Inselaffen

The portrait is complete the moment it looks as if it might speak.

Inselaffen is a name that Germans give to the English.

It means ISLAND MONKEY.







Like all remote islanders, we love our trinkets. 

A Way A Head

Trying to make the face only as visible as the paint...

and vice versa.

Landscape

 

I soon realised I wasn't ready for wide open spaces. I had to get lost in the woods first.

A journey of several days.

The Words

LIGHTNESS, COLOURING, TRUTH

Very Raw Sienna

A lump of dirt from a hillside in La Crete, south of Siena in Tuscany, ground up and allowed to 'slake' for 24 hours in a little water and then combined with PVA.

Raw Sienna, quite literally.

The idea then, was to set my natural colour against something decidedly unnatural.

To balance the blue with the brown, I sometimes needed white.

Six little abstracts. 

Where Things Are

Concentrate on where things are, I was told, and what they are becomes apparent.

Given two colours and three or four simple shapes, where then, should things be?

I feel that to go on painting these pictures forever would be sufficient. There is such pleasure in variation.