British trip- Oban

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Oban

Oban, afternoon, September, in carrier oil on card, c. 28 x 24 cm   SOLD

My painting above is shown as it was displayed in it`s carrier at the recent exhibion in Gallery 5595, Portobello. The carriers are very popular with viewers.

Oban, evening September 2019, No. 2,

 oil on card, 21 x 17.2 cm unavailable

Oban, morning, oil on card, c. 21 x 17. cm (available)

The rain and wind were so bad in Oban, so much so that I was more or less confined to my bed and breakfast room except for occasional excursions for meals.

All this was something of a pity as the surrounding landscapes are quite magnificent and the town itself is charming.

I painted the following, however from the comfort of my room, very much in the way of Monet, following the times of the day. Usually I don't think of myself as a painter of light effects. I think of myself as more attentive to colour and shapes, so to work from this position is a little unusual for me.

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British Trip, 2019 - Glasgow, travel and painting

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Paintings from Glasgow

 A bridge over the River Kelvin, oil on card, c. 28 x 24 cm unavailable

Trees, River Kelvin, Glasgow

 oil on card, c. 19 x 17 cm    SOLD

This, above, was photographed in its carrier and you can perhaps make out the pegs holding it in place/

 A synagogue, Glasgow, oil on card, c. 18 x 22 cm  aVAILABLE

My  last picture was painted from the south side, specifically Cook Street, on a brilliantly sunny day.

Warehouse, Cook street, oil on card, c. 24 x  29 cm - unavailable

My time painting in Glasgow was hampered by rain- a real pity as I would have enjoyed having had more time to explore this strange city, so full of absences,  in painting. Ergo, I spent my time in Art Galleries and wandering around. I shall post some photos of these visits later. 

But all the trips are incomplete, necessarly so, every place having an infinity of facets and my own subjectivities varying besides. For this reason I have been exploring fewer and fewer completely new places, instead revisiting to add to existing explorations. 

In the context of such thoughts, I question the upcoming Ecuador trip, wondering if it might be wiser to go back to Peru to revisit previous locations. There is an additional argument for revisiting, which is that a large part of what is stressful about travel revolves around basic matters such as finding hotels, orientating oneself and suchlike, and these travails are lessened.

 I am a rotten traveler and dislike much of the experience. But I`d rather travel than stagnate artistically or in character .

Please note that as these pictures are in Scotland, and I forgot to measure them, I have only approximate sizes for them. The margin of error is low, however..

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British trip, 2019 -Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire- three paintings

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An oak, Drum, oil on card, 30 x 25 cm - available

Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire

These were painted in Drum Castle grounds, and on the beach promenade in Aberdeen itself.

I`d like to have spent more time going out to Drum as the variety of vegetation and views it offers is so rich. The light is both clear and soft. In the mornings it was sunny but then invariably it became overcast.

View from Drum south, oil on card, c. 30 x 24.5 cm SOLD

Aberdeen, beach promenade, oil on card, c. 29 x 23.6 cm - available

The picture was photographed in its carrier- you can perhaps make out the wire clip holding it in place at the top edge.

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British trip, 2019

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In the grounds of Canterbury Cathedral

I went all over, from London to Canterbury to Aberdeen to Glasgow to Oban then Edinburgh and London.  

I didn`t do much painting either because of the weather or because I was involved with the Exhibition at Gallery 5595, in Edinburgh, or socialising.

My trip to Oban was a foolish. I knew that it rained heavily there, but I ignored this because the place offers such glorious scenic variety. In future, when visiting people in Scotland, I'll also get a cheap flight to Spain, thus ensuring some days solid painting.

But there are nice paintings from  Aberdeenshire, Oban, Glasgow, and London.

The exhibition was a success and I will publish photos over the next few days.

 I also enjoyed seeing British art collections, and special exhibitions and meeting people I hadn`t seen for ages. 

