Tadeusz Deręgowski

Tunisia, London, Edinburgh

2012-01-29T16:46:00.000-08:00

Well, the bags are packed and I'm off painting for a month. Maybe there will be a little show in London.

I'm glad to get away from internet-land, with its strange fictions, for a while, so I'll probably just check my emails occasionally.

In March, assuming the trip is successful, I'll post the paintings I've done: which is likely to be an odd and contrasting crop. I felt that the work from the recent Santa Catarina journey suffered from "sameyness" the natural landscapes too alike to provide a varied crop- or my eye and skills to slight to emphasise sufficiently the differences between scenes.

Church at São Pedro de Alcántara

2012-01-28T10:09:00.000-08:00

Church at São Pedro de Alcántara, oil on card, 12 / 13.7 cm

It's difficult to know quite what to make of this church, which is painted a bright bubble-gum pink. It's in an old German colonial city- not that they let you forget that for one instant. The town in very prettily located and is orderly and pleasant.

Yard of a builders' supply merchant, two workmen

2012-01-27T07:38:00.000-08:00

Yard of a builders' supply merchant, two workmen, oil on card, 12 / 8.9 cm

One of the yards on the way to Ingleses. The workmen wear flip flops even when lifting heavy materials.

Landscape on the way to Lagoa; convention in art; postcards; painting in a show in Edinburgh

2012-01-25T14:23:00.000-08:00

Landscape on the way to Lagoa, oil on card, 9 / 13cm

One of those, somewhat conventionalised, paintings that I enjoy painting from time to time.

But "conventional" is not a bad thing: art must follow some conventions or other, or it'll fail to communicate. A picture cannot be wholly original: playing with conventions, then, is what matters. But can conventional be too conventional? At what point does a convention become bankrupt, lifeless?

Perhaps there is no visual form more conservative than the tourist postcard: this site is very enjoyable: http://rotographproject.blogspot.com/ Is it that very conservatism that makes the so beguiling? The way a series of visual conventions are imposed on a scenes wherever they are? Martin Parr pursues this in his wonderful Boring Postcards books.

If part of the pleasure of being an artist is in the escape from self and life's innumerable petty or major woes (a pleasure which it shares with cooking, dog-walking, crossword puzzles and innumerable other passtimes) then submitting to specific visual conventions holds a distinct appeal.

Happily a little painting of mine, Small Pines has been accepted by the 2012 Visual Arts Scotland Annual Exhibition, in Edinburgh.

House being built, stray dog

2012-01-25T03:05:00.000-08:00

House being built, stray dog, oil on card, 14.5 / 11 cm

A sort of kitchen sink realism here. There's a British school of painting which is very much about concentrated looking, and includes people as various as Bratby, Freud and Millais. Usually the subject matter of such pictures is banal and what matters is the intensity of scrutiny: it's anti-picturesque.

I must admit, that I don't actually much like this school, despite having entered the mindset myself here.

Ratones

2012-01-23T10:33:00.000-08:00

Ratones, oil on card, 9.2 / 12.2 cm

Very hot.

The Marina

2012-01-22T06:52:00.000-08:00

The Marina, Florianópolis, oil on card, 13 / 12.5 cm

I'm not doing much work these days: I'll be working very hard in Tunisia and London so I thought it wise to take a breather.

Putting on a little show

2012-01-18T09:26:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to Adriana and Jorge for help.

For reasons which completely escape me, everything here has to be done last minute, as if it's a personal favour. This means that to achieve anything here oiliness or pseudo-friendliness is a necessary quality.

Looking over the work itself, it strikes me that the paintings are actually much more difficult than I had imagined. I mean, they are harder to understand: they are less easy and open in sentiment than I had thought when painting them. I don't, honestly, think many people will like them but I am not sure that matters.

There is also a fair degree of variation: this is good.

It annoys me that the paper on which I set the paintings isn't perfectly flat: it's made of several paices joined together: in the future I'll use a painted board.

I haven't included any information about the pictures other than the titles. I used to do that, but this time I thought, what the hell, let them find out for themselves.

Small town

2012-01-18T03:19:00.000-08:00

Small town, oil on card, 13 /11 cm

Angelina, one of the little wealthy towns in the interior of Santa Catarina. Painted last year in October.

Song of the Sea: art exhibition

2012-01-15T06:11:00.000-08:00

*
Song of the Sea

Convidamos nossos amigos para o vernissage de Tadeusz Deręgowski que se realizara no Espaço Cultural Rita Maria de 19 a 27 de Janeiro de 2012.

O coquetel de abertura será dia 19 de janeiro as 19 horas na galeria que fica na parte superior da Rodoviária Rita Maria.

Favor confirmar sua presença através do e-mail: tadeusz598@yahoo.co.uk

Mais detalhes sobre o artista em:

http://tadeuszderegowski.blogspot.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tadeuszderegowski/sets/

My shoes

2012-01-11T07:07:00.000-08:00

Three pairs of brothers

I have three pairs of shoes that are identical in in design and size, though they have aged differently. You can see their three ages above. And in a year, perhaps, I shall get another: four pairs of brothers.

They were all bought at the same shop, with about one year intervals between them.

Their shape is immensely pleasing to me. They are a little pointed, a hint of Gothic, but not so pointed as to arrive at the mannerism of the winkle picker. They do not have girly decorations: no whorls, or additional bits of leather, or preposterous seams. The leather is very good: supple, breaking in nicely.

A negative is that the soles are a little thin, though were they thicker, the shoe would be unbalanced, visually.

So I have to take them to a Paraguayan up in Trindade every few months. There are two Paraguayans and they have shops almost opposite each other: both have fat square faces and bad teeth and spade hands but one is charming but useless, the other brisk and efficient and seldom comes out from the back. A women, perhaps his wife, handles all the transactions. She isn't that friendly but once they gave replaced my laces for free. Last time she refused to repair the pair on the left, saying that the welts had gone, therefore the soles no longer worth fising: hence the purchase on the right two months ago. I respect a trademan when he refuses work, though I left saddened. I am considering, therefore, taking the shoes to the other Paraguayan repairer, who is certainly less conscientious, but more perhaps more sensible to the demands of sentiment.

Another negative is that the the makers, Brooksfield, seem to have a passion for chocolate, so that their shoes are generally variations on chocolate colours, from dark through to Cadbury's milk. I'd be happier if Brooksfield had a passion for Chestnuts or mahogany, something redder.

But as the shoes get older and I add polish of a more pleasing hue, they change and develop a lovely patina. In the Hotel Mercury Hotel along the road is a wonderful machine, and not the worst thing you can do on a dull day is to cover the shoes liberally with polish and stand by the lift and put your shoes in the machine which has who entrances each with a different brush- one for the initial phase of brushing with a stiff brush, the second with a finer one for buffing up a glowing polish. But for some reason that glow doesn't stay for long. Perhaps had I trained in the Guards I'd know why: I'd be sure of the correct technique, which I think may have something to do with heating the polish a little before applying it, and then spitting on the shoe a good deal before polishing.

You can see the three generations of shoes in the photo: when I went to the shop last time and bought the newest pair the shop assistant exclaimed, "oh my God! They are like those shoes in old Italian films"- which delighted me: I love "Bicycle Thieves", even if I am not sure I want to be one of the characters in it.

I like these shoes because though they could certainly tell stories, having been been all over Europe and seen many things, they chose not too because they are stoical, they don't blab, they merely absorb experience: theirs will be the patient silent faces of photos by Dorotea Lange.

