Looking down on Mearns Street, Aberdeen harbour

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Looking down on Mearns Street, Aberdeen harbour

oil on card, 25.5 x 28 cm-  available

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Latacunga- from the Central Hotel - 2

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Latacunga- from the Central Hotel - 2, watercolour on paper, A4

Latacunga- from the Central Hotel - 2 - detail

Latacunga- from the Central Hotel - 2 - detail

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Latacunga, from the Central Hotel -1

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Latacunga, from the Central Hotel- 1

 watercolour on paper, A4

Latacunga, from the Central Hotel -1- detail

This was painted on  thin paper- the effect of this is that  I`m forced to use a limited technique with single washes and little working in, and  forced to be clear in my objectives.

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Latacunga has some wonderful architecture- fine whitewashed churches- and is very friendly.

 I have been blessed with a wonderful hotel room overlooking the square, from which I shall continue to work. Fortunately it is not at all cold, like Quito.

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Salento, morning, 24 December 2022

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First the sketch...

Salento, morning, sketch, 24 December 2022, watercolour, A5

...then the larger picture...

Salento, morning, 24 December 2022, watercolour, A3

Salento, morning, 24 December 2022 - detail

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Armação, from above

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 Armação, from above, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm - unavailable

 detail -bridge

detail- hillside

I attempt to further explore the possibilities of dot and dab, thus possibly arriving one day at a less immediately impressionist effect, and enjoying more paint itself.

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There is constant and quite dreadful music playing from one of the bars in the town, even at 10 am. I wish they would stop. I shall visit the town a few more times however. It is nice to gradually get to know it one session a week.

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Armação, from the hill above

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Armação, from the hill above, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm - unavailable

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Corrego Grande, a path; dots and lines; Paul Klee

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Corrego Grande, a path, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm - duscarded

I`m attempting to use dots and simple lines and blocks for fun, to give a cryptic aspect to the picture. I set myself a challenge, a limitation on the sort of marks I can use. There seems something intrinsically humorous about the dot, I guess maybe because of how a dot can make such a strong impression despite being so little

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I've been interested in the dot, or dab for a while but I think for some sessions I'll give it particular attention.

This kind of approach to painting is like trying to make a musical composition for certain selected instruments except I have the additional issue of representation. I guess it I`m following Paul Klee though I am not sure he worked much directly from nature.

I am continuing in the suburb that I visited last week. 

Today one of the residents brought me a plate of food for lunch- very kind.

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Puzzle: can you find the man in the picture?

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Praia Mole, from the hill

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Praia Mole, from the hill, oil on card, 28.5 x 23.5 cm  AVAILABLE

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A trip to Chile: Pucón, part 2, from above

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 Pucón, oil on card, 23.5 x 28.5 cm- available

Pucón, a neighborhood, oil on card,  19.3 x 23.5 c- available

Painting from above

One enjoyable trick is to steal from medaeval art to place elevations and ground level views on the  birds eye view street plan: This can lead to enjoyable tensions.

The second picture here is very good, having a brisk energy about it.

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My fourth Peruvian trip: Chivay part 3, fields

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 Chivay, fields, oil on card, 22 x 23.5 cm - available

Chivay, fields and farms, oil on card, 19.4 x 25 cm unavailable

In both cases these were painted from quite high up the slopes, to capture the pattern of terracing and fields.

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Annual Review 2018; social media

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2018

The year often had an enervated quality. I spend a good deal of time waiting. I was not bold with planning. 

Travels

There were three trips in 2018: Peru, Uruguay and the USA.

Ayacucho, a view across a gully, 21.7 x 17.7 cm

Peru was a success: the weather was kind and the work was often good. I spent a considerable time exploring Lima, a rich and curious city. The people of Peru are modest and leave you alone. The scenery is interesting as is their bizarre culture and it's blissfully cheap. I started working on a  a larger scale, a tendency I pushed across the year.

Cabo Polonia, Uruguay, sea, oil on card, 21.7 x 27.7 cm Not for sale

In Uruguay, a pleasant country for which I feel considerable affection, my trip was ruined by sickness and I spent a week in bed in two hostels. 