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Glasgow

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Alexander "Greek" Thomson`s Caledonia Road Church
 -taken from Gavin Stamp`s book (Lawrence King 1999)

Glasgow

Places to visit this time...

I`m pleased to be going to the south side. I see that I can walk along White Cart Water from Pollock House passing Holmwood House to Snuff Mill Bridge in Cathcart. The distance is just under 8 miles so it is best to do it over a whole day with lunch on the middle, or even over two days, as there are the buildings themselves to explore. Polock House has some an El Greco.

I cannot quite"get" the scale of Glasgow. It is very grandly planned, with some huge buildings, and it doesn`t seem suited for idly strolling. The areas outside the listed Victorian centre can be spectacularly bleak. London seems more human-scaled, and New York seems to invite wandering more too. 

I tried working from the buildings of Thomson`s buildings before, believing their deeply sculptural forms would translate well into painting, but if the sun isn`t strong their sculptural qualities lose out to the patchy effect where clean stones break up the sootiness on their facades. It can also be challenging to find an easy place to work from, but perhaps I`ll be more fortunate this time.

I have always found Glasgow to be an extremely mysterious place, perhaps partly because so much of it was demolished and because it`s economic purpose was lost. So one can feel when wandering about Glasgow that one is  looking at a faded photograph, with some parts lost to time. That`s one reason why I love A Very Quiet Street, by Frank Kuppner- it deals with the past, with architecture and equivocation. 

Holmwood House (Alexander "Greek" Thomson)
Pollock House (Art Collection and park)
Caledonia Road Church (Alexander "Greek" Thomson).

I am also looking at walking along the River Kelvin.

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An Cala

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I hope to be able to visit this garden when in Oban.

 It takes about an hour by bus.

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Trees at Muquen

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Trees at Muquen, oil on card, 25 x 29.7 cm - availalbe

The first successful picture painted in Brazil this year. 

I moved up a little in scale as I want to be confident working larger when I go to the UK in August.

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My British trip: conclusions

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Detail: Near Berwick-ipon-Tweed, fields  SOLD

My British trip was short and frustrating. I didn't give enough time to each place: I broke my own rule about spending at least three nights in any one place. You need to give space and time for painting to develop. 

Also, I  became tired and a bit sick from not allowing myself enough time to get over the flights from Brazil and by socialising as soon as I arrived. I'm used to being alone much of the time besides which I'm fairly misanthropic, so spending time with others can be rather taxing.

The weather was not bad-  predictably unpredictable, spitting down first thing in the morning to make you pessimistic, then showers or, in Berwick, wind in the afternoons.

 On the plus side, I think I've discovered a place where I can bed down for a solid week next time: Galashiels! It isn't as pricey as Melrose but it has some of its prettiness and the location is also delightful. 

It's difficult to travel in the UK because the costs are so high. A single room anywhere is a minimum of 50 pounds- and we are here talking about no frills hospitality in remote or unfashionable places.

 So my instinct is to prefer to make British trips shorter and use that money in Latin America where it goes so much further and the weather is kinder. That's an instinct that beats against a need I have to sustain links with the UK and with the artistic traditions there. But I don't much enjoy being in the UK- there is a robotic quality to the lifestyle, and it seems that every aspect of life if mediated by some authority or other so that little, including the endemic drinking, is truly spontaneous.

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Berwick-upon-Tweed

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Four pochades from Northumberland, showing carrier label

I painted the bridge twice. First I felt I didn't go far enough, I didn't "push through" to arrive at a stylistic conclusion somehow signaled by the bridge itself.

 Railway Bridge, Berwick, oil on card, 17.8 x 16 cm  available

Railway bridge, Berwick-upon-Tweed, oil on card, 15.5 x 17.5 cm  - available

So there are two paintings. Now I prefer the first. It's shaky, but I like that.

I walked along the river and painted the tress and bushes in the land beside. Mysterious places- I felt that I could have spent many more days there.

