Praia Mole, August 2015; Andrew Marr on Churchill: Blood, Sweat and Oil Paint

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Praia Mole, August 2015, oil on card,14 x 22 cm   SOLD

Today was a particularly lovely day at the seaside with a delicate, flickering light.


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I enjoyed very much Andrew Marr's BBC programme about Winston Churchill as a painter (Andrew Marr on Churchill: Blood, Sweat and Oil Paint).

 The programme focussed, rightly, I think, on how painting helped Churchill to deal with stress and depression. It conveyed well the sense of escape that Churchill must have gained through concentrating on his craft, patiently working in Morocco or the South of France, and the energy with which he worked,

The art of painting is akin to cooking in that it offers many relatively simple activities, such as mixing colours, which are soothing and sensual. The actual manual skills involved in painting are generally slight, so that persons with disabilities- such as Marr, a stroke victim, can work successfully. Contrast this to writing, where concentration has to be almost absolute, and which is utterly a-sensual; or, playing a musical instrument, where manual skills must be honed through repeated exercises if the artist is not to alienate his audience.

There is often something odd about Churchill's work- particularly with regard to spatial descriptions and his acidic colours. It is curious how highly intelligent people often cannot paint well: despite considerable dedication and the advice of excellent teachers Churchill's pictures are often awkward, and now seem dated. I find them, nonetheless, very enjoyable- they are so self-evidently a product of genuine enthusiasm.

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Canasvieiras: the woods

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Forest, Canasvieiras, oil on card, 18 x 22 cm   -unavailable

A further scene from the woodland area- being harvested- up in Canasvieiras.

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Canasvieiras, forest

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Forest, Canasvieiras, oil on card, 22 x 18 cm - -unavailable

The tree trunks give off a lovely roseate light that contrasts eerily with the sense of destruction as the trees are felled.

It's a good place to work. It's quiet and melancholy, and when you paint there you have sombre thoughts.

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Entries: Prêmio Aliança Francesa de Arte Contemporânea

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 Sao Jose, the river, oil on card

Urubici, a street, oil on card  SOLD

My two entries for the annual prize of the French Institute.

I wonder if they will be accepted. There is a huge degree of arbitrariness about these open competitions, and you never know why they have accepted or rejected you. I always rather suspect that being a friend of one of the jury is the surest way of having works exhibited.

But cynicism is so often a mask behind which laziness and fear of rejection hide.

Clouds, Antonio Carlos

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Clouds, Antonio Carlos, oil on card, 18 x 20.5 cm  -unavailable

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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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