On the Bright Side

Bright Side K Howell 2012 Pastel on Paper 14cm x 21cm

Autumn. A Reduction.

• Taught classes. Killed Clutch on the inside lane of a roundabout (fun). Had a level tow (very fun).

• Traveled by train a bit. It doesn't seem to matter where you go by train in the North West, it takes two hours. On the bright side, it's beautiful.

•  Read Martyn Bedford's Acts of Revision, easily one of the best books I've read lately. 

• Considered Values. Avoided the internet. 

•  Came creeping back, because I like seeing other people's work without traveling two hours by train.

There are so many ways of reducing visual information to essentials - I'm looking for ways of simplifying overall shape, giving weight to colour contrast, juxtaposing stillness with areas of energy and retaining the essential light of the moment.

Winter holds promise. It will snow...

Exposed

Exposed K Howell 2011 Pastel on Paper 14 cm x 21 cm

     I was looking for a still hour. Maybe two. No radio, no internet, no bloody words. Stone seemed a likely option...
     A kindly passerby asks me what I'm painting. I point at the exposed gritstone and he scrutinises it for awhile and then says, "What, just the rock?"
     That is what I'm facing, there is nothing else here. I nod.
     "Do you really see those colours?" he asks me.
     Now this is where I feel a little exposed. What shall I say?  No, I'm just using up superfluous pastels, really. But he seems genuinely perplexed when I say, "That Is How I See It."
     "Looks like brown rock to me," he says. "But have a nice day."
     If only we could all own such tolerance...

Rent

Rent K Howell Pastel on Paper 14 cm x 21 cm

    Samuel Beckett says, Try again. Fail Again. Fail better. Well, I struggle with the English Language, but this seems like sound advice. And so very achievable. The slippery words are being rewritten. Coppiced. Clarified. It's progress, of a sort.
     I'm posting another study. Paintings are going very slowly. Something. Glacial. But studies; tiny, concentrated compressions of colour are Essential.
     This tree is rent and reaching. The shifting forest light gives it a different mood whenever I visit, but it's always dramatic. Rain-soaked bark is beautiful.
     Incidentally, rhyming post titles was not my intention. But now that I've begun, it's going to be difficult to stop...