Frauhaus: Moroccan paintings

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I have ten Moroccan paintings hanging at Frauhaus, Chattan Place, Aberdeen. These include paintings from 2025-6, as well as older paintings.

My route: Aberdeen to the West and along the Dee

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Aberdeen to the West and along the Dee

West Aberdeen: pochades

This is the area where, for the next couple of weeks (and probably until painting outside becomes intolerable), I will focus on: a route taking me from Mannofield down Hammerfield Avenue, along the old Railway line to Duthie Park, then along the River Dee to the harbour.

I am working on small black and white pochades, an on-and-off project begun back in May last year.

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Small again...painting pochades

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Primed card

SMALL PAINTINGS

I decided after the Aberdeen Art Fair that I would, again, work small. I had been working on a larger size for impact at the Art Fair, but now I feel that is not really my true metier.

How small, I`m still not sure, but I guess abut A5? I will play around. 

There is something about this format, which is to do with the idea of crapping the impossibly big- a landscape- into the  portable- a postcard  size - which I find immensely appealing. 

Moreover, it`s a format that seems to belong to me, as I`ve worked so often within it.

Thus, I proceed- priming boards and getting carriers sorted, and in a week or two should have some work to show, and perhaps am prepared for Spain and Morocco, the Winter escape.

I feel strongly drawn to revisit the works of artists who set me off on my path as an artist: Odilon Redon, Hammershoi Fatin-Latour: late nineteenth century masters of the strange.

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A bigger picture, a bigger palette

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Carrier and two supports

 

A bigger palette

B i g g e r !

I'm moving up again. I've primed these two cards with acrylic gesso. They are 34 x 32 cm: I hope to use these on my upcoming trip. Usually I paint my carriers, and perhaps I'll do that when I get back.

 

I've been gradually moving up for a couple of years: a bigger size allows more brush stroke variety and a fuller engagement with colour. it's nice to feel able to move around, to breathe.

 

 There are storage issues with unsold paintings, however, and of course transporting big pictures is much harder.

I'm using a bigger palette too.

 

A common mistake among beginners is to use those traditional wooden kidney shaped palettes: these are elegant but they don't allow much space to spread the paints out and mix colours. Additionally there is the constant problem of one colour polluting the rest. And, they are surprisingly heavy.

 

 Instead, I use these pieces of old cards from grocery boxes which I clip to a larger piece of cardboard. The printed sides  don't absorb too much oil- though I can use the unprinted reverses if I want a less liquid paint. I can unclip a card and put a fresh one down if I need a clean area for mixing fresh colour. I can close the larger cardboard and transport it without making a mess- something that is difficult to do with the wooden palettes.

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Putting paintings away

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Paintings are stored in cardboard trays to protect them from dust and other damage

 

 

Putting paintings away is a chance to get rid of weak pictures.

You can think of your art career as a journey, in which every picture represents a chapter, or at least a paragraph. It's a biographical approach. In this approach every picture is a lesson, teaching something about the artist's journey. It makes the artist into a curator of his own museum. There is something conceited in that -though that, you might quip, is being an artist all over.

Or you can treat making art as a thing you learn to do, then when qualified, is a craft that you reproduce , and you'll have good days and bad. This approach is that of the picture-maker, and is in many ways akin to making furniture or jewelry. You curse the bad days and, having learnt what you can, discard any substandard work. This approach appealed to me when I set out painting pochaades. I liked it's down to earth qualities, and the idea of developing a recognisable format and becomeing expert at it.

I can see both perspectives but find the former can lead to one becomeing somewhat precious. You can only learn so much from weak pictures. And they take up space and bring you down.

 

But I can also see that making art is not just like following a recipe. It has to have subjective, exploratory elements or it simply isn't interesting. And to explore is, occasionally, surely, to mis-step...

Ergo, I chart a course betweeen the two positions.

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Portfolios of key small works from the last five years, in English and Portuguese

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Here are two links to the same portfolio, the second version being in English.

