Some paintings from London: tourist painting

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The Houses of Parliament, Westminster, oil on card, about 10 x 12 cm  AVAILABLE

 

 

 

Saint Paul's, London, oil on card, about 10 x 12 cm  AVAILABLE

 

 

 

Tower Bridge, London, oil on card, about 12 x 10 cm 

 

 

 

Three paintings done in London, which satistfy the definition of "tourist painting" to me, in that they are very much set-piece views, immediately recognisable. I don't mean the term pejoratively

It is excellent to work from the south side of the Thames. As one goes east the tourists thin out, and it's easy enough to find a peaceful spot. The north side of the river is almost a showcase of London history, with views of the Tower, St Pauls, Parliament and so forth. 

I worried that because these scenes are so well known it would be hard for me to find my own angle, and that the paintings would become twee, and had speculated that it might be better to oncentrate on more obscure, perhaps more readily "personalisable" views in the suburbs (some of which I shall post tomorrow).

However, I feel that I have managed- what matters, as ever in painting, is to be attentive to what really is there, as opposed to what one supposes should be there. And the skies of London are extraordinary for the capacity to change mood rapidly- a vital subject in itself.

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Three Scottish still lives

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Still life with the black cat, oil on card, about 10 x 9 cm

Still life with yellow flowers, oil on card, about 10 x 9 cm

Still life with red flowers and the Chinese rider, oil on card, about 10 x 9 cm  AVAILABLE

These pictures were painted in Aberdeen: it was too cold to go outside.

I've tried to paint still lives in Brasil but they don't work out- the sort of introverted "gothic" still life, with it's Redonesque aspects is so much a product of an introversion, sometimes an unhappiness, that seems particular to cold Northern Europe. There seems something very peculiar about staying in to paint cut flowers when the sun outside is so welcoming, and there are flowers covering the hillsides!

The third photo in particular leaves something to be desired: I have left these paintings in the UK in Scotland and was unable to properly check their quality before leaving (I was also foolish enough not to record their sizes so the sizes given are approxomate). But such shiny dark painted surfaces are always hard to capture well.

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Back to base

 Paintings from the Spey Valley leg of my trip: there are also som pictures from London, Brasil, and two still lives painted in Aberdeen.

Back.

Many pictures later, a good run of experiences and good news.

The trip had three stages: Taubate, Brasil,  London, The Spey Valley, Scotland and then London again.

I shall be posting the best of these in three postings. I also painted some little still lives.

I had some good news: the Union Gallery in Broughton Street, Edinburgh has taken my work, and will be dealing with it. This is excellent as it is a good Gallery with an interesting profile. I have raised the prices of paintings to 100 pounds sterling each. This is necessary to cover travel costs, which can be very high.

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Many thanks to those who hosted me: Larry, Chris, my parents, my sister Anna and her husband Kenneth, and Lise and her son Felix. I simply could not do such a long trip without your help and support.

Ready to go!

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Some essentials: carriers for pictures, a tube with brushes, a box of paints, card supports, some clothes and the camera battery re-charger.

Well, I'm off to the UK tomorrow so I'll be posting much less regularly for a few weeks. I'll be in London and in different parts of Scotland- touching base, revisiting places I know and discovering new ones.

 If the weather is nice then it should be a productive painting trip.

Love and Other Disasters (2006): review: 6.5/10

Led by a girl who works at Vogue, a crew of homosexuals and girly girls cavort in London in search of romantic bliss: Murphy wanders about prettily, sharing a flat with one of the homosexuals and dispensing advice. She has an ex-boyfriend: he is described unflatteringly: they occasionally meet for sexual congress. She likes an Argentinian photographic assistant who provides an anchor of seriousness among the trivia, flirtation and occasional humour provided by, among others, alcoholic woman- the British consider drunkeness to be essentially a comic -as opposted to pathetic- condition.

This is a slick bourgois romantic comedy which still has life despite, post crisis, feeling like a period piece: how much you like this film will depend on how much you like the environment and culture it depicts.

The Terminal (2004): review: 3/10

A man is stranded in a beaurocratic twilight zone when his fictitious East-European country has a revolution, and his passport is no longer accepted by the US. He lives in the airport which he is forbidden to leave. He has an ongoing conflict with the head of immigration at the airport, whose ends seem unclear.  He manages to find ways of earning money, make friends and begin a romantic liason with a women which lacks any discernable fizzle.

The film does not emphasis the inherant tragedy in the beaurocratic situation, it's strangeness and awfullness: it is too light. Hanks is as irritating as ever: with that ghastly, saggy mouth and piggy eyes and oily skin, and his horrible "folksy-method" acting style.

The joke is often the ridiculousness of foreigners, most notable the Indian floor-cleaner. Hanks is given a stupid accent and a silly walk There no parallel joke about the ridiculousness of Americans.

The film is considerably overlong and unpleasantly ingratiating.

Raising Helen (2004): review: 6/10

There are three sisters: Helen lives in New York and works for a fashion model agency: she is single and works a fair amount, at other times drinking. Her elder sister, who is considerably less attractive, has two children, a settled suburban lifestyle and a superiority complex. The third sister and husband die in a car accident: it is written in the Will that Helen is to take charge of the children, a boy and an adolescent girl, much to the chagrin of the elder sister and to the suprise of Helen herself.

Helen moves from Manhattan to Queens where she is befriended by a kind neighbour. She sends the children to a Lutheran school, where she meets a charming pastor. She has problems keeping up with her work commitments, and fulfilling some of the roles of parent, specifically when the adolescent girl becomes involved with an unpleasant young man who wears a baseball cap the wrong way round.

There's nothing really wrong with this film: it's ok, overlong, well intentioned, but unsurprising.