THIS WAS FINISHED

Apart from one square centimetre that was bugging me. This is generally my modus operandi in life, this is why I struggle. Its a positive if you are aiming for perfection in most things, but in painting it can be problematic. I hope everyone can spot what took me the best part of the afternoon, its mostly the tree on the left side. The square centimetre rapidly spread as it often does in painting. When I compare this version to the previous, I think I was right to continue, but that is it, tomorrow a new painting.

Llansilin

FINAL PUSH

This picture was almost finished and in the past I may have just moved on to a new painting. However, I am trying to push these paintings a little bit further. I believe these pictures are still transitional, stylistically. and the only way to develop a different way of painting is to keep pushing the image even if in this case I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. It has improved and I think I have done enough with this painting to call it finished.

Llansilin

STORM DARRAGH DISRUPTS PAINTING

This headline did not make the front pages of any of the newspapers but my painting was put on hold yesterday due to the vicinity of some very big trees overlooking my studio. Luckily none of them came down and my artwork was saved for the nation. This painting is nearing a conclusion. I think I want just a bit more clarity in the central area containing the trees. The mass of trees on the left now have a better overall form though I think the top half just needs a little bit more. Overall this picture has turned out better than expected.

Llansilin. Day 7

IMAGE BREAK UP

The mass of trees in the foreground was a potential problem in that they could become a static featureless block. In trying to avoid this I have created quite an interesting passage of free floating forms that seem to come into and out of focus and suggest trees without slavishly copying them. There is a lot of room for refinement and some areas need a bit more clarity but I am quite surprised and pleased by the outcome. The two masses of trees in the foreground do create a darker ‘frame’ for the lighter mid ground and I need to make more of this.

Llansilin day 6

WHEN DOES IT GET EASY?

These last few paintings have felt like physical battles. I feel like I am trying to knock down a wall in order to get a clear view ahead of me. Even though I am knocking the painting around in terms of my uncompromising methods I am still retaining a lot of subtlety in the image. And this new physicality in the mark making is giving the paintings a richness that they didn’t have before. I am edging closer to something, but what that is I’m not sure of. This is a good reason to keep going. I think the images are getting more interesting not in the subject that is chosen, although this is important, but in the way they are being made. In terms of a subject matter, this is beginning to expand, and it has given me a freedom that I didn’t have before.

Llansilin. Day 5

ITS ALIVE

This painting has reached the stage where it becomes the point of reference and not the photo. My paintings always seem to have that manic aspect where there are no quiet spaces for the eye to rest on. This is certainly the case again. I just like that intensity where every part of the painting is activated. By the way, the pink chapel with the bright green door and windows has not had any artistic license, that’s how it actually is.

Llansilin. Day 4

NIGHT CLOSES IN

The foggy scene in the photo has cleared and now we are merging into night. I always find myself pushing against the image in front of me, trying to turn it into something else. I think its because I like a gamble and its becoming increasingly obvious that the painters who have always interested me follow the same course, Soutine, Bacon, Auerbach and others. There is more drama in an image that emerges out of a struggle, and more surprises. I have no interest in the straight rendition, and to be a figurative painter with an understanding of the ‘abstract’ is the best combination in this world of dull image saturation and AI. This painting is going well and has been suitably knocked about.

Llansilin. Day 3

ALWAYS AN APPROXIMATION

Before I start a new painting I am always confident I have the finished picture in my mind but as soon as the first brushstroke goes down I realise this is not the case and I enter into a frantic phase of correcting and re-correcting. It never ceases to amaze me how far I am from the finished picture when I start. Judging the tones does not seem to be problematic but finding the overall colour scheme is. Anyway, I feel confident with the start of this picture.

Llansilin. Day 2

A WELSH LANDSCAPE

This new painting was a view from our accommodation in the Welsh countryside. The house was 3 miles from the nearest road and even for me, you can have too much isolation. I chose this particular photo because it has some signs of human habitation with the big farmhouse in the foreground and an odd shaped building in the mid ground. It has the appearance of a Welsh chapel. There is a magical quality to this scene as the foreground forms are sharp and clear yet behind the chapel the whole landscape is monochrome and shrouded in mist. This is the quality I am aiming to capture.

Llansilin. Day 1

JUST A QUICK RETOUCH

This was only meant to be a 5 minute retouch before starting the next painting. Four hours later, it was more than a retouch. The good thing about going back into a painting when you have called time on it is that you attack those areas that you weren’t sure about the previous day. All those ideas I had about what was needed I put into the repaint today. The test is, has it got better?, in my opinion, yes. Tomorrow, a new painting.

The apple tree

TIME SLOWS DOWN

This is the point where an inordinate amount of time is spent making small adjustments. I find that at this stage my first thought is, what can I possibly do to improve it, and is it worth the effort?. I literally have to slow my mind down, which is normally racing, and paint very slowly and deliberately. Its surprising how all my thoughts change as soon as I start painting again. I have learnt the longer I am away from painting the more my mind spirals downwards. I think painting gives me the sense of infinite possibility and freedom. The last half a dozen paintings have given me the realisation, maybe obvious to some, that stylistic interpretation is the most important aspect for a painter. This maybe an obvious conclusion, but how to do it is less clear, this painting is finished.