These portfolios contain fifteen key small works from the last five years.

https://tadeuszderegowskiportfolio.blogspot.com/

https://tadeuszderegowskiportfolio.blogspot.com/2020/06/portfolio-selection-of-key-small-works.html

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Pochade carrier with double pochade

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Carrier with double pochade

Two pieces of card support are lightly joined at the back to double. This doubles the surface area. These are clipped into place in a carrier so they can be painted. After the work is finished the two pieces will be separated and each carried home each in its own carrier so they don`t get damaged. They will be joined again later when dry.

If this experiment works I am on to creating much larger pictures when travelling. This will allow for more dramatic effects, variations in scale, tonality and gesture that at the moment are hard to achieve.

The main question is how well the carrier will sit on the paint box and easel set-up. But for every problem there is a solution, surely.

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Priming

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Priming cards

The cards are cut from mat boards. I prime them with a mixture of  95% linseed oil , 3% turps and 2% oil paint for the first layer, then leave it to dry for a week. I recoat the cards with the same mixture a fortnight later.

 I wait another month then coat it in a layer which is about 90% titanium white and 10% turpentine.

I let it dry for at month before painting on it.

I rarely have problems with either sinkage or cracking, and have been using this formula for about five years.

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My portable palette

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Like the pochade carriers, the palettes close so they can be transported without making a mess.

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Pre Christmas Sale

Pre-Christmas Sale

I am pleased to announce a sale of all the pochades featured on this site are on sale until 15th December, in time for Christmas..

 They are reduced in price to 75 UK pounds, or other currency equivalent, a discount of over 30%. T

The pochades make fine Christmas gifts, being of a small size.

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Here are some highlights, this time all from Brazil (Parana, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul). They span the years 2010 to 2013- the first three years in which I began working in this small format.

 I went through various phases: the first works tend to be tonal and softly coloured with hazily described forms. These pochades are usually about 10 x 12 cm. Later I became brighter, more precise and larger. In 2015 I started working on a larger size (about 15 x 22 cm) .  In 2016,  missing the intimacy of the smaller format, I returned to it. I experimented increasingly with loose brushwork and a wider variety of paint effects in 2016.

The original conception of these pictures was to capture, intensely, a feeling in the places and times they were painted. I say feeling rather than impression because despite the fact that my methods were indeed impressionist,  my objectives were much more aligned with those of certain Scandinavian Symbolists. In other words, I wanted to play with mood and memory. Hence the importance of travel, a process in which the consequence of memory and mood  is heightened. Hence also, perhaps, the prevailing seriousness of tone in the pictures.

I frequently feel that I failed to do true justice to any of the places that I visited, and shall re-vsit all of them in the next few years.

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 Curitiba: Hotel Roochelle Hotel Suite, oil on card, 14 x 10.5 cm, 2011

 Carnations 2, oil on card, 9 x 12 cm, 2013

 Ratones, a hillside, oil on card, 16 x 12.5 cm, 2013

 Santa Maria, near the goods yard, oil on card, 11 x 16 cm, 2013

 Sunshine, Celso Ramos, oil on card, 10.2 x 16 cm, 2010

 Red Boat, Florianopolis, oil on card,10.5 x 13.8 cm, 2011

A clump of trees on the dunes, oil on card, 13.5 x 10.5 cm, 2013

Payment and postage

Payment is by direct transfer or cheque to  my UK or Brazilian bank accounts, or via Paypal.

 Postage costs an additional 15 pounds for up to four items.

 Allow up to 21 days for pictures to arrive, though often they come within 10 days.

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 Please contact me with any queries: Tadeusz598@yahoo.co.uk

 ...or call me on 0055 48 9967 3041. I am on Whatsup.

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What is a Pochade?

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Pochades are small paintings, painted plein air, either to be used as references for larger, studio-based pictures, or as ends in themselves. The word derives from the French for pocket: poche. 

Because of the portability of the format, they are often used for painters when travelling, and manufacturers cater for this with "pochade boxes": wooden boxes to hold palettes, brushes, paints and the paintings themselves.

I do not use such a a box, however. I use a French easel as I like to stand when working, and I carry pictures around in little folders, which I refer to as carriers.

There are pochades by a diverse range of artists, typically ninetheenth and early twentieth century, when plein air painting really came into vogue. These include John Constable (in my opinion easily his liveliest pictures are pochades- you can see a supurb set in the Victoria and Albert Museum), Corot, and J.D. Fergusson (whose tiny pochade box is on display at Edinburgh's Museum of Modern Art).