This is the risk inherent in shorter journeys, that a mishap or a bout of sickness renders the whole trip worthless. Short trips might be considered a waste of time and money. No sooner have you unpacked then you are off again, and the cost of flights weighs more heavily when taken as per day cost. But such trips do break up the ennui induced by teaching...

Chicago, view down from an apartment on Madison Avenue

 oil on card, 23.2 x 20 cm unavailable

I did some nice pictures in the USA  but the trip was not enjoyable. 

There's a disagreeable atmosphere in the USA: a lack of true spontaneity in relations and sometimes boorishness. It doesn't take a great psychologist to see that there must be something profoundly wrong with a people if they feel the need to elect someone to tell them how great they are all the time. This combination of insecurity and boastfulness characterizes much in Chicago. There is a rarely quiet ease there, a considered pride. Big and brash is best. 

 Despite it's reputation for gracelessness, New York is better but it's often a tired or angry place. I didn't sense that people have much fun in either city.

The work

I worked with fair discipline and the pictures became steadily bigger.  I worked small on some still lives, but moved up to a roughly A4 size for landscapes. I attempted two different approaches.

In the first I tried to push a sort of "Chinese" style- economical and rapid and intimist. The second  style I refer to as "blocky"-  using large squarish marks to delineate simplified forms. The colours are usually bright, rarely tertiary: extrovert. This style works satisfactorily with buildings. There are various crossovers between the  two approaches.

In Brazil

Rua Luis Pasteur, Trindade, Florianopolis, looking down

 oil on card, 20.5 x 22.5 cm

I did a run of pictures in this neighborhood. I also explored architectural subjects. This went nicely and  I didn't go to the mountains at all nor visit other places in Brazil. There are reasons for this. So much of much of my work is concerned with architecture and there is very little architectural variety in Brazil. And what there is is often poor, and poorly integrated into nature.

The landscapes are often very inaccessible because of the way land is closed off by landowners. It is not always easy to find a trail or place you can walk to get views. The rights of way you get in the UK are unknown here.

Exhibitions

There as a show at BRDE. It went well. It sold well and functioned as a review of the last few years and some of the Peru work. There was also work on display in Scotland. There was supposed to be another show here but it never happened because the gallery was messing around. 

Social Media

Like many, I suspect, I am unhappy with social media. It simply does not seem to fulfill much of its promise. Like me, I once thought it would be a means to connect with like-minded people internationally, and while of course this does happen, too often it seems to be a forum for banality or unpleasantness..

Of course, as with all media, one can say what matters is how one uses it, and the user is to blame for the world they inhabit with a specific medium. However, each medium does seem to bring certain emphases, and this medium seems to emphasize transitoriness and celebrity-narcissist culture.

I also dislike how social media- usually Instagram or Whatsapp or Facebook- obtrude, their use determining how social situations develop, with silly set-up photo opportunities breaking the flow of conversations and justifying bossiness on the part of those taking pictures on their mobiles and imposing fake behaviors on the subjects. I dislike how the mediated, parched world of social media is now a substitute for real exchanges and experiences. I see people in galleries taking photos of each other in front of exhibits without even considering the exhibits themselves.

In contemporary art the use of social media is closely related to advertising, especially through the development of easily recognizable visual catchphrases and interjecting a chummy personal aspect.  One should take photos of ones home, situation work in progress and so forth, as well as one's finished work in such a way as to create an image, a brand, and henceforth a following.

Most artists can take a bit of this, and might even enjoy it. They understand that people wish to get to know a bit about them and where they are from and what they objectives are and that this helps in the understanding of their work. But many artists don't want themselves to be focus of their practice. They want their artwork and the things they are developing using art to be the focus. 

Well, all this is a roundabout way of describing my unease with using social media.

Flickr

I am annoyed with the site management for messing with the site. I consider not using more but as it now contains a readily accessible catalogue perhaps that would be unwise- though that catalogue is also available on Facebook. I have risen from 937  to 959 followers. 

Blogger

The number of followers has hardly grown. There are 85, up one. 

Facebook

The site is a good place for showing work and maintain contacts but I sense that it is being used less and that people are transferring to Instagram. I have a "page". It has 82 followers, a good hike up from last years's 3 and connected to my exhibition and some reluctant efforts I made.

Instagram

I started using this and found it rapid and easy. Now I think it it is just another invitation to waste time peering into a tiny screen. There is desolation in all this. I have 136 followers. 

