Preparations for a journey to Mafra

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Unpainted pochades: it is fun to have a range of sizes and shapes

Another of Brazil`s innumerable public holidays (I count fifteen annually) is approaching on Friday: Proclamation of the Republic, and given the atrocious standards of political  leadership in this country this really should be a day of collective national shame, better  commemorated by mourning and self-flagellation than the usual parades by Brazil`s hilarious military, who have only been tested in modern times by campaigns against other Brazilian citizens and with relief work in perilous Haiti and bits of Brazil.

But that is by the by- I shall shall pass my weekend making make another little trip into Santa Catarina: this time to Mafra. My idea is to  take fast coastal 101 and cutting in west after Joinville along BR301.

I`ll sleep there, then drive south via Itaipolis and picking up BR290, passing trough São Cristóvão do Sul and possibly sleeping another night near Lages, before returning on the BR201 to Floripa.

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If you wish to join me for refreshments somewhere along the way, drop me a line.

 

 

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A street in Biguaçu - dogs and children

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A street in Biguaçu- dogs and children, oil on card, 22 x 18 cm  SOLD

This has been sold to and English couple.

 

The proceeds are going to help Ukraine, through a donation given to a registered British charity.

 

The proceeds from all paintings sold in 2022 will go to help Ukraine.

 

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I`m going to push up in scale over the next few days. 

I`m interested in capturing something of the life of the streets here: shamelessly pinching some ideas from Lowry.

Working class neighbourhoods are best for this: you can see people doing all sorts of things their streets- flying kites, playing ball games, riding bikes, drinking, selling things, and just hanging around. 

The middle-class zones, with their tight-lipped condominiums and security cameras might be neat and tidy but they must be a lot less fun to grow up in.

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New York V: above Queens; evaluation

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Above 43rd St., Queens, the back yards, oil on card, 13 x 12 cm

 There is something of Eardley here.

Above 43rd St., Queens, looking North-West, oil on card, 14 x 13 cm AVAILABLE

Above 43rd St., Queens, N.Y., looking down, oil on card, 12 x 12 cm

These three paintings were executed from the roof of my lodgings.

 If I regret anything about the US trip, it is that I did not paint anything close up, intimately.

 All painters have their distances: Lucien Freud or Chardin work much closer to his subject than, say, Turner does. And different cities condition different distances, so that panoramic views are a more likely response to Rio than perhaps to Camden. But I think if i were to revisit, I would try to get closer to my motifs, at least sometimes.

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The trip was, I think the most successful of my longer painting trips so far. The weather was magnificent, the light perfect and  the city is easy to understand and it is dramatic. The decision to focus on Queens, a rough 4 mile radius from my lodgings was wise, allowing me to explore without getting bored. 

I came to love Queens: it is ordinary but then quite beguiling at the same time, with an incredible mixture of unpretentious people from all over. I didn`t find any architectural marvels there- it is strange to me how few Churches there are- but there is a huge amount of good solid ordinary building, both blocks and townhouses -the sort that is so woefully lacking in Brazil- all laid out on an elegant grid, sloping easily down to the river, punctuated by small parks here and there.

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Many thanks to James for putting me up on my first days in the USA and for helping me, and to Tatiane for bravely and brilliantly assuming the role of  photographers assistant.

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New York IV: painting in Central Park and Hudson River Greenway

 Central Park Symphony, oil on card, 15 x 12 cm  SOLD

The parks in central New York are magnificent. I was there to catch the first changes of the Fall: fantastically coloured Sycamores. The weather was sunny but not scorching. Central Park is amazingly varied in terms of types of spaces. It isn`t quite as big as people say, if you know the London parks, but it is quite something nonetheless.

Central Park, New York, autumn, oil on card, 10 x 13 cm  NOT FOR SALE

I always love the freedom from precision in drawing that painting nature gives after I have been painting buildings.

Trees, Hudson River Greenway, N.Y., oil on card, 12.5 x 12.5 cm - unavailable

There is a huge Bonnard influence in these pictures,  a direct result of visits to the Metropolitan Museum nearby.