Making Friends with Michael Smout

2012-01-10T05:28:00.000-08:00

The birthday parties were an exchange between our mothers: a suburban pact, possibly never spoken, but certain nonetheless. I had little, I suspected, in common with Malcolm. Naturally, I felt a certain kinship with any other boy who was weak of frame but, he was distracted, too soft, and ill constructed with thin legs and thin straight hair while I was merely small.

And there was a current of aggression in the boys I usually played with: a tendency to destructiveness that I found charismatic, represented better in Graeme MacDonald's pugnaciousness and in Julian Dyer with his mad mass of blond hair and extraordinary collection of firearms (he shot Jonathan Rust in the leg, thus two weeks sentenced to a fortnight’s nightly reflection in his bedroom in Deeside Gardens: we loved and admired him for this, though the shooting was surely accidental).

Michael Smout lived in one of those low suburban houses, coddled together like woodlice, pewter silver in sun-rain combinations, a dull violet most days. They’re a weird contrast to the august Georgian and Victorian that characterises central Aberdeen: they sprall over Aberdeen’s wide hills, covering vast areas, but never really seem to add much to the city, they just lie there, mute, guarding their tiny gardens.

His mother, avian, sweet, a friendly sparrow, so like my own mother, with that energy that small women sometimes possess; organising wonderful birthday parties in their densely carpeted front room with a game where you sang, “there was an old man called Michael Finnegan”, in a round over and over and another where each sat on the knee of the one behind, forming a sort of centipede, then laughing would topple over. I recall that game and its physicality, how the children became a squirming mass, too close, almost squalid, the smell of other skin.

But I could feel that it incumbent upon me to call alone, to cement the nascent friendship. I can’t recall if that was because my mother said something: most probably there was more than a hint. But I made somehow the determination to visit Michael Smout.

It was all arranged by the mothers.

Going up there, pollarded Elms remaining despite the British Elm holocaust, twisted darked trunks, wiry, feeling that the air up there on Countesswells road is damper, windier too, no more sheltered by high granite walls and soft green privet hedges, seeing the beginnings of muddy ploughed fields.

I arrived: Michael said, “let’s go upstairs”: he led me to a wooden stair rising from the narrow hall. He climbed; I followed to an attic, dark: inside was a dangling bulb : he lit it and I saw the room with its low sloping ceiling, even for a boy of nine, too low to walk comfortably. There were coloured boxes of toys, a fair collection then piles of clothes, disorder, dampness. I had a stray sense of squalor, that something was not right. But I was determined to make the best of the play date.

While my Quaker mother forbade war toys and anything that might encourage my bellicose boy instincts, Michael’s mother was lax , or too kind to be severe and it transpired that Michael had a fine collection of Dinky tanks. These included, to my patriotic horror, models of German panzers: a horrific presence, symbols of evil. Their cannons held little springs, and you could fire matchsticks from them. We sat on the floor, spread them out, we fired the matchsticks.

The floor was dusty and uncomfortable but I tried to respond creatively to Michael’s hospitality, diligently firing the cannon and trying to demolish his plastic legions of Airfics infantrymen. Some time passed like that, but Michael became restless. He decided to take off his trousers: he was wearing brown polyester underpants. I chose to concentrate on firing the panzer cannons. We continued to play with the toys. Then he stood up again and went to the far corner of the attic, where he took a plastic bucket. “Look, we can use this”, he said. “Oh”, I said. Then Michael placed the bucket on the floor, pulled down his brown underpants, sat on the bucket and proceeded to excrete.

The smell of Michael’s turd was not pleasant. Indeed, it disgusted me: I had never perceived that shit was so foul: my stomach wretched.

I cannot remember now exactly how the visit ended : I suppose I made my excuses and left. Perhaps Michael had intended the act of excreting publicly as a gesture of fellowship, a sharing of intimacies: if so it was a miscalculation, for it had the opposite effect.

I did not mention the incident to my mother.

This is a true story, but the name Michael Smout is made up.

Dear Annie...a letter I found

2012-01-09T04:30:00.000-08:00

Here's a letter I found inside a book (Voltaire's Candide):

Dear Annie,

It is a long time since I last heard from you: I hope you've been well.

My room is at the end of a long corridor, and overlooks the courtyard. It's small and I have to lie on the bed to take my shoes off. I have a wardrobe, a small desk, a chair and a bed. I love the wardrobe, which is a dark wood thirties thing, Utility issue. I can sit inside and enjoy the dark silence. If you come and visit we could sit in it together. You'd like it's mysterious smell, dust and wax combined.

I sit at the desk and look out the window. Usually I hear little from the courtyard save the sound of water running down the drains. There's frosted glass on most windows but at times, I catch the creaking sound of a frame moving and the face of one of my neighbours appears, usually a pasty woman, with grey fair hair, a face suspended in the indeterminate period that strikes some women, older than twenty -five but younger than sixty. Sometimes it is another face, the face of a little plump girl: her fresh pink mouth smiles, her eyes are tiny bright black dots in her fleshy face.

Also, twice I saw a Siamese cat, perched with absurd elegance on the seat of an old bicycle... so the atmosphere is tranquil, like a Dutch painting: I wouldn't be surprised to see a clog-wearing servant appear with a white smock and bonnet and broom at any moment, clogs clicking on the cobbles.

I'm fighting the goblins still, but we have reached a sort of truce: the room has been divided in two.

We marked the floor with a white chalk: theirs are the areas between the door and my furniture- though the place is so small that to reach my furniture I must always trespass and, moreover, the chalk line cuts the left side of the bed (the only way we could realise complete parity of room area), so I have to be wary when I sleep not to let my body stray over to the side. But that was the best compromise we could find. At least they aren't shrieking all the time.

I hope to see you soon,

T.

I suppose I wrote the letter some years ago in Camberwell.

Illustration: Arched Windows, monotype, 45 / 61 cm, 2003

Love Revisited

2012-01-08T15:57:00.000-08:00

I am thinking about our love affair. How you met me at the station and we went immediately to your place and made love.

Why did you insist on my keeping my socks on?

I remember the taxi ride from St Pancras and the smell of new rubber on the inside of the cab, which was one of those bizarrely inflated to accommodate gigantic wheelchairs. When I commented this you admonished me, telling me about how your mother found them very useful.

There was often this disquieting tension between us, which passion did not quite fill. Anyway, I sensed that. Did you?

You took me to a little French place in Soho. You ordered crepes, recommending them gushingly, though I found them meretricious at best, with an unpleasing lack of crispness. I did not mention this. It began to rain heavily. I felt sick after the crepes but, as we made our wet way up Wardour Street, made a solid effort to ensure the umbrella mainly covered your head, protecting your precious hair, whie serendipitously allowing sufficient rain to wetten the fabric of your thin summer dress round your backside so that I could see the elastic line of your panties across your hips: only an unusually thick rubber could lend such a clear line.

I think of that as our principal erotic moment, much more than the bedroom scene earlier: I’d felt humiliated by the sock-wearing, and I am grateful to the cold London rain for its blessing, a compensation from the Fates. Shyly, shamefully, I did not act on my instincts and give that elastic a good twang. After the conversation about your disabled mother I'd felt constrained: my lower moral intelligence too keenly exposed for me to act spontaneously.

Now you are married: I know because I ran into your half-brother. I can't remember which one, there seemed to be so many. This one was quite charming: there does exist a fellowship among men, and his eyes read large with pity. He was wearing a good suit and in a hurry, but for moments, at the entrance to Marylebone Underground, we shared something with glances and platitudes.

