Berwick-upon-Tweed

*

Four pochades from Northumberland, showing carrier label

I painted the bridge twice. First I felt I didn't go far enough, I didn't "push through" to arrive at a stylistic conclusion somehow signaled by the bridge itself.

 Railway Bridge, Berwick, oil on card, 17.8 x 16 cm  available

Railway bridge, Berwick-upon-Tweed, oil on card, 15.5 x 17.5 cm  - available

So there are two paintings. Now I prefer the first. It's shaky, but I like that.

I walked along the river and painted the tress and bushes in the land beside. Mysterious places- I felt that I could have spent many more days there.

Near Berwick-upon-Tweed, fields, oil on card, 16 x 15.8 cm  SOLD

There's a nice chunkiness about the handling in this one (above).

Fields, Northumberland, oil on card, 17.5 x 14 cm - unavailale

*

Berwick-upon-Tweed and an exhibition of the Scottish Colourists

*

Berwick-upon-Tweed

The town is solid stone, cheerfully sincere and beautifully situated on the convergence of the Tweed and the sea. It would have been a perfect painting place if the wind had been less strong. The choice of restaurants is not large. There are shops which seem to have been transplanted from the early sixties- traditional butchers or fish and chip shops.

Accents change sharply in from place to place in the UK. There seemed to be no gradation between  the Geordie and the Border Scots.

This lovely town was visited and painted by Lowry- the authorities have marked the places where he painted with information boards. I saw a fine small exhibition at Berwick Visual Arts called Scottish Colourists from the Fleming Collection, which included these lively, unpretentious pictures:

 George Leslie Hunter, Lower Largo, Fife, oil on Millboard, 1919

 George Leslie Hunter, Peonies in a Chinese Vase, oil on board, 1925

Often there are traces of art deco stylisation in the paintings of the twenties.

 J.D. Fergusson, The Drift Posts, oil on canvas, 1922

Samuel John Peploe, Luxembourg Gardens, oil on panel, 1910

*

Melrose

*

Three Melrose pochades

Melrose is a pleasant, if twee, town in the Scottish Borders,close to the river Tweed and featuring a ruined abbey, elegant gardens and innumerable tea shops.

 It nestles in some hills and is a fine place to go painting, though I think next time I would go up the road to Galashiels where there are more affordable options in terms of hospitality and catering and is a bit less up its own arse. But, had I had more money, I could have stayed in Melrose a month and worked on paintings, easily.

Melrose, a bridge over the Tweed, oil on card, 15.5 x 17.5 cm  available

The fields above the town provided me with material, as did the river. I try to respond frankly to the subject, in an unfussy style. I don`t think it's a sentimental affectation to seek truthfulness in art and to judge its effectiveness by that. 

White houses, Melrose, oil on card, 19 x 17 cm unavailable

I love those white-washed houses that so characterise Scotland. This one is good, it has some of that sadness that so prevails in October in Britain. Should I have gone for more detail?

Hills behind Melrose, oil on card, 17.5 x 18 cm unavailable

*

Priming

*

Priming cards

The cards are cut from mat boards. I prime them with a mixture of  95% linseed oil , 3% turps and 2% oil paint for the first layer, then leave it to dry for a week. I recoat the cards with the same mixture a fortnight later.

 I wait another month then coat it in a layer which is about 90% titanium white and 10% turpentine.

I let it dry for at month before painting on it.

I rarely have problems with either sinkage or cracking, and have been using this formula for about five years.

*

A photo from Bucharest, becoming an artist

*

Bucharest, 2002

Here I am over twenty years ago in Bucharest in 1992. I had graduated from Edinburgh University two years before and was teaching English in Bayswater, London.

I'd taken the decision not to continue making art but to focus on teaching to make a living and get on the career ladder. That decision showed a failure of self-awareness, albeit an understandable one: I can teach, and that offered a much more secure financial future, but it wasn't a first instinct in the way making art is.

 

In addition, I'd thought that the pleasure I got from travel was just a phase, and that I could happily develop a life in London as permanent fixed resident, with all the usual stuff and relationships.

So, instead of accepting my nature- that of a nomadic and creative individual- I waged a campaign against my instincts and tried to force myself into a condition I did not suit, throwing moralist arguments about the "good of society" or, "duty" or "career" at myself. I had had some ideas that "happiness came not from pursuit of suit of self interest but in the fulfillment  of duty" (which is not a direct quote from Saint-Exupery, but could well be).

In short, I'd thought that  making art could be relegated to the status of a hobby and tried to suppress my desire to make it.

Eventually I came to my senses.

*

Table, bottle, The Old Patagonia Express

*

Table, bottle, The Old Patagonia Express, plate, oil on card, 13 x 14 cm  available

*

A bowl on a tray and a plate with apples; painting in monochrome

*

A bowl on a tray and a plate with apples, oil on card, 11 x 13 cm - available

I had the idea that on one of the trips I should eschew colour entirely and just work with black and white,  or dark sepia, this sustaining a deeper understanding of this fascinating area.

I like the way subtleties of brush movement, or of texture or tone become highlighted and how using black and white tips one into abstraction. Perhaps London, already monochrome in Portland Stone and steel sky would be the ideal place to experiment?

Colour is heady and tends to obliterate appreciation of anything but itself. It's like a drug, and like a drug you need to take more and more for the same effect. That does you no harm, though appreciation of anything grows with its absence.

A puritanical, or perhaps merely ascetic, side to my nature, Scottish or Danish in origin, lends me to suspect any too easily won aesthetic pleasure.

*