EVERYONE UNIQUE

One thing I have just realised is that I have consciously avoided using the same photograph and insisted upon unique views for each painting. I think this says something about my boredom threshold more than anything else. I am not someone who could paint a dozen haystacks or cathedrals at different times of the day. However, I will eventually return to the same scenes over time just to see how my approach has changed. I really like the foreground bushes in this new painting and randomly scattered hedgerows in the mid ground. They have curious shapes which appeals to my strong surrealist inclinations, late Burraesque. I can almost see them as a flat decorative pattern. I will not hold back in this area.

Simonside Hills. Day 1

NOT A BLEAK MID WINTER

I think I was quite cautious to begin with when I started this painting. Certainly the far ground had the right range of muted colour and has worked quite successfully without too much repainting. It was the quarry that has needed most of the work. I’ve got my rainbow effect that I wanted but it has taken several timid attempts to get there. I thought if I pushed the pure colour too hard it would upset the delicate balance of a bleak mid winter of a British landscape. Now its working well and the bold orange patch suggests a fading evening light. The painting is finished.

Winter, near Thropton.

A SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT

I am slowly turning this painting around. You would think that after decades of painting I would get it right first time but this is rarely the case. I don’t think its due to any incompetence. I can do lots of other skilled work and get it right with far less practice. I think that’s one of the aspects of painting that makes it so beguiling, it seems to slip through your grasp, yet you keep believing that one day you will get the hang of it. I do feel this painting has finally turned the corner. Plenty still to do so it should keep improving.

Winter, near Thropton. Day 6

A RAINBOW COLOURED QUARRY

Its taken a bit of time to knock this quarry into shape but it is beginning to take on the natural characteristics it has. I don’t know what kind of stone it is, but it is not the dullish sandstone so beloved of all cottage builders around here. I’d like to push it a bit more in terms of a rainbow effect but it is not far off how I envisaged it. When I get carried away, as I often do, the pictures title begins to loom as a kind of straightjacket. I keep telling myself yes its winter, but I am no Impressionist, if it turns into high summer I have not failed in my estimation. Painting is beginning to take on a life.

Winter, near Thropton. Day 5

SIGNS OF PROMISE

are starting to appear. It has taken some time to animate this painting but some graphic mark making has started to lift it. The quarry area has turned out to be the most tricky, there is hardly any tonal values in it to suggest the forms of the quarry, it consists of a marble like surface which is difficult to pin down. I shall persist with my proven trial and error methods.

Winter, near Thropton. Day 4

THIS FEELS LIKE

A different kind of painting to the previous one. I often shift from side to side, if I could view my progress it would be a constant zig zag with the occasional U-turn and a long pause for sandwiches. I do believe though if you can maintain a momentum then the direction is usually forward. These stylistical shifts used to concern me but now I understand that progress is rarely measured in a straight line. I can always see an underlying ‘house style’ within my work. Liking the way this is progressing, the theme this time is Casper David Freidrich with a side order of Expressionism.

Wintter, near Thropton. Day 3

WINTER IS CREEPING

across this painting. I am taking a perverse pleasure in painting a winter scene at the beginning of summer though I don’t expect this theme to extend for long. There is a weak afternoon light that is just catching the top of the hills which are icy cold, I like this effect. There is also a quarry on the left. The whole scene does have a beauty despite it being winter. It depends on your disposition but to me winter can have all the beauty of a summer. These are not the bleak, post nuclear vile visions that Lowry painted. Possibly the worst landscape paintings in art history?

Winter, near Thropton. Day 2

STUDIO BOUND

I don’t think its normal to paint winter pictures at the beginning of summer. It either shows I am completely out of touch with what’s going on or that I am really a studio based painter. My learning from the previous painting is not to stray too far away from the source material (photo), putting myself into a situation that I am inventing random solutions to a self inflicted problem. It still amazes me that I am learning about what I consider to be basic mistakes. Anyway, lets hope for a better outcome with this one.

Winter, near Thropton. Day 1

TIME TO STOP

The process of deletion then repainting then deletion and things never improving is a clear signal to stop. The left side of the photograph that I am using has no information that I want to use and so I have been relying on invention. I have found this will only take you so far and normally any solution falls short of expectations. However I am happy with the final solution even though it resembles nothing of the actual landscape. I feel that this is the direction I am moving in. The truth is I have little interest in merely coping things. There has to be a level of invention or transformation of the subject in order to keep me interested and this is becoming more apparent in my work.

Whittingham

SOMETHING IS EMERGING

from the featureless mass of brown trees and foliage on the left. This is how the photograph presented it and I have been trying to do something with it from day 1. I can now see the solution and some things just need a bit more definition. This picture has been a struggle at times, I am trying to invent a language of equivalents, or a style, that is sympathetic to the landscape but not an illustration of it. This is a mad picture, but I am loving it. At times its difficult to know how to approach it but it seems the more I am willing to struggle the more I am rewarded. That’s how it should be.

Whittingham Day 8

KENNY SCHARF

Is alive and well and continues to influence how this painting is developing. Working on the left side today. It has improved considerably and even though these strange forms keep appearing I am consciously keeping things in check, no blue trees or green skies. There seems to be a large ear in the foreground, and a large brown central figure opening a box of vegetables, troubling. I like the figure but not so sure about the ear. Where is this all going?

Whittingham. Day 7

KENNY SCHARF

Is an artist that nobody should be influenced by and someone who I thought would never figure in any of my conversations. Yet there are aspects of his work that are starting to appear in this painting (lower right quarter) and previous paintings. The thing is I am enjoying the forms. My view is to forget Kenny and just go with the flow. Its only when a painter goes off piste and allows the painting to evolve without prejudice that things become interesting. I am liking the way the right side is working and this needs carrying across to the left side, and the rest of the painting. I think this painting could become quite cosmic.

Whittingham. Day 6

BACK TO BACK

painting sessions just to reassure myself that everything is ok. This is the full fat painting I always thought it could be if I have the energy and motivation to push it on. This painting did stall in the early stages. There is always that problem of getting past the point where it resembles a child’s finger painting and you start to question yourself. For some reason my enthusiasm evaporated. Anyway, I did quite a bit of repainting today, especially the sky and it has moved it on again. My original intention of a delicate spring evening has been blown away by full on Expressionism, more Max Beckman than Monet and rightfully so.

Whittingham. Day 5

CAN IT BE RESCUED?

Not the painting, my enthusiasm to continue painting. This happens to all great artists so when it happens to me it seems a bit unkind. I need all the practice time I can get. My solution to this problem is always to ask a simple question, life without painting or life with. To suffer the agony and ecstasy of pursuing an artistic life or live a life of dull aimlessness. A bit exaggerated but it makes the decision easier. Luckily these periodic periods of ‘what’s the point?’ are infrequent, and to follow that way of thinking leads to nothing. Back to the painting, the challenge with this view is the forms are so insubstantial, like painting ripples in a swimming pool, so I spent my time trying to find some solid forms and making sense of the space. Its improving, and so am I.

Whittingham. Day 4

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