I'm standing in Camberwell waiting for the 36 with the polluted air.

Illustration: Someone you once loved, monotype, 554 / 84 cm, 2009

Sorrowful day

2012-01-08T06:51:00.000-08:00

Sorrowful day, oil on card, 14 / 11.5 cm

Heavy days: a difficult time.

Duck II

2012-01-06T12:25:00.000-08:00

Duck II, oil on card, 14 / 13 cm

A second duck from yesterday.

Duck

2012-01-05T08:17:00.000-08:00

Duck, oil on card, 11.5 / 9 cm

There is a pleasant "cleansing" feeling to working in black and white after having worked in colour for a while.

I think I may drive to one of the zoos here- there is one in Pomerode and another in Brusque to see if I can spend a day doing more animals.

Santa Catarina Road Trip 2011: fourteen paintings: the final set of four

2012-01-03T02:18:00.000-08:00

Pass in the mountains, oil on card, 14.5 / 11.5 cm

Pines, oil on card, 14.5 / 12 cm

Orleans, oil on card, 14 / 12.5 cm

Road, Rancho Queimado, oil on card, 14 / 12 cm

Well, that was 2011: a strange and sometimes difficult year.

Santa Catarina Road trip: Fourteen Paintings: the second set of five

2012-01-02T03:27:00.000-08:00

Road, Paraíso, oil on card, 14.5 / 9.5 cm

Street on the outskirts of São Miguel (lady with a parasol), oil on card, 13 / 12 cm

Near Palmitos, oil on card, 14.5 / 12 cm

Fazenda Derrubada, oil on card, 14.5 / 11.5 cm

Fields near Lages, oil on card, 14 / 11cm

Santa Catarina Road trip: Fourteen Paintings: the first five

2012-01-01T11:07:00.000-08:00

The BR 282 near the turnoff to Urubici, oil on card, 13/ 11cm

Campos Novos: a view from a hotel, oil on card, 13 / 11 cm

Campos Novos: the evening skateboarder, oil on card, 11.5 / 13.5 cm

Landscape near Ponte Serrada, oil on card, 13 / 11.5 cm

Industrial building on the outskirts of Maravilha, oil on card, 14.5 / 11.5 cm

Itinerary:

Day one: Florianópolis- Lages- Campos Novos
Day two: Campos Novos- São Miguel do Oeste
Day three: São Miguel do Oeste- Paraíso- São Miguel do Oeste
Day four: São Miguel do Oeste- Chapecó- Curitibanos
Day five: Curitibanos- Orleans
Day six : Orleans- Florianopolis

Five nights and six days driving and stopping: fourteen paintings. Doing more in my little Celta would be hard as my right arm started to ache badly: it's a city car really.

But I feel I've won a good sense of the state: there isn't now a region I haven't visited. The most interesting, both culturally and topographically, is the Serra from Lages through to Orleans, where Brazilians of usually Central European descent live in a landscape of considerable variety, with amazing mountains and valleys, where the temperature varies much and little communities heft there way forward, steadily in coloured wooden houses, like characters from Growth of the Soil.

I've no truck with the rubbishy modern Brazil of identikit shopping malls and degrading television. Nor do I find much in the Brazil of Carnival and foolishness, which serves as a palliative for low educational expectations and squalor. I don't like the Brazil of Brasilia and of bureaucracy and politics and greed and legal minds. I detest the disorder and filth of the big cities, and those rich Brazilians in their preposterous four-wheel drives and Barbie wives and smugness, cruising from their costly prison-condominiums through dismal streets where beggars and drug-addicts sleep in thousands, to office blocks whose only architectural qualities are their lack of distinction. And I find the holiday Brazil of beaches and sungas indescribably banal.

I sense an intrinsic worth to the communities that patiently tend their allotments late into the evenings, and who are polite, conservative and, at least superficially or sentimentally, religious. I like the sun hardened faces of the people with their stern lines and reserve, I like seeing them with their cattle or driving their trucks and I like how they don't say too much and are modest and tough.

I don't entirely like travel, with its dislocations and the mental travais that brings in the melancholy of strange evening hotels: does the work make it worthwhile?

Glancing over, there are good individual pictures, but across the series there are too many repetitions of design, often a consequence of using the same level of distance from the motif, usually with little foreground.

And I'm wary that I'm starting to use and re-use certain "catchphrase" brush strokes- typically a certain whiplash line-a mannerism, I should be careful not to instinctualise. The solution is to re-think the entire architecture of the painting: to begin at another point: though quite what that means in practice I am not clear as yet. It has something to do with classicism, to do with reinvesting in the underlying construction of the work and the conscious rejection of easy gestures.

Also, the small standardised format is becoming too much the same: it's become a limitation. So I need to vary more, with some larger pieces, about A5, I reckon.

There's a sky-land dichotomy which all landscapists face: an obvious central contrast defining the composition from the onset. But when landscapists like Klimt rebel against that format, the result often appears contrived, as if the novelty of composition has taken over from the actual perception of nature: so I’m somewhat uncertain how to vary this, or even if it is in vain to try.

The landscapist makes a peculiar claim to be painting the world (at the other end of the spectrum is the still lifer, though those philosophically minded might say that there is no less of the world in a flower petal than in a an entire Alpine vista) and from this derives the ecstasy that landscapists feel: a pantheistic joy so glamorously conveyed in van Gogh, Munch and Turner. Ergo, there is a weight of responsibility upon him, not necessarily present in other genres.

Annual Review: Flickr, Blogger, Facebook, Saachi, Deviantart, Art and Artists

2011-12-25T06:56:00.000-08:00

Preamble

The year has essentially been good, with a decent level of production, some sales and positive gallery contacts in Edinburgh.

In terms of quality, the work varies. Art is not craft, nor is it decoration: it's an experimental research, and the products of any artist necessarily vary in quality. A percentage of work -even whole weeks or months- can be spent in futile searches. This is not enjoyable, but the alternative is to lean into insipidity or mere craftsmanship.

This year, however, has consolidated somewhat: when I began blogging a couple of years ago I was in a very uncertain phase, trying many new media, and techniques, and themes, in an attempt to find my feet.

I elected to follow the path of "itinerant painter", humbly in the footsteps of painter-heroes such as Turner and Lear. I felt that this would be a way to combine the pleasures of travel, of observation, of personal reflection with the delight of painting, and allow me to escape from private ruminations, which are rarely, in truth, of much interest to anyone else, even when lent artistic form. With this role, I joyfully visited Italy, Malta, am touring Brazil, and will, in February, go to London, Scotland and Tunisia.

Ergo, over the last year, I have been considerably more focused on painting "pochades": portable small paintings about the sises of postcards, or even smaller.

My production, naturally, varies in quality: there are a fair proportion of "duds": at least 15%. There are works which are, I think exemplary, perhaps one in thirty , and then there is the grey mass, whose quality is never easy to discern.

It can be said that making very bad painting is better from an learning perspective than making mediocre ones, in that they illustrate faults with much less ambiguity. Contrawise, when things "go right", I always hate that touched by the hand of God feeling, which both athletes and artists share on rare, brilliant days: such instances teach nothing, even as they lend moments of ecstasy.

Like many artists, I possess a "blind spot" when it comes to judging my own work: things which seem wonderful to me on the day of painting, on the next appear meretricious. Others, which I dismissed soon after making, later seem to possess some interest.

Flickr

This site remains excellent for attracting new viewers. The fact that I can show my work in various virtual groups allows me to find new followers. The site is elegant and easy to use.