Near Berwick-upon-Tweed, fields, oil on card, 16 x 15.8 cm  SOLD

There's a nice chunkiness about the handling in this one (above).

Fields, Northumberland, oil on card, 17.5 x 14 cm - unavailale

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Berwick-upon-Tweed and an exhibition of the Scottish Colourists

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Berwick-upon-Tweed

The town is solid stone, cheerfully sincere and beautifully situated on the convergence of the Tweed and the sea. It would have been a perfect painting place if the wind had been less strong. The choice of restaurants is not large. There are shops which seem to have been transplanted from the early sixties- traditional butchers or fish and chip shops.

Accents change sharply in from place to place in the UK. There seemed to be no gradation between  the Geordie and the Border Scots.

This lovely town was visited and painted by Lowry- the authorities have marked the places where he painted with information boards. I saw a fine small exhibition at Berwick Visual Arts called Scottish Colourists from the Fleming Collection, which included these lively, unpretentious pictures:

 George Leslie Hunter, Lower Largo, Fife, oil on Millboard, 1919

 George Leslie Hunter, Peonies in a Chinese Vase, oil on board, 1925

Often there are traces of art deco stylisation in the paintings of the twenties.

 J.D. Fergusson, The Drift Posts, oil on canvas, 1922

Samuel John Peploe, Luxembourg Gardens, oil on panel, 1910

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Melrose

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Three Melrose pochades

Melrose is a pleasant, if twee, town in the Scottish Borders,close to the river Tweed and featuring a ruined abbey, elegant gardens and innumerable tea shops.

 It nestles in some hills and is a fine place to go painting, though I think next time I would go up the road to Galashiels where there are more affordable options in terms of hospitality and catering and is a bit less up its own arse. But, had I had more money, I could have stayed in Melrose a month and worked on paintings, easily.

Melrose, a bridge over the Tweed, oil on card, 15.5 x 17.5 cm  available

The fields above the town provided me with material, as did the river. I try to respond frankly to the subject, in an unfussy style. I don`t think it's a sentimental affectation to seek truthfulness in art and to judge its effectiveness by that. 

White houses, Melrose, oil on card, 19 x 17 cm unavailable

I love those white-washed houses that so characterise Scotland. This one is good, it has some of that sadness that so prevails in October in Britain. Should I have gone for more detail?

Hills behind Melrose, oil on card, 17.5 x 18 cm unavailable

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A poem about Britain in thirty pictures

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Thirty pochade carriers for the U.K.

I think of the trip as a poem, the paintings bearing more similarity in their subjective qualities to this than to any topographical survey. A poem about Britain in thirty pictures. Or fewer, as I may ditch some later. The schematic quality of the project is satisfying, but such schematic notions can stultify. It's better to just get on with the work and see if anything good happens. 

 As the trip approaches I regret not giving more time to it, but the UK is an expensive place to travel in, and simply does not represent good value, both food and accommodation being very costly. It is wiser to put the money aside for use in Ecuador next year.

The carriers in their playschool colours when laid out like that are reminiscent of Klee's* Magic Squares. This external character a little different from their sober insides:

Open carrier 

Some of the carriers have been reused many times on different trips and I like the sense that they have a garnered a history. I enjoy repairing them and trying to trying ways to make make them ever more robust containers.

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Like many, I guess, I feel a certain pessimism about the way the UK is going, that the better elements in the society are suppressed and a strange and reckless yet powerful group is determining its future.


* a fine travel-painter

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Scotland

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Southern Scotland

 I have decided to include the charming town of Melrose on my British trip: 

London- Berwick - Melrose -Alloa -Edinburgh- London

There is something mysterious about the Borders to me.

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British Trip. late September

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Both maps taken from the Cavellini School Room map of the British Isles

I'm pleased to say that I shall be going to the UK in September for just over two weeks- a trip which will include London. Berwick, Edinburgh and Alloa, near Stirling. I shell go painting in Greenwich, or opposite. It's  one of the few places in London that offers good views for painting.

