Annual Review 2022

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 Annual Review 2022

 

Bare trees,Praia Moçambique, oil on card, 27.5 x 29.5 cm

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 Travels

 

I travelled to  Scotland in May, to Rio Grande do Sul and inside Santa Catarina. I should have travelled more, I feel- I was unimaginative, or lazy or both. Since mid-December I`ve been in Colombia, however, working hard.

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Social Media

 

Flickr

 I have 667 followers, down from 945.  I no longer subscribe to this site and I guess others also stopped.

Blogger

 There are 86 followers, up by two from last year. There were 17.8000 visitors tracked - up from 40, 300. This figure seems to me to be too high to be credible.

  The most popular countries appear to be USA 46%, Germany 26%, Brazil 6%, Russia 4% and the UK at 3%.

 

Instagram 

 I started using this site again. It is a very nice site with clean graphics and is easy to use. I use two accounts: one for photos and the other for landscape paintings.

That with landscape paintings - tadeusz_deregowski - has 356 followers. The one with photography - tderegowskiphotos - has 98 followers. 

These numbers, in Instagram terms, are very low.

Saachi

I didn't sell anything here.

 

Facebook

 I continue to post here and receive good feedback. It is very good to have a page to post work and maintain a dialogue with the public.

 

 Photography

 

Canasvieiras, roots, wall

 

 

Modest photography

 I took photos from the neighbourhood and of the things I find interesting. Sometimes I wrote texts to accompany these. I am attempting to work with an idea called modest photography. This is about taking photographs which are reserved in tone, not showy or melodramatic and which depict commonplace items.

I also take photographs of things in the neighborhood. Again, my intention is to look at the ordinary in a cool-tempered way.

Painting

 

 

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, December 6, trees

 watercolour on paper, 28 x 38.2 cm

 

I worked on a larger size in oils, moving up to a little under A3.

Then, I began to work in watercolour after a hiatus of over twenty years.

 I am not entirely happy with the progress I made with this, and feel I have a few hurdles to overcome: the weightlessness of the medium troubles me.

Writing

 

I wrote several short stories, and a novella. I wrote texts to accompany photos and autobiographical sketches.

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Next year: 2023

 

I will begin t023 in Colombia then proceed to Ecuador. Other than this 2023 has nothing planned. I  wonder if I should set something up? It seems rather bleak to have nothing for June or July? 

Exhibitions and Sales

Sales were slow partly because I did no exhibit except for at the SSA 130 years Annual, in Edinburgh. 

Parting thoughts

Surely it was not just me? 2022 was an odd year, unhappy, filled with neuroses. It felt somehow stagnant, lacking in inspiration, very much one foot in front of the other.

 

But not every day can bring grand victories and I can perhaps take some satisfaction in the steady progress I made in watercolour painting.

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Urussanga, R. Pref. Jacinto de Brida, oil on card, 29.7 x 27.5 cm 

 

 

 

 

 

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Annual Review 2021

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 Annual Review 2021

 

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 Travels

 

 

Brusque, from Monthez Hotel, oil on card, 24 x 26 cm

 

There were a couple of little trips within Brazil, but rather few, and looking back I regret this as it seems lazy of me, though much of my time was taken with buying and arranging an apartment.

For a 6-month period, instead of painting, I took photos, and wrote stories and little essays. I posted a lot of monotypes from years back which had never appeared in this blog.

I did trips within Santa Catarina, to Brusque, to São Bento do Sul, to Videira. All were successful with some nice new paintings.

 

Social Media

 

Flickr

 I have 945 followers, a decrease from 952. I no longer subscribe to this site and I guess a lot of former followers likewise also stopped being members because the terms of free membership changed.

Blogger

 There are 86 followers, up by two from last year. There were 40,300 visitors up from 20,700. The most popular countries appear to be Sweden 47%, Russia 21%, US 8%, Italy 8% and Brazil 4%, but these figures seem likely to be enormously distorted by bots, given the blog is in English and of these only the USA is English speaking.

 

Instagram 

 I made no effort with this site but my followers rose from 287 to 317.

 I decided not to because I have started to develop an aversion to social media, specifically the way that it makes one want to do nothing else except click on one's phone constantly. This is one of the sites that I pulled back from.

Saachi

I didn't sell anything here. There have always been issues with Brazilian customs making it a hassle.

 

Facebook

 I continue to post here and receive good feedback. It is very good to have a page to post work and maintain a dialogue with the public.