There are 545 followers, up from 454 last year.

Blogger

I have been posting here steadily, with commentaries. I went through a period of posting film reviews on here too: later I came to the conclusion, from reading other online film reviews, that I have little or nothing to add to the good work done by many well known critics, my own opinions really differing little from theirs. Ergo, I slowly stopped publishing my reviews.

The indexing system is superb, allowing : rapid thematic connection between postings. Choosing keywords is not easy: too general and it is useless, an too specific fill fail to connect one post with another. Should there be separate keywording for "sea" and "sea painting" for instance? But, as my blog develops, which keywords are useful will become more obvious.

So now the site concentrates almost entirely on my own art production.

There are now 59 followers, up from 43: I rarely get feedback though Blogger, however.

Facebook

I've been showing work here steadily through the year. It is quite effective as it bridges social networks and art sites. I recommend it. It has been good for generating sales and interest. I have "friends"- few of who met me there specifically to follow my work.

Deviantart

This inelegant and fussy site is not much good- I think it''s primarily aimed at teenagers. I have now 39 followers, up from 10 last year.

Saachi

I have found this site utterly useless in terms of making contacts with other artists, rarely receiving comments or any interest whatsoever. My feeling is that it attracts strictly careerists, and they have little notion of community. I will probably stop posting here.

Art and Architecture

I have joined this site a few days ago. Let's see how it goes: http://artandarchitecture.co.uk/

I feel a broad sympathy with it's objectives, though it isn't elegant.

A white rabbit

2011-12-22T08:55:00.000-08:00

A white rabbit, oil on card, 12.1 / 14.2 cm

Mr Rabbit was very good, moving just a little while posing.

The mountain, Palhoça; miniaturism

2011-12-17T08:02:00.000-08:00

The mountain, Palhoça, oil on card, 11.7 / 14.7 cm

Palhoça is one of those towns on the periphery of Florianopolis, like so many satellite towns in other Brazilian cities, so undistinguished that is it difficult to know quite why it exists.

But there is the mountain: undeniable, like the mountains in Poussin, rendering all below to insignificance.

Further thoughts on miniaturism, and small painting- notably the observations that the act of painting small seems happily to place one in opposition to bombast -as I write, as my country idiotically flings money at that costly, grandiose, pea-brained extravagance called the Olympic Games, giving good taxpayers money on ephemeral kitsch while cutting vital assistance for people with severe disabilities.

More pertinently, have not most art lovers at some point in their pilgrimages found themselves wandering with dulled eyes through vast chambers in European Galleries and Palaces, uncharmed by endless rows of joyless gigantic Baroque paintings, extolling this or that official virtue, lined up in great halls in European galleries and palace, to find themselves suddenly delighted by a small and intimate painted voice?

The red flag, Praia Mole; Seurat; Primrose Hill

2011-12-16T10:02:00.000-08:00

The red flag, Praia Mole, oil on card, 15 / 12 cm

Choppy sea. Hot. Painting and watching the motion of the waves- too fast for ease, then perversely thinking of Seurat's marines, their stillness. Then thoughts moving to Primrose Hill in London, how oddly calm it is there as you cross that funny footbridge from Regents Park Road to Chalk Farm- though looking at the satellite map now it appears a road bridge has now opened there...so perhaps it is strangely Seurat calm no more but agitated with the rush of traffic. I shall investigate in February, perhaps.

Road-building 2, Lagoa; travel painting: my secret shame

2011-12-15T09:13:00.000-08:00

Road-building, oil on card, 15 / 12 cm

A particularly shimmering day, God-made with Velázquez, perhaps.

This is the second of an open and occasional series tracing the building of this new suburban development being constructed on some heathland, which I had previously painted.

This time I am again on the rise, but about two hundred metres further over from the road.

My secret shame as a painter of landscapes and whose work is increasingly dependent on travel, is that I dislike travel itself.

I don't like the actual processes of travel, apart from trains or the buying of tickets and planning as I find I find this stressful. I have generalised worries that something is going to go wrong. I don't like having to speak foreign languages and I feel nervous in new places. I am suspicious of all strangers, especially if they want to help me. I don't like hotels and hostels and I don't like strange food. I worry continually about being robbed or losing something. I resent paying huge sums for simple items and consumables. I don't like being alone for long periods and I don't like losing my routines.

In short, I am a pitiful traveller.

Quite what the solution to this is, I don't know, though I have found that the best thing is to imagine a worst case scenario ( robbed and gang raped in the mountains of Tunisia, reads the headline in the Daily Mail, perhaps), then judge the likelihood of this, then place all the other pettier worries on a sliding scale, to illustrate their triviality.

The benefits gained in terms of inspiration well exceed these caveats.

From Ishbel's III

2011-12-14T09:22:00.000-08:00

From Ishbel's III, oil on card, 11.7 / 14.5 cm

The third picture from Ishbel's wonderful place above Lagoa.

I feel tired and have been working less. To paint well, you need to feel fresh: if you start forgetting the strangeness of what you are doing, taking your motives and materials for granted, ennui is a certainty.

Ostrich

2011-12-11T09:27:00.000-08:00

Ostrich, oil on card, 13.5 / 10.8 cm

Painted at the north of the island- thanks to César and Angela for letting me use their balcony.

From Ishbel's II

2011-12-07T09:26:00.000-08:00

From Ishbel's II, oil on card, 11 /14 cm

The second painting from Ishbel's house in Lagoa.

I'm happier with the sky than I have been in previous paintings: working from a darker ground seems to help.

Praia Joquina: lifeguard; exhibition

2011-12-05T10:05:00.000-08:00

Praia Joaquina: lifeguard, oil on card, 12 / 14.9 cm

I am thinking of having a little show consisting only of sea paintings. There are about 30 little ones in total. I wondered whether this might be monotonous, or whether the narrowness of theme could have the opposite effect, by encouraging comparisons.

I laid out the thirty paintings and they are not too bad, though I feel that it is probably better to present a smaller selection, say 12, because the eye gets weary, and showing too many things can have a cheapening effect.

Santo Amaro de Imperatriz from above

2011-12-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

Santo Amaro de Imperatriz from above, oil on card, 11.2 / 13.5 cm

Another Saturday visit to this beautifully located little town, which I love to paint.

I wish I could easily go and see some of Kokoschka's or Bomberg's paintings. Seeing things online is only really good as a reference and both were fellow itinerants, painting places from above.

Road-building I, Lagoa

2011-12-01T09:52:00.000-08:00

Road-building, Lagoa, oil on card, 13.5 / 12.5 cm

A new suburban area being contstructed where previously lay heathland.

The lake from Ishbel's house

2011-11-30T08:34:00.000-08:00

The lake from Ishbel's house, oil on card, 13.5 / 12 cm

The first of a little run of pictures from this beautiful house.

Many thanks to Ishbel for letting me work here, and for giving me lunch.

Nocturne: in a new suburb

2011-11-27T07:34:00.000-08:00

Nocturne: in a new suburb, oil on card, 12 / 8.7 cm

Welcome to the new Florianopolis: faceless blocks showing little imagination, with few green spaces, and little to delight. How do people remember which block is theirs?

Entrance to a salvage yard

2011-11-26T08:37:00.000-08:00

Entrance to a salvage yard, oil on card, 14.5 / 12 cm

Painted in São José, among a network of streets where dilapidation is the norm. There seem to be a huge number of businesses devoted to car tyres in these run-down areas, these interzones, where towns becomes highways.

