Pre-Christmas Sale selection

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Today's pre-Christmas Sale selection begins with three still lives, then four Catarinense pictures.

These still lives are very difficult to get right: this is partly due to the context in which they are made. When you're painting outside your session is limited by changes in atmospheric conditions; inside, your session is longer and allows reign to any dissatisfaction. 

Notions of speed, completeness, spontaneity and instinct are central to the working processes I've developed over the years, and if travel paintings produced in  transience develop one aspect of this, then still life develops another.

The year is coming to a close: tomorrow I host a little pop-up exhibition of my pictures up in the north of the island. I shall try to do a little Santa Catarina trip before the year ends: I didn't travel as much I would have liked this year, and I feel seedy as a result. 

Two shoes having a conversation, oil on card, 13.5 x 14.5 cm, 2013

The bowl and the spoon, oil on card, 12 x 12 cm, 2016

Pots on the stove, oil on card, 14 x 11.5, 2013

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Sale prices

The pochades on this site are currently on sale at a price of 70 UK pounds each- a reduction of over 30%.

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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 Hamlet on the way to Russia, oil on card, 15 x 18 cm, 2016 SOLD

 Mocambique, woods, oil on card, 12.5 x 12.5 cm, 2016

 Little tree, oil on card, 13.5 x 11.7 cm, 2016

Alfredo Wagner, buildings on a hillside, 13.5 x 14.5 cm, 2016

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Fast painting

I used to believe that the more slowly and deliberately a thing was done- specifically a work of art- the better. I thought that because I saw slowness as proof of deliberation, thoughtfulness, and care.

These concerns were fundamentally moral. They don't necessarily need to be present in the aesthetic sphere- a work of art can equally well be spontaneous, thoughtless and careless. It just depends on your terms.

There's no proving that one set of values is better than the other because in the end the artwork is just a thing: it has no moral life and - though part of me rages against this- it doesn't really matter very much in the scheme of things anyway.

Personally, I've always been a much better fast artist than a slow one. If the pace is too slow I get bored- I don't concentrate more. On the contrary, if I have too much time to make corrections then I over-edit. I fuss, changing things that don't need changing, blunting my original message with compromise.

This is partly why monotype is such an appealing medium for me, it's "time-limited", you have to get the image right in an hour or two or the ink dries. But I have attempted to discover the same midset in painting, here.