2 WEEKS

I was wondering how long I could take off from painting before I was dragged back like the sirens calling the ship towards the rocks. Two weeks was the answer. Painting fulfils a role I have been unable to replace. That role is one of a deep dissatisfaction with something I have been trying to perfect for decades. I suspect nothing will change however long I continue. Its seems to me like I have been given a huge lump of marble to chip away at, and all that has appeared so far is a smaller lump of marble. The title of the painting is vague, and it has not photographed well, its good to be back.

View across a field. Day 1

PAINTING ON INSTINCT

Its nice to know that I can rely on instinct. If a short cut was obvious I would take it. Instead I will have to rely on the drip, drip, drip rate of progress. I can’t really complain, there is no great incentive to working all hours of the day, I can see improvement from year to year, but when it creeps along like this I can’t say I am fired up. I have been trying to unify and simplify the mid and background today to give some areas more clarity. It is progressing nicely, if slowly.

Alwinton. Day 5

A BIT MORE PROGRESS

The picture is beginning to work better, spatially. I find I can only address things such as a ‘unified picture’ when I have covered the entire canvas, its only then that making more subtle adjustments becomes clearer. I like the light that is defining the trees in the foreground and the more saturated colour of the foreground needs to be taken back into the mid ground.

Alwinton. Day 4

EXTRAORDINARY IMAGES

How do you make them?, I am coming to the conclusion that my paintings are too packed. The difficulty with reducing the amount of content in a painting is then the objects left behind have to have the same level of engagement with the viewer. This means they have to be more considered in terms of the shapes, forms and colour. My scatter gun approach needs to be reconsidered, my view is what is there to lose? Despite these concerns this painting is going well.

Alwinton. Day 3

ANCIENT, ODD AND MYSTERIOUS

At least that is how I see the landscape and it is starting to come through in this painting. This particular area of Northumberland has the same aspect that you can see in some twisted and undulating rock formations. It is a landscape that looks oddly scarred, stressed and stretched. I am hoping that this oddness can also come through in the colour choices though at the moment these choices look fairly conventional. Maybe an idea for the future.

Alwinton. Day 2

THE SEARCH CONTINUES

To some extent it doesn’t really matter if I return to the same view time and again. If it was good enough for Cezanne its good enough for me. Its not really about the view anymore its about my approach. I wonder if I am ‘suffering’ from the usual complaint that afflicts all artists, to quote Francis Bacon, ‘Artists are never satisfied with their work, though I believe Henry Moore is’. I don’t know what Bacon had against HM, he never gets a mention in any of the biographies about him. I think this search really has no end and a solution will very slowly evolve in the process. Anyway, happy with this start, I want to make it more about the drawing than the colour, if that makes sense.

Alwinton. Day 1

FINALLY SATISFIED

I was slowing down to a Vermeer level of output but without the expectation of producing a masterpiece. Finally, this painting has justified the effort and faith I have put into it. I really don’t know why I kept returning because I wasn’t sure how to turn it around, I knew I just wasn’t happy with it. I seem to be interested in artists whose work bares little resemblance to my own and my thought is that I am trying to push towards a different approach with my painting. I am not sure how to get there other than to keep working? I think the key is to rely on an accumulation of intuition. The painting is finished.

Cartington, cloudburst.

FLOUNDERING

For some reason I am doggedly returning to this painting. I think its a search for some kind of breakthrough. I don’t think it will be apparent with this painting but these things eventually come out of the woodwork when there is a determination to change. I seem to be rewarded for my effort and belief, the lower half of the painting is much better and I think the painting deserves one more visit. I have been looking at 2 painters, Richard Cartwright and Christopher P Wood. Their approaches are much more imaginative and I find this inventive style quite appealing.

Cartington, cloudburst. Day 8

KEEP GOING

There is nothing more disappointing than a picture that falls short of your expectations, especially if it contains areas of decent painting. There was a point with this picture that I could have given up with it and that would have been a bad decision. I can’t believe I am saying this but my painting approach and style has not settled. Isn’t that a good thing? I think its this drive and curiosity to see whats possible that keeps me going. This picture is not quite finished but continuing with it has proved to be the right decision.

Cartington, cloudburst. Day 7

NO COMPROMISE

I can’t see the point in abandoning a painting unless there is something fundamentally flawed with the idea. I would rather destroy something in the process of trying to resolve the issues rather than tip toe around the edges. Often you set out to rescue a painting with no real idea of how to do it but just by going at it with conviction some things start to work. I feel this painting is now much better and certainly worth continuing with.

Cartington, cloudburst. Day 6

JIGSAW SYNDROME

There was something about this painting that didn’t quite work. Today was meant to be a finishing up with a few minor adjustments. I would call it jigsaw syndrome, thats when the painting has the look of a jigsaw puzzle, when all the fields are like pieces fitting awkwardly together. Its working a bit better, now I just need to maintain the enthusiasm for it so I can go again when I thought it was finished.

