AN INABILITY TO SUFFER

Bad lower back pain has meant a lot of lost sleep and an inability to sit at my painting without a lot of discomfort. I would have lasted only a couple of days on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. I attempted some painting today, combining a couple of minutes of painting followed by walking around the studio and stretching. Hardly a focused approach but its about all I could do. Despite less than ideal conditions the painting has advanced and is starting to show a bit of promise. Hopefully my condition will gradually improve and a bit more focused painting will appear.

Whittingham. Day 3

A LEAP OF FAITH

I wasn’t sure which way this painting was going to go. Its a mass of amorphous trees, a view through a wood, with only the occasional tip or edge caught by the setting sun. In some areas you can only tell where one tree starts and another finishes by the trunks underneath. However, a brown mess has been avoided and even though it still needs a lot of work it is showing signs of promise. I chose this composition because I didn’t know how to approach it. That may sound like a stupid decision but what I am finding is that the more difficult the picture is, the more creative the solution needs to be. I am finding that the transformational process is where the interest lies rather than the subject.

Whittingham. Day 2

A BASELITZ SKY

I never believed the inverting of figures was anything but awkward. His belief is that you read his paintings differently, as connected shapes. I spend all my time trying to turn them the correct way in my mind. I still like his paintings but they would be better the right way up, why is no one else doing it? The point of this ramble is the sky in this painting seems to be an inverted landscape? This is a lovely spring afternoon with the light filtering through the trees, this is the effect I am aiming at. For anyone who has realized that this painting is of the same hill as the previous painting but seen from the east, I’m impressed, thanks for paying attention.

Whittingham. Day 1

WHATS CHANGED?

Quite a contrast to yesterdays headline. A casual observer might ask, what’s the point? The point is, the only way to advance your painting is to put all your knowledge into your work and a dose of risk taking in the hope you may discover something in the process that moves you just a fraction forward. I have hit a run of consistency in my painting that I have never had before but what I am realizing is that this painting business is a very slow evolution and its all about the journey. For me it seems like I had better enjoy the journey because apart from hope, what else is there? (that sounds like a Francis Bacon quote?). The painting is finished.

Netherton, springtime

A SIGNIFICANT REPAINTING

I knew this needed a significant repainting but I had come to the end of my enthusiasm for it. That was until I saw ‘The biggest difference between bad art and great art by UCLA professor Richard Walter’, on YouTube. His outlook is quite uncompromising and it seems 99.9% of all art produced is bad art. I would agree, but I would phrase it, 99.9% is not great art. Despite my efforts this afternoon I am still not in that 0.01% of great art, and never will be. I hope I have dragged it a bit further out of the quagmire, though I suspect I will always need to be wearing wellingtons when at the easel. Don’t think its finished yet but almost.

Netherton, springtime. Day 7

A LIFETIME IS NOT ENOUGH

If your only doing an hour of painting on a Saturday afternoon. Repainting of the sky, mostly the right half. It has improved and has some interesting effects that deserve a bit more attention. Need to get this painting finished before it starts to drag.

Netherton, springtime. Day 6

A LIFETIME IS NOT ENOUGH

Why couldn’t I have decided to paint the landscapes of Northumberland 30 years ago whilst still living in London?. That would have been a remarkable decision given where I am now. Instead I spent the intervening years heading off down various rabbit holes only too emerge confused and disappointed. My saving grace is that I just kept going but it seems like a long and tortuous path to finally arrive at the correct destination. It seems less of a destination, rather finally finding the right bus queue to join. I suppose it was a personal journey I had to travel. Now I am in the right place I have potentially another 30 years to enjoy the ride. Painting is going well, nearing completion.

Netherton, springtime. Day 5

A FOCUS ON ABSTRACTION

It is surprising when a painting starts to operate abstractly, areas you thought needed more detail now work better as a gestural mark. I think things become a lot more interesting when you are painting on instinct, rather than illustrating what is there. I know Francis Bacon would have backed me up on this. You move into an area of painting that is elemental and mysterious, where it is more to do with relationships of colour and shape and I think my painting has shifted more in this direction. The painting has now got to a point where the focus is now on subtle relationships rather than big changes.

Netherton, springtime. Day 4

A NORTH EUROPEAN PALETTE

I know the UK is not in Europe, I just refuse to accept it, anyway, enough of politics. I have brought my north European mindset to bear on this lovely spring day and have turned down the brightness a notch or two. I have done this quite consciously because this is Northumberland, not the Cote d’Azur. For some reason I can’t accept the Mediterranean palette so far north. Anyway, its definitely springtime and not winter. There are some extraordinary patterns in this landscape so I need to put my illustrators head on if I am to tackle them. The painting is starting to show signs of promise, still a long way to go.

Netherton, springtime. Day 3

DON'T SECOND GUESS

This is a lesson that has taken me decades to learn, and if I am honest I am still guilty of it. When I try and speculate as to how a painting may go I am always wrong. I always imagine the outcome to be no where near as good as it actually turns out to be. You cannot rehearse in your mind what you are going to do in the painting. There was a time when the opposite was true, when I had a brilliant painting in my mind and ended up with a canvas covered in sh*t. Needless to say I am a more content painter now but it has been a long journey getting here. Painting is going well. I am trying to capture what I saw on the day which is a landscape turned up to full volume in every respect. Its a type of landscape that I particularly like which is a random patchwork of brown heathland and grass, that has yet to come through as clearly as I would like.

