A portrait of two friends: Ana and Tchaka

Two friends: Ana and Tchaka, oil on card, 14.5 x 15.4 cm

A portrait of two beautiful women who posed most elegantly in their lovely frocks while it rained outside.

I am very happy with all my models: they have all shown great consideration and humour.

Heathland, Lagoa, 4pm

Heathland, Lagoa, 4pm, oil on card, 13.8 x 10 cm discarded

I sat here watching the sky. It's been a long time since I painted here and a lot of things have changed in my life, some of them painful but all ultimately for the better.

Portrait of Tony Alana II

Portrait of Tony Alano II, oil on card, 14.4 x 10 cm - discarded

The second of the series: perhaps there will be five in total. Tony is a great sitter, with an expressive body language.

It is delightful to be painting portraits again: the experience is very intense for me, like doing an important exam- you've an hour and a half to get everything right. Working with the same model over a period of time is very enjoyable: every session revealing a different aspect.

Making art without that element of risk is an insipid experience in comparasion. Tomorrow I shall be paiting Lucas again.

Garage forecourt

Garage forecourt, oil on card, 13.5 x 9.8 cm

One of the many garages near here: I wanted really to paint something very simple and clear, but somehow got drawn into depicting that disorder that characterises Brazil's urban landscape.

Chevrolet sign

Chevrolet sign, oil on card, 14 x 9.3 cm

Painted on Madre Benevenuto.

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I seem to be getting more responses to my advertisments for models- it's a truism that the year in Brasil really starts after carnival, so hopefully I shall be able to do more figure painting from now on.

The White Ribbon (2009): review: 9/10

As narrated by a schoolteacher, a series of bizzare events occur in a North German village just before The Great War:

The film depicts the life of a village through narrratives folding about several households: that of three prominant village figures- a doctor,  the landowner and the pastor, and that of a family of labourers. These households reveal a patriarchal culture of harsh discipline, hypocrisy, ignorance and unkindness: children are often the victims.

The film is beautiful, with startling images of the villages through the seasons which contrast strangely with the cruel social atmosphere.

Perhaps the film is unbalanced, but the many narratives are comunicated with immense skill and the acting is supurb.

A Village Affair (1995): review: 8/10

A depressed artist and her shallow lawyer husband move to a small village: there they make a aquaintance of a  sexually voracious brunette with very red lipstick, a spoiled young woman and the subject of  much gossip.

Well acted and sensitively made film about relationships and attitudes among the English country bourgesie, described through the prism of the artist's romantic crisis, which intelligently balances melodrama and seriousness.