Primed card ready to be used for painting. These cards are about 14 cm long.

.My pochades are in oils, and are intended as final pieces. I want live performance in art, not work tidied, made polite, in a studio. I've been working on these small pictures for about six years but it took a couple of years for me to reach a good level of technical fluency with them. 

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Framing tips for pochades

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Praia Mole, December 4, 2015, oil on card, 18.5 x 24.5 cm

I'm sometimes asked for advice on framing pochades. Obviously, what is best is ultimately a subjective decision, but here are some points to consider.

1. Framing is interpretation.

A frame contextualizes a picture,  associating it with certain decorative styles. 

A modern, metal frame will emphasize the contemporaneity of a picture and associate it with modern environments- offices, minimalist houses or modern art galleries. Contrariwise, a gilded frame will imply that the painting is related stylistically to work of the pre-modern period and suitable for hanging in a pre-modern decorative scheme.

So, before framing, it is wise to consider where the picture will be hung. Your choice of frame will vary according to whether it is to feature in a bedroom, a living room, a modern house, an office and so forth. A gilt frame might be lovely ina  period home, but odd in a modernist glass tower block.

Clearly these are general guidelines and with wit can happily be ignored.

2. Have a look around!

 I sometime suggest people look in the National gallery and in the Print rooms of the British Museum for references when it comes to framing ideas for my pochades.. Obviously, these collections will be inconveniently  located for some readers. But there are good collections for reference close or in most major cities, and it is wise to have a notion before entering a framers. 

Puno, a lady in a red skirt, oil on card, 12 x 14 cm SOLD

Here may be seen reflections, the effect of which are worsened by the darker passepartout. 
Nonetheless, the effect of these reflections is marginal, I think.

3. Glazed or not? 

The pochades are oil on card, and are liable to pick up dust. Thus, from the standpoint of protecting the pochade, glazing is considerably better.  You can glaze in non-reflective glass or ordinary glass. Non-reflective glass this tends to be less clear than normal glass and I would say, on balance, less visibility is lost to small pictures because of reflections than is lost because of the slight fogginess of non- reflective glass.

Ergo, it is better with small pictures such as mine to go with ordinary glass, It is also cheaper.

Green Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, a view, oil on card, 16 x 18 cm

4. Plain or fancy?

Seurat, as framed in London's National Gallery.

If you go to the National Gallery in London or the Met in New York, and look at the Impressionist pictures, or the small Biedermeier paintings by Danish or German artists you'll see that many are framed in very ornate frames. At times this is effective, but more often the effect is heavy, even somewhat absurd, as the frames seem to overwhelm the pictures and imply that the artist had a decorative intent to his work which we know is very unlikely to be the case (Renoir's horrors being an exception, in the case of the Impressionists). 

At times, an ornate frame can, however, when used with a passepartout, have an enchanting effect, especially when contrasting with a very simple painting,

Personally, I recommend going for simpler frames. They allow pictures to be hung in a wider variety of places, are easier to keep clean and are much easier to match with pictures. I also recommend them because I feel my pictures to be fairly straightforward and down to earth, and I find ornate frames somewhat pretentious, I tend to prefer wood, as it gives a warmer effect than metal,

5. What about a passepartout or mat?

These terms are used to describe the thick card that is used to hold the card in place within a frame.

A lot of people make the mistake of framing pictures too tightly: putting the frame too close to the edge of the picture, with a narrow passepartout or without one at all. The effect is uncomfortable, The picture needs to breathe. It's better to err on the generous side with a wide passepartout. So, if the picture is 14 x 18 cm then give it a passepartout of about 5 or 6 cm on each side.

The passepartout can be coloured- this will bring out colours within the picture. But I'd avoid going too bright with the passepartouts and stay with more muted or blander tones. Black is an option, but it has specific associations with photography and I think it often best avoided.

La Paz, shops, and carrier-within box frame.

6. Box frames. 

Yes, these can be very nice. They can be used to frame the pochades within the carriers I use to transport them.

