Clashnettie, woodland

*

Clashnettie, woodland, oil on card, 30.3 x 33.2 cm

*

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, forest, August 17, 2023

 *

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, forest, August 17, 2023

 watercolour, A2

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, forest - detail

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, forest, August 17 - detail

*

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho,forest

 *

 

 

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho,forest, April 5, 2023

 watercolour, A3

 

  

 

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho,forest, April 5, 2023- detail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho,forest, April 5, 2023- detail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, clearing

 *

 

 

 Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, clearing

 watercolour on paper, 40 x 28.5 cm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, clearing- detail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, clearing- detail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This paper is a notch up- it's Canson 300 gsm watercolour paper. It isn't too expensive but it holds the washes well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* 

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, forest, morning, October 5, 2022

 *

 

 

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, forest, October 5, 2022
watercolour on paper, 19 x 25 cm

 

 

 

 

 

This one is a little dense, and a bit bigger than the watercolour previous. It's on a light, 90 gsm paper.

 

I will next work on a larger sheet and try to leave more un-detailed spaces.

 

 

*

 

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, slender trees

 *

 

 

 

 Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, slender trees, 27.5 x 30 cm- unavailable

 

 Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, slender trees- detail

 

 

 

*

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho,forest, hot day

 *

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, forest, hot day

 oil on card 27.5 x 29.5 cm - unavailable

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho, forest, hot day- detail

It`s so hot that during the day the only pleasant place is the forest. 

*

 

Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho

 *

 

 

Woods, January, 2022, Parque do Rio Vermelho 

 oil on card, 27 x 26 cm- unavailable

It's nice, if one can get in the right mood, to do this sort of very straight Corot-via-Cezanne type of pastoral picture. Alas, the right mood seems to be something that just can't be forced.

 I have labelled other pictures from here Praia Mocambique, but that's rather less accurate than Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho. 

*

Praia Moçambique, forest, January 5, 3pm; 2022

 *

 

 

 

Praia Moçambique, forest, January 5, 3pm

 oil on card, 29.8 x 27.7 cm

 

 

 

 

Praia Moçambique, forest, January 5, 3pm - detail

It`s very hot, unpleasantly humid - even in the woods, which is the only tolerable outside space here in the summer.

 The sun blasts down right from above and it's hard to find shade anywhere else.

*

2022

 

This year I intend to loosen the brushwork further and to use purer, brighter colours.

 Working a bit bigger will help with the first. The second depends on organising my palette better, so one paint doesn't muddy another- that's sometimes difficult working plein air, but it's something once can become more conscious of.

*

Natural arch, Praia Moçambique

 *

 

 

Natural arch, Praia Moçambique, December, 2022, oil on card, 25 x 28 cm - unavailable

 

 

 

 

 

Naturl Arch- detail

This is a revisitation: I painted here in April in 2020.

 

The new Lefranc and Bourgeois paints are working out very nicely. I'm experimenting with an impressionist technique in which brushstrokes are layered in cross hatching over each other, so colours "vibrate".

*

 

Praia Moçambique, forest, December 20, 2021

 *

 

 

Praia Moçambique, forest, December 20, 2021

 oil on card, 28 x 26 cm

 

 

 

 

Praia Moçambique, forest, December 20, 2021- detail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It's very hot and so painting in the woods- where there's lots of shade- is the best option.

 

 The year is coming to a close and I'm quite tired, quite in need of different places, and spaces.

 

 

 

* 

 

I used the new easel. It is rather good, stable and rapid to set up. 

 

 

*

Woodland, Praia Moçambique; rejection from the SSA annual

 *

 

 

Woodland, Praia Moçambique, oil on card,  26 x 28 cm discarded

 

 

 

 

 

Woodland, Praia Moçambique - detail

 

 

 

My four entries into the Society of Scottish Artists were rejected this year- despite having been accepted in previous years. And I'm a "Professional" member of the Society.

 This underscores the arbitrariness of these selection processes, since the pieces sent in were no worse in quality than in previous years- at least not all of them, and there were no new entry specifications implying a change in criteria.

 

 

 

*

Woodland, August

*

 

 

Woodland, August, 2021, oil on card, 26 x 27.5 cm - available

 

 

 

Woodland, August, 2021- detail

 

 

 

 Painted about a week ago.

 

 

 

*

 

Forest Path

*

Forest Path, oil on card, 26 x 25.5 cm  available

 

Forest path (detail)

 

 

The light moves around in the forest far more than is probably apparant to anyone who isn't sitting watching and trying to depict it. One has to choose one's moment of reality or else one is endlessly rebeginning.

