Praia Moçambique, dunes, conifers

 *

 

 

Praia Moçambique, dunes, conifers  SOLD

 oil on card, 26.5 x 29.5 cm

 

 

 

Praia Moçambique,dunes, conifers, oil on card - detail 

 

 

 

 

 

*

Sand dunes above Moçambique

 *

 

 

Sand dunes above Moçambique, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm  - available

 

 

 

 

Sand dunes above Moçambique-  detail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it serendipitous that sand blew evenly across the surface of the picture so the effect is softened?

Well, it seems to work...

 

 

*

 

 

Dunes, grasses, bushes

*

 

 

Dunes, grasses, bushes, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm - available

 

 

 

 

 

Dunes, grasses, bushes - detail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A very nice painting day. 

 

I work much better after an interval of a couple of days than when working on consecutive days. I paint with immense efficiency after a break. But the next day I'm more hesitant, uneasy. And the third will be quite impossible, with false starts, endless fussing and a cross mood.

 

 

 

 

*

 

Hummocks, dunes, Lagoa

*

 

 

 

 

Hummocks, dunes, Lagoa, Florianopolis, unavailable

 oil on card, 25.7  x 27.7 cm

Perfect painting weather.

 

 

*

Lagoa, dunes; São Bento do Sul

*

 

 

 

 

Lagoa, dunes, July 21, 2021, oil on card, 24.5 x 21 cm -Available through No 31 Gallery

 

 

 

 

An extremely clear day, like Mantegna.

 

 

 

*

 

I resolved to go painting in São Bento do Sul next week for two nights.

 

 It's over a year since I left the island for more than one night.I will stay in a little country hotel. I don't really know this corner of Santa Catarina, though I have driven through it and found it enchanting.

 *

Dunes, Lagoa, July 2021

*

 

 

Dunes, Lagoa, July 2021, oil on card,  25 .7 x 28 cm - unavailable

 

 

Detail

 

 

 

 

 

 

The picture is very grey-brown and wintry. 

 

I've been using Liquin recently and thus the paints dry much faster. I first mix up a basic palette with liquin before applying paint (this initial stage is extremely enjoyable, in which one discovers fresh new colours). I sometimes use a little linseed oil too, to get the right flow. The brushwork is rapid and consists of hatching. 

I painted a close up of some of the shrubbery about a year ago, which I felt very successful but I have been unable to repeat this for those strange reasons that govern one's interactions with the motif.

 

 Trying to recreate previous successes seems never to work. It's all rather mysterious.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

Bromelias, Joaquina

*

Bromelias, Joaquina, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm

The flight moves more than a non-painter might imagine, the shadows shifting, different leaves, stones or twigs becoming more or less prominent as the session passes. The colours are bleached in the sun.

*

Dunes, Joaquina, July, 2020

*

Dunes, Joaquina, July, 2020, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm - unavailable

*

Dunes, Joaquina, June

*

Dunes, Joaquina, June 2020, oil on card, 28 x 26 cm   AVAILABLE

The light was unusually and deliciously silvery for a few hours, and the landscape took on a dreamlike quality. Wind.

I seemed to work efficiently and everything just fell into place like jigsaw puzzle pieces suddenly do  after a frustrating search for their partners.

A few hours later there was a terrible wind which left me feeling much out of sorts, appallingly alone and full of unhappiness.

*

The painting was a rapid success. I suppose I carry within me the memory of different landscapes and the lessons from many paintings and at some moments these lessons yield their fruit. Or perhaps the unusual light lent a different urgency to my work and I couldn`t involve myself with psychological perambulations that sometimes slow my creative decision-making.

*

Grasses, dunes

*

Grasses, dunes, oil on card, 19.5 x 23 cm - available

*

The dunes, a rise

*

The dunes, a rise, oil on card, 20.5 x 25 cm

There's an area where the genre of landscape shades into still life, and I enter it here with these recent dunes pictures.

 I'd initially been interested in the dunes for their grand sweeping shapes, but what now engages me is the close up ground view, of dry twisted thorn shrubs, strange succulents, stones, scratchy grasses and their shadows.

To this end, I'm using very small brushes for the first time in years.

*

The dunes, heavy cloud

*

The dunes, heavy cloud, oil on card 20 x 26.5 cm

*

View across the dunes, May 2020; blue

*

View across the dunes, May 17, 2020, oil on card, 23.5 x 21 cm

I am revisiting this extraordinary area, which at first sight appears barren, but at second can be seen to be rich.

I don`t  know how long I will spend this time round working here. It feels right to be here now. That`s probably because I spent of the last couple of years driving up to the forest where the landscape is, obviously, quite opposite in almost every sense, and I needed a change.

 Anyway, the dunes are  fascinating, and necessitate a completely different approach. The browns, greens and yellows are marvellously subtle and teasing.  I`ve now been back about six or seven times, so perhaps I`ll do much of my painting this winter here. I have bought seven new brushes expressly. 

 

*

Blue

I`ve been using a paint called Pthalmo Blue. It`s so strong that it tends to dominate all the other colours. So I use it with considerable care, much like Prussian blue. But even so it can easily stain all the other colours on the palette. Prussian and Cerulean blue are similarly difficult, I find, readily dominating the palette. But their sheer force is such that it is very tempting to use it for creating accents and both mix in interesing ways if used sparingly.

The Cobalt and Ultramarine blues are considerably easier to mix being more delicate.

*

Lagoa, viewed from the dunes

*

Lagoa, viewed from the dunes   AVAILABLE

 oil on card, 24.5 x 29 cm

This is a painting from one of the two series tht I am am currently engaged in- the dunes- which is a revisiting of an earlier set. This painting shows the very edge of the dunes. Other paintings will depict the heart of the dunes.

The other series features views from the road to Cacupe.

One of the nice things about working in series is that one doesn`t have to think too much about where one is going to paint. The work is laid out. That can be rather a relief.

*

Dunes

*

Dunes- May 2016, oil on card, 14 x 11.5 cm

 Dunes 2- May 2015, oil on card, 15.5 x 12 cm  SOLD

 A fine day painting on the dunes. I felt there as if I were in an Antonioni film. It`s a beautiful place to work, the landscape  both subtly coloured but with dramatic shapes.

Exactly two weeks until Peru- crossing off the days.

*

*

Dunes - from Lagoa

*

Dunes - from Lagoa, oil on card, 18 x 22 cm -  -unavailable

It`s amazing how quiet, ethereal indeed, it is just over the sand ridge from Rendeiras.

*

Clouds over the dunes

*

Clouds over the dunes, oil on card, 12.5 x 16 cm   NOT FOR SALE

*

A clump of trees on the dunes

A Clump of trees on the dunes, oil on card, 13.5 x 10.5 - available

Painted close to where I was yesterday, towards the end of the afternoon.

The dunes in cold weather

The dunes in cold weather, oil on card, 14 x 11 cm  AVAILABLE

Painted on the Avenida Rendeiras side of the dunes.

The dunes from Joaquina

*

The dunes from Joaquina, oil on card, 14.5 x 12 cm available

This is the size I shall be taking to Egypt. 

The larger sizes are only sometimes successful. The virtue of these little pochades is surely in the sense of concentration they convey. If I move up to about 18 x 16 cm, say, that feeling of concentration is diffused. The painting is neither intense and  little nor big and  free.