British trip - London, Green Park

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Green Park, London, Avenue, oil on card, 24 x 30 cm   SOLD

There is only one picture from London.

 But it is a good one- of Green Park- the simplest and most graceful park of central London`s parks.

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Distant view of Kensington Palace, framed

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Distant view of Kensington Palace, oil on card, about 10 x 11 cm 
 Framed, NOT FOR SALE

Thanks to Lise for sending me this photo.

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April in Britain and France: Part Four: Somerset and London; Conclusions

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 Wiltshire, a view near Bruton, oil on card, 17 x 24 cm  SOLD

That brings me to a close. Somerset is beautiful, but the weather was inconsistent, and England in the grey doesn't make for good painting.

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Conclusions

The trip involved too many different destinations or, rather, I found my energies spent too much in lugging luggage around, catching planes or trains or taxis than I would have liked.  In future, It would have been better to have rented a place for a month and used it as a base, instead of constantly having to pack and unpack and carry bags here and there. It's good for me to paint in different places: I need variety. But the actual business of travel itself has become tiresome for me.

This is the longest period of time I've spent in the UK. It is a cold country- in April it was still overcoat weather. It is not a place on the edge of collapse as some of its newspapers would like to imply, but reasonably orderly and civilised. It is very crowded, especially in the south. Despite the foodie revolution, it is still not easy to get a good simple meal for less than ten pounds. The beer is good, however, but it is not cheap either. It is not cheap to roam around in but, thankfully, major museums are still free. 

It is a poor place for painting on account of the weather. I had a conversation with Adam Elston, the writer, and it was about whether gray days might not have their own aesthetic qualities. Of course they do, but their charms are extremely limited:  sunlight defines not just colour but form.

Paris was agreeable but not as stylish as I'd expected. The women are not as chic as I'd hoped and the place often feels dowdy, though the architecture remains magnificent.

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The pochades have grown in size steadily over the last couple of years. This makes them more difficult to carry around, and I paint fewer. I have started working with a portable easel which allows me to work in a wider variety of places, though it is devilishly heavy. There are about ten pochades from this trip that I like, not a bad percentage.

But on almost all of my trips I have been guilty of taking my subjects for granted. I mean, assuming that good pictures would flow, almost automatically, from simply being in x, y or z place. Aware of this, I've been extending my periods in specific locations with each successive trip. I shall increase my stays, and  re-visit places.

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The next foreign trip will, circumstances permitting, be to New York.

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Thanks to Jane Hodson for her generous hospitality in Somerset, and to the Ecclestons for their kindness in London.


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April in Britain and France: Part One: London

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 Hampstead Heath, oil on card, 18 x 16 cm   SOLD

 Berkeley Square, North side, oil on card, 17.5 x 17 cm   AVAILABLE

The colours here are gaudier than is truly the case

 Here are my first offerings from April's painting trip, which took me from Brazil to London, then to Paris, to Scotland, Somerset and back to Brazil via London.

London is not a good painting city. It lacks dramatic landscapes. The weather is both bland and unpredictable and the season changes lack force. The architecture is often good, but is also often fussy or indecisive, as is the street plan which rarely accommodates grandeur. And the city is uncontained,  rolling lazily in from endless suburbs and shires, undefined.

At the same time it lacks the sort of street life that makes Morocco, say, fascinating. In London, the private is utterly hidden. It cannot be intimate with you. It's true that you can sometimes get interesting views into the backs of people's gardens from railway lines but its hard ever to be able to find a place to paint them. And they aren't that fascinating anyway.

I never really "got" London, though I lived there for ten years, I seldom found it mysterious or enchanting except in old books or through the eyes of others such as writers like Ian Sinclair or painters such as Auerbach, though I came to love the more obscure stretches of Kensington and Bayswater. But most of it makes me shrug my shoulders.

Princes Square, Bayswater, oil on card, 14.5 x 16 cm  - available

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Many thanks to Lise and Felix for their generous hospitality in Westbourne Grove.

