'Community Engagement Officer', oil on canvas, 120 x 90cms, 2023-24
Occasionally I will stop and think how much painting is extremely difficult to do well. It requires an extraordinary amount of mental stamina and focus, skill and experience which can only be developed with many years of practice in the studio (I’ve now been painting seriously for nearly 35 years), many hours looking at other paintings, and an incredible will and determination. And still it frequently ends up being a complete mess or falling desperately short of what you hoped. So, you carry on…that’s the reason you carry on. It’s either that or give up.
I haven’t given up, and in the last couple of months I’ve made some new paintings I’m pleased with that I would like to share….
I’m continuing to develop a renewed interest in painting the figure in the landscape, but I’m also interested in developing some more specific portraits of individuals, such as this one of Nick (at top of post), Community Engagement Officer for the Birmingham Canal and River Trust, who has been working with my students.
I worked on it in the last week before Christmas, before then deciding to repaint the whole thing in about 3 hours in January. It was part of a process of experimenting and trying to decide what I don’t like as much as what I do. This is to develop a language for the portraits that’s a break from the ones I’ve done in the past and thinking about and applying some of the lessons I’ve learned from 12 years of landscape painting since. Consequently, I’m not sure what I think of this painting just yet, but I know from experience the answer as to how to develop things further is not by doing any more work on this one, but keep doing others and keep exploring…
as yet untitled, oil on canvas, 120 x 150cms, 2023
I’m much happier with this large painting of a canal scene set at a spot I frequently pass on my dog walks and have made two other largeish paintings from, one set in the winter (one of my favourite paintings) and one in the summer. I wanted to do something more autumnal at the same scene and kept returning through late October with my camera, and the dog, to capture the changing autumn colours. I was inspired by the glorious autumnal fiery colour of the autumn I had witnessed on a recent trip to Scotland, but the colour in the Midlands was rather different… Still, the dun greens, ochres and darker colours were still autumnal. I could have made things fierier with vivid oranges and yellows, but there is something about an authenticity that always nags and sits whispering on my shoulder…
One morning as I took some photos this barge came into view from beneath the bridge and slowly glided past me, it’s owner eyeing me somewhat suspiciously as he passed whilst I took some photos. I was excited and slightly unsettled by the experience, but I’m not sure why. When it came to creating the painting, I decided to include the barge, with the fear that it may look a little twee, but by keeping it quite small enveloped by the surrounding landscape I think I managed to avoid any tweeness. Instead, I think it has captured that unsettling, almost funeral, feeling I felt on the towpath that morning. I think it’s one of the strongest paintings I've made in a long time….