 I worked quite easily today, but previous sessions here were trying. Thre are a good days and bad but it is never clear to me why some go one way and others another....

I like the meatiness of the paint in this picture and I like the soft chalky colours. It's all a bit Roger Fry isn't it?

*

 

Trees in winter, Mocambique, July 2021

 *

 

 

Trees in winter, Mocambique, July 2021, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm

 

 

Simple tonal painting. 

It's funny how painting on consecutive days produces less successful results than painting on alternate days, or having intervals of several days. 

I believe this is not simply a question of how one percieves results but that the difference in quality is objectively determinable. 

Perhaps having time off allows the mind to relax and "take stock"?

*

Sunshine in a forest

 *

 

 

 Sunshine in a forest

 

 

*

 

An episode in a woodland village

*

An  Episode in a Woodland Village

At about four in the afternoon my train, already moving at an arthritic pace, stopped completely, and I could see that we were in a clearing with a low wooden station platform; a uniformed man marched along the train blowing a loud whistle.

He yelled something; on seeing my blank expression, he made a stopping gesture with his hands. Out train. 

Puzzled, I stood on the platform examining the timetable: no train out until tomorrow. 

My fellow passengers seemed all to have dispersed with magical speed. Alone, I saw the single road leading, unpaved, to a church, probably the centre of the village. 

Indeed,  it was so. The timber church, in a robust but elegant design, stood on one side, a cemetery next to it. On the other sides were houses, a grocery shop, perhaps a school. The houses were wooden. Many were prettily coloured while others were dilapidated. 

Beyond these buildings stretched forest and there seemed to be no life around except the occasional small grey bird. The air had a certain softness. 

I stood, hapless, with my backpack. 

Then, in a moment of wit, I entered the shop.  Hotel?

Yes. Small hotel not hotel. She made a gesture meaning almost. She walked out of the shop and pointed to a red wooden house with a little sign on which, when I approached, I could see a bed depicted. I knocked on the door.

Silence.

I saw a knob and pulled it. A bell. Then footsteps and a middle aged woman in an apron.

Hello.

Yes.

Hotel?

She made a gesture with her hand like that the shop assistant had, meaning almost.

Ok, I said

Her face was pinkly wholesome. I sensed she was a little shy. Come, she said.

 I went in.

A lithograph of a peroxide Jesus raising his hands in blessing hung near the entrance. 

And to my left was a front room where an old woman slumbered. There were cross stitch images bearing messages on the walls.

The woman pointed to a small sign with room rates. 

Ok, I said. 

She smiled. 

She pointed to a mat and I pulled my boots off. I followed her in my stockinged feet up the stairs.

 The house turned out to be larger than I might have imagined.  All was wooden, occasionally creaking agreeably underfoot.

She pushed open a door. 

My room.

Dinner, she indicated one hour with a finger.

Just me.

A springy bed with a patchwork cover. 

 The view of grey brown trees from the window, their endless growing and dying. My own breathing. The sad feeling that old silent country places have. Evening coming.

I lay down. An hour passed. There was a basin and a jug on a cupboard.

 I washed my face and looked at myself. Oh God,  why am I here? I started downstairs.

The woman appeared at the foot of the stairs. Come, she said, and we entered a parlour with a dining  table, and on the table a tureen and a stack of soup bowls and a basket of bread. There were four place settings with huge silver spoons. On one side sat the old woman. She muttered something but I don't think it was directed at me. 

On another side sat a man perhaps fifty years of age. Good evening, he said. Sit down. We can speak English.

I hope you like soup? My wife makes excellent soup. 

The woman- his wife- stood to serve the thick soup which did indeed smell most deliciously.  I was passed the basket of the heavy black bread. 

She too sat down and we began the soup eating. We ate in a silence broken only by the clink of the gigantic cutlery on the porcelain and the muttering of the old lady in between her slurps.

The man said, are you going to do some walking?

I replied, no, in fact I was on my way to the capital, but the train stopped here.

The man looked at me dismissively. I suppose you aren't interested in walking?

Well, you know, I hadn't thought about it, I hadn't planned to stop here. 

The walking is very fine...and you can also visit the church. It is 17th century.

There was a pause.

We continued with the soup, not speaking.

 I sensed something on my foot. A warm smooth rounded presence that moved from my toe upwards,  pushing a little inside my trouser leg to stroke my calf. I looked over and saw the wife lift her face up from her bowl and wink. 

The husband continued, young people are not interested in anything these days. Just sex and stupid pop music. No morality. 