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London

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Horseguards Parade, the lonely civil servant goes home, oil on card, 11 x 15 cm  

Before returning to Brazil, I spent a couple of days wandering about in the strange fog that descended over London a week ago, which made it quite triste and nineteenth century.
 
 

Near St James's Palace, oil on card, 12.5 x 14 cm  available

St Mary le Strand, oil on card, 12.5 x 15 cm   AVAILABLE

Crimea Memorial, oil on card, 14.5 x 12.5 cm   SOLD



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 Thanks


Many thanks to John, Alison and Fred for their generous hospitality in London.


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A trip to Egypt; thanks; thoughts; Morocco

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  A view of Richmond from Ham, oil on card, 13 x 9.5 cm   AVAILABLE

Rose Issa will be showing the Egyptian pochades at the Dubai Art Fair, others were taken by the Union Gallery, Edinburgh. 

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I regard the quality of work from this trip as markedly higher than from the Italian trip that preceded it in September 2012,  and on the same level as the week in Serrana, at the end of 2012.

Why so? In Italy I experimented with larger sizes of pochades- the result was often to disperse a certain concentration that a smaller picture can direct. There was an additional problem, which was that I was not visually surprised by Italy: a condition that nullifies creativity.

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I want to thank those who helped me on this trip: Rose Issa, Chris and Anci, Lise Colyer, my parents, the staff at the Victoria Hotel, Cairo and, the two nice German couples -one in Luxor the other in Aswan- who, perhaps unknown to them, cheered me up immensely  when I thought things were going pear shaped.

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The next trip will be to Uruguay, followed, most likely, by Morocco and the UK.

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Ham House in Winter, oil on card, 9.5 x 11.2 cm unavailable




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Back from a painting trip to London, Edinburgh and Tunisia: London: a selection

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The Tower, oil on card, 14.5 / 9.5 cm  NOT FOR SALE

Well, I am back, and it is tremendously hot here. I've been to Tunisia and Edinburgh. These visits were bookended by London, and instead of posting absolutely chronologically, I´ll post according to place categories: its just easier to make sense of a broken up painting trip.

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A view near Earls Court, oil on card, 10 x 10 cm - unavailable

I stayed in Kensington and most of the pictures are from my wanderings in Kensington and its fringes: up near Kensal Rise and across to Shepherds Bush. 

The days varied, sometimes with that incredibly crisp winter light you get in London, to days of unrelenting grey: both have their charm. 

Holy Trinity, Brompton, oil on card, 12 / 10 cm  - available

An old pub, the North end of Ladbroke Grove, oil on card, 12 / 14 cm  NOT FOR SALE

Kensington Gardens, Winter, oil on card, 14 / 13 cm   SOLD

 A house in Kensington, oil on card, 12 / 10.5 cm  AVAILABLE

Warehouses serving a shopping mall, Shepherds Bush, oil on card, 8 / 10 cm  SOLD

Ladbroke Grove, looking North, oil on card, 13.5 / 10.5 cm  AVAILABLE

I generally feel that the fringes of a place offer the key to understanding the centres: life is less regimented, there are more spaces, things have gone wrong, the clock shows its mechanisms.

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The London trip ended with a show of pictures at Matthew Cushen's beautiful apartment overlooking the river: thanks to him, and to Lise and Chris for hosting me, and making my time in London so pleasant.

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

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Praia Mole- a bright day, oil on card, 11 x 13cm   NOT FOR SALE

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.

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Yet another lonely filling station

Yet another lonely filling station, oil on card, 11 x 12 cm - discarded

From near here, but painted from behind, where the swamp is.

When I get my car I shall do more of these. The filling stations round here often serve as a locus for the communities: at the back of this one are a bar, a barbers, a dry cleaners and video shop. You can drink yourself merry before driving on. Wonderful.

A rainy day

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A rainy day, oil on card, 9 x 12.1 cm (damaged and discarded)

Bucketing down, hard even to leave the apartment for a minute without getting soaked. I painted in the grounds of UDSC.