 Stories

  I went through all my old stories and added new ones. I sent some out to magazines but only got one published- The Hairy Dog.

 

Photos

I worked on taking photos of a variety of objects and occasionally writing short texts to accompany them

 

Painting

 

Rua Rid Silva, Canasvieiras, 14.5 x 21.3 cm

 

 

I moved steadily up in scale, often tackling larger views. I like that I can add more variety of brushstrokes. I worked more with drying mediums- alkyds. The oils dry more quickly and transporting stuff is less of a headache. 

And I bought with different paints such as Lefranc and Bourgeois- it's impossible to get other imported paints here without paying the earth. I have dozens of tubes waiting for me in Aberdeen to pick up, when I am next there...one day!

 

 

Next year: 2022

 

 As you might have sensed, 2021 was a rather uneventful year for me. I made no sales, but I worked steadily.

The unpredictability of Covid is such that it makes planning difficult. I'd hoped to go to Spain in March 2022, but I think it better to sit tight than find myself facing, all of a sudden, a week-long quarantine in a costly hotel somewhere.

I shall perhaps instead go on some motor trips. Perhaps to Bento Gonçalves? Driving tires me but it would be a pity not to have some sort of break.

 

 

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A trip to São Bento do Sul: Part 4, Campo Alegre; Videira

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  A trip to São Bento do Sul: Part 4, Campo Alegre

 

 

 

 

 Campo Alegre, houses and trees, oil on card, 28 x 26 cm  available

I painted this quite quickly. I'd like to do more like this on a  larger scale. I was inspired partly by those Hockney paintings of Hollywood Hills from the 1980's, such as "Nichol's Canyon". I love how the landscape is piled up in these pictures and  how you can trace your way along roads snaking across the bright painted surface.

 

 These are huge paintings over 2 by 1.5 metres. My efforts must be more modest: I simply don't have the space to store large paintings.

This was the last painting on a very intense painting trip: I hadn't been off the island painting for over a year. I've been using painting to explore Santa Catarina for a few years now- a process that can never end. But I feel I can gain at least a loose familiarity with much of the state.

Videira is the next likely destination. It's about 7 hours drive though. This a trip would have to take about three days to be at all worthwhile.

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A trip to São Bento do Sul: Part 3, Campo Alegre

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 A trip to São Bento do Sul: Part 3, Campo Alegre

 

 

 

 

Campo Alegre, fields, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm unavailable

 

 

 

Campo Alegre is even more German than São Bento do Sul, with a stillness about it, and I think all talking there is done in whispers. Actually, I often sense that stillness in the German towns in the interior: sometimes it feels like an absence. I wonder if anyone else feels that?

There are two exquisite small churches and a funny cafe with little booths, a throwback to the 1950s.

 

 

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A trip to São Bento do Sul: Part 2

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 São Bento do Sul

 

This is the second picture painted here, plein air. 

 

When I travel in the interior of Santa Catarina I feel that I'm in another country altogether: an extremely conservative place.  On the Sunday I arrrived it seemed everything in São Bento do Sul was closed and I ended up eating lunch in a pseudo-Alpine tourist restaurant. And then there is a that provincial slowness...

 

The town has many winding roads which go up and down and is most confusing to navegate. It has many Germanic style buildings. And most of it is well maintained without grafitti or mess. There is a gigantic white cathedral, in a sort of Art Deco, perhaps, on a hill above the town: closed on a Sunday!

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A trip to São Bento do Sul: Part 1: a yellow house

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A trip to São Bento do Sul: Part 1

 

I stayed at Filadélfia Hospedagens, a charming hotel to the north of the town, above a district delightfully called "Oxford", in  beautuful grounds. The town shuts down rather at weekends, alas. 

The weather was perfect: sunny and crisp.

 

 

 

São Bento do Sul, a yellow house, oil on card, 25 x 22 cm

 

 

This is a simple kind of painting that I am working with: the style owes a fair bit to Morandi. 

 

 

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São Bento do Sul: an overnight trip

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São Bento do Sul

The countryside round São Bento do Sul  is very charming, with rolling hills and pristene small villages Moreover, it's a region of the state that I'm not very familiar with, so it would be fresh for painting.

 It's just over three hours drive away, so I can reasonably go there, stay one night, and return the next day having done some painting. I shall try to set this up to go in about two weeks time. I feel that the risk of contracting the COVID virus is low.

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