigantic Aslan appears out of the snowy landscape in the loading bay.Sheila flexing her muscles on the scaffolding as she applies spray painted hand-cut stencils late into the evening.
We decided to paint a Narnia themed mural as although there is a Christmas element to the story, it does not define it, so therefore the mural will remain relevant till spring. We spray painted a snowy landscape with a large scale Aslan and the ubiquitous lamp post front and centre. Sheila made a number of beautiful snow stencils that really set the tone and we quickly built an atmospheric frosted landscape.
Detail of some of the stencilling and freehand collaborative work that Sheila and Chris created on the loading bay walls.Detail of some of the stencilling and freehand collaborative work that Sheila and Chris created on the loading bay walls.
Come the main event on the Saturday however it was important that we kept spray paints to a minimum due to the health and safety issues (and the pong!). The alley was filled food stalls and visitors to the building as well as regular Leith Farmers Market shoppers who wandered into the newly revealed space.
Visitors to Leith Custom House wandering through the loading bay and out into Custom Lane, where they could enjoy hot food and do a spot of Christmas shopping.We also set up a stall of our own posters, prints, postcards and t-shirts (also available on our website if you missed out!) which were very popular for Christmas presents.Chris painting life size cut outs during the Christmas event at Leith Custom House.Santa nestled in the loading bay.
Moving on from the spray painted walls I changed my focus to shaped life size characters from the book, cut from large sheets of wooden board. I snared a few tenants and SHBT friends to pose for the The White Witch, her dwarf, Mr. Tumnus and a large scale Santa.
To keep the characters on theme and to compliment the visuals in the loading bay, I reused Sheila’s stencils to add surface detailing. The end result had a vibrancy reminiscent of textile design or a Rauschenberg painting.
Detail of the White Witch’s dress which utilises some of the stencils that Sheila made for the loading bay walls.Stencils drying on the scaffolding during the painting of the loading bay.
The joy for me in collaboration is that every new partner brings fresh tools to the army and in this way Sheila’s stencils and application to the cause really enriched the product and added a further depth and subtlety to my directness and drive.
Interaction between Chris’s freehand and Sheila’s stencilled spray work.Three of the Narnia cut out characters inserted into their virtual stage set in the newly painted loading bay.
The loading bay mural is now established and the plan is to periodically adapt the visuals over the coming months and years. The hope is the magic will be infectious and over the coming years the building will permanently acquire some of the magic of Narnia.
I am currently painting a new mural for the William Street restaurant ‘A Room in the West End’, an Edinburgh establishment downstairs from Teuchters pub. I have dined there a number of times, most recently on my 40th birthday and I know the owner Peter Knight through my long affiliation to Boroughmuir Rugby Club.
The exterior of Teuchters pub in Edinburgh; the Room In the West End restaurant is located inside and down the stairs.
They already had a mural in their cosy subterranean location, but the last time that I dined there I mentioned to Peter that I thought it was looking a little tired and dated. I suggested that they could do with a rethink as it wasn’t adding value to the restaurant. It took a year or so but Peter came around to my line of thinking and agreed to have me fix it for them.
The initial design of the mural for the restaurant walls.
The brief as was to reflect the West End/Central Edinburgh location, to visually push the wall back with added depth, but also make the room look exciting, populous and atmospheric. Ideally the mural would become a talking point and would make the restaurant a destination venue. I decided to combine my signature crowd mural concept with a 12m landscape depiction of Edinburgh’s Old Town, sweeping across the skyline from North Bridge to Edinburgh Castle.
Billy Connolly and Super Gran lurk amongst the well-kent Scottish figures in the mural.
Originally the discussion as to who would be painted into the crowd revolved around the use of regulars, locals and restaurant staff, but also with a strong rugby element as the pub is a haunt of the Six Nations Championship revellers. However the mural has quickly become a nostalgia piece to innumerable Scottish celebrities and the crowd is now a 50/50 mix of celebs and punters, which should result in visitors looking more closely at the painting in order to identify the well-kent faces amongst the lesser-known crowd.
My crowd scenes frequently feature one or two celebrities but largely my focus has been on the general public. In my twenties I worked for as a magazine illustrator, painting for over 30 different magazines and they would often ask me to paint celebrity portraits within the context of editorial illustrations. So working on this mural has in many ways felt like a blast from the past for me.
Scottish musicians The Proclaimers, Shirley Manson and Rod Stewart join in the revelry in the mural.Chris using his ever-present iPad for photo reference during the painting of the mural.
