I've got two new works on the go at the moment. The top image is similar to the previous post's image of the Brazilian houses, but I am doing another work based on the same scene, working on a larger scale. I am using the previous painting to work from, rather than working from the actual original photograph of the scene; I find this helps me in focusing on the parts of the painting that I want to capture, rather than working from the scene itself...where it is easy to get caught up in trying to include in the painting every thing present in the scene, which I don't necessarily want to do. I want to try and focus on the parts of the scene that drew me to it originally. I find that the more times I work on one image, the more it gets reduced down to the 'essence' of that scene...and the more I paint it, the more I feel my own 'style' of painting coming out. Perhaps as more works of each image are produced, I become more relaxed at having to get each one 'right', and less 'precious' over each one. It is only then that I feel my own 'true style' coming out.
       This is also why I have decided to have a couple of works on the go at one time; Working on more than one piece gives me a chance to 'relax' over each piece. The second image is of a scene just outside of Reepham, on the way to a small village called Heydon, in Norfolk. I thought it would be interesting to take photographs of it as it progresses.

The title of the above painting is 'Brazilian houses, 2'
       Perhaps it is because I have just cleared out my studio, or it may be because I have for many months worked towards an exhibition that is now up and running, but I feel that I am at the beginning of a new chapter...to choose a suitable cliché I feel like the next few months at least ahead of me is a 'blank canvas'.

        For a while I have been collecting images of more industrial or populated areas, as opposed to the landscapes that typically appeal to me. I think what draws me to these scenes/images is the 'realness' of them. What I mean by this is that the buildings have not been put where they are for any aesthetic reasons...all that is there has a purpose. Everything has a reason for being where it is, and the reasons are all based on necessity and usefulness. To me these scenes exude a calmness and beauty which is enhanced all the more by the fact that is was never consciously put there. I choose the word 'scene' on purpose rather that the word 'place', because it is only my outside presence looking in that may see the beauty; the areas, from which I have taken the images, tend to be poor or run down, and I wouldn't be so patronising as to expect anyone living in these areas on a daily basis to necessarily see the beauty (or maybe they could...as I wrote in my earlier post 'everything depends on how it is perceived or who is perceiving it').

       Although the subject of my work has altered, ( for the work I have planned for the coming months ), there still remains a connecting theme; I have always been interested in the notion that something can unintentionally contain beauty. A lot of the places I choose to paint are chosen because of the background or history or memories attached to them. These histories/memories may not always be beautiful, but this is what interests me...the chance of drawing out of something unpleasant, the beautiful.