Lagoa, haze; Dufy

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

A Dufy-influenced piece (specifically his San Giorgio Maggiore), painted near the docks in Lagoa.

I'd always been suspiscious of Dufy, finding his work easy, but now I feel it has something to offer me.  Sometimes, in painting,  the greatest challenge is to say just enough. At times I feel like the subject at an interview: desperate to prove myself, I babble. Dufy gets the right balance, often. Maybe I should have painted with a sharper brush, however.

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It's difficult to work with people around me, I need to be alone to work, and I need to find places which allow me to work me in peace. This is not as easy as it sounds. Brazilians are extremely sociable, mostly pleasantly so. But it isn't easy to work when people are watching and trying to talk to you.

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Peru

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Peru, June, 2016, if I can wangle it.

My copy of the excellent Rough Guide to Peru arrived: they suggest two itineraries: I shall pursue an abbreviated version of  what they call The Grand Tour. That is, start at Lima, proceed to Arequipa, then Cusco and Machu Picchu, allowing a month for all this.

If this seems contemptibly unoriginal of me, then it is because I consider originality in foreign travels to be a recipe for misery, the beaten track being beaten because it is safe, scenic and pleasurable.

Much like Britain's splendidly pessimistic Foreign Office, the Rough Guide's authors are full of dour warnings:

The horrific practice of "strangle mugging" has been a bit of a problem* in Cusco and Arequipa, usually involving night attacks when the perpetrator tries to strangle the victim into unconsciousness.

Theft from cars and even more so, theft of car parts, is rife, particularly in Lima. Also, in some of the more popular hotels in the large cities, especially Lima, bandits masquerading as policemen break into rooms and steal the guests' most valuable possessions while holding the hotel staff at gunpoint.

You'd need to spend the whole time visibly guarding your luggage to be sure of keeping hold of it; even then, a determined team of thieves will stand a chance.

*I love the way "strangle mugging" (the very thought of which makes my bowels shrivel) is  a bit of a problem: British understatement at its finest. One imagines the victim returning to the hotel, his partner asking, "darling, what took you so long?" To which he replies, "oh nothing serious, I just had a bit of a problem with some strangle muggers. Now pass me my gin and tonic darling, not too heavy on the ice."

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Mountains

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I'm going to take a couple of weeks off painting and take photos of signs, buildings and other structures out on the periphery near Palhoça and Biguaçu.

Landscape, Rancho Queimado, oil on card, 20 x 18 cm   SOLD

In the meantime, here are a couple from the mountains, between Santo Amaro da Imperatriz and Rancho Queimado.

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Dunes - from Lagoa

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Dunes - from Lagoa, oil on card, 18 x 22 cm -  -unavailable

It`s amazing how quiet, ethereal indeed, it is just over the sand ridge from Rendeiras.

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Green Forest

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Green forest, oil on card, 13.5 x 15.5 cm  - available

This was painted about a year ago, but for some reason never shown.

 I think at the time  I felt it  facile. Now, however, I quite like it.

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Peru

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Peru, from Stanford's Library series, 1912.

Back home, bored out of my brains, and feeling very much like Richard Hanney in the opening pages of The Thirty-Nine Steps, I plan a trip to Peru. I don't imagine that it will be possible to get there before 2016, however.

As ever, the British Foreign Office site provides delightfully discouraging reading:

Demonstrations are common in Peru and can turn violent quickly.There’s risk of robbery by bogus taxi drivers, especially to and from the airports and at bus terminals. Driving standards are poor. Crashes resulting in death and injury occur frequently. There is a general threat from terrorism....etc etc.

 I think the officials in the Foreign Office would really prefer if British citizens just stayed at home.

Anyway, I have ordered a guidebook. I suppose I won't get into trouble, as I rarely do, and even if I do, I suppose there will be some way out of it.

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A dark red horse, Lagoa

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A dark red horse, Lagoa, oil on card, 18 x 22 cm   SOLD

Painted from the ridge as you enter Canto da Lagoa, a favourite place of mine to work from.

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