A PAINTER’S PROGRESS
This is the most dramatic photo I have used to date. Not only do you have the colours of autumn, you have a setting sun and a stormy sky. I have toned down the sky a bit, but some of the trees are almost cadmium orange. You also have the magentas and browns of the dying heather contrasted with the acid greens of the fields. Its a lot to take in but it shouldn’t make for a dull painting.
Lorbottle. Day 1
One of the benefits of using expensive paint is you feel compelled to go into the studio if your palette is piled high with the stuff. Especially if its all premixed and ready to go. This only works with oil paint of course. I am due a few days of painting and I had an itch to finish off this painting. I thought it was finished but the foreground trees needed just a bit more work. I am not one of those painters like Chagall who would return to a painting years or decades later to rework it. I need to strike while the iron is still hot, or at least semi-warm.
Alwinton
My strategy for my painting is to do more in the future. This may seem like a lame ambition made by someone who isn’t really planning to do more painting in the future. However, my particular circumstances are that we have just moved into a very old cottage, 260 years old! which in my opinion needs a lot of work. The plan for me is to focus on getting all of that work out of the way and of course this means less time on my painting than I would like. This will increase over time. Anyway, back to the painting. I can’t think why I thought that the foreground trees could hold up as a silhouette. If I’m being honest I wasn’t sure I could pull it off in terms on painting them in detail, some of this is still new territory. Comparing today with the previous version it is very clear it needed it, still learning. I think this painting is finished.
Alwinton
As the headline reads, its about a Painters Progress, and today was all about that, as is every day. I thought some areas of the painting needed a visual punch and a bit more experimentation with bolder colour and shape. The biggest problem for me as a landscape painter is how to deal with the ‘empty’ areas. As I have no intention of painting every blade of grass then I need to find a solution. I am becoming more interested in the tracks and natural pathways in the landscape, some of the shapes are quite bizarre. I suppose its the same as looking at clouds and seeing the shapes of animals etc, of course, I’d like to think my work is a bit more serious than that. The changes I made today are very close to working and I like how they challenge your preconceptions of how a landscape should look. I think if I apply the same approach to other areas of the painting this is going to work.
Alwinton. Day 7
didn’t turn to gold, not s**t, either, more like bronze. One of those sessions when you know instantly that its going to be a grind. How can mixing paint one day be different from any other? I decided to press on without inspiration but with pig headed determination. Gradually I started making more right than wrong decisions and the painting started to advance. Its funny when things are going badly you can’t think of anyway to improve a painting. But when things are going well it seems every area can be improved, and more importantly you know what is needed. After a tough afternoon this painting has improved.
Alwinton. Day 6
This is the moment every painter works towards, when the painting shifts into another dimension, from being an ordinary rendition of the subject to something that has gone beyond the subject. Its a kind of magic, to quote the Queen song. Its when the painting starts to work independently of the subject, using the language the painter is trying to apply. Today, it was seeing the tones that already existed in the subject but really pushing them to a higher key, a form of Fauvism if you like. The painting is starting to work. The mid-ground diagonal line of trees reminds me of a cast of characters from a late Guston painting.
Alwinton. Day 5
I feel like I have been trading blows with this painting all afternoon. At every moment it seems like it was resisting my efforts to advance it. Once I got into belligerent pugilist mode I started to make some gains. If you can still retain some control this way of painting is normally quite effective. Where you might hesitate in a calm state of mind you tend to act on instinct, an Arnold Schwarzenegger, guns blazing approach. Anyway, a couple of areas have suffered with this method but they can be recovered.
Alwinton. Day 4
Quality not quantity, why do I have to choose?, I want quality and quantity, which means working with mastery, oh well, I’ll take quality. I am back to my hyper self which I much prefer. I never see Bob Ross struggling with his landscapes, he gets it right first time, although his trees and mountains always look the same. Did he really have any ambition to get better? I don’t think so, still he made a lot of money, not a bad trade. This painting is slowly emerging, still not sure how much detail to put into the foreground trees. They are creating a strong silhouette, which seems to work at the moment.
Alwinton. Day 3
The title shows how uninspired I felt today. Started on autopilot and gradually improved, by the end of the day I was up to full speed. On days like this I focus on something very small and simple to start with and its amazing how the act of just mixing paint and getting results can turn your mindset around. I can now see the potential in this painting, hopefully I will return on fully charged batteries.
Alwinton. Day 2
Back in my favourite area of Northumberland, at least the Northumberland I know of. There is a country road (track?) that starts in the hamlet of Alwinton and heads west following the river Alwin. As soon as I get a good day I am going to head off and explore. The scenery is spectacular with steep hills either side of the river. I may even stumble across the mythical Edward Burra landscape unhelpfully titled, Valley and River, Northumberland. His painting has all the characteristics of this area.
