Beiramar Avenue, sea

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Beiramar Avenue, sea, oil on card, 10 x 14 cm  SOLD

This was painted as part of a series back in 2013, but for some reason not posted. It's rather romantic, reminiscent of Boudin or Monet. 

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12x12x12, best of 2014

CD cover for 12x12x12.

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CD covers for 12in12x12, for 2014

Twelve covers for Jim Mendola's  12in12x12 rock band project, to promote their monthly issues.

Four drawings

 A fop with a tail

 A man like a beetle

 An elephant in a forest

A trumpeter on a hillside

Four more small drawings- an edited selection of drawings will be given to Jim Mendola`s 12x12x12 monthly creative event.

The bookshelf

The bookshelf, oil on card, 18 x 12.5 cm

It`s been a great pleasure working with brighter colours and exploring patterns, leaving the perceptual painting tradition for a little while.

Curtains

Curtains, oil on card, 12.5 x 14 cm

It`s great to be working with high fast colour. I love laying out the colours and mixing them just seeing what happens when they meet.

Do we really need an obvious subject for a painting to be enjoyable?

Vase of flowers, the green room, Miro.

Vase of flowers, the green room, oil on card, 12 x 15 cm unavailable

More work about my apartment. I`m finding great delight in brighter colours these days, really pushing them out, trying to keep them bright and sharp.

 There are fantastic Miros that feature an expanse of blue punctuated by a dot or dash of red,(such as Blue III, 1961)paintings that seem to be all about timing, and are so very musical and full of humour, and which I wish I could easily visit for inspiration.

A friend

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A friend, oil on card, 15 x 11 cm  -  available

A corner of my room. The flat has boxes of Ensorian items which I put in storage, in boxes. They were collected when I was painting still lives in gloomy London. The visual language I used for still life there was, naturally, an extension of that huge and yet most eccentric of North European capitals, a place where so much is hidden behind circumspection. Thus, I developed a style had antecedent in Fantin-Latour and and Ensor.

This didn't translate to this context- Brazil- but finally I`ve found a way, via the interior, to revisit the still life.

Bottles in the kitchen

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Bottles in the kitchen, oil on card, 13 x 16 cm - available

A bottle in a cupboard, oil on card, 13 x 10 cm

Continuing the pictures about my place and my things.

My place

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 Painting junk, oil on card, 9.3 x 12 cm unavailable

Where I sleep, oil on card, 12.5 x 13 cm  unavailable

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Flowers, Vuillard, 12 x 12 x 12

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Flowers, oil on card, 8.5 x 12 cm

There was a big Vuillard show in in London some years back at the Royal Academy, and I kick myself for not having gone- though in truth these large shows have become increasingly unpleasant because of crowds. 

The last of these blockbusters that I went to weas Turner, Monet, Whistler and it was more or less impossible to enjoy the work because of the bus station atmosphere.. I don`t know where all these people have come from, exhibitions didn`t seem to be so tremedously popular in my day. I am dubious that they illustrate a surge of interest in the arts- most museums and galleries remain blissfully quiet most of the time.

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I have decided to work on a series of pictures about the apartment, and the things in it for Jim Mendola`s monthly `12 x 12 x 12 event- which is mainly a music thing, but which is open to other media.

 As I envisage them, these pictures will stylistically and thematically extend from yesterdays carafe and today`s flowers to describe the atmosphere of the apartment and who I am: a sort of autobiography in objects- van Gogh meets Guston and Vuillard at a party and they start talking in low voices.

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Beiramar, session 12: final session

 Beiramar XXV, session 12, 6pm, oil on card, 14 x 12.5 cm - available

 Beiramar XXVII, session 12, 6pm, oil on card, 14 x 8.5 cm  - available

 Beiramar XXVI, session 12, 6pm, oil on card, 15 x 11 cm  - available

These are the final paintings for 12x12x12.

 Doing a thematic run like this is a good way of forcing oneself to experiment, and I have ried to use it to play more with brushwork and paint.

Beiramar XXII, session 10, 11 am

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Beiramar XXII, session 10, 11 am, oil on card, 13 x 11 cm  - unvailable- damaged

A good session. A clammy day.

 I am looking forward to going to the mountains at the weekend. There is something wrong with the island, something that makes it unhealthy, lending it a static, moribund atmosphere.

Beiramar XX, session 9, 6pm

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Beiramar XX, session 9, 6pm, oil on card, 12 x 9 cm

 Beiramar XX, session 9, 6pm, oil on card, 12 x 8.5 cm  - available

Torrential rain here. Painted in the car.

The effect is remisicant of Ivon Hitchens  think, a painter whose work I like, but sometimes find a little facile, a little too charming and English.

On this matter, here is Anthony Blanche in Waugh`s Brideshad Revisited  criticising Charles Ryder`s Latin American pictures:

It was charm again, my dear, simple, creamy English charm, playing tigers…. I was right years ago… when I warned you. I took you out to dinner to warn you of charm…. Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside of these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love; it kills art; I greatly fear, my dear Charles, it has killed you. 

A similiar idea is sustained in Pevsner`s 1955, The Englishness of English Art.

Beiramar, Session 6, 2pm

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Beiramar XVIII, session 6, 2pm, oil on card, 12.5 x 9  cm  available

Less turbulant today.



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Beiramar: Session 5 for 12 x 12 x12

 Beiramar XV, session 5, 11 am, oil on card, 13 x 8.5 cm  - available

There will be twelve sessions for the  12 x 12 x 12 project: at the end of which a dozen pictures will be selected for submission, one from each session.

Three more for 12x12x12: session 4

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 Beiramar IX, session 4, 4pm, oil on card, 113 x 13 cm  - available

  Beiramar X, session 4, 4pm, oil on card, 11.5 x 9.7 cm  - available

More- the weather has turned wet and grey.



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Eight songs about the same thing

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Session 1:

Beiramar I, oil on card, 14 x 9.5 cm    AVAILABLE

 Beiramar II, oil on card, 12..5 x 9cm  - available

Beiramar III, oil on card, 14 x 9.5 cm  - available

The colour in this pochade is much sutler than in the photo

Session 2:

 Beiramar V, oil on card, 15 x 13 cm

Beiramar VIII, oil on card, 13 x 13 cm

I shall visit the same location for nine more sessions, which will give me about 30 pictures altogether.

 I`ll select 12 of these for Jim Mendola`s 12x12x12 monthly creative presentation.

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12x12x12: postponed, Egypt

I`m putting 1x12x12 this aside. I need some days peace before travelling.

I`ve also decided to simplify my Egypt trip cutting out Aswan. I came to the conclusion that previous painting trips were marred because I tried to visit many different cities or towns, so the pictures became superficial, and I became tired.

Getting ready for 12x12x12

I`m going to paint 12 pictures in four days for this creative project: http://www.facebook.com/12in12x12

It`s primarily a musical project intended to inspire bands, but it`s open to other art forms too.

I`ll be using only black paint and the pictures will bear some relation to Chinese ink drawing. Illustrated above are the supports.