This is the new painting referred to in the previous post as the first in my new style of ‘figurative abstraction.’ Whatever its style, the main point for me is that I have done it.

As a matter of fact, I have completed three or four paintings in fits and starts over this last couple of months so, fingers crossed, perhaps I am breaking out of this long period – most of 2017 – of painter’s (and writer’s) block. Working in Michael Horn’s studio back in August/Sept, where this painting began, undoubtedly helped break free, not least because I painted lots of images using ink-wash technique. Now, enjoying occasional sessions with another artist, John Crossley, has already improved my confidence and technique.

 

Named ‘Landscape in a strong wind’, this is one of the ink-wash studies created at the end of my stay with Michael Horn. It was painted two before the ‘Images’ painting above and  immediately before the similar ‘Happisburgh Visit’, now in The Gallery. ‘Strong wind’ is also in The Gallery.

 

 

These three were the breakthrough, not only in seriously painting again but in very consciously experimenting with a new style of, trying to give an impression of, landscape while at the same time playing to my strength, at least compared to most other artists, of knowing something about landscape evolution through time. So all three contain specific items of cultural clutter scattered around on the landscape. Here, for example, a trawler-type boat, bottom right, is echoed by the boat-shape, bottom centre left, in ‘the strong wind’; an outline church appears in both, and so do white standing stones. We’ll shortly see similar clutter in the ‘Happisburgh visit’ painting in The Gallery.

I think this is the sort of painting I wish to do but, despite myself, the next two on the production line revert to tried and tested styles and techniques. I’m not out of the woods yet – but at least I’ve written this as well as done a painting or two.