Alwinton. Day 1
The last five percent of a painting seems to take an age. It always seems to be an area of the painting that is empty, and your attempts to fill it with all manner of things has failed. I think there is an added desperation as you feel you should finish the picture with a masterly flourish. Instead you find yourself muddling around trying random colour combinations as if you’ve never picked up a brush before. That was todays story, and it will be the same with almost every painting I do. However, I think it has come to a reasonable conclusion and I am happy with the outcome.
Alwinton
Is it even fair to question anyone’s work ethic when they are retired, its over, isn’t it? I suppose for someone like myself I should say its only just begun. I often berate myself for not doing more, but we can all do more, that’s always the case. Excuses aside, I suppose the question is doing more for what end? The answer for me is never clear, to make better pictures? that’s so poorly defined to have as a goal. I think as a start that aim is ok, but at some point you have to ask what level of achievement would leave you satisfied. If I am being realistic, I will never be satisfied. Anyway, this painting is getting better.
Alwinton. Day 6
I suppose I would only say this if things were going well. Its curious how confidence and enthusiasm can waver from painting to painting. I am finding there is a balance to be struck between my ability to move away from the illustrative aspects of the photograph and towards a more abstracted interpretation, I still haven’t found it. That accounts for the inconsistent look from painting to painting. I would like to think that this is me searching for the right answers, a search that I will always be involved in.
Alwinton. Day 5
It seems every painter needs a bit of both in order push their painting forward. What I found in the past is that I could never capitalize on accident because I didn’t know how to replicate the language. I am now finding that accident is often the key to opening up the painting, and the more I paint the more accident is leading me in the right direction. The idea of a reduced colour range in this painting is starting to work, I think it is the way forward. Still some way to go with this painting but I am liking it more than the previous one.
Alwinton. Day 4
will get me through this winter. When I am painting I do not notice the descending gloom that means it is now dark at 5pm! Painting through the darkness gives me a false sense of dedication, I feel like a committed painter even though my sessions seem to be getting shorter. The winter is definately having an impact. The sky has appeared, its obviously fundamental to my style of landscape painting, I want to look more closely at the dramatic connection between land and sky in terms of the light cast. This means dramatic skies, Constable like, I loathe blue skies for painting.
Alwinton. Day 3
I have got into the habit of drawing out the composition in pencil at the start of a painting. I regard this as an advanced form of ‘painting by numbers’. I would appreciate if someone else had premixed a wide range of paint, this would save a lot of time. One of the benefits I have found with this approach is that it highlights the importance of the line in painting, and the rhythms to be found in the landscape. Taking the line for a walk as Matisse would say. Painting is progressing well, I think the sky will open up, I just like space in my painting.
Alwinton. Day 2
no, just the right amount, to mis-quote a line from Amadeus. I had been wondering what is it that I don’t like about the painting I had just done. There are several issues. One is there is just too much going on in terms of its colour range, its kaleidoscopic. Secondly, I often get the feeling, not only with my own paintings, that they are made up of many parts, like a jigsaw puzzle that often jar when viewed as a whole. These issues are created firstly by the choice of photo and secondly by the way I translate them. With this in mind I have chosen a landscape that is made up mostly of greens and I have chosen to simply block in the painting to begin with but really look at the range of greens in the image. Another question, if your more interested in the abstract qualities of the landscape, why include the sky?, I will keep an open mind about this.
Alwinton. Day 1
Why can’t you just paint a great painting?, especially when you have spent so much of your life doing it. I can’t use the word ‘dedication’ and maybe that’s the problem. Does the rate of improvement have to be glacial? its exhausting having to move so slowly. Its a shame because I like the painting, I just want it to be so much more. My favourite painting quote is by Francis Bacon, you need to know something about him to get the humour: ‘ Artists are never satisfied with their work, though I believe Henry Moore is’. I will have to accept my fate and plod on, its part of the tradition. Painting is finished.
Evening in the Coquetdale Valley
I do hope the winter blues are not setting in, my enthusiasm quickly evaporated as soon as I started painting today and I decided I couldn’t take the picture any further. After half an hour I was finished. I am still struggling with the 2 foreground trees. They have moved in the right direction, but need a bit more work. The valuable lesson from this is knowing what to avoid in the future, not because I can’t paint it, but because it doesn’t fit my style. I am no Impressionist, I have always favoured an odd mix of the Renaissance with a sprinkling of Expressionism. Looking at todays painting I know it isn’t finished, lets hope for bright blue skies when I recommence.
Evening in the Coquetdale Valley. Day 7
as opposed to painting what you see. You would think the two are the same, and for some people they are, but for most painters they are not. Its funny, but after painting and looking at art for decades, my assessment of my own work in progress is often ‘it doesn’t look right?’. That’s the feeling I have had for the last few days about this painting, and it was to do with the space, especially the far distant hills and the lie of the land in that area. I have adjusted it and don’t have the same doubts now. What keeps me interested in the landscape subject is this struggle to make the landscape bend to my will in order to make a good painting, I’d like to say ‘great’, but that may never happen, that’s what keeps me going.
Evening in the Coquetdale Valley. Day 6