Twitter

I went through a phase of posting stuff here but then gave up as there was so little interest it's not really a site designed for visual arts. There are 253 followers.

Saachi

There was one sale on this site. Sales usually necessitate endless phone calls with the an appalling courier service called DHL. 

Tumbler.

Occasionally I posted here but it opened no doors. There are 31 followers. 

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Thanks

Thanks to the BRDE, especially Prisclla Gobbi,  and Vikki Debden, who helped hang my show, buyers, my ever supportive parents and random strangers who made trips more agreeable.

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2019

The year will begin with Ecuador, a six week trip, then to the UK in July, or perhaps August, for at least three weeks. I want to do more work in Scotland and as ever there is the question of where to stay there that isn't cripplingly costly.

I read things from time to time about travelers who have such and such adventure when their four wheel drive loses a wheel or two in some ravine or other and they seem secretly pleased about this when it happens. But my mindset is essentially bourgeois, though I like the nicer youth hostels as they can be agreeable social spaces.

A pond at a ranch, oil on card, 15.5 x 17.5 cm

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Santo Antonio da Lisboa- from above, late September

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Santo Antonio da Lisboa - from above, late September

oil on card, 22 x 17.5 cm - unavailable

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Looking down on Rio Vermelho

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Looking down on Rio Vermelho, oil on card, 21.5 x 24 cm  SOLD

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Above Rio Vermelho

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 Above Rio Vermelho, oil on card, 22 x 25 cm  unavailable

From the track linking Rio Vermelho with Vargem Pequeno.

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Explorations: BRDE exhibition notes

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Explorations

Here are some notes about the works on display at the BRDE show: a sort of introduction and maybe also some memories about what happened along the while I was making these pictures.

About me.

I grew up in Aberdeen, a provincial city in north-east Scotland, notable for stern and taciturn and decent granite buildings, where the people are stern and taciturn and decent too. There are also two beautiful rivers which lead you into the glory of the Scottish countryside. I used to cycle along the Dee in the evenings to escape effects of the tedium of school and smoke cigarettes and try to feel free. I also used to paint pictures though I never thought to combine the two activities.

I haven't changed much except now I live in a messy and not very stern Latin American city and travel by car, a silver Celta called HAY. HAY is my best friend and I love her and we have been all the way down to Uruguay but mainly we wander round Santa Catarina especially the fabulous mountain towns where you get this divine sense of lostness among the Araucarias.

Travelling and painting

Travelling and painting is basically the best sort of travelling you can do. You get to use a kit which consists of a box containing your paints and brushes and which you then mount on tripod to function also as an easel. The possibilities contained within the kit are infinite and glorious and it is your fault solely and entirely if you return home after a longish trip with a pile of rubbish paintings as messing about with them later never works. That responsibility focusses the mind.

I paint using oils which take a few days to dry so I carry them around in cardboard containers which I make specially.

Then you walk around looking for stuff that strikes you and, so long as the sun is shining you are fairly likely to find something. Then you set to work.

Peru

The pictures here are a selection of those made from three trips in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Peru is a country that has very distinct regions and I spent most of most of my trips in the Andes- I avoided spending too long on the coastal cities because of the heat. I spent time in Ayacucho, Cajabamba, Cajamarca, Pacucha, Cusco and Tarma. There are also works from Lima, a place extraordinarily rich in architecture- albeit often dilapidated- Arquipa, Trujillo and Puno.

Peru is quite weird but rather good. The woman of Peru are finely dressed with excellent hats. Dentistry is rare. It`s cheap, quite pretty and the food is awful but the people leave you in peace even if the dogs don't. In fact, the Peuvians are mostly quite shy and courteous and sometimes were kind in bringing me things. Their children do not throw stones at you like Arab children nor attempt steal your stuff like the London brats. In Brazil people are mostly courteous too but not as shy, but still they don't bug you too much. If you have traveled and painted in Arab countries you will know that not being bugged is something to be very grateful for as Arabs harry you mercilessly.

All this matters because if you are painting you want to concentrate and if some idiot stands next to you repeating over and over -as one twerp did in Tijucas, what are you doing? - it is apt to damage your concentration.

