Santo Antonio, bushes and trees

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Santo Antonio, bushes and trees, oil on card,  19 x 24 cm

A thickly painted picture. A painting is thing of paint.

 I think recognising this is essential for the best painting- I mean really introducing this textural element into the picture. 

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Portrait of a young philosopher

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Portrait of a young Philosopher, acryllic on board, 90 x 70 cm SOLD

A somewhat deco-styled portrait of a friend. It was painted about twenty years ago in a flat on Maude Road, Camberwell, London.

 I have always found it difficult to paint portraits unless I know the person. The process of painting portraits is rather intimate (at least the sort of more psychological portraiture that I substribe to) and necessitates this psychological proximity. 

A good model is hard to find. It's no surprise that artists find a model and use them for years on end, like Bonnard's Marthe, or Auerbach's JYM. I'd love to find here the sort of person who expresses in postures their mental attitudes, who is thoughtful and has the sort of openness that could me allow to enter their mental set. I'd love to do a series of pictures with them. 

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Rooftops

Rooftops, oil on card, 10 x 11.7 cm

This is a sister painting to Grey Day- view from the cemetery, painted just over a week ago (see entry below) and is painted from nearly the same place. The chaos of yards and houses is hard to trace: your best hope is just to give an impression, to fall into the rythm of the place, as I guess Auerbach and Kossof did in London.