7. Pay peanuts, get monkeys...

Generally, with framing, cost is proportional to quality. By all means shop around, but I've found that, more or less, you get what you pay for, The materials should be archival, the service pleasant and unhurried*, and the framer should understand basics of picture conservation.

*My experience of artisans and tradesmen being, alas, very much the following: Here am I trying to do my work and you come into my shop and disturb me.

Mocambique, paths, December 2016, oil on card, 19 x 22 cm  SOLD

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Collecting; tourist painting; matchbox labels

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A series of matchbox labels from 1959, depicting Stalingrad, now Volgograd.

Here the car suggests film noir, perhaps a scene out of The Third Man.

My favourite of the series depicts Joseph Stalin atop a vast plinth, overseeing his citizens who wander  in the Square of the Fallen Fighters.

A closer look at the monster.

 Is this man about to become a victim of the KGB?

Have a look at these triumphs of Marxist-Leninist culture!

 Where some might see drabness, I sense a sort of seriousness, of civic pride and sincerity. This drawing is somewhat amateurish, but surely this only adds to the labels' charms.

There is a gravity in east-European cultural artifacts which seems, in the content of the ingratiating, often infantalising qualities of much of  Western produce, very appealing.*

The Eastern European matchbox producers made many series depicting civic monuments.

When I visit foreign towns it is such an idea that I have in mind - "tourist pictures"- as I call them and  I compile a list of places to go.- representative buildings and places- and attempt to depict them in an authoritative mode.  This is a way of creating collections.*

Famous tourist sites are so often styled in such a way as to contain and channel viewers or visitors perceptions in extremely limited ways. They are acts of urban propaganda, This is most evident- ironically so- in national monuments and grand squares, which in their nationalistic glory are almost identical to each other, much as world flags differ remarkably little in their colours and graphic devices (Brazil, among few, must be praised for the adventurousness of it's design, and New Zealanders on their recent decision to consider new possibilities).

Nonetheless, the simplicity of purpose seen in the idea of working through a list of important paintings is one of the things that appeals to me. With this simplicity of purpose comes a child's eye view of cities- as a series of monuments or important buildings (like the child's vision of history as a series of important dates). This is immensely appealing to those seeking refuge from complexity. This, and the idea of completion. has immense appeal to the artist weary of the open-endedness of artistic research and who is seeking refuge from the apparent randomness inherent in the pursuit of aesthetic victory.

The other element  relating  to tourist painting is that I like is this is the equipment you require is... and a list of the necessary equipment, as if making art were one of those wholesome activities encouraged by the editors of  The Boy's Own Paper and parodied so nicely by Glen Baxtor's cartoons. The list of equipment obviously parallels the list of things to do in all its earnestness. 

Each item has a most specific function and a delightful old fashioned name and is held in a heavy wooden box, which is secured with enormous brass clips. My equipment does not quite fit into one case, alas: I need to carry the pictures in a shoulder bag, but most of it is extremely sturdy, made of ash and bristle and leather and fine stout British materials, I just lack a Pith Helmet.

With these thoughts in mind I pack my bags for New York.

Glen Baxter, from Trundling Grunts, Bloomsbury, 2002

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* Observe, by contrast, how Parisian authorities assaulted wonderful Place Vendôme:

From the Guardian, October 23, 2014:

American artist Paul McCarthy is hitting back agains French critics after his provocative "butt plug" was vandalised last week.

Stung by the public backlash against his giant green installation, Tree, which resembled a sex toy, McCarthy has been working on an “aggressive” response as part of an exhibition at the Paris Mint, officials said on Thursday. The Mint, located on the banks of the Seine opposite the Louvre, is to host a working chocolate factory when it reopens on Saturday after a massive three-year renovation.

Vandals cut the cables of the 25-metre (80ft) inflated sculpture in the Place Vendôme last weekend, amid protests from conservative groups. One passer-by was so incensed by the installation, near the Ritz hotel, that he slapped the artist.

McCarthy decided against re-erecting the Tree, which was deflated by security officials, and has instead planned an artistic response. 

