Myrtle and Dekalb - framed

 *

Myrtle and Dekalb, 2017, oil on card, 16 x 17 cm  AVAILABLE 

This picture was framed for the Society of Scottish Artist`s Annual show.

*

Termas do Gravatal, paintings; photos of me working

*

 Termas do Gravatal: late afternoon   AVAILABLE

 oil on card, 19 x 20.5 cm

 Termas do Gravatal, morning, oil on card, 17 x 19 cm    -unavailable

 Termas do Gravatal, late morning, oil on card, 16.5 x 22 cm  AVAILABLE

Painting in cooler parts of the day in the south of Santa Catarina: above are the three paintings, two much influenced by Cezanne's methods. Below some photos of me working.

 Working on the first picture here

 Here I am working on the third picture

Again, working on the third picture

Thanks to Marlene for these photos.

*

Urubici and Bom Retiro; black and white painting

*

Bom Retiro, road, December 2017, oil on card, 21.7 x 16.5 cm - available

 Urubici, farmhouse, oil on card, 17 x 22 cm   AVAILABLE

 Bom Retiro, ploughed field, oil on card, 17.5 x 22.5 cm - unavailable

 Urubici: workshop, oil on card, 13.5 x 10.5 cm

*

 Urubici: cyclist, oil on card, 16 x 14.7 cm

Uribici: people meet, cars, rain, oil on card, 19 x 16 cm

Here's a set painted in the mountains, where I spent a night. I regret that I couldn't have passed a few more days there. It's a bit less rubbishy there than here, perhaps because you sense the industriousness of the people. 

The last two are in the simple black and white style. For it to function well, it's best to have a very clear motif and not fussing too much, being very economical with the marks so the few marks you make have greater power. It's nice how ambiguous the marks can be, so there is an element of the visual puzzle there.

*

Annual Review 2017: Flickr, Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, Saachi

*

For believe me! - the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: - it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!  possess, and you with it! 

Nietszche, The Joyous Science (1882). Sec. 283

*

Travels

A view from Jefferson Avenue, Brooklyn, oil on card, 16.5 x 18 cm

I went to New York and painted a few fine pictures plus a few duller ones. It was especially nice to work on the big art deco buildings in Chinatown or nearby. But I was unsurprised by New York, this itself unsurprising as I had been there just a year before. 

 Street before Carnival, Banos del Inca, Cajamarca, oil on card, 14 x 16 cm

I went to Peru and loved it again, that one of the most strange and alluring places. So I will go again in January 2018. At very least it is cool unlike here where one rots over the summer months becoming progressively more and more irritated with everything.

Homestead, late afternoon, between Urussanga and Orleans

 oil on card, 18 x 16.5 cm  SOLD

There were a few little trips within Santa Catarina- always a delight too. Above is one of my happier paintings.

Near Berwick-upon-Tweed, fields, oil on card, 16 x 15.8 cm  SOLD

I also went to the UK which was, as ever, a bit thin for painting, though Berwick and Melrose were fine.

Flickr

This marvellous site continues brings me new followers and many are quite serious and thoughtful artists. I went from 917 to 939 followers.

Blogger followers

I continue to publish here though with less frequency. That`s partly because I have less and less that is new to say, a trend which is likely to continue. Also I have been working slightly larger and with less frequency.

 There are 84 followers, and 26 Google+ followers.

Facebook

I started, on the advice of n art sales expert, to create my own page. He argues that the regular profile is insufficient as people who don`t know artists feel uneasy approaching them through their regular profiles. So I have set up a [page which contains enough to get an idea of what I am about. It has one, solitary, follower.

Fruit, paper flowers, oil on card, 12.5 x 14.5 cm

Twitter

I tried using this from time to time, but have never managed to get beyond 260 followers and few of them are really interested. It is a pretty awful site for image sharing, and it seems users use it mainly to insult and threaten each other. This time last year there were 256 followers.