Rooftops, Itacorubi

2011-11-25T08:11:00.000-08:00

Rooftops, Itacorubi, oil on card, 14 /12.5 cm

The view from my bedroom, thinking of Købke’s masterpiece of 1835, One of the Turrets of Fredericksborg Castle. I also think of Hopper, and David's 1974, View of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.

Being on a roof invites contrary emotions: one is simultaneously above the world, God-like, but then also aware of the danger of falling, and the impossibility of going anywhere, and therefore trapped and vulnerable. There are movies which explore this in chase sequences.

Poplars, Rio Tavares

2011-11-24T07:26:00.000-08:00

Poplars, Rio Tavares, oil on card, 12 / 14.5 cm

Quite hot: delightful to drive down these back roads, to sit painting in the car, listen to Bach and then have a wonderful Brasillian kilo lunch.

It doesn't get much better.

Popular housing, Saco Grande

2011-11-22T09:01:00.000-08:00

Popular housing, Saco Grande, oil on card, 14.2 / 12 cm

The dog decided to lie in the middle of the road: it disappeared when the drizzles came on.

A heavy day, pregnant with rain, lending that luminous light, which I perhaps haven't quite captured.

I am becoming more and more interested in the movements of people, making these poorer, car free places much more fun to work in.

Early evening

2011-11-21T02:27:00.000-08:00

Early eveing, Lagoa, oil on card, 11.3 / 13.1 cm

Painted down in Lagoa

I tend to alternate between urban themes and nature. I fear obvious beauty...

A poor neighbourhood

2011-11-20T07:40:00.000-08:00

A poor neighbourhood, oil on card, 11.7 / 14 cm

Painted behind the Havan store, Capoeiras.

As far as painting goes, these poorer areas are considerably more interesting than middle-class condo-land. There's a variety of buildings, in a range of colours, some of which seem to be ever in a state of construction and addition and people can be seen to be doing things, their lives not shut away behind doors.

There can still be found in Brazil considerable areas of cities taken up by the sort of repair shops, little restaurants, pubs, and stores that are the subject of some of Atget's photo series. In Brazil these are always slightly askew and brightly coloured. I think it would be fascinating for a child to grow up in such an environment. I feel dismay when I see emerge the new Brasil of identikit shopping malls and insipid ready made condominiums.

I feel nervous painting in such neighbourhoods though, sensing a close potential for disorder (I feel much the same about Brixton in London) - although the people who approached me were pleasant (much as they have been to me when painting in Brixton too) one kindly advising me that I had left my car lights on. Some of that nervousness is present in the picture, I think.

Working from the car, observing, painting seems voyeuristic and impolite but it is safer and more comfortable: if I'd known someone in the neighbourhood to introduce me it would have been better.

Two more from near Santo Amaro de Imperatriz

2011-11-19T09:31:00.000-08:00

Carriers, with matches for scale: there is considerable perspective distortion here, but at least it gives an impression of scale.

A mountain near Santo Amaro de Imperatriz, oil on card, 9.3 / 11.5 cm

Animals in a field, oil on card, 14.5 / 12.5 cm SOLD

I drove out to the splendid countryside about 20 miles from Florianopolis.

Houses on the way the Joaquina beach; December Santa Catarina Road trip

2011-11-17T08:47:00.000-08:00

Houses on the way the Joaquina beach, oil on card, 14.1 / 10.4 cm

Painted some weeks ago: I don't know why, but I didn't feel great about it at the time, partly because I had some problems getting a decent photo.

I'm gearing myself up for a great December Santa Catarina road trip- from Florianopolis to the west and back. A week spend driving (very slowly as I dont like driving for much more than 200 miles a day), stopping here and there for painting and to streach my legs. Then all the way back.

I think to drive to Sao Miguel do Oeste via Lages, Curitibanos, Concordia and Chapecó, and to return through São Lourenço, Caçador, Santa Cecilia, Rio do Sul and Timbo. But none of this is set in stone.

Campeche

2011-11-16T07:01:00.000-08:00

Campeche, oil on card, 14.5 / 11.5

Painted from the dunes: I almost stood on a huge li

Two Brazilians walk along the highway, a dog forages

2011-11-14T03:01:00.000-08:00

Two Brazilians walk along the highway: a dog forages, oil on card, 12.5 / 14.5 cm

A rather Nordic- specifically Norwegian- style: the dog came in part homage to Frédéric Glorieux, a French painter with an affection for animals.

Today was heavy and close, refusing to rain: you feel tired and hopeless on such days, wishing the air would clear. I watched an excellent film called "The Road".

I must sort some kind of plan for Christmas.It will be dismal to rot here. Perhaps I can drive somewhere?

Timber yards off SC 401

2011-11-13T04:24:00.000-08:00

Timber yards off SC 401, oil on card, 9.5 / 11 cm

A small painting: I love the intimacy and intensity that you can get when working small.

I like the play that comes when between painting great themes on a small scale: a sort of psychological game linked to miniaturisation, where the viewer has to "peer in".

White horse, Ratones

2011-11-12T10:12:00.000-08:00

White horse, Ratones, oil on card, 13.8 / 12 cm

Today was quite delightful. I woke up with a handover and things improved from then on (as Frank Sinatra put it: “I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day”). And I believe, but I am not sure, that Thomas Mann said, "men work best when they are tired", and my feeling is that being a bit tired and hungover can be good for certain activities as you are only able to concentrate on the one activity and therefore less distracted.

So, all in all it was a good painting day: I drove to Ratones, a quiet neighbourhood in the north of the island with a pleasant landscape of rocky fields and trees. There seem to be many wild birds there and it is very charming how the road winds past fields and wooded areas.

Modernist building at night

2011-11-11T02:44:00.000-08:00

Modernist building at night, oil on card, 14 / 10.8 cm

Driving about the car park of UDSC yesterday at night- as one does, naturally, looking for something to paint, I realised what an uttely wonderful modernist building this is- the painting doesn't do justice to its subtlties.

It is the building housing fine arts. Actutally, it looks far better at night than during the day: the spotlighting serves to show the angles of walls and openings very clearly. The bright sunlight of Brasil tends to flatten everything during the day, so everything becomes either light or dark shadow, there being no grey, intermediate tones.

Nocturne: night walkers' song

2011-11-10T02:20:00.000-08:00

Night-walkers' Song: oil on card, oil on card, 11.2 / 14 cm

The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.

From Byzantium by William Butler Yeats

Discarded Electro-domestics- a schoolgirl returns home.

2011-11-08T07:51:00.000-08:00

Discarded electro-domestics- a schoolgirl returns home, oil on card, 12 / 14.7 cm

I felt melancholic painting this, remembering suddenly the many years spent going to and fro, home and back, to schools in Aberdeen, schools in which I learnt almost nothing and where I was, in general, miserable and bored- a fate of many bright chidren in British state schools, whose function is mainly as holding pens for working parents.

I don't think schools here in Brasil are better- I went to one and it was not impressive. I felt sorry for the ambitious children there whose time was being wasted, and who were clearly unhappy.

Bus station car park painting

2011-11-08T02:40:00.000-08:00

Bus station car park painting, oil on card, 12 / 15 cm

Painted in one of the little towns off the BR410- probably Biguaçu.

The style makes me think of children's books.

Portait of a Russian Woman; free pictures

2011-11-07T03:11:00.000-08:00

Portait of a Russian Woman, oil on canvas, 73 x 60 cm

One of six portraits that were painted in the same corner of a flat in Maida Vale, London, about ten years ago. At the time, my notion was to create a huge series (very Perec-ian, perhaps), featuring many different sitters: life, however, got in the way.

