New paintings after walking.

sudden break. oil on paper. 68x70cm

after grey skies. oil on paper 78x60cm

clearing. oil on paper 78x60cm

shift. oil on paper. 68x70cm

   

ground. oil on paper 78x60cm

Hill. oil on paper. 78x60cm 

The idea of walking and making go hand in hand throughout the visual arts along with the written word. I don't need to retail who and where but never the less I think it remains a pertinent correlation. We walk and experience walking and weather, light and colour. Rilke has it thus:

My eyes already touch the sunny hill

going far beyond the road i have begun

So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp,

it has an inner light, even from a distance

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,

into something else, which, hardly sensing it

we already are; a gesture waves us on

answering our own wave

but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

Two field edge paintings.

oil on paper. 78x60cms

Climbing a track near to my home, a field becomes tilted, almost like a theatre set back drop. I often stand and watch the light and shadow move across it and now, at this time of year, just before ploughing, the edges blur with new growth. Everything shifts slightly, and then the plough slices it into sharp shapes once more.

Five paintings from above a field edge.

                                      

                                                     all oil on paper. 87x60 cms

I made these after a long walk, my regular walk by a field edge and on returning home they seemed the obvious thing to set down. Following these I went to the National Gallery in London in search of Thomas Jones and his paintings from Naples.  For anyone interested, he was born in 1742 and made some remarkable paintings during his tour of Italy, quite unlike his work before or after.            

Visits

In poor light I try to make use of the day to draw and I have been fortunate to have had visits from artist friends for coffee, cake, conversation and drowsing by the wood stove. I know of one artist who has drawn the same way for years and is very good at it whereas I need to approach a drawing afresh, as if it was all new to me. Sometimes it works but there is always that niggling feeling that tells me to try again.

Wet weather drawing

It has been raining for days: I am staying in. From my window I can see the hedge becoming clearer as the foliage is removed by wind and rain.

Freedom feels like this.

We will recognize that without the need to please others we can please ourselves. One of the great things about independence is that one can take a risk with an idea and so, after a walk the other day, I came into my shed and started to make these drawings. Marks on a surface that take on a life of their own.

Four drawings from early Autumn.

                                                                        170x120cms

116x110 cms

55x55  cms

62x53 cms

all ink,oil and emulsion on paper.

These four drawings are from a series based upon observation, supported by monochrome photographs. They are very much about the marks. In fact I am often working very close to the support to concentrate upon making the marks and trying not to think about the source. It is only later that there can be a sense of recognition that yes, I did see something like this, I did photograph something like this though I don't remember when. It is all bound together.

Tracks 2. Field edges.

ploughing and tape. ink, emulsion on paper

field edge and tape. ink and oil on paper

field edge. oil on paper

beginning to plough. oil on paper

tracks. oil on paper

lines . oil on canvas

I think I know where these might lead. The tracks on the land and the tracks in the paint must come together before too long. The several crossings of a tractor on the hill marking the cut wheat and now the land being cut by the plough are making their own crossing places with the paint.

Lost and found

Due to a computer glitch, these images disappeared from this blog and are out there somewhere. I do hope that they relate to the more recent paintings, but they are all part and parcel of the process.

Field Painting

                                                           all oil on paper. 87x60cms

On my walks I pass a sloping field. I have been passing it for years and sometimes I have stopped to photograph it and more recently to make drawings of it. Often it has been noted and filed away in the back of my mind until the next time that some shift in weather and light calls my attention to it again.

Theses are simple paintings. They are made from memory. They are paintings that refer to the field but are not really about the field so much as about the direction my painting might take. The grid might make a comeback, the division of the surface might be less intuitive - the golden section comes to mind-

and other possibilities might arise. Sometimes it is necessary to return to basics.

Learning from doing

I once determined to stop painting. It was never going to come right. I lasted about three days before being drawn back in because, what would I do if not this, day after day. It's a place to learn; if not words, then substance. Something that is hard to talk about but that is known accumulatively. It is a place where one measures oneself against oneself.
I admire the facility of portrait painters for instance, the skills learnt, the very look of it, the verisimilitude, the grace of image making. It seems worlds away from mine where I feel the thing must be forced into being against its will. Obstinacy is a part of it. The oily substance resists me and I must fight both it and myself until we both begin to bend and even then it can be sulky and obfuscatory. It is only a substance however, only oily mud. One must work it into something else.
When I have to stop, because I have stopped, the time spent on this will be what remains of me: something that says, I was here and engaged with this and every day was new.

A postscript.

oil on canvas. 30x30cm

After the drawings that I was making earlier in January, I moved to this self portrait which seemed to get another bit closer to what I was trying to pin down. It does appear to derive solidity from noting the small changes that occur as I move observing the reflected image to the support and back again. I still think that it is not enough, perhaps still too safe but its another step forward. Maybe I am kidding myself but it seems as though it breathes more.