The extra muscle memory from painting around 6000 portraits in the last five years has meant that I have found this task considerably easier than I used to. The internet has improved celebrity photo reference immeasurable – laying hands on good celebrity photo reference is so much easier and allying that with my ubiquitous iPad has allowed the mural to build relatively easily.
Some of Edinburgh’s Old Town buildings depicted in the mural, looming above the ghostly outlines of people whose portraits are waiting to be painted.Scottish singers Susan Boyle, Lulu, and Sharleen Spiteri of the band Texas make an appearance in the mural.Room in the West End owner Peter Knight enjoys the company of Sharleen Spiteri, KT Tunstall and Annie Lennox at his table in the mural.Chris painting the mural in the early days of its progression – the skyline has been completed but the portraits are yet to start.
The only real issue has been negotiating painting time around the comings-and-goings of a successful restaurant. In order to not disrupt the customers’ meals, I’ve had to work in and around the Christmas rush which has meant arriving at 7am and leaving around 2pm. After the initial painting of the Edinburgh skyline, each day by lunchtime I have typically managed to produce around ten portraits.
Painting the first portrait of the mural.Chris consulting his iPad during painting.
My plan is to finish the mural by mid January and launch the mural publicly in time for the Six Nations tournament – hopefully with some more famous rugby faces identifiable in the crowd scenes.
Footage of Chris (live painting, while dressed as Santa) is projected onto Norwich Castle as part of their Christmas celebrations. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.
In October 2016 I was asked by Edinburgh-based Double Take Projections (who specialise in large-scale projections nationwide) if I would produce some paintings specifically to create some time lapse footage for the city of Norwich’s 2016 Christmas celebrations. As Double Take Projections are top professionals in the field with a track history of success, the Norwich Business Improvement District (BID) approached them to “paint” a number of local landmark buildings with projected animations and time-lapse footage.
Painting in front of time-lapse cameras has become an intrinsic part of my working practice over the past few years. Working in collaboration with editor Mettje Hunneman, I have now produced more than 20 short films which document my work process in this way. In addition to being a great publicity device and adding to my social media profile, I also find that the presence of time-lapse cameras provides me with added creative focus. The performance element of producing paintings on film keeps me engaged with the canvas and it forces me to be braver in my output. Furthermore, filming encourages me to keep working regardless of physical discomfort or tiredness, thereby increasing my productivity.
Chris being photographed and filmed while painting a Christmas mural in his studio in Edinburgh. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.
For three days at the end of October I painted in the studio while dressed as Santa (complete with a partially moulting fake white beard) while cameraman Adam Robertson kept a watchful eye on proceedings.
Working on the Norwich BID logo in the studio in Edinburgh. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.The painted Norwich BID logo is projected onto Norwich Castle. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.
The images grew exponentially in size as the days rolled on; I began with an A0-size evolving painted Norwich BID logo, followed by a Norwich street scene measuring four feet by five feet, before finishing with an eight foot by twelve foot mini mural designed as a massive Norwich-themed Christmas card. I painted Santa himself in the the background and local celebrities Delia Smith and Stephen Fry pulling a cracker in the foreground. The conceptual idea was that the live action Santa ‘character’ (me) would begin as just a hand in the frame while painting the logo, but then would become increasingly dwarfed by the painting as the film unfolded.
Chris painting the Christmas mural in the studio in Edinburgh. Stephen Fry is at right, and Delia Smith is awaiting painting at left. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.Chris with the finished painting in the studio in Edinburgh. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.
All the years of event painting proved to be very useful in this venture as I now know that the camera likes me to act decisively, and ideally I need to make big decisions as I go. It was also nice to find a different format for that experience with this project.
Painting projections on Norwich Castle. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.
In late November I visited Norwich for a day while en route to London, in order to see the projection installed in the city. It was most bizarre to see myself on such a large scale, even if I was in my Santa disguise. I have friends in Norwich who will have to look at Santa’s bottom for the whole seven week run and know that it’s me, which can only increase their festive cheer.
Painting projections on Norwich Castle. Photo courtesy Adam Robertson/Double Take Projections.
The main thing is that the footage and the animations that Double Take Productions created alongside the mural looked fantastic, and it came together to help create exhilarating and atmospheric new Christmas festivities in Norwich. For me personally, it’s really exciting that my time-lapse experiences can combine so seamlessly with my illustration skills. The footage that we generated was almost instantly created in conjunction with the computer animations and it really increased the quality of the product and the feeling of joy in the whole city.