At the time I was into portraiture, having had the notion of making a career of it. But I discovered that I lacked dependable accuracy in drawing likenesses. I was especially poor at depicting women, partly because my painting style was so angular that they appeared, literally, hatchet-faced.

I am sending this one to France, along with a nbumber of other paintings. It's great to find homes for pictures which have been sitting in storage: paintings should be seen and enjoyed.

Ergo, should readers see things they like here or on Flickr- particularly larger things, and want them, please let me know and I will send them to you if you pay the postage, packing, and handling costs.

Builders Yards near the turn-off to Santa Antonio

2011-11-06T08:49:00.000-08:00

Builders Yards near the turn-off to Santa Antonio, oil on card, 13.5 x 11.5 cm

Painted from the car- a beautifully sunny day, almost too hot for comfort.

I also drove around Ratones, an interesting, quiet area which looks ideal for painting- the road winds and undulating, there are few tourists, horses graze.

São Paulo

2011-11-05T03:52:00.000-07:00

From the Cinelândia Hotel, oil on card, 11.2 x11.6cm

Well, I spent most of last week visiting galleries in São Paolo, hoping to find someone to help show my work. Perhaps I got a lead, but I am not optomistic. I am not sure why it is so difficult here: my pictures are selling and are accessable. Perhaps it is simply that there isn't much of a market here, and this makes dealers nervous.

São Paolo is a loathesome place: a brutalised environment with no end of beggers and homeless people. It is highly polluted and I became ill there almost immediately.

However, there is a nice collection of paintings in the USP Muesum of Contemporary Art, itself located in a fine park. I liked seeing the calm Morandis and wonderful Pancetti.

Pochade carriers; São Paulo; February 2012: Tunisia, London and Scotland: places to paint

2011-10-30T05:49:00.000-07:00

Pochade carriers: there are forty odd. I'm going to São Paolo this week to see if I can find a gallery to represent me. I need to make a few more of these carriers for the coming trips. People seem to find the carriers quite charming.

Tunisia

I shall be there for fourteen days. Following from my experience of previous trips, for painting it is better to stay in than stay somewhere for three or four days than to travel around a lot, because then you can then take your time more to see what is really worth painting. Also you lose less time with changing hotels and so forth. I think therefore to stay in Tunis and in Sousse perhaps with a trip down to the south somewhere such as Matmata.

Tunisia is not huge, so crossing it from north to south can, I guess, be done in a day.

Perhaps (not in order):

1. Carthage
2. Grande mosque
3. Dougga
4. Sidi Bou Said
5. Holy city of Kairouan
6. Matmata- wonderful buildings
7. El Djem amphitheatre
8. Sousse- the Medina

Scotland

It is sure to be utterly freesing. The cold, however isn't what makes painting in Britain difficult, it's the fact that the weather changes rapidly, so no sooner have you started a picture than you have to restart it!

I'll go to Rosslyn Chapel, and if I can, from Edinburgh, some scenes from Carlton Hill. Also the spectacular Dean Bridge.

London

I'll continue to explore along the river. The reason for this is that its relatively easy to work there, there are fine views and the light is good. there aren't cars blocking the way either.

I'll also try to do something from the north of side of Notting Hill. I love the big stucco buildings. I love the rise of Ladbroke Grove, it's elegant Victorian planning and garden squares.

The difficulty is finding a good place to view it: an apartment with a good view, perhaps: can any readers help?

White herons

2011-10-29T02:49:00.000-07:00

White herons, oil on card, 13 x 9.3 cm

This picture represents something of a breakthrough for me, not in any particular respect other than general fluency.

Painted near the junction of SC403 and the turn-off for Santo Antonio de Lisboa.

SC401 seen from a cement factory

2011-10-28T03:15:00.000-07:00

SC401 seen from a cement factory, oil on card, 14.8 x 11.2 cm

A capitalist landscape: advertising hoardings, strip malls, shopping centres, technology centres, rubbishy post modern architecture, car service yards, highways and nasty suburbs spewing around them: Ballardian in it's awfulness.

The end of a lane

2011-10-27T03:58:00.000-07:00

The end of a lane, oil on card, 14 x 10.4 cm

Oainted in Trandade: very high key colours for me.

I am trying to play around more with thicknesses of paint, taking cues from Morandi and the Saint Ives artists- whose work I have always found very slight. But perhaps in the specific aspect of textures it can offer something to me.

The black flag

2011-10-25T03:28:00.000-07:00

With my hand for scale

The Black flag, oil on card, 12 x 9.3 cm

Painted down at Saco dos Limões.

Warehouses, an office and a water tower

2011-10-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

Warehouses, an office and a water tower, oil on card, 14.5 x 12cm

Painted from the car on one of those beautiful sunny days that somehow serve to worsen my depressions.

These are some of the buildings that line the SC-401. I think of the style of this picture as owing something to Morandi.

Praia Mole- a bright day; London, Tunisia and Scotland

2011-10-21T13:13:00.000-07:00

Praia Mole- a bright day, oil on card, 11 x 13cm

I have bought my tickets for the UK and Tunisia in February.

The weather is likely to be cold in the UK: if it snows I shall be happy as painting things in the whiteness is so delightful. I shall be in Scotland and in London.

If you are there and wish to meet, drop me a line.

Landscape near Vargem Grande

2011-10-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

Landscape near Vargem Grande, oil on card, 12.5 x 10.5 cm

Another "Dutch" -or perhaps English- landscape, from off the BR-301.

Tall pines

2011-10-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

Tall pines, oil on card, 13.7 x 10.7cm

They appear to bevlearing the land here, presumably for housing. After I painted it I thought "Hobbema!", specifically the famous Avenue at Middelharnis in London's National Gallery.

There is a fine song by The Band called Whispering Pines:

If you find me in a gloom, or catch me in a dream
Inside my lonely room, there is no in between
Whispering pines, rising of the tide
If only one star shines
That's just enough to get inside
I will wait until it all goes 'round
With you in sight, the lost are found
Foghorn through the night, calling out to sea
Protect my only light, 'cause she once belonged to me
Let the waves rush in, let the seagulls cry
For if I live again, these hopes will never die
I can feel you standing there
But I dont see you anywhere

Standing by the well, wishing for the rains
Reaching for the clouds, for nothing else remains
Drifting in a daze, when evening will be done
Try looking through a haze
At an empty house, in the cold, cold sun
I will wait until it all goes round
With you in sight, the lost are found

Ingleses

2011-10-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

Ingleses, oil on card, 11.4 x 13 cm

Very few tourists and therefore quite pleasant here. In a month the pace will be mobbed.

Two pictures from near Santo Amaro da Imperatriz

2011-10-16T12:34:00.000-07:00

A view of the mountains from Santo Amaro da Imperatriz, oil on card, 14.4 x 10.8 cm

A community near Santo Amaro da Imperatriz, oil on card, 13 x 10.9 cm

You can see in Brasil, as if from a late novel by Hamsun, communities establishing themselves from almost nothing- a tiny cluster of houses: these often have a paradiscal quality.

And, as if to confirm Hamsun's pessimism about cities, you can also see how these little communities grow into huge areas of urban squalor. Santa Catarina is free of these huge cities, fortunately.

