I'm working on some new landscapes at the moment, the focus is on how the landscape changes during certain weather conditions. I'm also looking at extending techniques and being more careful with my colour choices
This is the current painting that I'm working, this one is taking longer than usual. I've been out taking photographs so should be uploading them soon
I've been working on my latest two landscapes at the weekend, taking them closer to completion, nearly there but still a bit more to do. Above is a snapshot detail of one of the paintings
After 9 days of holiday I have come back feeling tired (after a busy and fantastic time with my boys) but feeling refreshed and eager to get some new work underway. Monday I uploaded my photos from my various travels and chose a selection that had imagery suitable for some new work and then worked with these images and the memories invoked to envisage new work, ideas, techniques etc. So for the last two days I have been back in the studio working on 2 new paintings, one relating to The Peaks and the other relating to the Somerset coast. It's been great working on a different landscape and I plan to produce more work relating to other landscapes I have visited. The way I work means that I have to physically visit the landscapes I create, I need to spend some quality reflective time there, walk in it, feel it, experience the smells, sounds and the quality of light and weather conditions.
I sometimes feel quite a novice at this painting lark, and sometimes a little bit of a fraud. I get a lot of people asking how I paint,the techniques I use, how I plan them and what colours I use....but to be honest I don't really know, I don't have a formula that I use every time. I don't really sketch much out before hand, maybe the occasional line drawing to establish basic shape but that is very rare for me. I look at my images and remember being in the landscape and conjure up a vague image in my head over time, then i try to think of techniques that might help me achieve it. That's just a starting point really, the first couple of layers look quite awful (in my opinion) but bit by bit an image is created, not so much by design but by responding to the marks i make, many feel wrong, so I alter them. Trial and error is the main theme for mark making and colour choice,working by instinct which comes from the experience of the numerous paintings that have come before. Throughout the process I am constantly studying the painting, in fact I spend more time looking and thinking about the painting than I do making physical marks. I reference previous paintings and other artists work to stimulate ideas and to give a different perspective on what I'm trying to achieve. It's been suggested to me quite a few times that I should do some painting workshops but I really don't know what I could show people.....here's the paint, here's the canvas.....go for it, good luck! I'm sure if I thought about it long and hard enough I could streamline my process, sharpen the focus and come up with a formula for painting.....it would make me more productive and give the work a standardisation (style) that many buyers and galleries seem to want....but im sure the paintings would be a lot inferior. I will update the blog once I have images that are worth looking at.....I'm in the awful stage at the moment! I had a day off today, a day to get out into the Peaks to absorb the sights, sounds and feel of the different areas that I visited, taking photos along the way and making notes on ideas for new work. Today was an amazing day to be in the Peaks, it was sunny with a bit of cloud but with a haze that lingered in the valleys and horizons, smudging and smearing the landscape, obfuscating the land creating illusions and interesting effects. The camera failed to do justice to the conditions, it didn't have the sensitivity and perception of human eyes unable to capture the nuances of light and shadow and colour, these have been drawn to memory, scribbled on notes and mentally toyed with for future paintings. A good day at the office!
Today I've been drawn to contemplate the rural landscape and how it relates to a modern world full of technology, with the frantic hustle and bustle of life and the problems and pleasures that we deal with daily. Gone are the days when the countryside was an adventure into the unknown, let's face it we've pretty much mapped the World and within seconds you can call up a satellite image and gps track yourself within 6ft. To many the romanticism of roaming the landscape has long past, man/woman against nature holds little interest when compared against TV and film where experiences and imagination can surpass anything that reality has to offer, whats more this can be achieved in the comfort of your own home or the local cinema and in relative safety.
So why is the rural landscape just as popular as ever, maybe more so. What does it have to offer the modern visitor? Escapism is one answer, people work hard and long hours, modern life is stressful, full of stuff to deal with, leisure time is limited and at home it is very difficult to switch off and avoid all this stuff but going out into the countryside strips this all away for a brief period, it is an attack on your senses, sights, smells, sounds the whole feel of it anathema to the stresses of modern life. Another aspect I have experienced out in the landscape is its ability to ground me as a person and put myself in perspective with the World around me. I find the World sometimes feels very small, information is at my fingertips within seconds, I see the important and prominent people and events Around the world on my Tv, I sometimes feel I know these people, feel I've experienced these events, the world can become very narrow, it's me, my family and friends and people in the public eye, it's very easy to lose track of the billions of other people in the World, the people I don't know, who's lives don't directly touch mine. Too easy to become disassociated from these people, too easy to ignore them and far too easy to think they don't matter. Today I sat high on a gritstone edge overlooking the valleys and distant hills, taking in the sheer scope of a 360 degree vista, aware of the vastness of open space around me, aware of my tiny little place in that landscape, in turn making me aware of that landscapes tiny little place in the rest of the world. Around me crawled hundreds, maybe thousands of ants in a square metre of land, so how many ants in the visible landscape around me? It's the same feeling when looking at stars, it's mind blowing and almost unfathomable but it is very grounding and it's one of the reasons I choose to paint landscapes, rural and urban, they have a way of capturing an essence of the experience of being there, of thoughts made and life pondered, vital to our mental health and sanity.
