Landscape

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Landscape of a tree

Imagine if, by some peculiar and, most likely, unpleasant turn of events, you became very very small, so very small that each of these cones was a mountain, and you lived here, eking out a livelihood in the grooves and ridges of the bark? Naked and cold.

What with the rain, flooding every cranny with dreary force, farming wouldn't be much of option. You would be better to forage, seeking fresh bacteria in those woody valleys. Or to scrape into the surface with your tiny nails in the hope of some edible slivers.

Where would you live? In a hovel made of grains of bark, or could you find a crack and slip into it every night for safety?

An ant casting its shadow on your home would represent a divine terror. You might live in fearful reverence of these vengeful creatures, with maggots, spiders and bees as other deities? Would you, weekly, present them desperate offerings: fresh piles of microbes and bacteria on rudimentary alters? Accompanying these with solemn pledges of love, of obedience, much mournful singing, and prayers that one day you might return to your previous, innocuous existence as a kitchen fitter or marketing assistant or suchlike (only now chastened, resolute in your humility before the Divine)?

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Vehicle

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Vehicle

I don't get what this thing is for.

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Cat

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Cat

This cat is following me around. But it tries to pretend it isn't by taking a convoluted path, going up and down trees and circling under bushes like a insane detective. He knows I'm up to no good. 

Finally, he feels the need to act. He settles on a stump, tetchy. His tail twitches. 

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Chickens

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Chickens

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The big cock, a bellicose brute and a serial rapist, is locked away in a fenced area.

 The chickens are free, in paradise. They run about, pecking gaily. Maybe they should form an independent republic?

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Dog, Rio Vermelho

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Dog, Rio Vermelho

The dog has found (or been given?) a tub and I assume there's something tasty inside.

In the great unceasing War between the Cats and the Dogs where do you stand?

As a child I always found dogs extremely unpleasant- the leaping, the ugly barking, the nasty licking business, the crotch rubbing,  the sudden, volatile  movements, their inability to recognize or respect personal space, their sniffing, their revolting smell, the vicious pack instinct...

Since then, I have modified my position to a less absolutist one and come to like certain terriers and a kind of small-to-medium sized yellowish dog you sometimes see wandering the streets around here rather innocently.

But in the War I am still firmly on the side of Puss with her lovely tail and soft fur.

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Rio Vermelho, path and saplings

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Rio Vermelho, path and saplings -available

oil on card, 21.5 x 24.8 cm

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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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Looking down on Rio Vermelho

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Looking down on Rio Vermelho, oil on card, 21.5 x 24 cm  SOLD

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Above Rio Vermelho

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 Above Rio Vermelho, oil on card, 22 x 25 cm  unavailable

From the track linking Rio Vermelho with Vargem Pequeno.

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Tall pines, Rio Vermelho

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Tall pines, Rio Vermelho

 oil on card, 14.5 x 17 cm - unavailable

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Rio Vermelho

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 Rio Vermelho, nature, oil on card, 14 x 12 cm - available

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Annual Review: 2015: Flickr, Blogger, Facebook, Twitter

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Above Rio Vermelho, oil on card, 12 x 15 cm

I traveled well and happily, visiting Paris, London and Scotland on one trip, and New York on the another. I very much enjoyed my time in Glasgow, a beguiling place.

New York was also a success, I was blessed with near perfect weather and I painted steadily and pleasurably. Glasgow and New York seem to me to share an up-front directness, that translates well into painting. I intend to re-visit each. It is something to do with the nineteenth century and a certain boldness. I like the people in both cities. They are straightforward and take one as they find one. In both, the architecture is often grand, even self-important. 

Parade of shops seen from Flushing and Thompkins, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

 oil oncard, 16 x 18 cm    SOLD

Otherwise, I continued to explore Santa Catarina, specifically the parts close to the island, largely trying to capture much larger expanses than I had previously, usually from a height. I increased the size of the pochades to do this. 

Antonio Carlos, landscape, oil on card, 16 x 18 cm

I used the following sites to show work:

Flickr

Now I have 880 Followers, up from last year's 838, a modest increase.

Blogger

The number of followers went down from  83 to 82. I had expected an increase, But It could be that people follow without becoming a  registered follower.

Facebook

This remains a good place to make contact and show work: add me there if you wish.

Twitter

There are now 314 followers on Twitter from 42 in 2012.  This is because I made a specific effort to "follow" other members and hey rewarded me in return. But it is difficult to believe that this means anything much, as I have little sense of an increased engagement with my work from these followers.

Saachi

I sold nothing through this site this year. 

Plans, thoughts.

Travel, having become tiring appeals to me less and less. But, of course one has to do something. Spending all year on the island would be extremely dull. There is little season variation and, as each year passes, less and less novelty. I have an idea about going to Peru, but feel daunted by the prospect. The guidebooks enjoy emphasizing the risk of crime. Valparaiso again might be better, Chile being that bit more advanced and given that I already know the city, at least a little. 

I want to spend more time in the mountains here in the year to come than I did in the last.

 Painting remains a good, perhaps even  the best, instrument for exploring one's visual and subjective experience of the world, and a justification for travel. The logistics of this are the matter. Lugging the painting things around is a bore, but it does give one a certain Boys Own Paper sense of ones own heroism at the same time. .."vanity has played a part is every heroes downfall". 

 Paris, oil on card, 16 x 18.5 cm

Thanks

Many thanks to those who put me up and helped me in London - Lise, Felix, John, Alison and Fred; kind Frédéric in Paris and my parents for helping with exhibitions and J. Heald for his company in New York.

Forest, Canasvieiras, oil on card, 18 x 22 cm

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Rio Vermelho, nature

Rio Vermelho, nature, oil on card, 15.5 x 17 cm   -unavailable

Rio Vermelho is one of those relatively obscure parts of the island which, like Ratones,  I love to visit.

There is something mysterious about it that invites a sort of painting, derived from Corot (a French master whose work, once so famous, is falling into obscurity) and which concerns the secret.