My Videira trip

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View from the Verde Vale Hotel, Videira, oil on card, 24.3 x 28 cm

 

 

 

 

View from the Verde Vale Hotel, Videira- detail

 

 

 

 

 

Near Rio do Sul, oil on card. 28 x 25 cm - available

 

 

Videira

 

 Videira sits in a charming valley. They have made the area along the river where there were railway lives quite pleasant to stroll and have snacks. 

Otherwise, there is the usual Brazillian higgledy piggledy architecture, a big building next to a small and nothing hormonious in the least, all made of ticky-tacky, nothing of distinction. They have built is to that the main street closes the river below from the view of drivers and pedestrians there.

The town seems to be full of young people. It's fairly friendly, though my  hotel was one of the most anonymous I've ever stayed in.

 Everything closes on a Monday.

 I got confused and not quite lost coming back. There are few road signs.

 I returned via Blumenau: the roads are basically a hell, single lane with endless speed checks, roadworks, speed bumps, and often slow because of a single truck trundling at a snails pace, a huge line of cars weary behind. Traffic from Blumenau through to Balneario is even worse, and made more hateful stilll by rain and rotten lighting.

 The trip exhausted me. I'm now wary of doing a second, longer one, to Caixas do Sul, in mid-January. Let's see.

 

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Videira

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 Videira

 

 

   

To Videira and back

 

 

 

 

If everything goes according to plan, this journey is fianally going to happen. Thus, I visit a remaining unexplored corner of Santa Catarina next weekend. There via Lages, back via Blumenau.

Fingers crossed that the weather is kind.

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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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My fourth Peruvian trip: Conclusions; Santa Catarina Road Trip/ Rio

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 Cabanaconde, mountain in sun (detail), oil on card, 24 x 21 cm

Six weeks in Peru

Peru is about as good as anywhere I know for a painter to wander around in. It`s fairly safe (at least in smaller towns away from the coast), the weather is clement, the people are pleasant and mostly respectful, it`s cheap and its very varied in terms of landscapes and historical sites. There are few cars in the rural places and you rarely feel that you are in a a big machine as is so often the sensation in developed countries. That is, in the west every place you go has a Visitor Centre selling tat, giving you directions and has signs all over sign saying things like Path may be slippery in the rain. Please use handrail, sufficient indeed to make you feel a piece of processed tuna at the the end of the visit (no thanks National Trust).

This trip was the longest I've done. Six weeks is a short university term, and enough time to exhaust some ideas and develop others. It`s enough time to develop a certain self-sufficiency too.

The main thing is I`m happy to be working on a larger scale now- however tricky that is for traveling around. It`s difficult to store pictures as they never quite dry completely. However, on a larger scale there is much more enjoyment in the physical manipulation of the brush.  And the final piece just has greater presence.

 So to this end I`m preparing larger supports and have built new carriers. These will be ready in about two weeks time. 

The next foreign trip in to the UK in August. Most likely it will be very different in tone as I`ll be meeting considerably more people, and having more conversations. As a confirmed misanthrope this isn't necessarily something to celebrate.

Santa Catarina Road Trip or Rio?

It`s necessary between now and then to plan something to break up my time here- most likely a drive in Santa Catarina, perhaps up to Videira, then to Xanxere  then to Passo Fundo in Rio Grande de Sul, a to cover corners of the state and of Rio Grande de Sul that are unfamiliar to me. That could be done over six days...or maybe it would be more fun to revisit Rio?

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