The apple tree

AN EASY CHOICE?

This afternoon I had the option of moving several thousand kilograms of soil from the end of my garden to a skip or paint in the warm comfort of my studio. I put on two pairs of gloves and two coats to save me from the sub zero temperatures and started wheel barrowing the soil into the skip. I figured I would warm up but after 20 minutes I settled for the sensible choice of an afternoons painting. There is something contrary in my character that doesn’t go for the easy option. However, no regrets. This painting has started to become something more than mere illustration. I have avoided painting every single leaf but I have opted to really explore the detail and rhythms in this tree. A few apples appearing, which is nice.

The apple tree. Day 4

FINGER PAINTING

and desperation were the tactics used this afternoon when my usual approach of a brush and a ‘competent’ application failed. At times I was seconds away from destroying this painting in sheer frustration at not being able to render this lovely apple tree. Despite my manic state the end result this afternoon is close to where I wanted to be. It has taken a lot of intensity to get it to a state where there is a good structure to the tree and rest of the painting. I now have something to work with.

The apple tree. Day 3

NO APPLES YET

Despite a bumper crop of apples none have appeared yet in the painting. I hope they don’t look like an afterthought once I start to paint them. I have been down this path before where the main theme of the painting never makes it to the final stage. This is the appeal of allowing the painting to take you along on a journey rather than trying to impose your will on it. I have an entirely open mind as to how this painting may be finished. Despite another short 2 hour session the painting now has enough work on it to show to me, at least, that there is an interesting painting waiting to be discovered.

The apple tree. Day 2

THE APPLE TREE

I sense there is a sentimental, nostalgic, inward looking turn to my painting. I think this was something that was lacking from my landscape painting. I don’t think I was ever a ‘landscape painter’ whatever that really means. I think my subjects will be literally closer to home, like the apple tree in my garden. I like the start to this painting, I think I have got the light more or less where I want it although at this stage its all sketchy and big brushes with no signs of apples. These will come.

The Apple Tree. Day 1

A RETURN TO THE STRUGGLE

Strange how I regard painting as a struggle. Most outsiders see it as an uncomplicated pleasurable past time that is good for your mental health! An artist like Frank Auerbach has said that one of his main motivations to continue is his intense dissatisfaction with what he is producing. Simple, stop doing it, problem is some people cannot, myself included. My recent absence is due to a different kind of struggle, one that is purely physical (see my page, ‘The Landscaped Garden’). Moving literally thousands of kilograms of gravel and soil is a fairly uncomplicated process, move x from A to B until bag of x is empty. The end result of these projects is always satisfying and final. Not painting, anyway, for the rest of this year I will have much more time for it.

Fishing for roach. Day 6

A PEACEFUL IDYLL

This painting has settled down now. Generally there is a mood of a balmy summers evening, and I have made no attempt to return to the original icy cold tones of earlier versions. Surprisingly, the biggest change I have made is to the figure. In the photo, which is a very poor one, the figure is in silhouette and almost a flat black. This just didn’t fit with my idea for the picture, I think it needed bringing to life with a more naturalistic, full bodied treatment. I like how some of the far side trees and bushes have become detached from their surroundings due to the way I have lit this area. It gives the forms a lot of space to breath and is an interesting effect that would benefit the rest of the painting This picture is nearly finished.

Fishing for roach. Day 5

A SEASONAL CHANGE

Why wait six months for the seasons to change when you can fast forward summer by adding a bit of colour? It seems to me that I was feeling a little bit sorry for this lonely figure freezing by the canal side. I could have stuck with a wintry scene, its not that I dislike cold colours. I think once I started to introduce some warm light I pushed it further than planned. No regrets, its a different kind of picture now, maybe I will paint an accompanying winter scene, a Breughel like theme of the seasons.

Fishing for roach. Day 4

AN ENCHANTED SCENE

No longer the bone chilling experience that I imagined, I am beginning to appreciate the beauty of a still, crisp winters day, fishing by the canal. Maybe that’s what this painting should have been about. The painting is beginning to conjure up that magical atmosphere that I saw in this poorly photographed YouTube video. A clear early morning sky has turned to approaching twilight, I just pushed it in this direction from the beginning, not sure why, but it seems to work. The figure, although imprecise, has a bit more form that the photo which is like a silhouette, I just think it needed a bit more information, and the canal bridge on the left is working in the way I had hoped.

Fishing for roach. Day 3

A SYMPHONY IN GREY

Only a fellow artist could look at a painting composed of muted muddy colours and call it beautiful. That’s all I have to play with in this picture and its going to rely on subtle colour shifts and a good understanding of the tonal values. There really isn’t much warmth in this scene, its pretty bleak, and that’s what appealed to me about this subject. This is enhanced by the fact that someone is sitting next to this icy canal doing his ‘pleasure fishing’. Pleased with this start I think its pitched about right in terms of colour.

Fishing for roach. Day 2