A drive along the SC-282 to Alfredo Wagner; Union Gallery- works on display

2011-10-15T15:36:00.000-07:00

Shops on the SC 282 near Aguas Mornas, oil on card, 12.7 x 10.3 cm

Landscape near Alfredo Wagner, oil on card, 12.8 x 11.6 cm

Landscape near Rancho Queimado, oil on card, 11.8 x 14.5 cm

Three painted along the SC-282, a lovely road.

I had originally thought of sleeping in Alfredo Wagner, but the hotel there was too awful, even for me.

Union Gallery, 45 Broughton Street, Edinburgh:

I have 6 landscapes in their current exhibition ‘Onslaught of Autumn’, which opened on Thursday evening.

Roadbridge over SC 401

2011-10-14T04:54:00.000-07:00

Roadbridge over SC 401, oil on card, 13.8 x 11.7 cm

Painted in the car lot of Tok and Stok.

I think I will drive to the mountains tomorrow- Alfredo Wagner.

Nocturne: blocks under construction

2011-10-13T06:01:00.000-07:00

Nocturne: blocks under construction, oil on card, 14.5 x 11.8 cm

Painted in Santa Monica from the car.

I'm playing around in my mind with going to Tunisia, then Malta and London in late January. My ideas change almost every day, however. One of the appealing things about Tunisia is thhe fact that Paul Klee was there: it's always fin to walk in the footsteps of other painters.

The Exploding Boy

2011-10-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

Nick Parker, the wonderful English writer, has most flatteringly used one of my monoprints for the cover of his collection of stories:

http://explodingboy.squarespace.com/

Hurry now while stocks last!

Nocturne: Lagoa

2011-10-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

Nocturne: Lagoa, oil on card, 13.3 x 11.5 cm

This picture is similar to monotypes I made a few years ago.

The Ocean; The Middle East

2011-10-09T05:23:00.000-07:00

The Ocean, oil on card, 14.8 x 11.5cm

Painted down on Beiramar Avenue.

It was the sort of shimmering weather that Ardizzone loved to paint- an aesthetic lineage that spins delightfully back through Whistler to Velázquez and Titian (there is that wonderful nautical Titian, Perseus and Andromeda in the glorious Wallace Collection- I used to enjoy going there in my luch hours and feeling doomed).

What I like about the Wallace Collection is that I don't get the feeling there that the curators are trying to teach me anything: wheras if I go to, say to any of the Tates, I feel bombarded with notices, explanations, often horribly written and very partial.

I am thinking about a Middle East trip for late January or February. I'd like to go to Syria again but the state there has murdered to many people there recently that this would probably be unwise.

Nocturne: Beiramar

2011-10-06T04:13:00.000-07:00

Nocturne: Beiramar, oil on card, 12 x 14.7cm

The silence in the car is very nice at night.

Buildings in Estreito

2011-10-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

Buildings in Estreito, oil on card, 10.7 x 13.5 cm

The heart of Estreito consists of an incredible mixture of buildings, car lots and workshops, seemingly placed together totally at random.

It's ugly, but I quite like it, at least for a short while: at least it has a definate personality, unlike the easy-wipe clean condos that make up the wealthier parts of Florianopolis.

Headland, Beiramar

2011-10-04T11:39:00.000-07:00

Headland, Beiramar, oil on card,12.7 x 13.6 cm

Painted at the Agronomica end of Beiramar Avenue.

I painted here before on a mauch bigger scale: I overworked the peice and it lost its charm, becoming heavy.

Roadworks on BR 403

2011-10-02T04:57:00.000-07:00

Roadworks on BR 403, oil on card, 11.8 x 12.2 cm

Painted near the Passion Motel.

The pier from the TV station

2011-09-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

The pier from the TV station, oil on card, 14 x 12 cm

My first form Morro da Cruz.

Cleared ground

2011-09-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

Cleared ground, oil on card, 12 x 13 cm

Painted near Rio Tavares, on a little drive down to the south of the island: Civilisation marches forward!

Red Boat

2011-09-28T12:22:00.000-07:00

Red boat, oil on card, 10.5 x 13.8 cm

A very warm day: I think winter is coming to a close.

Nocturne: the lonely night rider

2011-09-27T13:01:00.000-07:00

Nocturne: the lonely cyclist, oil on card, 10 x 13cm

Painted in the car while listening to Nico.

A weekend in Curitiba

2011-09-26T04:54:00.000-07:00

Just off Rua Tibagi, oil on card, 12.7 x 11.5 cm

Hotel Roochelle hotel suite, oil on card, 10.5 x 14 cm

Curitiba nocturne, oil on card, 14.2 x 10.5cm

Rooftops, Curitiba, oil on card, 9.6 x 8.1cm

Four new pictures from last weekend trip to Curitiba, where they are haveing an art Bienal: some very good shows. The art infrastructure there is good.

The city itself has fewer and fewer charms for me with each visit: the massive dominance of anonymous corporate hotels and conference centres, which contrast strangely and bleakly with innumerable seedy lanchonetes (diners) whose food is so bad that Macdonalds seems good in comparasion. And then there are the malls, those monstrous and charmless shopping malls...

A little fishing boat off Beiramar Avenue

2011-09-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

A little fishing boat off Beiramar Avenue, oil on card, 14.8 x 11.7 cm

I do not know what they are fishing for: they come quite close to shore, and there is a fellow standing, using the oar as if on a punt.

Joaquina

2011-09-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

Joaquina, oil on card, 13.5 x 12 cm

An exceptionately beautiful day, the sun not too warm and a wonderful friendly atmosphere on the uncrowded beach.

The beaches have beautiful names: Galheta, Joaquina, Solidão...

Itaiópolis: a road trip

2011-09-19T03:08:00.000-07:00

Church near the junction for Rio Negrinho, oil on card, 12 x14.5 cm

I feel that my trip was a sucess, I painted six pictures, five of which are presentable, not a bad catch.

Itaiópolis itself is quite interesting, a city in two distinct parts, the old town with some good architecture from the turn of the century and the Polish church (the interior most beautifully painted), and the newer part which is less interesting but where most of the services are.

Driving around is very nice: I was delighted with the quality of the roads, and how pleasnt the views are: the landscape undulates very beautifully betwen the sea and Itaiópolis, the little houses sitting so very gracefully among trees and hills.

Grain silos, oil on card, 8 x 11.7 cm

A view north from Itaiópolis, oil on card, 12 x 9.8 cm

Shanty town near Rio Negrinho, oil on card, 9.8 x 13.9 cm

A section of BR101, oil on card, 8.6 x 12 cm

There is a certain sky effect which I have started using and which I must be careful not to let become a cliche.

The red car

2011-09-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

The red car, oil on card, 12.5 x 9.1 cm

Tomorrow, all being well, I shall make my way to Itaiopolis, on old Polish-Ukrainian settlement to the north of here, an hour west of Blumenau: there is quite an impressive church there.

It is also an excuse to get off this claustrophobic island. Maybe I will spend the night there and do some art.

Cacupe (with a dog)

2011-09-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

Cacupe (with a dog), oil on card, 9.2 x 9.7 cm

Painted from inside the car.

A boat on a canal

2011-09-13T11:53:00.000-07:00

A boat on a canal, oil on card, 13 x 9 cm

Painted in Saco Grande.

There's a fair debt to Sisely and van Gogh here, I guess.

Saco dos Limoes

2011-09-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

Saco dos Limões, oil on card, 13 x 14.1 cm

This is the maximum size I am likely to work on these days.

