Tim Armstrong

MediaBook arts, Digital art, Glass, Illustration, Mixed media / Collage, Printmaking

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Commissions AcceptedYes

Tuition OfferedNo

Artist's StatementTim’s early work examined moiré patterns and illusions of movement. He changed to printmaking to explore patterns with traditional meanings, for example Gothic manuscripts and oriental carpets. While teaching in Glasgow School of Art he participated in the movement to paint murals on gable ends, supported by the Scottish Arts Council. This led to his interest in the relationship between art and architecture, which he studied by retraining in architectural glass. His recent work uses mirrors in constructions with multiple reflections, which combine optical illusions, reflections and coloured glass.

For summer 2023 Tim is showing a retrospective selection from more than half a century’s production including working drawings, cartoons for glass and finished works.He is exhibiting with his wife, Paula who is showing woven tapestries, constructed textiles and wall hangings.

Art StyleAbstract, Representational, Contemporary, Traditional, Illustrative, Conceptual

Art SubjectsAbstract, Figurative

Art Materialsacrylic, pen, ink, pencil, glass, paper

Tim Armstrong's Portfolios

Glass Constructions

These explore double mirror reflections and transparencies using the 60 degree angles of kaleidoscopes. The main technique is sandblasting.

Reflecting Pyramids Card, digital prints and mirrors

Dichroic Gothic

Dichroic Tower

Dichroic Tower

Two Glass Constructions

Glass Construction

Glass Construction

Glass Construction

Glass Construction Detail of front layer

Glass Construction Detail of front layer

Glass Construction Detail of front layer

Glass Construction

Glass Construction

Glass Construction

Glass construction

Glass Construction

Glass Construction Work in progress with experimental paper additions

Glass construction Work in progress with experimental paper additions

Glass Construction

Glass Construction

Glass constructionsGlass constructions

Tiger glass constructionTiger glass construction

Prints

Most of Tim's silkscreen prints are made using hand-cut stencils or masks. He adds photoprocessed imagery as required. Evolution over the years shifted from patterns that required viewing through optical screens to patterns with traditional meanings. He used digital prints to continue developing imagery with multiple references. He regards computers as useful tools but dislikes their tendency to impose instructions rather than obey them.

Silkscreen Print 1

Silkscreen Print 2

Silkscreen Print 3

Silkscreen print 4

Silkscreen print 5

Silkscreen print 6

Colour digital print 1

Maze and Temple

Maze and Temple Detail

Maze and Temple Enlarged detail

Colour digital print 3

Colour digital print 4

Colour digital print 5

Colour digital print 6

Murals

Murals vary according to clients' requirements, architectural setting and environmental considerations. Here Tim shows two contributions to the Scottish Arts Council's gable end scheme of the 1970s, and a recent mural for a domestic setting. The latter required perspective applied to a cylindrical wall.

Glasgow gable ends The first step, after the scaffolding goes up, is painting the background colour.

The lower area was divided into panels that anticipated graffiti. They were well used! 10 years on (graffiti) For the first mural (on the left) Blue Circle Cement donated the paint. Sandtex is good but is vulnerable to kids who light bonfires against it.

Sun and shade

Design features Features of local buildings provided inspiration for Tim's designs. All within 100 yards.

Colour matching Reddish brown matches the red sandstone of the buildings and the grit of the playing fields. Shadow lines influenced by shadow lettering on nearby shop fronts. Grey and black taken from Glasgow seen from a distance.

Similarities: Tim’s screenprints already had architectural references, which could be used for the murals, but had to be adapted to fit local features.

Helpers - Painters other than Tim included staff and students from Glasgow School of Art and members of the Glasgow League of Artists.

Saffron Walden Mixed features include the library and the market square.

Mural detail

Mural detail

Mural detail

Mural detail

Mural detail Find the faces. Some of the flowers have faces. The puzzel is to find them. (The client has grandchildren.)

Scrap Cat lived here Scrap the cat was much loved while she lived. The task for children is to find other cats depicted in the mural.

Commissions in stained glass

Most commissions require original designs, but some people choose a period or contemporary pattern. Designs can be adapted or mixed. Clients’ wishes come first, and designs should be suitable for the public or private buildings for which they are proposed. A site visit and consultation are usually required, then a design is agreed before work begins.