Saachi

I maintain this site, going through all the work removing some and updating it. But I don`t sell that much work, perhaps I sold one painting in 2017. I think the market isn`t that big.

Tumblr

This pointless site brought me nothing.

Thoughts

I find my self in a satisfactory place with my work. I didn't sell that much but the quality is there. I went through a lot of old work making sure it is properly stored and if it wassn`t good enough, discarding it. Often some time has to pass before you can really see that a piece is mediocre.

Overall 2017 wasn`t a bad year but it wasn`t a great one either. I rarely surprised myself, which is perhaps like saying I never took risks. So the moral is to follow Nietzsche, at least some of the way as, of course, he went completely coocoo in the end

Red and yellow and white flowers, oil on card, 17.5 x 15 cm

Plans

I will go back to Peru in January. Ecuador flights were so high that I couldn't go there.  I suppose I should think about how to get to Europa. Perhaps this time I bite the bullet and fly to Athens or Corfu. But when I did the research it didn't seem quite right. In June, the cost of flights to Ecuador seems lower. Then there is New York, again. But perhaps it would be good to wait a little before returning there? We shall see.

Thanks

Thanks John, Lady Alison and Fred in London, to my parents in Scotland and to Mark and Jane and various others who helped and encouraged me.



*

Near Joaquina

*

Near Joaquina, oil on card, 21 x 17 cm - unavailable

*

Aguas Mornas: a landscape with trees and fields

*

Aguas Mornas: a landscape with trees and fields, oil on card, 20 x 24 cm

This is the size I intend often to work in in Peru in January next year.

 It's not so large that you lose intimacy, or have to increase your working speed.

*

A trip to São João Batista and Canelinha

*

 Canelinha, distant hills, oil on card, 16.5 x 18 cm

Canelinha, trees, houses, oil on card, 16.5 x 15.5 cm - unavailable

Canelinha, factory, oil on card, 16 x 16.5 cm  available

 Near São João Batista, settlement, oil on card, 16 x 18 cm  - available

São João Batista, view west, oil on card, 15 x 19 cm - unavailable

*

When I paint still life...; Moccasins

*

Moccasins, table, stationery, oil on card, 15 x 17 cm  - sold

When I paint still life I don't much like the traditional set-up with a fruit basket, a vase and a wine bottle.

 I prefer to paint the things that are lying around the house lying, like the stuff  in boxes, the mess of papers and books or the tea things on the table, or discarded clothes. I like to come across these things. I don't like to "set them up". Setting them up would be a bit like a hunter deliberately placing woodcock in a wood for himself to shoot*. I like the sense that these items convey something personal, and so finding them in their places according to circumstances other than compositional needs is most important (it's true that I do occasionally paint flowers in a very traditional format in vases, but I do find this correspondingly restrictive).

I work on small pieces of card and I prefer things that have easily recognisable profiles such as jugs, spoons and shoes, or perhaps certain items of clothing. I give these things a context such as a table top or the corner walls of a room. I use simple colours: dark reds, grey-greens and blacks and I often try out new paints when still life painting.

I usually paint standing up and I walk around a lot, hovering. I work on several pictures at the same time, then at the end of the session discard many. 

I find painting still life is very mentally taxing: I work much longer sessions than when I am working on landscape and have many negative critical thoughts that I process or combat, with considered responses:

     This is weak: Weak in which way? What might strengthen it?

   That is the same as what you did before: Why did I chose that subject before and what are its virtues? Is there something that has similar virtues that simultaneously allows a new angle?

    How boring!: boring is about engagement in this subject. If it isn't engaging then is this because of the subject (because it's impersonal, randomly chosen) or the treatment (usually it is the former) or my mental set (apathetic, tired, over-familiar with the motif)? This question is the critical and shouldn't be dismissed. 

   That looks too easy to deserve respect: what matters is delight. Children's art is unskilled but often  highly pleasurable. Contrariwise, cemetery carvings are often highly skilled but joyless.  

