Small garden works on paper.

                                        

small garden.oil on paper. 18x12cm

     

Garden drawing.(Stipa) ink and emulsion on paper.80x60cm

                                         Garden drawing (Stipa). ink and emulsion on paper. 80x60cm

                                                                                     

ink and emulsion on paper.80x60cm

As a post script to the last post I have added these because the marks that can be derived from vegetation must be useful to me and I'll be interested to see where this leads.

New drawings from the edge of woods.

ink on paper. 60x40cm

ink on paper. 60x40cm

ink and emulsion on paper. 23x23 cm

ink, emulsion on paper.23x23cm

ink, emulsion on paper 18x12cm

Path. ink on paper.60x40cm

Woods edge, ink on paper.60x40cm

They say that a week is a long time in politics and the same can be said of drawing, plus, it makes my arms ache. These drawings develop a life of their own as I make them and they appear to me as more than the place that they come from: they are a sense of the place in as much as the activity of drawing creates marks independent of the site. In fact the site becomes the drawing for me and the drawing becomes the site. I used  pieces of hardwood of different lengths, printing ink, emulsion, palette knife, plasterer's tool and a wire brush for these because I thought that if I relied on charcoal or pencil some thing predictable would occur but actually the often random, accidental marks that these other implements make serves just as well.

New paintings in winter.

                                        

                                                              oil on canvas. 50x50cm.

  I am making a painting, a collation of lots of photographs, and of memory and to begin with, it is too pretty, too close to the subject, to the sight seen of trees at the edge of the wood in sunlight and not at all what I want. It does not strike me as painting: it seems like it is too easy to make something that appears clever and there are already too many clever paintings around. So I repeatedly paint it out and begin again thinking about what painting is and trying to marry my experience of being there with constructing a painting which is about marks, shapes, colour, line, mass etc.

                                       

                                     oil on canvas.80x80cm.

                                         

                                                                        oil on paper. 30x30 cm

                                      

                                                                            oil on paper. 30x18cm.

Winter is a time for reflection: a time to pull out the past years work for review, to decide what is worth keeping and what is not. These last few years I have made a book at the years end to record some of the things that I have done which means that I don't have to keep the paintings and can re-use them, for when all is said and done, they are simply surfaces to think on.

                                       

                                              

                                      

                               

New year, new work.

I always start the year with optimism. What other way can there be for the likes of us? I do though have to smile at my self for this almost childish naivety as one would think that experience would forewarn me. Yesterday I spent the afternoon looking from one painting to another adjusting this one and painting out that one, looking through my photographs, chiding myself to determine what I was about and then made these.

Of course it comes from a wellspring of landscape or inscape experience but if I could be sure that it was about painting too I would think that that would be enough to go on and to keep going on which, of course, we must. Happy new Year.

Shock Therapy and the end of the year.

six studies for a garden .

winter painting.

 A London day trip and two exhibitions was in itself delightful but a massive shock in that I thought I

knew what to expect at the Constable (V&A) and I was very very wrong. The small works are delicate and breathe gently as he explores what might be possible and refers to earlier painters - it was a delight to see some Thomas Jones there as well - but the big paintings are a revelation. There was hardly anyone there when I went and the lighting did the work no favours: They needed to be seen in daylight.

At the National Gallery the Rembrandts were overwhelmed by tourists and the lighting was very poor indeed, theatrical I thought. I didn't bring back a catalogue for either because in the case of Rembrandt I am fortunate to have a large Skira publication, but the colour rendition in the Constable, Making of a master catalogue was awful. What a shame when it could have been done so well.

If anyone is intending to visit either of these exhibitions the Constable will close on the 11th January, the Rembrandt on the 18th.

As for what I have been doing: it has been mostly drawing with a bit of revision. I like to make changes to things when I have had time to think.

Happy Christmas.

To all of you who have spent time reading and looking throughout the year, a very Happy Christmas.

Room with a view.

Winter has arrived and I am hunkered down with my view. Three days have produced three pieces on paper and the sky is still grey. Stoves are lit, narcissi planted in the fields, painting is slow. I am going to concentrate on drawing for a while to see if that and looking out at the view will help. Next week I hope to visit the Rembrandt and the Constable in London. I want to see things that can't be seen in books. On my return it will be back to  my room with a view.