Lothian, Fife, Berwick and around

I am especially pleased to get to know Berwick better as I have so often passed on the train and swooned at its wonderful location. And I shall enjoy visiting nearby Lindisfarne too.

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Edinburgh: pochades; some conclusions; travel; thanks

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Edinburgh winter (Smith´s Place), oil on card, 11 / 13 cm  - available

Warehouses on Jane Street, Leith, oil on card, 9/ 12.5 cm  SOLD

Winter, Edinburgh  (Smith´s Place), oil on card, 11 / 13 cm  AVAILABLE

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I went up to Edinburgh and delivered paintings to the Union Gallery: they have a fair selection now from Brazil, Tunisia and the UK.

I stayed down in Leith- thanks to Anna and Kenneth for putting me up.

Very cold, of course, but splendid and Edinburgh is splendidly schizophrenic too: that mixture of elevated architecture and ground level squalor that characterises Georgian British cities. In Leith on the ground: endless pubs, cut-price barbers shops, Polish delicatessents, advice centres and pound stores:  magnificent, sometimes battered, soiled sandstone neo-classical  above.

While I was in Scotland, a painting sold at the Royal Scottish Academy :

Small Pines, oil on card, 10 / 12 cm   SOLD

Conclusions

The best paintings of the trip are those which refect some subjective intimacy with the place: ergo those from the UK are, I feel, in some way richer. The Tunisian ones tend, at their most slight, towards a sort of orientalist tourist painting,. This is because I felt some obligation to paint the things that most obviously define somewhere,  not unforgivably as those are the reasons for visiting in the first place. But all places have a skin and the skin is not necessarily as interesting as the other organs within.

But, of course, one develops subjective relations with a place over time, and as I plan more visits to the Islamic world  this will surely develop.

The better pictures were mostly not the larger size (5/ 13 cm or so) but smaller say (10/ 11 cm). This has something to do with concentration, and to do with the changes in light (this is much less of an issue in Brasil where the sun rises and sets rapidly and more or less stays put in between).

The boxes I  use to transport pictures are popular and I have to develop these: not necessarily to make them fancier, but perhaps to make more consistent in terms of quality. The buyers do not like polystyrene: a pity as it is very easy to use to for packing: they prefer cardboard which has more charm. Also, the boxes need better labelling. I need to make a simple label I can write on and sign to identify the pictures after painting.

I am annoyed with the photos I took of some of the pictures, which is not the fault of the camera but my own carelessness. So I must endeavor to improve that.

Travel

Travel is often detestable. Of course seeing new places new places and trying new food and so on is wonderful. I mean lugging things about, waiting in check-in queues, feeling very tired, being ripped off and worriying about something or other; misunderstanding something pitifully simple because your school French is rusty. Unpacking is a bore too, as is packing and wearing grubby clothes. If I were wealthy these travails would lessen considerably: sadly the likelihood of that in the near future is not high. The poorer traveller must rely on wit, good planning, stamina and  the friendship of strangers.

The Tunisia trip was reasonably good in this respect: I had the sensible notion that staying anywhere for less than two nights would mean all the above challenges would be increased. And the Rough Guide is really very good (though I arrived in El Jem to find that the only hotel had been demolished).

If one is visiting a new country there is the tendency to want to see everything. But really good painting, is not a product so much of the subject as the mindset of the maker. Good pictures are constructed on a balance of knowledge and its opposite: ignorance and surprise. So a short-ish  trip allows both, and fleeting fleeting visits are usually hopeless (digital photography, which has become almost cost free, is aften a false friend to the traveller as it encourages an erroneous notion that experience can effortlessly be "captured").

Thanks

Many thanks to those who helped me over this trip : Lise, Chris, my parents, Anna and Kenneth, Matthew Cushen, Chris Anderson, Bilel,  and Chokri.

And thanks to the many anonymous souls who helped out in the innumerable small ways that make life more than tolerable.

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