Artists Chris Rutterford and Elph assessing their work while standing in front of the ADP shipping container, which houses a vast post-apocalyptic landscape viewable through tiny portholes.
The Aftermath Dislocation Principle (ADP) is a trilogy of artworks by Jimmy Cauty on a nationwide tour across the UK – each artwork is a 1:87 scale model housed in a shipping container, which are viewed through observation ports in the sides of the containers. It was also installed at Dismaland, the temporary art project organised by street artist Banksy and constructed in the seaside resort town of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, England in 2015.
View through one of the tiny portholes into the ADP shipping container.
The artwork has been touring the UK in 2016, specifically appearing in venues where there has been a history of rioting. Edinburgh’s Grassmarket was chosen as one of the tours destinations as it was the scene of the 1736 Porteous Riots, when Captain John Porteous, an unpopular chief of the City Guard, was overseeing the hanging of a local smuggler Andrew Wilson. When the watching crowds began to get unruly, Captain Porteous instructed the City Guard to shoot above the crowd’s heads and they subsequently wounded local residents who were watching from tenement windows. This exacerbated the already volatile situation, at which point Porteous instructed the the City Guard to shoot into the crowd, resulting in the deaths of six people.
The Porteous Mob, painted in 1855 by James Drummond, RSA FSA (1816–1877).
Captain Porteous was arrested for murder but after discovering that plans were afoot to arrange a pardon for him, a mob converged on the Tolbooth on the Royal Mile and he was dragged out of his prison cell and back down to the Grassmarket, where he was lynched, dying a deeply unpleasant death. Captain Porteous was buried in the adjacent Greyfriars Kirkyard in a grave marked with a simple ‘P’. This was replaced in 1973 by a stone bearing his full name and the moniker ‘All passion spent’.
Ahead of the closing weekend of the ADP Riot Tour’s installation in Edinburgh, I was asked by the Greater Grassmarket Business Improvement District (BID) and events organisers Too Much Fun Club to paint a mural of the scene alongside renowned Scottishstreet artist and illustrator, Elph. Working on connected octagonal boards, Elph and I engaged visitors to the Grassmarket as we worked on our separate but related public art works.
Elph invited audience participation with hands-on painting by the public, and I convinced visitors to pose for portraits to be incorporated into the scene. My crowd scene painting was inspired in part by James Drummond RSA who painted the riot in 1855.
The detritus of live painting.
Our pictures were situated back to back over the weekend and it was really great to have the two different styles complement and contrast one another and in an unintentional twist, even our clothes ended up matching our paintings.
Artists Chris Rutterford and Elph with their artwork and unintentionally matching clothing.
Elph also created some fantastic 360 degree footage of the two murals which can be viewed here: Elph 1 and Elph 2
Chris Rutterford working on his Porteous Riots mural in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle.
The 2016 ScotCon convention took place at Edinburgh’s Corn Exchange on 6th September and it drew fans of all things Scottish from all over the world. We met visitors from as far afield as France, Denmark and North America.
The event was Outlander themed (with a number of the cast members present) so the organisers asked me to take along a selection of Jacobite themed murals for the space. My cut-out figure of Jamie from Outlander was a popular item and we encouraged visitors to take selfies with him.
I dressed the space for ScotCon with numerous historic Scottish murals from my archive. Sandwiched between my Maggie Dickson/Grassmarket mural and our live painting space/table of lovely prints and posters, was the very talented Micaela Walker, who was also live painting a group portrait of Outlander characters.
We installed the bar scene of my Tam o’Shanter mural which provided an excellent backdrop for the ladies of Sgioba Luaidh Inbhirchluaidh who sang traditional songs at their waulking board.
I also brought them my Jacobite Rogues mural featuring a motley crew of Jacobite ruffians, which sat at the back of the stage, and also my pirates mural which ended up providing a backdrop for a Muay Thai martial arts demonstration.
Providing an added layer of atmosphere and authenticity to the Corn Exchange, a Scottish Country Dancing competition was in full flow and we made friends with the delightful Amy, pictured here with her little sister – both of whom won awards. Congrats!
I was of course painting live at the event, and made a fabulous new lion rampant royal flag. This was set on a splendid yellow tartan background, which was painted before the event by the awesome team of Fiona Rutterford and studio manager Sheila Masson.