Central Park N.Y., woman in a red dress, oil on card, 12 x 16 cm  NOT FOR SALE

 Five from Manhattan`s parks

New York III: Coney Island

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 Yachts, Coney Island, N.Y., 15.5 x 11.5 cm   SOLD

I traveled down to see the charms of Coney Island: here described in Tom Waits', Coney Island Baby:

 Every night she comes
To take me out to dreamland
When I'm with her, I'm the richest
Man in the town

I also think of songs by Lou Reeds: Coney Island Baby , and the Velvet Underground's,  Coney Island Steeplechase, which, at a rockier pace takes a not dissimilar angle:

Would you like to go on the Coney Island Steeple
Go and have a good time
We'll take the subway right down to King's Highway
Gonna have a good time
If it's all right it would be so nice
If you come and go with me
The roller-coaster you and me

But the Coney Island I found more interesting was the sense of ruin and only a half kilometre from the newish boardwalk, where elderly Russians perambulate. Tom Waitsian territory indeed, of bust up car repair years, pawnshops and broken down tenements. I painted to a backdrop of police sirens.

Blocks, Coney Island, N.Y., oil on card, 14 x 11 cm  - available








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New York II: East Village, Brooklyn, Morningside Heights, and outside the Public Library

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These are pictures from less systematic perambulations. It is difficult in such an intensively commercial zone as Manhattan to find places to sit and work peacefully: this is partly why I spent so much time exploring Queens, though another reason is simply that it is, I find, better creatively to explore a smaller area with some concentration, than a wider area superficially.

A Chinese Restaurant, East Village, oil on card, 11.5 x 14 cm

I loved the rectangularity of everything, as if the work were a vast three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle composed from square and rectangular pieces: it suits my somewhat blocky style.

 Outside the library, Manhattan, oil on card, 10.5 x 14.5 cm  - available

Washington Square, Manhattan, N.Y., oil on card, 14.5 x 13.5 cm   SOLD

Tenement, Morningside Heights, Manhattan, N.Y., oil on card, 11.5 x 15 cm  unavailable

I remember seeing something on television once about Glasgow, in which the presenter maintained that the layout of New York and its systems of tenements was more reminiscent of Glasgow than any other city, but I cannot, alas, recall what programme it was. But in a sense Glasgow is more interesting, because of its slopes and hills: New York could do with a few hills to set it off.  And I could find no ecclesiastical architecture to match that of "Greek" Thomson.

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New York I: Queens, from the ground

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I`m back from a successful painting trip to New York. I stayed in Astoria, Queens,  a very pleasant area with  an astonishing variety of restaurants, and which has very much a community atmosphere.

 28 pochades from New York: a good and consistent catch this time

 I explored the area between Astoria Park in the North to the Generating Station on 20th Avenue in the North-East, Queens Boulevard in the South and Queensbridge Park in the North-West. All this can be done quite happily on foot.

 Eleven from Queens, from the ground. There are three painted from a roof which I`ll put in a separate posting.

It has a fair range of buildings and spaces, with industrial spaces and workshops along the river and to the North West, as well as handsome tenements and detached houses.

 43rd St and 31st Avenue, Queens, N.Y., oil on card, 14 x 13.5 cm   SOLD

 The fringes of cities, usually less mediated than the centres, contianing ruin and well as order, industry as well as commerce and houses as well as blocks, are almost always much more fun to paint.

Warehouses, Queens, N. Y., oil on card, 15 x 9.5 cm - available

This next, painted under the wonderful raised railway, is one of the best of the bunch, I feel:

 Under the tracks, Astoria Boulevard, Queens, N. Y., oil on card, 14.5 x 10.5 cm  SOLD

 41st St from the junction with Newtown Road, Queens, NY, oil on card, 15 x 11 cm - unavailable

Woodside Avenue, Queens, N. Y., oil on card, 13.5 x 12.5 cm   available

I bought beautiful American oil points by Williamsburg, which have helped enrich my earth colours.

Astoria Park, Queens, N. Y., oil on card, 12.5 x 14 cm     - available

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