I also listen to music and self-help talks and drink coffee to try to make myself feel better.

* I know that, ridiculously, this is how grouse shooting is arranged in Scotland: with the grouse safely reared in wire enclosures then released a few days before the "glorious twelfth".

*

Turps jug, fruit

*

Turps jug, fruit, oil on card, 14 x 10.5 cm  available

*

A trip to Major Gercino

*

Major Gercino: a garden seen from a bridge, oil on card, 18 x 16 cm- unavailable

Major Gercino, River Tijucas, oil on card, 19 x 16.5 cm - unavailable

Between Major Gercino and São João Batista, oil on card, 22 x 18.5 cm    AVAILABLE

 Between São João Batista and Canelinha, oil on card, 18 x 16 cm

Sometimes when I am in the interior I feel a terrible sense of lostness: the country could so easily just swallow me up in its immensity. 

*

Berwick-upon-Tweed

*

Four pochades from Northumberland, showing carrier label

I painted the bridge twice. First I felt I didn't go far enough, I didn't "push through" to arrive at a stylistic conclusion somehow signaled by the bridge itself.

 Railway Bridge, Berwick, oil on card, 17.8 x 16 cm  available

Railway bridge, Berwick-upon-Tweed, oil on card, 15.5 x 17.5 cm  - available

So there are two paintings. Now I prefer the first. It's shaky, but I like that.

I walked along the river and painted the tress and bushes in the land beside. Mysterious places- I felt that I could have spent many more days there.

Near Berwick-upon-Tweed, fields, oil on card, 16 x 15.8 cm  SOLD

There's a nice chunkiness about the handling in this one (above).

Fields, Northumberland, oil on card, 17.5 x 14 cm - unavailale

*

Melrose

*

Three Melrose pochades

Melrose is a pleasant, if twee, town in the Scottish Borders,close to the river Tweed and featuring a ruined abbey, elegant gardens and innumerable tea shops.

 It nestles in some hills and is a fine place to go painting, though I think next time I would go up the road to Galashiels where there are more affordable options in terms of hospitality and catering and is a bit less up its own arse. But, had I had more money, I could have stayed in Melrose a month and worked on paintings, easily.

Melrose, a bridge over the Tweed, oil on card, 15.5 x 17.5 cm  available

The fields above the town provided me with material, as did the river. I try to respond frankly to the subject, in an unfussy style. I don`t think it's a sentimental affectation to seek truthfulness in art and to judge its effectiveness by that. 

White houses, Melrose, oil on card, 19 x 17 cm unavailable

I love those white-washed houses that so characterise Scotland. This one is good, it has some of that sadness that so prevails in October in Britain. Should I have gone for more detail?

Hills behind Melrose, oil on card, 17.5 x 18 cm unavailable

*

Table, bottle, The Old Patagonia Express

*

Table, bottle, The Old Patagonia Express, plate, oil on card, 13 x 14 cm  available

*

A bowl on a tray and a plate with apples; painting in monochrome

*

A bowl on a tray and a plate with apples, oil on card, 11 x 13 cm - available

I had the idea that on one of the trips I should eschew colour entirely and just work with black and white,  or dark sepia, this sustaining a deeper understanding of this fascinating area.

I like the way subtleties of brush movement, or of texture or tone become highlighted and how using black and white tips one into abstraction. Perhaps London, already monochrome in Portland Stone and steel sky would be the ideal place to experiment?

Colour is heady and tends to obliterate appreciation of anything but itself. It's like a drug, and like a drug you need to take more and more for the same effect. That does you no harm, though appreciation of anything grows with its absence.

A puritanical, or perhaps merely ascetic, side to my nature, Scottish or Danish in origin, lends me to suspect any too easily won aesthetic pleasure.

*

A bowl, a spoon, tomatoes, papers

*

A bowl, a spoon, tomatoes, papers, oil on card, 12.5 x 14.2 cm - unavailable

*