**One might attempt to speculate further on the emotions that drive collectors. It strikes me that the desire for completion, the delight in numbers, the pedantry (ah but this is the thirds edition! it is the second with the flaw in the lower left hand corner that is really sought), and the sense of obsession seen in collectors are in opposition to common creative and artistic energies, in which spontaneous responses are enjoyed, which  have unpredictable results, and in which experimentation are usual (we can see this opposition in Perec's novel Life a User's Manual, in the training of Bartlebooth in the art of painting, as a sort of existential exercise to conquer, or control experience.  Bartlebooth then (here I quote from WIKIPEDIA) embarks on a 20-year trip around the world  painting a  watercolour of a different port roughly every two weeks for a total of 500 watercolors. Bartlebooth then sends each painting back to France, where the paper is glued to a support board, and a carefully selected craftsman named Gaspard Winckler (also a resident of 11 rue Simon-Crubellier) cuts it into a jigsaw puzzle. Upon his return, Bartlebooth spends his time solving each jigsaw, re-creating the scene.

It is notable that "Barltebooth displayed at the start a complete lack of natural talent", a natural mediocrity which is only conquered through steady application of process).

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Many thanks to S. Mirkowski and Professor J.B. Deregowski for assistance regarding Russian words on the labels.

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Annual Review: 2014: Flickr, Blogger, Facebook, and other sites

Alfredo Wagner, a small town nearby, oil on card, 16,5 x 18 cm

I travelled to Morocco, the UK, Bolivia and made some excursions in Brazil, including Salvador, Bahia. The Moroccan trip went especially well.

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A little posy, oil on card, 11 x 12 cm

I often painted flowers. I like painting flowers because it can be very intimate and one can use very bright colours. If the landscapist is paiting the world, then perhaps the still life painter paints his inner world: I carry Redon's torch. 

I increased the size of works, using brighter colours on lighter supports to make more vibrant painting. I am going to increase the size in the next year again.

Looking back, however, I feel I became somewhat channelled into certain compositional and working processes, sometimes becoming repetitious. One finds solutions: why not repeat them? But that way lies boredom. The artist must engage: the sort of landscapist that I am is fundamentally expressionist and one who depends heavily on novelty of experience for inspiration.

 Bolivia: paintings from Potosi

Travel  is often  lonely and tedious. But there is something immensely satisfying about the narrative of a journey: to simply be able to state in paint I was there and then press on; to have gone from a- z. Travel lends urgency to art, and it's not surprising that so many landscape painters were great travellers.

But there are different ways of going about this: the linear journey with stops on a line (a-z); the tour, which begins and returns to point a (a-a); and the star: the option of staying in a fixed point and making excursions from there (a- b, a-c, a-d etc). This last is the least tiring, but does not allow the intellectual satisfaction of having a clear narrative.

There are of course, combinations of the above, but it is this last which I am most likely to adopt in future: this star format frees one from the tedium of packing and unpacking, lugging bags and finding places. It allows one to relax more, to become orientated, and if the weather is poor one day, there is always another on which to work.

Paintings from Morocco: the complete set

Flickr

I have continued to use this site, and it contains a complete catalogue of my work. I have 838 followers, up from last year's 721.

Blogger

The number of followers went up from 78 to 83.

Facebook

I enjoyed using this site to show work, and it`s a good place to make contact: add me there if you wish.

Saachi

I revised my site here and sold four paintings through their portal. It is wiser to buy work directly from me, however: it is faster and cheaper.

Plans

There are no immediate travel plans, though I dream of going back to New York in 2015, and to Scotland. But this depends very much on sales and money, which are, to a degree out of my control. The economy in Brazil is not healthy.

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Thanks

Thanks to those who bought work, offered criticism online or in person. Thanks to those good anonymous souls who assisted my in my travels in Morocco (especially the German couple who bought me dinner when my bank card was swallowed by the cash machine in Taroudant, and the Moroccan fellow who bought me breakfast) and Bolivia. Thanks to my very supportive parents. Thanks to Jonathan Heald for use of his beautiful house in Florianopolis for a little exhibition; and thanks to John Collins and Jane Wheeler for bringing me paints from the UK. Thanks to the Ecclestons for their hospitality and kindness in London.

Marrakesh: cart and market, oil on card, 14 x 13.5 cm




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