A PAINTER’S PROGRESS
If like myself you are not one of the fortunate few to possess real talent then you may have to rely on pig headed determination to keep yourself going.
Who knows why artists struggle for years. Maybe the work offers a hope for better things to come. Or maybe that despite disappointments, painting offers you more than any other activity.
I have called upon my PHD today, and it has not let me down.
A journey of shapes. Day 4B
This is not a days work. I will call it start of day 4 and then have a second day 4 when I recommence. Just added a bit of clarity towards the horizon line which has improved it.
I am coming into a highly disrupted period, the start of the Tour de France. Hopefully I will be able to maintain some discipline and the painting will continue.
A journey of shapes. Day 4
As an ‘artist’ I recognise that I am working in the entertainment business and will endeavour to keep my titles and thoughts as fresh and as interesting as possible. The afternoon with Barry was a very pleasant one.
In my painting I am realising that although my compositions are highly edited and reduced they need the intensity of observation to make them compelling. That is, retaining the most idiosyncratic elements of the view. In this case the line of trees on the horizon and the isolated groups of trees in the mid ground.
There is also a dark tonality and Shakespearean sense of drama that suits the Northumberland landscape.
A journey of shapes. Day 3
Upon recommencing today things weren’t going too well. It seemed I was mixing poorly considered tones after poorly considered tones. However, by keeping my poorly considered tones consistent I have somehow arrived at a pleasing mid-point. The title doesn’t seem to fit quite so well but I will stay with it.
I am never opposed to getting lost as long as there is a nice view at the end of it.
A journey of shapes. Day 2
There is no escape from your past. I have always kept landscape painting at a distance believing this was a tradition that could not be meddled with.
However, I find myself sliding back into a natural equilibrium. My landscapes are slowly mutating. Displaying all the oddness that has always marked my painting.
Like welcoming old friends, I am intrigued to see how these characters will emerge.
A journey of shapes. Day 1
Another morning of frantic activity with my number 2 sable brushes and the painting is now finished.
Shapes crawling across the landscape
This is the only British surrealist that I like, or can name. I have just received his latest catalogue raisonne and I am trying to resist its influence. I think this painting has struck the right balance between realism and surrealism. If things start to get out of hand you can blame him.
Happy with the progress of this painting and its heading towards completion.
Shapes crawling across the landscape. Day 5
I have seen films about people who paint slowly and people who paint fast. The ones who paint slowly use tiny sable brushes and work with great certainty. The ones who paint fast use big brushes and display a level of desperation.
As an art student I was the latter. Over a period of decades I have become the former. It seems to me that as I become slower so the work gets better.
Let’s hope the inevitable conclusion to this does not crystallise.
Shapes crawling across the landscape. Day 4
I know hard work is rewarded, but it can take a great deal of persistence before the scales are tipped and you begin to sense that what you are doing is truly worthwhile.
This painting is a more successful version of “The ploughed field”. The shapes are more integrated within the landscape. The colour is more subtle, and there is a better rhythm and flow between line and shape.
Shapes crawling across the landscape. Day 3
As a landscape painter you have two options. One is to take the path to where green skies are possible. The other is to take the path to where green skies are not possible. I am glad to be following in the footsteps of Van Gogh.
Despite the use of vivid green in the sky I am going to use a reduced palette. The craft of any good artist is to convince you that green skies are possible.
Shapes crawling across the landscape. Day 2
If in a year from now I am turning out slightly more polished versions of my current landscapes I would be disappointed. I also don’t know how motivated I would be to continue. I want to keep the door open to surprise and I therefore expect my painting to go through a slow metamorphosis, from caterpillar to butterfly, hence the use of the green ground.
Shapes crawling across the landscape. Day 1
I can’t keep using the headline “finished” every time I finish a painting so I am now exhausting other possibilities. A little bit more definition to the middle distance trees and I am now done. I seem to be oscillating stylistically but I’m not unduly concerned about this.
Landscape
As much as I try to maintain order in my garden against nature, so there is a similar fight in the larger landscape between man and nature. This current painting seems to be trying to find a balance between the natural rolling landscape and the rigid lines imposed on it. I like the idea of this continual struggle. If my garden experiences are anything to go by then the farmers around here will need more determination than I posses.
Landscape. Day 5
If you don’t sell work, if your work doesn’t show in galleries, if you are against the idea of storing work and most of your work is painted over then the logical outcome is to exist as a virtual painter. This is not a bitter rant, but a unique solution that was never available to the vast “school of” or “workshop of” in art history.
Your website is a 21st century repository against the notion of the “undiscovered” artist taking his work to landfill. It is the gallery you could never get into. All that is required is a mental shift. Does the physical object need to exist? Much as Spotify has replaced the CD, which has replaced the vinyl record, will the digital tablet replace the canvas? Hockney started this 10 years ago.
To secure immortality in this brave new world, all you need is a legacy payment system to cover your annual website subscription and your work can orbit the virtual galaxy for future generations to discover. Long after you are gone.
It’s an idea that has genuine appeal to me, mostly for the amusement value.
As dumb as it may sound, this is some of the best advice you can give to a painter. You will often see painters sat in their chair staring at their painting, looking for solutions. Its something I do myself. The problem with this is, the longer you sit around thinking the easier it is to talk yourself out of doing anything.
Its only through the act of doing that solutions are discovered, a great deal of patience may also be required. Anyway, I have heeded my own advice, and the painting is slowly improving.
Landscape. Day 4
I like to compare my paintings to the great masters, it gives me a sense of hope.
Not a long session today. This painting is sailing on a sea of mud and my feeling is that it will emerge very slowly. Its not obvious to me how this will happen. I think it is a painting that will be built with subtle layers and at some point it will give me the direction.
There is hope.
Landscape. Day 3
I wish I was painting like this 30 years ago not because of some deluded idea that ’I could have made it!’ but because there seems such a long way to go!
The positive aspect to this is that I am enthusiastically engaged with something that I think is worthwhile. There has also been a nagging thought in my mind that art rewards hard work.
I will deal with my conscience some other time.
Landscape. Day 2
In life we look for security, stability, routine, the hope we don’t get lost when travelling. All of this gives us some comfort but it can make life seem very dull.
Painting offers an antidote to this. There is no destination. Chance and accident are welcomed. A well formulated plan can be quickly discarded when the painting offers us a better and unforeseen outcome.
In many ways painting is beguiling, it offers us a journey into the unknown, you only need the willingness to follow.
Landscape. Day 1
This painting looks like an unlikely collaboration between Grant Wood and Kenny Scharf. I like this balance between realism and simplification. I would not use the word ‘cartoon’ although some of the shapes in this painting almost have that aspect.
What is interesting is that despite a cartoon like appearance there is a serious attempt to depict space and structure. I find this approach to landscape far more interesting than my earlier more conventional interpretations. I think I would have lost interest very quickly.
Anyway, this painting is finished.
The ploughed field
It’s not every day that I go straight to the studio after breakfast. Normally I can fill an hour with unnecessary and meaningless tasks.
I am finding the chaos and haphazardness of the landscape still finds a subtle balance with the landscape. Even though mans shaping of the landscape looks random it still follows the contours and undulations of the land. That is what I have been trying to work on this morning. I think the underlying structure of the landscape is becoming more apparent.
The ploughed field. Day 4