Landscape near Caieira; car

2011-09-11T14:02:00.000-07:00

Landscape near Caieira, oil on card, 9.9 x 11.7 cm

I've been driving around. There are so many amazing things to see and paint that I am tempted to stop the car alostr every hundred yards. I wonder, if ever, the novelty will wear off.

I want to visit the mountains more, of course, but also those strange, half-resolved tiny settlements which are such a feature of this country. I rather like them.

I also want to do some work on the strip mall developments that scar the areas along the sides of the highways, and constrast so harshly with the amazing mountains beyond them.

All this brings me back to the idea of doing a Santa Catarina road trip, all the way up to Foz de Iguaçu., then back.

A wooded area; car

2011-09-10T14:11:00.000-07:00

A wooded area, oil on card, 13 x 9.7 cm

The first painting painted from my new car: this vehicle will radically change my life for the better, allowing me to paint when it is raining and more safely at night, as well as letting me explore Brazil much more easily.

Rio: The Ibis Hotel room nocturne; painting nocturnes

2011-09-09T12:28:00.000-07:00

Rio: Ibis Hotel room nocturne, oil on card, 12.3 x 9cm

The view from the hotel is of some administrative buildings.

To paint these things you nee to find a way of getting light on your support without losing your ability to see the thing in front of you. But this is surprisingly difficult, because when you illuminate the support, your motif will often fade out. I think I shall try to get one of those little reading lights that they advertise in magazines, usually with images of elderly couples in a double bed, one asleep, the other deep in George Eliot. That might be ideal: they have a little clip so you can attach them onto your book, or in my case, picture.

Photographing these nocturnes is very hard, there are almost always reflections in one place or other.

Rio: Botafogo beach

2011-09-08T17:32:00.000-07:00

Botafogo beach, oil on card, 11.5 x 9.1 cm

I wanted to capture the footballers playing on the sands, but by the time I had chosen my viewpoint and laid out my things they had finished their game, and after a big argument, departed. Actually ,I very rarely see arguments in public here: I seem to remember them being much commoner in the UK, and British life, despite it's reputation for calm, being far more fractious.

Rio: from Santa Teresa

2011-09-07T07:48:00.000-07:00

A view from the ruins, Santa Teresa, oil on card, 8.5 x 12.2 cm

From Santa Teresa towards the centre, oil on card, 10 x 8.3 cm

Santa Teresa is a beautiful neighbourhood with amazing views of the city, and nineteenth century architecture of immense charm.

Rio; selling work

2011-09-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

A view from Copaacabana, oil on card, 10.8 9.5 cm

My trip to Rio was a qualified success. I went to paint and see if I could find a gallery there to represent me.

The painting side went very well: after the first day, the weather was great, no-one mugged me, the natives were friendly and I came away with maybe five decent paintings: not a bad haul.

It's a great painting city: insane mountains, sea, sunshine and very open people in a relatively small space. The people are friendly but not overbearing as they can be in the middle east. The only trouble is crime, and during the day, in the wrong place there's a fair chance you'll be annoyed by some kids trying to beg coins off you.

I spent Monday visiting little galleries in Copacabana and Ipanema. I visited about ten. There was some interest, but little real hunger. One of the gallery owners who liked the work remarked that it would be hard to display small paintings but it is clearly possible to use cabinets and group them to make them more prominent. I am confident that they will take off in the next two years.

I suspect there simply isn't a good art market in Rio. So I shall do what many have advised and make my way to Sao Paolo, and see if I have more luck there. The little pictures sell well when they are given the chance as gallery sales in Scotland and online show.

Selecting for Rio

2011-08-31T04:59:00.000-07:00

Forty-four paintings. I will select a dozen to take.

I shall truck round some galleries with my wares in Rio on Friday. I think the best thing is to take a variety.

I'm experienced enough to know that if some people like what I do, some never will. The opinions of those who dont really are of no consequence, because it is usually because they just don't like this sort of painting, however well or badly it is executed, and they are really not "on side". Ergo it's better simply to ignore them.

I will reduce the selection above to a dozen: to show more is to risk repetition. It is better for people to say, "I wish I could see more", then for them to say "ok i think that's enough". The paintings chosen should be bright and immediate. I am visiting totally on spec and I imagine that the galleries will not give me much time, if any.

Confusion

2011-08-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

Confusion, oil on card, 10.2 8.7 cm

This was painted behind my block: in the foreground is a bridge crossing one of the drainage canals in the area.

Block, windows, trees

2011-08-29T11:52:00.000-07:00

Block, windows, trees, oil on card, 11.5 x 8.6 cm

Another grey day here. Thank goodness I am off to Rio this weekend.

Pochades: an attempt at self-criticism II

2011-08-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

The intellect demands understanding but while I might draw my conclusions, make reccomendations, stipulate policies, all this seems to make no difference to the sheer strange willfulness of art-making itself, which is, so much, too much like leading a lively dog across a meadow.

Pochades: an attempt at self-criticism

2011-08-27T16:42:00.000-07:00

A selection of pochades

I'm going through the pochades of the last three years, dating and titling the backs, varnishing them, deciding if any should be discarded (always a delightful feeling to paint over the dodgy ones, as if someone has taken an invisible rucksack from my back) seeing if I can draw any general conclusions from seeing them en masse.

My conclusions are:

1. The best pictures are not fuzzy. There is a clear focus. When first I began painting the pochades about three years ago I was somewhat under the influence of early photography. I liked the blurriness of those early Victorian images, and even more that of symbolist photographers sush as in the Camera Work group. On reflection, this influence was baleful: the dreamlike effects are a way, I think of artists escaping responsibility, of saying in effect: "it is not up to us to direct you, all we do is provide a certain stimulus".

2. There is a certain minimum amout of work that the pochades have to contain. That is, there must evidently be a transformative process on display, so that the viewer cannot dismiss the piece as mere.

3. The better pictures use clear, clean colours. Initially, I used often somewhat muted colours. I feel this was a mistake, and the result of cowardice: fear of colour

4. The best pictures are very rooted in direct experience, especially a sense of excitement with places or people. This has to be balanced with knowledge. If a place is totally new then it is often overwhelming, but this is better than if it is too familiar, because then it doesn't inspire at all. It is surprising how many of the best pictures come from being in a place for the very first time and I kick myself for not having pursued the delights of travel painting more vigorously before.

5. There is good attention payed to surfaces and textures.

6. There seems to be a maximum size in which I can give the picture sufficient attention within the hour and a half that one session lasts. So pictures larger than about 10cm sq in surface area are generally too large for the results to be satisfactory.

7. There is little gimmicky work. This is good.

The sea near Beiramar Avenue

2011-08-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

The sea near Beiramar Avenue, oil on card, 9 x 11.3 cm

It began to drizzle while I was painting this. When I get the car- soon I think- I will be able to vary much more the conditions in which I paint.

A road through woodland

2011-08-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

A road through woodland, oil on card, 12 x 9 cm

Painted from near Praia Mole.

When I see copses, and woodland like this I think of Seigfried Sassoon, whose beautiful, ironical prose has affected me strongly. I love his sensiblilty of being within events, and yet so cooly, laughably, indifferent to them, and I love his love of nature too.

Interior- my workroom

2011-08-25T06:09:00.000-07:00

Interior- my workroom, oil on card, 10.3 x 13.5cm

Here revisiting a previous theme, somewhat nervously, perhaps.

Entrance to an apartment

2011-08-23T10:32:00.000-07:00

Entrance to an apartment, oil on card, 10.5 x 12 cm

Very cold: listening to Cat Power's languorous songs, painting, watching the rain fall outside.