 

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London: Chelsea and Kensington: five paintings

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Distant view of Kensington Palace, oil on card, about 10 x 11 cm  NOT FOR SALE

I love this side of London, it's spacious, clean and elegant. I love the way it slopes down to the river. It feels calm and orderly. I stayed with my beautiful friends Lise and Felix in Notting Hill Gate: the weather was perfect.

If these pictures are popular and there is clearly a market, then I should like to return to London to do a larger run.

I always think that I am in "Whsitler territory" when I wander down to Chelsea.

 Kensington Palace from near the Pond, oil on card, 10 x 12 cm  SOLD

 Battersea Bridge, oil on card, 10 x 12 cm   AVAILABLE

St Columba's Church, Chelsea, oil on card, 10 x 12 cm  AVAILABLE

Campden Hill Gardens, Notting Hill, oil on Card, 10 x 12 cm - discarded

Four of these pochades in their little carriers




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London: paintings from the south London suburbs

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The view south from Crystal Palace, London, oil on card, about 12 x 10 cm  NOT FOR SALE

I mentioned how I had felt that painting the "official" more obvious tourist London might feel like a restriction, that as I painter it might feel as if I were working within a world of entirely pre-determined, setpiece views.

In fact, I found this less tedious and limiting thing I had imagined. There is a reason for the set piece views, and it is because they really are often truly spectacular, despite the fact that they have been turned into cliches.

So the there was no need to adopt a superior "ironical" attitude in depicting the sights, and I shall set about doing more.

The view from Brixton Hill, London, oil on card, about 12 x 10 cm  AVAILABLE

Nunhead Cemetery, London,oil on card, about 12 x 10 cm  SOLD

Clapham South, London, oil on card, about 12 x 10 cm  - available

But I also did some bus journeys into the suburbs, in south London around Brixton and Crystal Palace, and to Nunhead, hoping to capture their very particular spirit, to create more intimate localised views of residential areas, perhaps places which had some memories for me.

I wish I had had more time to get into this: I hadn´t the chance to visit old haunts in Finsbury Park (specifically the lovely Parkland walk, along the old railway line) and those areas behind Holloway Road and Hornsey which always seem forgotten to me (an instinct which was awakened in me by John Foxx who, indeed, used sections of the old railway to make a film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzXTu6tiXmE)

I am very much hoping to return to London before the bad weather and darkness set in this year.

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Some paintings from London: tourist painting

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The Houses of Parliament, Westminster, oil on card, about 10 x 12 cm  AVAILABLE

 

 

 

Saint Paul's, London, oil on card, about 10 x 12 cm  AVAILABLE

 

 

 

Tower Bridge, London, oil on card, about 12 x 10 cm 

 

 

 

Three paintings done in London, which satistfy the definition of "tourist painting" to me, in that they are very much set-piece views, immediately recognisable. I don't mean the term pejoratively

It is excellent to work from the south side of the Thames. As one goes east the tourists thin out, and it's easy enough to find a peaceful spot. The north side of the river is almost a showcase of London history, with views of the Tower, St Pauls, Parliament and so forth. 

I worried that because these scenes are so well known it would be hard for me to find my own angle, and that the paintings would become twee, and had speculated that it might be better to oncentrate on more obscure, perhaps more readily "personalisable" views in the suburbs (some of which I shall post tomorrow).

However, I feel that I have managed- what matters, as ever in painting, is to be attentive to what really is there, as opposed to what one supposes should be there. And the skies of London are extraordinary for the capacity to change mood rapidly- a vital subject in itself.

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Back to base

 Paintings from the Spey Valley leg of my trip: there are also som pictures from London, Brasil, and two still lives painted in Aberdeen.

Back.

Many pictures later, a good run of experiences and good news.

The trip had three stages: Taubate, Brasil,  London, The Spey Valley, Scotland and then London again.

I shall be posting the best of these in three postings. I also painted some little still lives.

