A trip to Chile: Pucón, part 3, views just outside the town; travel and oil painting

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 Pucón, a hill, farms, oil on card, 24 x 30 cm- available through No 31 Gallery

This is one of the more successful of the trip. The larger scale allows for greater fluency. 

Oil painting and travel

A month trip, two sessions per day, is a good concentrated period to work through ideas about painting. It's a good time to learn about a place. I find that a longer trip tends to lead to some sense of exhaustion, a need for recuperation, for experiences to sediment and pass through filters. I work very well if the weather and location are kind. But I have never extended the trips beyond six weeks. 

There is also the lugging things around factor. You need no more clothes for two months than you do for a week. But with the paintings you will need to take more protective carriers so wet pictures can be transported safely. Oil paintings such as mine, which are thinly painted and pretty well without impasto need to be packed individually until a week has passed and then they can be packed together. Inevitably something gets damaged- it's wise to incorporate something of Wabi Sabi into your mental armory.

For me making art is better done alone. Human social needs and creativity can combine in performance arts such as theatre. But, for me, with landscape painting- at least the romantic landscape tradition that I am involved with- social needs and creative necessities sit in different zones. But it would be nice to have company at mealtimes, of course.

I had a thought that going all the way down, adding another month to reach Patagonia, might have rewarded me. The long thin shape of Chile cries out for a linear trip from hot desert at the north down to icy mountain in the south. But the costs would have become hideous: Chile is not a super-cheap option like Peru or Bolivia: a single room in in a budget place is about 25$. 

A separate Patagonia trip is on the cards, however.

 Pucón, a lane with children, oil on card, 28 x 21.7 cm -discarded

In retrospect, I find this picture a little overworked. I liked it at the time and perhaps I'll come back to liking it.

 Pucón, big blue hill, mist, oil on card, 19.8 x 23 cm discarded

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A trip to Chile: Pucón, part 2, from above

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 Pucón, oil on card, 23.5 x 28.5 cm- available

Pucón, a neighborhood, oil on card,  19.3 x 23.5 c- available

Painting from above

One enjoyable trick is to steal from medaeval art to place elevations and ground level views on the  birds eye view street plan: This can lead to enjoyable tensions.

The second picture here is very good, having a brisk energy about it.

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A trip to Chile: Pucón, part 1

Description

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Pucón 

Pucón. volcano, lake, oil on card, 23.9 x 28.7cm   AVAILABLE

Like Villarrica, Pucón is a resort town on the lake. But it is more extensive with more of an infrastructure.

I'd have preferred somewhere a bit wider in both cases, more rural. I had somehow imagined that these towns would be buried, hidden and that I'd arrive as if the first to reach for generations, but everything here is quite polished and you might even imagine yourself to be somewhere in the USA at times. I confess that I often had a feeling of unexcitement in Chile, as if the place were determined not to get under my skin.

Well, it became very hot, and it rained. 

But I worked very well, with a good rhythm. When painting goes like that life is pretty much as good as it can be.

Travel painting

One of the things about travel painting is how it forces ones critical judgments to become rapid. One has less time to find subject matter and acquaint oneself with it. And one has less time to make judgments about ones own work. 

This might lead to weaker or more conservative work- more conservative because one might be less willing to take risks. But I think for me the result is simply that I work with more energy and make better use of my time. I think there is something in the idea that if you give a man an hour to do a job, he'll take an hour, if you give him two hours to complete a job ...and so forth. Time limitations concentrate energies. 

Another thing to thnk about is how creativity is about working with that you have at hand. So a time limitation can make you far more aware of the diverse possibilities of a given set of tools, and in the case of a lanscapist, also the possibilities in any specific view.

The world is essentially an interesting place, and creative responses are not necessarily richer in dramatic locations. I would say, however, that variety is always good: a diversity of landscapes and a diversity of media with which to interpret them. But I add, at risk of contradicting myself, that some places just seem to be more inspiring than others.

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A Trip to Chile: part 1; Temuco and Villarrica

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Chile

My trip was shaped like this:

Florianopolis- Santiago- Temuco - Villarrica - Pucon - Melipeuco - Valdivia - Puerto Montt - Santiago - Florianopolis

Temuco

I flew into Temuco, a somewhat nondescript town, albeit one full of curious characters, most of them seedy. The area around the bus station is especially full of such people and they sell vegetables, bric a brac and probably themselves along its urine stenching streets. I strongly recommend a visit. 

Seedy places in Chile are the only places that I've come across in Latin America where chips are sold as a snack fo you to walk away with. They are sold in a choice of minuscule bags at 700, 800, or 900 Chilean Pesos (900 fits about 15 chips, so for 700 I suppose you receive about five). The chips are oily and flaccid like mysterious body parts. You might not like them. They also sell them in Puerto Montt, which is very seedy too.

There is a very good art shop in Temuco.  

Villarrica

But the first place I did any work in was Villarrica, which isn't seedy at all. There was a heat wave so it was pleasant to work in the woods by the river. This first painting is very good. 

Villarrica, gardens viewed from the river, oil on card, 21.7 x 24.5 cm  - available

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Packing for Araucania

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Medium sized case, carriers

Travelling to Araucania

I`m trying to keep weight and nuisance down. 

 I calculate that I can take 32 card pieces to paint on, in the very unlikely event that all the 32 painting sessions that my four weeks in Chile allows are successful.

 I carry these in 4 carriers. The problem with using oil paints is they need at least three days to dry. That's one reason for not staying anywhere for less than a week-  to allow any pictures the time they need to dry before packing between different painting spots. I have thought about using acrylics but I find them nasty in colour and finish.

As things stand, I`m painting in three places: Villaricca, Pucon and Melipueco, though I  I shall perhaps wander down to Puerto Montt for the last few days in Araucania.

The paints and so on fit into this case, along with various other bits and pieces. It`s tight but it`s just about ok. The larger case is cumbersome. 

My trip isn't until after Christmas, but I like to plan things in advance and do things in a good time, unhurriedly. The Brazilian way of doing everything last minute appalls me.

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My summer trip: Chile

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Araucania

Chile: Araucania

There is a direct flight from Florianopolis to Santiago, and it is considerably cheaper to go there than  Quito. So I shall make my way there then hop down to Temuco and the lakes (Villarrica and Pucon).  It is a shame to, again, jilt Ecuador, but I have to be careful with my finances.

The scenery is rather find with volcanoes, forests and beautiful lakes, and I think it will have a pleasant temperature and a fine place to work.

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I reread my piece on Santiago from three years ago and it seems prescient. 

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