Day 14 Visual memory,not worn or weathered enough

We are certainly not getting our fair share of warm sunshine, not yet anyway. It's making my diary entries become more and more spread out, not a bad thing but I didn't quite envisage that 30 days/posts would span so many weeks! In some ways I suppose it's making it more interesting and to be honest who wants to watch paint dry?!

Gates near Maxton    Wax & Oil on Canvas 76x76cm

Wet Green Summer  Oil & Wax on Canvas 80x60cm

Having insomniac tendencies often leads to seemingly significant thoughts about lots of things especially  painting and art!! It occurred to me again last night ( not for the first time) that using my visual memory is something I  need to investigate more and more.

Cotton Flowers near the Eildons     Oil & Wax on Canvas 76x76cm

 I don't mean recording exacting representations of a place visited or seen daily but a memory store if you like which would hopefully contain enough detail to conjure up  convincing and workable images.
Over the years I have worked this way but I know there are huge gaps that need to be filled. Reflecting on past work I can see patterns emerging which relate to this...places, moments in time,and  all in a variety of weathers have been laid down on canvas.
 The less photographic aids are used, the better. What emerges as a result of  the more remembered experiences are paintings and drawings which seem more real. They are in all their artifice  somehow the least artificial of all.

Rain       Charcoal on Sugar Paper

Untitled      Oil & Collage on Canvas 30x30cm

Opening   Oil & Collage on Canvas 100x100cm

Places and the time you spend in them become etched on your memory. Again the weather impacts.....moods related to weather without deliberate awareness have resulted in numerous paintings that take on moods of their own whether melancholic or less so.


Notes on the images
Gates near Maxton , Wet Green Summer and Cotton Flowers were part of a series of paintings made in haste for an exhibition in Ireland. It was a pretty wet summer or maybe it was the rainy days I remembered most? What I do know is that it was a particularly sad time.. and I think this is reflected in many of the paintings made at that time.

Rain was a drawing I made without much thought about actual  representation...the title followed the drawing.

Untitled This should have a title...it was made in a direct response to a walk out near the cheviots.

Opening is an older piece. For me the  dark stormy sky and lonesome track say something about the unnatural but often beguiling forested areas of the Borders.