Praia Moçambique; Manganese blue and Viridian; advantages of larger scale

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Praia Moçambique, paths, oil on card, 29.7 x 27.5 cm - available

 

Praia Moçambique, paths- detail

Today I started using a tube of Manganese blue, a warm blue, i.e., slightly greenish. I see this colour has been discontinued for heath reasons and is now Manganese Blue hue. I also used Viridian, a dark, bluish green. Both are quite lovely, and slightly outside my comfort zone.

They are easier to mix than I had imagined, not bullying the other colours or staining the palette as, say, Phthalo Blue so notoriously does.

I have about another ten new colours to try, all from Winsor and Newton's artists range and I shall work through these over the next few weeks,

A big advantage of working on a larger scale is that one can experiment more with colour, including by cross-harching or scumbling for a vibrant effect, and one can vary the textures used more too. I shall grow larger in the next six months or so.

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Praia Moçambique, looking inland, mid-afternoon

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Praia Moçambique, looking inland, mid-afternoon, oil on card, 27.5 x 30 cm - available

 

Photo

 

The camera- a Lumix DMX  - has certain baises, and dislikes certain colour contrasts especially where pinks meet greens. I messed about for ages in the editor and never hit the nailhead. Well, I think it is more or less right.

Painting 

 

I loved painting here. The sun was not too tyrannous, and I could perch myself on a little knoll above the sands.

I finished before the late afternoon light comes raking in sideways- quite glorious to see- and I shall return today to see if I can capture this. I usually avoid going the the same place on successive days (does that  make me sound rather like a serial killer?) as I benefit from  having a fresh impression but I shall, exceptionately, break this rule.

I have been working on a larger scale and this allows more spacious painting, with looser brushwork-  most enjoyable.

 

Black  

 

I have also re-introduced black to my palette. 

Thanks, in part to the Impressionists many painters plein air painters avoid black as the Impressionists  had argued that black doesn't exist in "nature" and they held fidelity to nature as a high value (as if painting itself exists in "nature"). 

But, I'd avoided putting out blacks for a long time not because of reverence to the Impressionists but becauses they so readily pollute other colours on the palette, and all the mixtures can become greyed out.

 I am trying to use it discreetly. 

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Eyeball

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Eyeball

These eyeballs are sold from a coin operated dispenser outside the local supermarket. I wonder who comes up with these glorious designs? In an ideal world the maker would receive at least a knighthood.

 Anyway, the presence of these dispensing machines and the utter pointlessness of the crap within them is, in these times,  reassuring,: we haven't yet been reduced to exclusively utilitarian existences.

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There's a colour range which I fall very easily into as a photographer, consisting mostly of secondary colours, greys and browns. It can be a little serious.

So it's nice to step outside that sometimes, and what better subject that the surreal world of sweets and toys, and I'll try to do more. It allows me to change gear. Plus, for sure, they are often rather agreeable.

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Santo Antônio de Lisboa, house on a hill

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Santo Antônio de Lisboa, house on a hill, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm-  available

With this one, I wished to maintain to show brush movement and the forms of bushes on the hill. .

I seem to be going to a style of work where simple marks that contrast evocatively. I like things like textiles and ceramics

I used black here for the first time in ages. Black gives a "BLAM" effect that I can't obtain otherwise. But as it can easily pollute the palette, it has to be handled with considerable caution.

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Lagoa, houses and trees by a lake

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Lagoa, houses and trees by a lake, oil on card, 25 x 20.5 cm

An expressionistic pochade painted plein air by the lake.

The sharp sunlight invited ice-cream colours, a palette I love but rarely use. The combination of hot yellows and palce blues and greens is lively. 

I try to limit the palette when working plein air, usually mixing the colours in advance. This limited palette is partly because my palette is not that big, and because having a large choice of colours would make painting rapidly more difficult.

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A bowl on a tray and a plate with apples; painting in monochrome

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A bowl on a tray and a plate with apples, oil on card, 11 x 13 cm - available

I had the idea that on one of the trips I should eschew colour entirely and just work with black and white,  or dark sepia, this sustaining a deeper understanding of this fascinating area.

I like the way subtleties of brush movement, or of texture or tone become highlighted and how using black and white tips one into abstraction. Perhaps London, already monochrome in Portland Stone and steel sky would be the ideal place to experiment?

Colour is heady and tends to obliterate appreciation of anything but itself. It's like a drug, and like a drug you need to take more and more for the same effect. That does you no harm, though appreciation of anything grows with its absence.

A puritanical, or perhaps merely ascetic, side to my nature, Scottish or Danish in origin, lends me to suspect any too easily won aesthetic pleasure.

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Driveway on the way to Cacupe

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Driveway on the way to Cacupe, oil on card, 12.5 / 14 cm   SOLD

I have been looking at the Scottish Colourists, and am trying to transform myself into one, at least for the time being.

I've been painting tonally for years and it's exciting to change to work from the basis of colour.

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Flowerstalk

The stalk is about an inch long. I found it near the bus stop.

That lime green colour is charming. I should like to have a room one day large enough to allow such a bright shade without it becoming overpowering.

Some say the British are afraid of colour but it isn't true. They often use very strong colours to decorate rooms.