The Society of Scottish Artists 119th Annual Open Exhibition; Canasvieiras, forest being cut down

*

Framed: Canasvieiras, forest being cut down  SOLD

 oil on card, 18 x 18 cm

This will be on show at the Society of Scottish Artists 119th Annual Open Exhibition, which opens on 30th October.

*

Anne Redpath Award, from Visual Arts Scotland

*

I'm pleased to say I won the Anne Redpath Award for my submission to Visual Arts Scotland's Exhibition in Edinburgh:

Shop Fronts, West End, Glasgow, oil on card, 14 x 15.5 cm  SOLD

*

Annual Review: 2015: Flickr, Blogger, Facebook, Twitter

*

Above Rio Vermelho, oil on card, 12 x 15 cm

I traveled well and happily, visiting Paris, London and Scotland on one trip, and New York on the another. I very much enjoyed my time in Glasgow, a beguiling place.

New York was also a success, I was blessed with near perfect weather and I painted steadily and pleasurably. Glasgow and New York seem to me to share an up-front directness, that translates well into painting. I intend to re-visit each. It is something to do with the nineteenth century and a certain boldness. I like the people in both cities. They are straightforward and take one as they find one. In both, the architecture is often grand, even self-important. 

Parade of shops seen from Flushing and Thompkins, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

 oil oncard, 16 x 18 cm    SOLD

Otherwise, I continued to explore Santa Catarina, specifically the parts close to the island, largely trying to capture much larger expanses than I had previously, usually from a height. I increased the size of the pochades to do this. 

Antonio Carlos, landscape, oil on card, 16 x 18 cm

I used the following sites to show work:

Flickr

Now I have 880 Followers, up from last year's 838, a modest increase.

Blogger

The number of followers went down from  83 to 82. I had expected an increase, But It could be that people follow without becoming a  registered follower.

Facebook

This remains a good place to make contact and show work: add me there if you wish.

Twitter

There are now 314 followers on Twitter from 42 in 2012.  This is because I made a specific effort to "follow" other members and hey rewarded me in return. But it is difficult to believe that this means anything much, as I have little sense of an increased engagement with my work from these followers.

Saachi

I sold nothing through this site this year. 

Plans, thoughts.

Travel, having become tiring appeals to me less and less. But, of course one has to do something. Spending all year on the island would be extremely dull. There is little season variation and, as each year passes, less and less novelty. I have an idea about going to Peru, but feel daunted by the prospect. The guidebooks enjoy emphasizing the risk of crime. Valparaiso again might be better, Chile being that bit more advanced and given that I already know the city, at least a little. 

I want to spend more time in the mountains here in the year to come than I did in the last.

 Painting remains a good, perhaps even  the best, instrument for exploring one's visual and subjective experience of the world, and a justification for travel. The logistics of this are the matter. Lugging the painting things around is a bore, but it does give one a certain Boys Own Paper sense of ones own heroism at the same time. .."vanity has played a part is every heroes downfall". 

 Paris, oil on card, 16 x 18.5 cm

Thanks

Many thanks to those who put me up and helped me in London - Lise, Felix, John, Alison and Fred; kind Frédéric in Paris and my parents for helping with exhibitions and J. Heald for his company in New York.

Forest, Canasvieiras, oil on card, 18 x 22 cm

*

A view west, Antônio Carlos

*

A view west, Antônio Carlos, oil on card, 14 x 18 cm  -unavailable

This is the first time I have been painting on the continent since my return from New York. Petrol prices have risen appreciably, discouraging me from travelling too far.

The picture is perhaps a little cramped. I have been pinching ideas about spacial organisation from William Gillies, an artist of extremely variable quality.

Extremely hot.

*

Moçambique

*

 Moçambique, woodland, December 2015, oil on card, 16 x 18 cm

Moçambique, trees, December 2015, oil on card, 14 x 16.5 cm

A pair from the woods behind Moçambique: quite cool and pleasant in the shade.

*

Moçambique, , December 17, 2015

*

Moçambique, December 17, 2015, oil on card, 15 x 15 cm   AVAILABLE

*

Joaquina, December 2015

*

Joaquina, December 2015, oil on card, 17.5 x 16 cm   SOLD

*

View from my window, Trindade

*

View from my window, Trindade, oil on card, 11 x 13 cm

As the view from here is fascinating, I shall do a run of these, It's too hot to go out painting, anyway.

I am finding working again on a little postcard size very pleasing again. It is to do with the way the small size makes every brushstroke important.

*

Moçambique, paths, December 2016

*

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

*

Praia Mole, December 4, 2015

*

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

The first painting since my return from New York. 

The weather has been difficult, and I've been in the process of moving flat.

 Hopefully now I am more settled into my new place,  I shall be able to get back into the rhythm.

*

Two recent sales

*

Lagoa, haze, oil on card, 18 x 22 cm  SOLD

Arch, Washington Square, New York, oil on card, 16 x 18 cm  SOLD

Two recent sales.

