Back to green OR Fifty Shades of Green

Today I resumed work on the painting course after about 3 weeks away from it due to shows.  I am still working on the view from the studio window, trying to get a sense of the movement and form of the landscape.  This twisting form on the right is a drainage ditch which often floods with water.  It is lined with hawthorn bushes.  A couple of  weeks ago I walked along it to get a better feel of the the lie of the land.  The hawthorn was in bloom at the time and it was magical.  

I like the pace of this kind of work, and the time taken to get to know the subject, which gradually reveals itself over days and weeks.  I like the challenges and surprises of translating it into paint.   Here is the image a few days later, a bit faded out on LH side due to phone pic.

Another go today, trying to get tree in foreground.  This is looking so traditional, but it is fascinating exercise in looking....!!!

Here is a fresh version, done in about an hour today.  I am getting to know the subject now, at last. So can start to take it further, not that I have here.  Colours are simpler and brighter, tree in foreground important.

 

SAMUEL BECKETT KRAPP'S LAST TAPE

I am no expert on the thinking of Samuel Beckett (above), maybe sometime the light will switch on and I will get it.  But I was listening to Robert Wilson speaking on Radio 4 this evening about performing Beckett in Krapp's Last Tape currently at Barbican, London.

I was struck by what Wilson said about acting and what he learnt by meeting Beckett.
It is obvious, but so true, that "learning the steps" and "learning the form" is boring, but only when you "are totally mechanical" do you have the freedom to "fill up the form" and express feeling.

This applies in the visual arts, as well as in music and drama.  It is probably true of crafts as well and all skills.But the kind of feeling and expression varies.  Complicated. tbc