Initial media include ink, paint or anything suitable. Preliminary ideas may be exchanged as JPEG or other imagery by e-mail. A charge may be made for original designs. If so you will be informed in advance. There may be no fee for designs that are simply adapted from existing period patterns. Copyright rules apply.

Techniques on glass include printing, painting, sandblasting, computer design, leaded lights and work with mirrors.

Windows for Stamford Theatre Company

Windows for Stamford Outside detail

Stamford long shot

Stamford Scenes from 8 of Shakespeare's plays are derived from Victorian engravings depicting Elizabethan costumes.

TA by TH

Stamford detail

Stamford Acknowledgements: Thanks to Caroline Swash for tutorial advice and Central Saint Martins College of Art for use of the Glass Department’s kiln during the early stages of this project. Also thanks to Mark Aldridge and Derek Harrison, General Manager at Stamford for commissioning the project and organisation.

External wall

Panel for inside window

Domestic commission Details and work in progress

Installation in progress The client wanted a design adapted from existing leaded lights on a French staircase.

Window for a houseboat

Front door Outside view

Front door Inside view

Front door Top panels

Front door Two side panels. This project used new and old glass. Some made by Tim included printing and painting. Some fragments of church glass found after a demolition. Some discarded fragments rescued from bins. Design, cementing, cutting, kiln firing, leading and installation as usual by Tim. He does everything unless otherwise stated.

Inside door. Showing stages to completion

Stages in design Window for green oak barn used as swimming pool.

Dene Robertson helps Tim to install Window for greeen oak barn used for swimming pool

Window for oak barn swimming pool

Detail

Installation photos

Window for Nanoscience Centre, Cambridge This work mixes stacked glass (1568 pieces) with conventional leaded lights. Tim was asked to base the central leaded area on the logo of the Department. The logo itself (not Tim's design) appears on the Nanoscience website and represents the action of an "atomic force microscope". Continued next:

Window for NanoscienceFitting the slivers of stacked glass, which are seen edge on. Acknowledgements: Metal Fusion Technology Ltd., Unit B6/7 Brook Street Business Centre, Brook Street, Tipton DY4 9DD for making the aluminium frame to my design. Dave Roberts and technicians at the Engineering Department of Cambridge University for technical advice and making brackets to hang the frame. Continued next:

Glass for Nanoscience, CambridgeFinished installation. Stacked glass, aluminium, steel, mirror, plywood and conventional leaded lights. Acknowledgements (continued): Ron Halls of F. J. Halls and Son, The Forge, Molehill Green, Takeley, Bishop's Stortford, Herts. CM22 6PQ for steel inner frame. Dene Robertson for assistance with the installation.

Nano detail

Memorial church window The three lights depict Biblical stories featuring the roles of three women. Ruth and Hannah are from the Old Testament. Mary Magdalene is from the New, and features in the story of the Resurrection. The church dates mainly from the fourteenth century, and the style of the imagery refers to this. Continued next:

Memorial window central panel detail. . It incorporates and adapts figures from a range of late Gothic and early Renaissance paintings, and later works listed next. The earliest is by Duccio. Acknowledgements: The iron glazing bars were made by Ron Halls of F. J. Halls and Son, The Forge, Molehill Green, Takeley, Bishop's Stortford, Herts. CM22 6PQ. Continued next:

Memorial Window Cartoon, cutting and painting stages. Some of the sources for consulted for the design of the window: Duccio, Maestà front, predella, 1308-1311, Christ Disputing with the Scribes Duccio, Maestà reverse, 1308-1311, St. Peter First Denying Jesus Taddeo di Bartolo (1362-1422), L’Assunzione in Cielo della Vergine Fra Angelico, Noli me tangere, 1440-1441 Meister der Goldenen Tafel (vers 1420), La Résurrection Meister der Goldenen Tafel (vers 1420), Les Saintes Femmes au Saint-Sépulcre Giovanni di Paolo, St John the Baptist Retiring to the Desert, c 1454 Nachfolger Stefan Lochners, Le Christ et Marie Madeleine, Noli me tangere, 1450-1460 Martin Schongauer (1455-1488), Le Christ Apparaissant a Marie Madeleine. Continued next:

Ruth detailInspiration continued: Imitator of Andrea Mantegna, Noli me tangere (1460-1550?) Thomas Gainsborough, Mr and Mrs Andrews, c 1749 Jean-francois Millet, The Gleaners, 1857 Man Sleeping Near a Wood, engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi, date unknown, published by Adam and Charles 1892. The Simplon, engraved by W. Miller after a drawing by J.M.W. Turner, published by Adam and Charles 1892. Unknown Illustrator of Henry Davenport Northrop’s ‘Treasures of the Bible’, Samuel Presented to Eli, 1894

Memorial WindowSources for imagery continued: Unknown Illustrator of Henry Davenport Northrop’s ‘Treasures of the Bible’, After Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Ruth Gleaning in the Field of Boaz, 1894 Standard Bible Story Readers, Book Two, Lillie A. Faris, Standard Publishing Company, 1925, illustrated by O. A. Stemler and Bess Bruce Cleaveland, Hannah Dedicates Samuel, Biblical Art on the WWW Marjorie Blamey, Spring Snowflake, Snowdrop, Lily of the Valley, 1974

Glass Panels

Some glass hangings are fine for interiors, sometimes on the inside of windows. They come roughly under the title of architectural glass but may not be intended to take wind and rain from the outside. It's not an exact definition.

Various panels

Panel to hang on the inside of a window

Panel for interior window

Small panel 6

Small panel 5

Small panel 4

Small panel 3

Small panel 2

Small panel 1

Exhibition at Clare Hall, Cambridge

Exhibition at Mall Galleries, London

Panels

Panel Detail

Laced holes

Hanging Panel Stacked glass, lustred glass, ribbed glass and leaded lights. The moiré fringes are produced by firing a printed pattern on the back of the ribbed glass.

Commissioned Round WindowThe client wanted a traditional design. He installed it himself.

Socrates Text " I reflected as I walked away, well, I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of, but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know." Socrates

Methodical Sketchbook

Tim's Methodical Sketchbook (2022 publication) is a collection of starting ideas for students. It invites change, improvement and adaptation to relate local and global issues to readers’ personal creativity. It emphasises open-ended invention rather than prescription.

The book uses drawings, pictures, murals, prints, moiré movements, stereography, charts and diagrams to discuss the creative processes that are common to abstract art, representation and functional design. It’s an updated homage to Paul Klee’s Pedagogical Sketchbook, which was written for the Bauhaus 100 years ago. Today’s artists and designers must adjust to the issues of our time.

Paul Klee’s Sketchbook began by arranging fragments in logical order. Tim's does something similar. Sketches begin with fragments, instincts, representation and expression. As Klee observed, we also make things visible beyond mere representation. Hence the development from early sketches to finished designs. The progress is similar to the interaction between scientific research and technology.

Back.cover Back Cover Introduction

MSBpage1 Title Page

MSBpage3 Homage to Paul Klee

MSBpage10 Homage to Another Square

MSB pages17 and 18 Analytical Drawing

MSB pages 64 and 65 Showing transparent overlay

MSB pages 66 and 67 Dancing Lines

MSB pages 68 and 69 Dancing Lines

MSB pages 94 and 95 The Arrow (Creation Sequence)

MSB page 59 Musical Harmonics

MSB pages 42 and 43 Scribbles of Classification

MSB pages 81 and 82 Foundation Course Scheme

MSB pages 86 and 87 Functional Lines (Glasgow Murals)

MSB pages 78 and 79 Searching for Consistency

MSB page 72 Circle of Governance

MSB pages 76 and 77 Searching for Consistency Compatible / Incompatible / Alternating

MSB page 90 The Virus of Capitalism

MSB page 108Cambridge Open Windows

Kite homage to Paul Klee

Image for kite left

Kite for Klee.

Black is not Black, White is not White

Black is not Black - White is not White
Seven reasons why you are right

This addition to A Methodical Sketchbook completes Tim Armstrong’s tribute to Paul Klee’s Pedagogical Sketchbook, which was written for the Bauhaus a century ago. Klee’s writings emphasised the relationship between visual perception, simple beginnings and the journey from drawing by hand to open-ended and unlimited discovery.

Tim gives seven reasons why common sense should be alarmed by current trends that disparage such beginnings. He reasons that drawing and sketching remain vital in today’s world of invasive and mechanised virtual realities.

Dictators want to impose their visions on others. They say when black is black, and when it is white. They exploit information technology. Usually their edicts are interpreted politically. Tim understands them with reference to art, religion and money.