*

Three weeks in New York: Conclusions

*

This year's New York set

The trip resolved the desire to really know New York. There remain swathes which remain unknown to me, whole boroughs, indeed: the Bronx and Staten Island remain mysteries. And I have never explored the city in Winter. I also regret not having worked in Chinatown, which is very striking, visually.  But you cannot do everything.

For painting,New York good. The colours are beautiful- splendid reds, ochres, grays and olive greens- (seemingly the basis of Williamsburg's exquisite range of oils). The people are easy to understand, individualistic and bold. No-one bothered me while working and most people are courteous. The city has few hills, alas, so getting views usually involves scaling buildings. I wish I'd had more access to rooftops.

It may be the capitalist city per excellence, but isn't as materialistic as they might have you believe. No city with such dedication to art (which is still, despite what auction headlines might lead one to assume, based more on passion more than profit) can be said to be materialistic. Some of the art is rubbish, for sure. but much is breathtaking,

MoMa disappointed me. It's crowded, like a shopping mall on Christmas Eve. And the galleries are uncomfortable spaces where it's hard to sit down, or relax to study the works. There was a huge survey given to Picasso- an amazing display, but so large as to exhaust the visitor. The garden is .  and stony full of mediocre sculptures. 

Much more enjoyable were the Brooklyn Museum, which is especially good on American works, and the Neue Gallery, which had an excellent exhibition on inter-war Berlin. Of course the Metropolitan is glorious. And The Studio Museum in Harlem had a fine show of paintings by Stanley Whitney.

*

Whither?

The day long peek at the world inside the USA, which I gained at Cold Springs has made me think that it might be time to revive the New York Road trip idea. 

I shall attempt to re-visit Valparaiso in February for about ten days.

*

I am grateful as ever to the friendliness and courtesy of passing strangers, who were very often Black and old. 

I thank the philosopher J. Heald for his amusing company in Williamsburg, and for helping me lug the easel about. 

I also acknowledge the helpful presence of Lancastrian W.J. Eccleston who, for mysterious reasons, seemed to accompany me in thoughts as I wandered  in the Big Apple.

 Detail: Block, North end of Lorimer Street

*

*

Three weeks in New York: 5. Manhattan, Central Park and Cold Springs

*

Arch, Washington Square (detail)

. 

Playing fields, Central Park, Manhattan, oil on card, 16 x 17 cm SOLD

Arch,Washington Square, New York, oil on card, 17 x 14 cm    SOLD

Central Park, Manhattan, oil on card, 15.5 x 17 cm - unavailable

Clinton Street, oil on card, 18.5 x 18 cm   SOLD

I found Leonard Cohen's old street, and worked there. There isn't that much that remains, just one block is in an old style. The rest has been given over to recent housing estates.

A toy boat on  Conservatory Water, Central Park, oil on card, 16 x 18 cm   SOLD

*

 Cold Springs

A tiny peep from New York into a vast world beyond, taking the Hudson train up. Amazing natural abundance, pretty towns. An invitation, and a reminder of how  how claustrophobic life in New York might become.

*

Toy Yacht, Central park: detail

*

Three weeks in New York: 4. Coney Island

*

Pier, Coney Island, oil on card, 15 x 18 cm   AVAILABLE   

I got the trains down to Coney Island, an exhausting experience, as it seems extremely easy for me to to take the wrong train on New York's subway system.

The painting there went well, the day warm and gilded with sunshine, and that warm melancholy you feel you feel on such days when it is nice and there's nothing to fight for.

Coney Island seemed less tragic this time than I remember  two years ago

*

Three weeks in New York: 3. Brooklyn / Down by the river/ and Brooklyn Bridge / Green Wood Cemetery / Williamsburg

*

There was first the ferry boat moving softly from the Jersey shore at dawn- the moment crystallized into my first symbol of New York.

Well, this isnt the ferryboat coming from New Jersey, More likely it's coming from Governor's Island, and it isn't dawn, but about noon. But surely any excuse justifies quoting Fitzgerald: does any writer better capture the feeling of arrival in New York? Let's have a bit more: here he is again, in The Great Gatsby:

I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye. I like to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove. Sometimes, in my mind, I followed them to their apartments on the corners of hidden streets, and they turned and smiled back at me before they faded through a door into warm darkness. At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others—poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner—young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.

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

This, above, is one of those that I feel has the necesary je ne sai quois, to make it stand out from the rest- a certain liveliness that suggests the pleasure of its making. It was indeed pleasant sitting there on the hill in the cemetery, which is extremely well maintained. One is greeted by a very friendly guide.  But the views were less dramatic than Id hoped.  And then the rain..

The picture (below) seems to me, to suffer from a certain lazy Japoinaiserie:

View of the East River from Williamsburg, Kent Street, oil on card, 18 x 15 cm  unavailable

Quite what is this factory on the other side of the East River from Williamsburg?:

View of the East River from Williamsburg, Kent Street -detail

There are fine places to eat there, and it isn't too costly. You feel at home. I did an interior and a couple of pictures of the river but only one came out well. The wind blew like hell.

*