Netherton, springtime. Day 2

NO EASY ROUTE

As Ben Fogle has said, ‘the hardest road has the sweetest views’. He may not be an ancient Chinese philosopher but he’s not wrong. I purposely never repeat a winning formula, firstly because its leads to nothing new, and secondly I never take the easy option. By winning formulas I mean my estimation of where my painting is right now. Winning for me simply because in my view what I am doing now is so much better even than 12 months ago. Slightly new location, Netherton. It was a day of mixed fortunes, its surprising how a photo is made or lost in a second, simply because of the dramatic changing light. This is one of my lucky shots. Good start.

Netherton, springtime. Day 1

FURTHER DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Its a tight squeeze but I am going to keep going. My previous painting has set me on an unexpected course. There is definitely a shift in focus. At the back of my mind I always had this ambition of not being a ‘scene’ painter, when it comes to landscapes. That means not following the traditional focus, which is light and space. They are important but it seems no longer my primary motivation. It will be interesting to see how this develops because I don’t want to have a set of preconceived notions of how I am now going to make paintings. Lots of questions around this painting but it is finished.

Road through the countryside

A CAST OF CHARACTERS

I’ve seen these characters before in previous paintings I have done, I am talking about the trees. I have a problem with trees. I have never liked the indefinite nature of them, the fact that they are poorly defined in terms of their boundaries, how they all seem to merge as one and share the same shade of green. I like a muscular tree that identifies itself as an individual, my style is more Michelangelo than Monet and so that is how I paint them. The more I take this idiosyncratic approach the more I like what I see, and the more I stress the differences between them, the more it takes on a human element? I look at this painting and I see a big crowd of figures, all individuals . This rendition of them is slightly mad, but it seems to capture an individual spirit or identity and if you really look at trees you will see all sorts of fantastical shapes and relationships. I may be going down an odd route, but it is an interesting one. Only got a couple of hours done today due to domestic commitments but painting has improved.

Road through the countryside. Day 6

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Two elements that are becoming increasingly important in my painting are curiosity and a willingness to follow the rabbit down the rabbit hole. They are the same thing really. What this means in reality is sometimes I don’t know where the painting is going, and surely this is always the situation any painter would want? If you are spending so much of your time on your art then don’t you want to go on a journey of surprises and wonder?. It seems to me that my painting is still going through significant change and I have a totally open mind as to where that is.

Road through the countryside. Day 5

A HELPING HAND?

Or divine intervention. If its the latter I would be asking for a bit more, maybe get me up to the level of Fra Angelico or Titian, only if for a day. I say this because my aim was to get rid of all the white ground so I was working with a certain urgency. At the end of the day I had a proper look at the painting and was really surprised to see what I thought were crudely painted areas actually could stand as they are. I don’t think the painting is finished, I think it can be improved but happy with the progress.

Road through the countryside. Day 4

HEAD FOR SHELTER

Tornado coming through Northumberland? the weight of the clouds are almost crushing the horizon line. I like the way the strong outline of the cloud on the left is almost touching ground and the contrast between the dark bluish purple tone and the brighter sky and field below. This is a summers day that is full of weather and a painters dream, as long as you are not going plein air. This composition has everything and yet it is a fairly mundane subject, ‘ road through the countryside’, this is what happens when you really stop and look at the landscape, it is actually packed with life and extraordinary sights. I like the way this painting is going. I do have another composition in mind for my next painting, again involving a road, that I have been thinking about for a long time.

Road through the countryside. Day 3

BACK ON COURSE

The previous painting felt like a bit of a diversion, in my mind it is a successful painting but I didn’t like the process of making it. It felt like I was forcing an idea onto the painting rather than it being a conversation between me and it. This new painting feels like a more natural process, I try something, sometimes it works, sometimes it needs modifying but the painting is telling me what it needs and it feels like a real learning process. Its going well. Really strange situation with the sky of yesterday, it almost photographed entirely in monochrome? I have been repainting some areas of the sky today and will continue doing that but overall it wont change a great deal.

Road through the countryside. Day 2

A1 heading north

I have always liked the way this section of road suddenly climbs skywards and cuts across the horizon line. The road shoots through the trees and then just as quickly disappears. This is countered by the equally dramatic movement of the hill as it dives right to left. Throw in a dramatic sky and you have a Soutine transported from the south of France to equally glamorous environs of Northumberland, namely the A1. I hadn’t realised I have painted the sky almost monochrome, but it has a good starting point to work with.

Road through the countryside. Day 1

CURIOSITY SATISFIED

The idea was to trace the light effects acting like fingers or veins across the landscape. I have given this quite a graphic interpretation, possibly more than I had initially intended but I wanted to see what was possible if I focussed on this exclusively. It is probably not as balanced with the existing landscape as I would have liked but has still lead to some interesting results that I want to retain going forward. I still want to explore this idea further but maybe wind it back a bit and try and integrate it a bit more subtly into my current painting style. The picture is finished.

Cloudburst over Lorbottle

A FICTITIOUS RENDERING

I would not recommend anyone uses my paintings for the purposes of navigation. You could only conclude you are either lost or on too much medication. I am at the outer limits of artistic license if I am still calling myself a figurative painter. As odd as it may seem the painting is going in the direction that I want it to go. I don’t know what interpretation I am using, Romantic, Gothic, but in my mind the landscape has a mysterious internal life and that is what I am trying to convey. The sky looks like a painting of the planets, but it somehow all fits together. Still a bit more to do.

Cloudburst over Lorbottle. Day 6