Category Archives: New paintings

‘Noctilucent Clouds withThe New Moon, Earth shine, Mercury Jupiter and Saturn’ Oil on canvas 90×180 cm 2022

3rd painting finished this year. Again it’s been a work in progress for almost 5 months, and has gone through some few changes along the way. As I start paintings I may have a vague idea of what the painting may turn into. This vagueness is always excitment and always unknown knowledge….. that whatever vague idea I may have is often just the wish to create an artwork, whatever direction it takes is a creative process a kind of a conversation and is as much up to what happens on the canvas, in the landscape and during the whole process….as it is with those vague thoughts/ideas. And the vagueness is absolutely deliberate, a well developed sense of lets just see. The problem is if I start with a definitive idea of what is to be it short circuits a large amount of the creative process that might take me in unexpected directions…..and the work I do is already more than sufficiently constrained……
 
In this case it begins with direct observation in sketchbooks sketches that don’t stop being done just because I start the painting, I may go back to the point of view and see whats happening and so it evolves over time. And in this case several terrific experiences happened that I just had to work into the painting.
 
The cirrus like clouds are an observation of noctilucent clouds, these are tenuous high level clouds that are only visible when the sun is about 6 degrees below the horizon, then there was the appearence on the 12th Dec of the new Moon with prominent Earth shine Mercury above and to the left of the Moon Jupiter above and to the right of the Moon and Saturn also to the right of Jupiter…..
 
Title…..
 
‘Noctilucent Clouds withThe New Moon, Earth shine, Mercury Jupiter and Saturn’ Oil on canvas 90×180 cm 2022

Second new painting of 2020

 

Second painting finished this year. So today was great fun. Built a crate for two paintings….finished another painting – this one…..and had a short bike ride…..
So this one I am going to have some fun with the naming. I have not quite got the wording right yet so this will take a few days of thought
Being somewhat enigmatic the painting resides in several genre’s it has aspects of the mythological and the factual, historical and literative influences abound and goes back and forth between them all quite resolutely at home in all the places it can be said to exist separately in each and at the same time concurently in all, and all at the same time….
for the moment then it is 90×180 cm oil on canvas
Such is the power of art…..to not just transcend boundaries, but fundamentally to make them illusiory delusional and completely irrelevant….
Well have fun working that out

 

 

 

A new painting

On the easle today for just a few minutes…..it has taken several months to complete this peice, and as yet the painting remains without a title. 90×180 cm Oil on canvas 2021. £3400

 

 

Three paintings ‘Sol – Teg Hager Awel’oil on canvas……. No.1, No.2 and No.3

‘Sol – Teg Hager Awel’- The title is partially in latin at least the first word ‘Sol’ is derived from the latin name Solis for the sun and ‘Teg Hager Awel’ is Kernewek – Cornish which roughly translates to Beautiful Winter Storm. And so these three paintings being inspired from my stay on the Isles of Scilly are titled accordingly and in respect for the hard won survival of the Cornish language.

All three are inspired from several most intense experiences of  winter storms on Tresco, Bryher and St. Mary’s

‘Sol – Teg Hager Awel 2’ Oil on canvas 90 x 170cm  is more directly a point of view, from below tregarthen moor and is as close to the sea as I could get. I sat and watched this winter storm as the sun was setting just beyond the edge of Bryher. The waves were huge and it was an absolutely overwhelming experience. I had just a sketchbook with me and spent several hours scrambling and changing my viewpoint to experience the storm. This painting is titled partially in Kernewek (Cornish) Teg Heger Awel translates to Beautiful Winter Storm, and Sol comes from latin Solis. In many celtic cultures Sol was the name for a sun god. the name Scilly is itself derived from Sulis who was the ancient celtic goddess of the sun. On the isles of Scilly she was known as Sulis she who watches and there is a Roman mosaic in Bath that depicts this goddess. So the painting is about nature but it also references many things at the same time including my fascination for understanding nature and how that knowledge evolves and changes over time, and on the back of the painting are the co ordinates of the sun and some brief info about the sun.

Sol – Teg Hager Awel 2. Oil on canvas 90×170 cm

‘Sol – Teg Hager Awel 1’ oil on canvas 90×180 cm and ‘Sol – Teg Hager Awel 3’ oil on canvas 90x170cm are much the same experiences

Sol – Teg Hager Awel 1. Oil on canvas 90x180cm

Sol – Teg Hager Awel 3. Oil on canvas 90x170cm