Cartington, cloudburst. Day 5

I NEED ANOTHER 20 YEARS

I can see that a style is emerging within this picture but its such a slow development. I am happy with what I see but its not where I want to be. There are encouraging points, a seemingly limitless number of landscape options where I live that inspire me and a consistency of painting that I have never experienced before. Nevertheless, when I think of the development of other painters and the volume of work they produced, I am way behind, and will never catch up. I think the foreground has a lot of strength from being more graphic with more tonal contrast. I think this needs carrying back into the middle of the picture.

Cartington, cloudburst. Day 4

I COULDN'T DO IT

that is stick to the plan. I thought the initial idea had a lot going for it, a dark and sombre landscape with a dramatic sky and a bit of Caravaggio drama with the brightly lit cornfield. However, I do like a bit of bright colour and the thought of restricting myself to a dark muted palette was just too much to bare. The photo should not be a straight jacket and my curiosity got the better of me and it is producing a lot more of an interesting painting. I am still aiming to give the cornfield its dramatic lighting but I have lifted the rest of the painting as well.

Cartington, cloudburst. Day 3

CONTRE-JOUR

Don’t be impressed, my French is so poor that I had to google the spelling as my attempt at it was woefully inadequate. The effect of a strong sun directly in front of me and behind a big bank of clouds is creating quite a powerful image. I am quite happy with the state of the cloud formation but I think I will do a little more work on it. This green mist hanging in the valleys is starting to come through as well. Though I am sure it is green due to some distortion in the photographic process. This is what I like about using photographs, it complements my style, in that things are flattened and distorted and there are often colour shifts. I like the fact that these paintings look artificial, in fact its one of the elements of landscape painting that fascinates me. The more I look at the landscape the more odd it appears with all its random and fantastical shapes.

Cartington, cloudburst. Day 2

CLOUDBURST

This should be quite a dramatic painting. The only strong patch of light is the orange cornfield in the bottom left. There are a lot of strong contrasts in the top level of the cloud layer but underneath its quite threatening and stormy. I thought there wouldn’t be enough information in the dark landscape but it is all there and just adds to the brooding atmosphere. There is also a very strange grey green mist in the far valleys.

Cartington, cloudburst. Day 1

A LATE BURST OF ENTHUSIASM

has certainly lifted this painting. I wasn’t sure whether I could integrate the wacky surreal foreground with the rest of the painting. There was a potential for an awkward division occurring but I think it all holds together. I really like the way the foreground appears as a frieze that seems to float without support. Thats how it appears in the photo. I would really like to push this approach of focusing more on shape and the relationship of shapes in the landscape, rather than illustrating what the object is. The painting is finished.

Simonside Hills

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

I like the way this painting plays with your notion of what a landscape should look like. By simplifying all the elements to shapes and focusing on the shapes themselves it has created what I would call a poetic and surrealist set of symbols that have some sort of relationship to each other. I have not invented this from nothing, in fact nearly all these shapes exist in the landscape I am looking at and that is the interesting thing. I have developed shapes that have also appeared in the process of painting, shapes that seem to enhance what already exists. This painting is nearly finished.

Simonside Hills. Day 5

A SHIFT IN FOCUS

Its quite interesting how a small shift in focus from ‘realism’ to ‘abstraction’ can affect how you view a painting. Now things are not quite so definite, and the relationship of shapes in the landscape take precedent over what that shape may be. I thought by going down this route the picture would hold less interest for me, but the opposite is true. Now my imagination has to fill in the gaps and join the dots in order to try and make sense of what I am looking at. For me there is something more mysterious going on in this painting as it works more abstractly yet is not so removed from what is actually there. This is the kind of abstract painting I like, when it still has a connection to the world we know and this creates a tension in the painting.

Simonside Hills. Day 4

A WHOLE VILLAGE ERASED

I know in the past artists used to move churches left or right a bit in their compositions to suit their needs. I don’t like to do things in half measures, so I have erased a whole village. The people of Thropton will not be amused and probably won’t understand my artistic vision. This was quite a radical step but I am getting a better feel for what makes a good composition. Its not lazy drawing, but looking for rhythms and shapes in the landscape that create drama, harmony and tension. Its not only in the ‘line’ that I am looking for better ways to make paintings, its also in the dramatic use of light, and this is much harder to do convincingly. The painting is going to plan, there really isn’t a lot of detail in this photo due to the distance that the subject is from me.

Simonside Hills. Day 3

A DIVINE LIGHT

The sky looks like it should be the backdrop for a religious icon. I have replaced most of the blue sky, as for some reason I loathe blue skies, at least the ones I paint. This creates a bit of a dilemma for a landscape painter but maybe a more interesting route can be found in the solution. This painting has the appearance of a painting by numbers exercise, but as I drew it out and mixed the paint I am hoping a more sophisticated result will emerge. Its still my intention to produce something a bit more abstracted and less illustrative and I think this will work.

Simonside Hills. Day 2