Oh, I said 

Outside, night fell.

He looked at his soup then bending over continued to eat as if I had proven my inanity with my presence alone and would be better ignored.

The old woman muttered something. then sneezed,  and then began dozing. 

 More, said the wife? pressing my foot with hers under the table, and, without waiting for my response, giving me more soup.

I ate, finishing by wiping the bowl with a piece of bread.

The man sat back, also finished.  If you will excuse me, I must rest. He stood up and left. 

The wife also stood up and cleared the things leaving me and the old dozing woman.

I said, thank you. The woman said nothing, but smiled.

I went up to my room. 

I sat on my bed. Exhaustion.

I lay down.

I began to fall asleep. Then, I heard a faint knocking. I ignored it; it persisted. I went up to the door. I heard the woman. Let me in, she whispered through the door.   No, I can't. I whispered back. I am not like the other young people. I have morals.

I don't know if she understood, but I went back to bed and had a dream in which all the birds in the forest were weeping. 

Morning. I took my bag and went downstairs where I left it near the door.

 On the table in the parlour was cheese and an enamel jug of coffee, a hardboiled egg, and more of the black bread. I sat down to eat. The woman came and stood and watched me with her hands clasped, saying nothing. 

Then I got up.

 I put the necessary payment on the table. 

 Goodbye, I said. The woman didn't reply. 

 I put on my boots and took my bag and made my way to the station.

*

Read to the River Writers' group, March, 2021 and The Edinburgh Creative Writers` Club, April 6, 2021

*

A natural bower

*

A natural bower

A dance took place, girls holding branches, garlands laced in their hair. Their dresses were white. It was first a circle dance, then became a weaving and, laughing, they passed through an arch made by two of the party with sapling branches. 

It went on like that then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, disappeared into the woodland.

*

 

Getting lost: some notes: part 3

 *

Log

*

9. Worst places for getting lost (not in order): Marrakesh, Venice, London, Tunis, Lecce and Istanbul. The souk in Aleppo deserves special mention.. You could go completely insane there. Flatness, high walls a lack of reference points, and an absence of straight roads are common factors.

Excessive sameness is confusing, as in the endless whiteness of Lecce or when I once tried to find a friend's  house in Wandsworth while only having a general notion of where it was, to wonder up and down God knows how many streets of 1930s semi-detached houses.  

But disharmony can be as confusing as sameness. The visual cacophony of Sao Paolo makes it utterly baffling, such that it can give you a headache, and is rarely alleviated by nature (usually  Brazil's aesthetic savior).  London is hard because there are so many streets which appear to be straight but which, in fact, bend so that you walk under the impression that you are, say, going north, but really are curving a constant but subtle northwest. This can drive you a bit crazy.

10. Grid plan. Yes it's easy, but there is that very strange thing where you get out of the metro and you walk a few blocks in the wrong direction...

10. Relief. But one is never lost forever. At least not in the city. In the woods, however, I did at moments feverishly imagine that I might be lost forever, my emaciated corpse discovered by dogs in in a bush only 20 metres from the path as the newspaper headline breathlessly exclaims. But to find the path, to become unlost,  is as mysterious for me at least as being lost, akin to picking the right key from a ring of keys and silly me....then! Hey presto the door opens. Relief is conditioned with amazement. 

*

Getting lost: some notes: part 2

 *

Leaving a forest

Getting lost: some notes: part 2

6. When I ask for directions people are invariably very pleased to give them. Giving directions is a way of giving advice and this,of course, is an extremely popular human activity. I think it gives them tremendous pleasure to see how lost I am and thus confirm how they aren't lost at all and what fine people they are. They love how attentively I listen, how important their every word is. They love to detail exactly which junction one should turn left at (the one after the garage...) by which point I glaze over and start to become lost in the instructions themselves,  quickly confusing one corner, garage, set of traffic lights, corner shop, sharp bend, estate agent, big tree etc with another. Sometimes the direction giver is so overwhelmed by the desire to help that they offer a second option, or you could take the second left......and, needless to say, this is utterly disastrous.

 They also love to use you being lost as a vehicle for other conversation and find out where you are from. This seems very popular in Brazil and can be charming. 

7. There is that weird thing where certain cultures consider it shameful not to be able to help, and thus in response to where is the bus station will reply, straight on turn left, or a vague, but enthusiastically stated over there, all the while beaming at you, despite not having the least idea where your intended destination lies. And thus you find yourself wondering into some huge slum. I've heard this is common in the Far East but in Peru this happened to me, in Santa Cruz, twice. 

8. You can't miss it. A fatal expression

*