The charms of Malta: old shop signs

The charms of Malta include the old-fashioned shop signs that can be seen throughout the island. Here's a  little selection:

Five paintings from Malta

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The next few posts will feature paintings from a recent trip to Malta and Italy. All were painted plein air on a more or less one or two- a- day basis.

Five paintings from Malta, with coins for scale.

I had wished to post these images while travelling, but this prove difficult because the internet cafes often disable the USB connextions to their computers, making it impossible to download images.

Clearly, for future trips I shall have to consider taking along a little laptop- not something I'm keen on doing because of the additional weight and bother. 

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The trip began badly, I was down with flu much of the time, so I just managed a couple of interiors, and  views from the balcony of the flat in Marsaxlokk, including these:

Marsaxlokk, Interior, sofa haircut, oil on card, 14 x 10 cm - available

Marsaxlokk, Interior with woman with a "bowl" haircut, oil on card, 14 x 10 cm - discarded

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Tomorrow I shall post some pictures from Syracuse, Sicily.


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Nineteen paintings from Malta and Italy

From top: row 1- Malta; row 2- Sicily (Syracuse and Taormina); row 3- Sicily (Catania); row 4- Naples and Pompeii; row 5- Rome.

Plein air paintings from recent travels, all oil on card. I've included sunglasses and my paint box for scale.

For more detailed descriptions, please see individual pictures, which I shall put online over the next few days.

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All these paintings are for sale, at 100 Brazillian Reals- or current US$, Euros or Sterling equivalent (as I write, 100 Reals converts to 59 US Dollars,  43 Euros or 37 GB pounds).

Payment is by cheque or SWIFT or direct transfer from a UK or Brazillian Bank. These prices do not include postage and packing/handling.

All paintings described as "pochades" or "postcards" are priced as above (100 Brazillian Reals or equivalent)

These prices are deliberately low because I am keen to make my work available to those on ordinary salaries and to people who are normally excluded from the pleasure of owning original artworks for reasons of price.

Transporting pochades

The primed supports I shall take to Malta and Italy will be mostly be a standard 14 x 9.5 cm:

These little holders are designed to hold the pictures in place while I travel about so they dont get smudged. I have made ten: the pictures will dry within 5 days and can them be packed more closely.

I think I will paint them with enamels to protect them against rain.

Footbridge near Iguatemi Shopping; paint box and carrying wet pictures

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This is a cigar box that I've been using over the last couple of days for carrying materials. I usually use a French Easel, which is an elegant folding easel. However it is rather heavy, and therefore restricts the places I can go to work at to locations within about a mile and a half.

This cigar box is good, but does not function as a little table, so I suffer the difficulty of having to find places with benches or convenient walls.


Above is a little folder I'm trying out use for transporting the pictures. I shall re make it with sturdier cardboard.

These experiments will inform my painting journey in Italy and Malta.

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Sapling on a riverbank; David Sylvian; tourist pictures; getting into my stride

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Sapling on a riverbank, oil on card, 7 x 9.4 cm  - available

 

 

 

The creek cuts through from bridge to bridge at the back of Itacorubi, and I've found a little path, much overgrown. I went along it, passing a couple of fishermen. 

It`s a great place to work- tranquil. I might think of myself there working as John Crome, great Norfolk painter of discreet places. A thread connects all the artwork I've done, regardless of style or medium: the revealing of secrets. Finding and depicting obscure or hidden parts of Florianopolis is a way of revealing secrets, showing an intimate and private relationship with a hidden or un-noticed place. 

This is a theme that connects many artists I love- photographers such as Atget and painters such as Utrillo or Morandi. I first became aware of my attraction to this theme through music, specifically songs by John Foxx, or David Sylvian: 

  Once again I'm hiding in backwaters Running this way and that Trying so very hard to please (beware of hidden snares) Rushing to bite the hand that feeds me Running this way and that (there are always other possibilities) This way and that 

Backwaters, David Sylvian, 1984 

 Given the themes of secretness, hidden-ness and exploration so animate my work, I wonder if the idea of making the London Tourist paintings, and, in November, the Italian and Maltese ones is such a good idea? 

Such pictures of monuments and given views are surely against my every instinct. But perhaps it is good to oppose ones known instincts from time to time. 

 

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Above are some pieces of card being prepared for paintings. I'm very happy with this small format, which suits my working speed and also keys nicely into the idea of "revealing secrets", as outlined above. It took me a couple of years, however, of fairly steady work to get into my stride- to locate myself in the aesthetic- the first little pictures were generally underworked and to my eyes now, sloppily crafted, sometimes painted on badly primed supports. 

As I have worked steadily, I've managed to develop critical axioms, and raise the general level of my work. I'd say of every five pictures (a usual week), one is an outright failure, two are mediocre, and two good. Usually in twenty there is one which I love.

 But I have good patches and bad: now is a good one, though I scarely dare admit that for fear of jinxing it. 

 

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