I had some good news: the Union Gallery in Broughton Street, Edinburgh has taken my work, and will be dealing with it. This is excellent as it is a good Gallery with an interesting profile. I have raised the prices of paintings to 100 pounds sterling each. This is necessary to cover travel costs, which can be very high.

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Many thanks to those who hosted me: Larry, Chris, my parents, my sister Anna and her husband Kenneth, and Lise and her son Felix. I simply could not do such a long trip without your help and support.

Ready to go!

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Some essentials: carriers for pictures, a tube with brushes, a box of paints, card supports, some clothes and the camera battery re-charger.

Well, I'm off to the UK tomorrow so I'll be posting much less regularly for a few weeks. I'll be in London and in different parts of Scotland- touching base, revisiting places I know and discovering new ones.

 If the weather is nice then it should be a productive painting trip.

Preparations for a painting journey

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Ninety one prepared card supports for painting in the UK, where I shall be for a few weeks, in London and Scotland. I calculate painting between one and three pictures a day.

I like to have a variety of differently coloured supports. A medium tonality is most flexible: but sometimes it's interesting to work with- or against- bright colours or even black. backgrounds. If the support colour is too dark it can lend an unhappy heaviness to the picture.

I am anxious about the journey, though in truth there`s little that is likely to go wrong: I have a certain "what if x happens tendency" which leads me to imagine endless difficulties unnecessarily.

Nocturne: buildings opposite; paintings of cities in Britain

Nocturne: buildings opposite, oil on card, 9 x 11cm  SOLD

I started painting this in a pointellist style, then decided this was much too fiddley for the effects I wanted, and repainted it entirely in a broad strokes. Sometimes the best methods are obvious, but my instinct to fiddle- to seek to justify myself leads me astray.

On the other hand, however, it can be argued  that the initial phase was a necessary exploatory corollary to the latter, broader and rapid painting process.

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Cities viewed depicted from above are a visual summary of a place: a speciality of T|urner and later ofKokoshka, both artists who travelled widely. It's nice to have this massive scale as a constrast to closer views. Of course it helps enormously if the city being portrayed has hills nearby, or, if the artist has access to high buildings.

I am thinking of trying to paint London from either Crystal Palace (where I have never been before), or from Parlianment Hill. Then, Edinburgh from Arthur's Seat, Carlton Hill, from the Castle, or the Braid Hills, Glasgow from the Necropolis (well worth a visit in itself) and Aberdeen from either Kincorth Hill or, if I can get access, one of the high university buildings.

Entrance to an apartment block; the Speyside Way

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Entrance to an apartment block, oil on card, 12.3 x 8.7cm - Discarded

When I paint thick, boring paintings like this I always think of Luc Tuymans, a great Belgian artist.

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I'll be walking the Speyside Way in mid July, painting along the way.

The Speyside Way is a walk running from Spey Bay, on the North-East coast of Scotland and Aviemore at the Grampian mountains, roughly following the Spey Valley.  It breaks into sections of between 10 and 15 miles a day for six days, which means about 2 hours walking in the mornings, two in the afternoons with about three intervals for food and painting and rest. This will make a fine contrast to the week I'll have spent in London just before.

Picture for Peter Farall

Picture for Peter Farall, oil on card, 8 x 6.5 cm  discarded

Today's picture is dedicated to Peter Farall, who died earlier this week.

Rua Presidente Gama Rosa, Trindade; British trip 2011

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Rua Presidente Gama Rosa, Trindade, oil on card, 12.9 x 10 cm - - available

Another of the paintings of streets in Itacorubi and Trindade.

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I shall be in the UK in July. I will be in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and London. I hope to spend some time in London, probably exploring the suburbs of South London which for me often have a romantic appeal. But that depends on where I might stay.

I also want to go to Glasgow again, because I like the atmosphere there, the wonderful buildings of Alexander "Greek" Thomson , the red sandstone splendour of it all.

I'm pretty happy going where the wind blows me though, because I just like changing places.