Steps

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Steps

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Night, blocks, Trindade

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Blocks, night

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Nocturne: Curitiba

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Nocturne: Curitiba, oil on card, 12.5 x 11.5 cm unavailable

This was painted back in 2011 on a trip to Curitiba, but not put online. It seems strong to me: very Munchian, but that's hardly a criticism.

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Nocturne, Lagoa, November

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Nocturne, Lagoa, November, oil on card, 15 / 12 cm  AVAILABLE

It's been so hot recently that the only thing I can do some afternoons is sleep. But the evenings are cooler, so more nocturnes are in order.

Guarulhos, travel

Nocturne: Guarulhos airport, May, oil on card, 12 / 9.3 cm unavailable

Well, this above is the last of from the Chilean trip. The next trips are within Brazil, to Ribeirão Preto in the interior of Sao Paolo state, and to Recife, in the north-east.

In late September comes a three week stint in Italy: Rome, Orvieto, perhaps Puglia and Lucca.

Beyond that I am not sure. Chile has inspired me to visit more of Latin America, specifically Bolivia and Peru, but the Summer months (November to February) are wet then.

Ergo, I might find myself returning to Montevideo, and looking around Uruguay and Argentina. The main thing is to go somewhere which is sufficiently different from here for me to experience a "jolt", which means, principally, somewhere that isn't tropical.

Nocturne: in a new suburb

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Nocturne: in a new suburb, oil on card, 12 / 8.7 cm

Welcome to the new Florianopolis!: faceless blocks showing little imagination, with few green spaces, and little to delight. 

How do people remember which block is theirs?

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Nocturne: night walkers' song

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Night-walkers' Song

 oil on card, oil on card, 11.2 / 14 cm - unavailable

The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.

From Byzantium by William Butler Yeats 

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A weekend in Curitiba

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 Just off Rua Tibagi, oil on card, 12.7 x  11.5 cm  - available

 Hotel Roochelle hotel suite, oil on card, 10.5 x  14 cm   - available

 Curitiba nocturne, oil on card, 14.2 x  10.5cm

Rooftops, Curitiba, oil on card, 9.6 x 8.1cm   - available

Four new pictures from last weekend trip to Curitiba, where they are having an art Bienal: some very good shows. The art infrastructure there is good.

The city itself has fewer and fewer charms for me with each visit: the massive dominance of anonymous corporate hotels and conference centres, which contrast strangely and bleakly with innumerable seedy lanchonetes (diners) whose food is so bad that Macdonalds seems good in comparasion. And then there are the malls, those monstrous and charmless shopping malls...

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Rio: The Ibis Hotel room nocturne; painting nocturnes

Rio: Ibis Hotel room nocturne

 oil on card, 12.3 x 9cm - discarded

The view from the hotel is of some administrative buildings.

To paint these things you nee to find a way of  getting light on your support without losing your ability to see the thing in front of you. But this is surprisingly difficult, because when you illuminate the support, your motif will often fade out. I think I shall try to get one of those little reading lights that they advertise in magazines, usually with images of elderly couples in a double bed, one asleep, the other deep in George Eliot. That might be ideal: they have a little clip so you can attach them onto your book, or in my case, picture.

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Photographing these nocturnes is very hard, there are almost always reflections in one place or other.

Nocturne: buildings opposite; paintings of cities in Britain

Nocturne: buildings opposite, oil on card, 9 x 11cm  SOLD

I started painting this in a pointellist style, then decided this was much too fiddley for the effects I wanted, and repainted it entirely in a broad strokes. Sometimes the best methods are obvious, but my instinct to fiddle- to seek to justify myself leads me astray.

On the other hand, however, it can be argued  that the initial phase was a necessary exploatory corollary to the latter, broader and rapid painting process.

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Cities viewed depicted from above are a visual summary of a place: a speciality of T|urner and later ofKokoshka, both artists who travelled widely. It's nice to have this massive scale as a constrast to closer views. Of course it helps enormously if the city being portrayed has hills nearby, or, if the artist has access to high buildings.

I am thinking of trying to paint London from either Crystal Palace (where I have never been before), or from Parlianment Hill. Then, Edinburgh from Arthur's Seat, Carlton Hill, from the Castle, or the Braid Hills, Glasgow from the Necropolis (well worth a visit in itself) and Aberdeen from either Kincorth Hill or, if I can get access, one of the high university buildings.

Taubate: nocturne

Taubate: nocturne, oil on card, 8.6 x 7.5 cm discarded

Another from Taubate: the wet paint "bled" a little when transported, but I think this perhaps helps the effect.

Night, Guarulhos Airport

Night, Guarulhos Airport, oil on card, 11.4 x 8.5 cm - discarded

The first of a run of paintings from my Easter trip to the Vale do Paraíba, which I shall post later this week.

I had a four hour wait for a bus at Guarulhos airport- a hateful place. But it is always soothing to paint.

Nocturne: Itacorubi

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Nocturne: Itacorubi, oil on card, 12.5 x 9.3cm   VAILABLE

Painted from a hot dog joint near here: incredible how the atmosphere of a place changes at night- some places much more than others. 

This neighbourhood is "incomplete", with many blocks in construction. At night it has a desolate air, during the day it seems nondescript.

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The Setting Moon

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The Setting Moon, oil on card, 9.7 x 11 cm  - available

Painted from my window: at times the was moon obscured  by clouds; later, as it set, by trees.

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Licht und Blindheit

 

Licht und Blindheit, oil on card, 14.4 x 9.5 cm discarded

Painted near the petrol station, and the most satisfactory, most Redonesque of recent nocturnes, bridging better than others internal and external.

A tree at night

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A tree at night, oil on card, 11.9 x 9 cm  - available

Painted from the table of a burger joint. I wasn't bothered at all there but I miss being able to sit in a car and paint and listen to music.

I'd  intended to paint the stars but couldn't find a suitable place to work: I need somewhere that is bright enough for me to paint but which affords a good view of the night sky, the stars undiminished by streetlights.

Night

Night, oil on card, 13 x 10 cm

  

This time I attempted to paint the stars through the mesh of branches: next time I will simply paint the stars in the sky. 

I stand joyfully on the shoulders of V. van Gogh.

Isn't it odd how few paintings there are of ths night sky, given how amazing it is to see?

Nocturne: the night sky

Nocturne: the night sky, oil on card, 10 x 14 cm - discarded

Painted on Beiramar Avenue, looking out to sea. The avenue has been nicely re-modelled by the city.

Nocturne- a garage

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Nocturne- a garage, oil on card, 13.4 x 9.9 cm  - available

Another in the nocturne series. I'm becoming more confident with these.

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Nocturne- shop window

Nocturne- shop window, oil on card, 9.6 x 7.1 cm - discarded

Painted on Madre Benevenuta, part of both the nascent "shop windows" series and the "nocturnes". 


I often find myself unconsciously connecting with Atget's work- he did a whole run of shop window displays- realising after producing a picture that he was there before me: he was there at the start of the modern age ready to record urban architectural archetypes, and he had an eye for subtle strangnessess that makes him more than a documentarist.