I'm on holiday for a week now, off to Somerset with my beautiful children so there won't be any posts for a while!
Here's an image of my latest painting, it is approx 76cm x 102cm Oil on canvas, I'm still deliberating on the title. Its the first in a new series of rural landscape paintings that continue from my last body of work entitled Chasing Light, approaching clouds. The purpose in this new work is to give more concentration to the surface and quality of paint
My latest painting is a few days in having made a tentative start, laying in a simple underpainting and then building up from there I am quite pleased at parts of the painting at the moment but have a long way to go.
As an artist I find I am relatively decisive, usually know roughly what I want to do and can be focused towards my goal.....but as a painter I find I am very different, I don't know why there should be a difference, maybe because of the complexity of different techniques and styles and flexibility of medium or maybe it's because of the pressures that come with a long history of painting and expectations of me personally with my own history of painting, I must admit that painting to me is very addictive yet sometimes the thought of picking up a brush can leave me feeling drained, despondent and at times wanting to destroy my brushes and quit for good, then that quicksilver moment comes when something happens, when the years of toil all fade from memory and for a brief moment a small piece of canvas whether from luck or purpose meets the myriad criteria in my head, a part of the ideal that I trudge towards, a glimmer of hope that revitalises my spirit and resolve to continue my search for the holy grail. What is my destination? the elusive goal that I strive to reach. To be honest I don't know, but the euphoria from just a few square inches of canvas and paint when I do get it right is enough to keep me on this path. Many people have asked me about my paintings, what they mean, what's my intentions as a painter, are there any messages I'm trying to get across, why paint landscape, what is it all about? To be honest the work is always backed up by contemporary thought and reasoning that underpins and and supports the paintings in the contemporary world, this is a necessity in the modern art world and especially when exhibiting and it is understandable that when creating fine art that you need to justify the integrity and validity of the contemporus value of you and your art. This underlying theory and way of thinking helps shape my work, providing a platform for the work to exist in a fine art setting. But to be perfectly honest, before I start a painting I spend a lot of time researching the subject matter, other artists, reading varied writings, techniques, history, taking photographs and lots of contemplation......but when I start painting this all becomes secondary, it supports me in my purpose which is to apply paint to a canvas and create a surface that visually encapsulates all this underlying stuff, aesthetics take over, not just shape and form but colour and texture and transparency and an intangible feel of the painting, I strive towards creating a surface that has a lusciousness of all these factors, a surface that you just want to touch or get lost in, a surface that asks questions of the viewer, not only in how it was made but what it means, how it makes them feel........I suppose that is the real answer to the questions about my work. I thrive on responding to the materials I use and create little snippets of imagery that tap in everything that I love about life and art and stuff and my purpose, my goal is to create art that allows the viewer to access their own thoughts, experiences and memories through a little bit of surface. I made a start with two new paintings today after spending yesterday priming and sanding the canvases for the coming weeks ahead.
I decided to start with two fairly large canvases, one rural landscape and the other urban. For the urban work I laid in an overall colour of brown,red,,yellow and the rural landscape I decided to paint in a low key underpainting. Both paintings will be totally different in styles, the urban quite representational and the rural quite expressive. I also have around 20 little paintings to start Whilst the larger ones dry. Having cleared up my studio and ordered new materials to start brand new work I've found myself with a few spare days whilst waiting for delivery. I took a trip over to Cannock chase on one day and to the Severn estuary and Forest of Dean on another. Once again I intend to have two streams of work going at the same time, one being rural landscapes and the other urban ones, in both cases I will be looking at extending and pushing the work on from what has been created in the last year. I will be concentrating on colour, image and the physicality of paint and how these factors effect the overall sense of place
My exhibitions Mapping the Landscape and Chasing Light, Approaching Clouds are still showing at the Bond company in Fazeley street Birmingham. B5 5SE in the main building and the cafe. If you would like to view any of these exhibitions please contact me. |
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