Santa Catarina

As I live in Florianopolis the pictures here was based on explorations of the island and primarily the neighbouring regions. The good thing about Santa Catarina is that it has a huge variety of landscapes within a fairly small area and the locals aren`t as inclined to criminality as in other parts of Brazil. Also, it has a good span of different cultures, though architecturally it is quite barren. I get a bit fed up on the island and make regular trips usually to Urubici, Alfredo Wagner, Mafra and other mountain destinations. I did other trips down to Criciuma, to Orleons and way over to the west to Sao Miguel and places in between. I went to Anitapolis and to Araranguá also to Urussanga. It`s not a big state but it`s big enough to allow years and years of exploration.

The Pictures on display

The pictures are a selection to show the range of styles I worked in but it favours most the last Peruvian trip and the most recent Santa Catarina trips. The pictures are not painted slowly but only a few pictures survive. Most pictures I did are like burnt pancakes or horses you bet on and which nearly win but in fact lose, and thus engender a sort of disgust and you would rather not be reminded of them. Hence, they eventually find their way to the scrapheap. That is the way with plein air painting. It is at times agonizing but when it goes right it is very sweet though somehow it doesn't feel like it was because of you but because the hand of the Great Architect somehow pushed things your way for once.

So you only feel it`s you when you lose and never when you win. I don`t know why that is.

Five pictures

All the pictures are very much of the hour. They aren't classical at all. I don't lay much claim to objectivity, nor to harmony and balance or the legacy of Poussin though I know he is magnificent. I`m pretty much a product of the northern subjectivist schools especially van Gogh and Munch, though I love Bonnard and Corot too.

All the pictures are glazed because I wanted to protect them from dust. The oil surface picks up dust quite readily but the glazing does mean you lose some immediacy. I framed the pictures simply and fairly uniformly for the show, but certain pictures might be better re framed for certain contexts such as white walls.

Now, let`s look at five pictures...


1.

Sao Jose, looking across wasteland, oil on card, 13.5 x 11.5 cm

I liked the way the rise up flattened to road into a curve. I like the way the place was basically a dump, they were waging a  war against the environment-, the shamelessness of it all seemed worth recording. The world flattened out makes me think of Mantegna .

2.

The mountains near Cajabamba, oil on card, 17.2 x 15 cm

This is from a place called Cajabamba which is small and fairly lost. I liked the Cezanne-ness of working there, the way the soft air lent such distance to the perspective and how melancholy it all was. I`d like to go back, there are big pigs on the lanes though there is no decent coffee even in the town centre. Milk is not popular either. The hills around are very soft yet exaggerated and have therefore a oddly mysterious quality as if offering endless places for one to hide.

3.

Tijucas, kite flying, 16 x 18 cm   SOLD

Sometimes you just get this sense of people or places that have just been abandoned or forgotten here at times, Europeans just sort of dumped. Or left to their own devices.

4.

Guardo do Embau, with hills in the distance, oil on card, 18 x 22 cm

This painting is available on Saacchi Art

So much of my work has a troubled mind as its emotional genesis but here I wanted to make art which is explicitly about happiness about simplicity.. It`s an easy place to be happy in especially if all you want to do with your life is smoke pot and sunbathe.

5.

Ayacucho, a view of some lots, oil on card, 18 x 16.5 cm

This was painted from the just down from the big square. Ayacucho is a pretty fine painting city except for the dogs. Too many: I saw six them attack a schoolgirl and  this guy and I had to rescue her. She was traumatized and returned home weeping. Anyway, the painting has those rigid geometries that seem to be the norm in Peruvian towns, with the whole place a grid extending with deviations from the central square. But that, from a painters perspective can lend visual sterility, especially in flat place. But Ayacucho has some fine hills, and this is one shows the lots to the north of the town. This picture has echos of Bonnard, I think.

That's it.

When I began to make these small paintings - and indeed they were very small, about half the size of postcards - they were somewhat under the influence of Symbolist photography. They were consequently very tight and a little sad and gray, they failed to reflect the bright colors of sunny Brazil. I think I translated the cold tones of northern Europe with my contained palette and was unconsciously trying to impose nature on them here.

It took me about three years to get the work in order - at least in terms of the overall aesthetic method - by developing critical notions of what "good" or "bad" could mean as a reference to my work, and developing the technical fluency to achieve that goal.

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