Woodland shadow

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Shadow

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Woods

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Woods

 

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Woodland

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Woodland, oil on card, 12.5 x 13.5 cm  SOLD

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Moçambique, woodland and fields

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 Praia Moçambique, woodland, oil on card, 12.5 x 12.5 cm   - available

Praia Moçambique, fields, oil on card, 12.5 x 14 cm  available

Two pochades painted on a productive day in the woods at Praia Moçambique.

It's the first time I've managed to do good work of the woods at Moçambique. The woods have a restful quality and I love to work in them. But after previous sessions I'd had to destroy what I'd painted. I'd been under under the spell of other painters and couldn't locate my own emotional responses, I 'd seen Munchs and Klimts everywhere, and had become inarticulate, and the work was stale.

This time I seemed not to give too much of a damn. I felt free: the pictures came.

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Woodland

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 Woodland, trunks, oil on card, 14  x 15.5 cm  unavailable

Painted up near Canasvieiras.

 The weather has improved, and I should be able to go painting more readily. but boredom is eating into my mind like a kind of dry rot. I count the days before I go to Peru. Part of me thinks I should have gone to Chile for longer, and I'm now regretting that I didn't give myself two months reprieve in Peru. But there would be difficulties with this, most obviously with maintaining students here.

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Moçambique

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 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.

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Canasvieiras, woods

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Woods, Canasvieiras, oil on card, 20 x 18 cm- available

Broken branches, roots, soil, Canasvieiras, oil on card, 8 x 22 cm- available

Two more from the ongoing series of the woods. I am happy with the abbreviated style, somewhat angular, like André Derain, and the colouring, which takes a palette that is new for me.

 I feel confident with the larger scale and ready to conquer New York in October.

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One from the forest.

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Canasvieiras, forest being cut down, oil on card, 18 x 18 cm    SOLD

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It feels as if Summer has finally arrived. I score off the days until fly to New York: exactly thirty-one.

I feel extremely bored and frustrated here. I mis-planned the year. I should have organised a trip for late June to maintain my morale. But I was worried about money, and  felt that I should knuckle down to teaching. Perhaps I had also felt that the last trip wasn't a tremendous success, and  that more trips weren't really the answer my general condition of ennui. 

Well, rotting on this damn island certainly isn't either. 

Enough self-flagellation, I shall try to be more directed in 2016, and book the flights to Chile and Peru as soon as I am able.

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Four Recent Sylvan Photos

Woods

More images from the woods. While taking them I could imagine the pleasure in being part of a pagan cult, performing the sorts of rites described in The Golden Bough.

Homage to Corot

A very bright day, but not too warm. I'm working on a series of pastoral photos, which will go in a Flickr set as "Homage to Corot".

Corot is one of those 19th century painters whose work has fallen by the wayside. Wildly popular in his time, its difficult to imagine it being rediscovered by the 21st century gallery going public. In truth there are a fair number of dubious quality Corots, and the work lacks intellectual complexity. And the contemporary public probably wants something much more dramatic. However, I have often found his work beguiling.

The smell of mud and the distant sun made me think of the woods round Aberdeen, where I grew up, while I was out taking photos today.