Why are you painting that?

Back in February of last year I stood on a path at the edge of a field and painted a small wood.

Some kid walking his dog stopped to take a look and asked me what I found to paint 'in this place'. The way he said it set me thinking. He sounded local, looked like he might have had a rural job. And he was evidently baffled as to why I chose to paint what, to him, looked drab and ordinary.

Except it plainly wasn't. The winter sun glared like a flashbulb going off. That hard light lit up the edge of the wood, but left the depths a rich, dark, velvet brown. Ragged clouds, cream and smoke grey, writhed across a sky of intense blue. The next field's bare turned earth glowed an unlikely salmon pink. It all looked beautiful. The only problem I had with it was how to paint it and do it justice.*

If I divide the world into painters and 'civilians', it's because of encounters like this. I had friends from school who were inept at drawing and painting, mostly because they didn't look at things.

They've all done well for themselves - in some instances, considerably better than me -  so looking plainly isn't a requirement for success. But it leaves me feeling sorry for people who don't, won't, or can't, see the world the way a painter does.

I've never had a dull journey. Give me a three hour train ride with a window seat, and I'll happily stare out for the whole way.

Shadows on a landscape, like that Inness painting? There's a real life example, take notes. Sheep on a hillside like ticks on a blanket, as in several Turners? What do you know, they look exactly like that. Dark out? Even better. Artificial lighting, perspective, and window reflections.

I don't get bored. Waiting rooms? Window light on walls and radiators, the stately change in shadow tonal depth. Every view presents a challenge. How would I paint that? What colours would I mix to do it?  

In the end, that's what painters do. They look at things so the rest of you can see them better. They show you the world as it really is: intensely beautiful.

* Which I signally failed to do, which is why you see a different picture here.

Tuition

In a recent post I said I wanted to step up my painting game, and needed tuition to help me do that.

But where to find it?

There are options out there: painters who run their own workshops or schools of art, painters who make DVDs of their instructional videos, painters who write illustrated how-to-paint books, and even painters who do all three.

I'm too skint and lazy to pay for, or attend, a workshop. That leaves me with two choices, videos and books.

When you want to paint better than you already do, learn from a painter who can paint better than you do now. Let that be your guiding principle and you can't go far wrong when searching through all that's on offer. 

With that in mind, I have an Amazon wish list with over a hundred books on it. Every so often I check to see which prices have dropped, and snap up bargains from the list. Sometimes they're books by contemporary landscape painters, other times books about painters from the past whose work I admire. The former will tell you how they paint, the latter will contain works that need to be reverse engineered before you can get what you're after.

And what, precisely, are you after? Insight, mostly. A new way of looking at the same things you deal with when painting, that will add an extra tool to your internal toolbox. No matter how much you know, there's a wealth of undiscovered knowledge out there waiting to be applied.

I have to admit, it can be a lottery. Sometimes a book will overdeliver, in which case it becomes a well thumbed staple of my bookshelf. Sometimes a book will disappoint, in which case I quietly relist it for sale on my Amazon seller account. 

Sargent on Cezanne.

'When in 1912 Mr. D. S. MacColl wrote an article in the Nineteenth Century, "A Year of Post-Impressionism," he received from Sargent the following letter:

My dear MacColl,
I have enjoyed reading your article on Post-Impressionism very much—I should think it would bring a good many people to their senses—I admire the certainty with which you have refrained from hinting at the possibility of bad faith on the part of people like Matisse or at the theory that I am inclined to believe that the sharp picture dealers invented and boomed this new article of commerce.
     I think you have exactly weighed the merits of Cezanne and rather over-estimated the "realism" of Van Gogh whose things look to me like imitations made in coral or glass of objects in a vacuum. As to Gauguin, of course you had to deal with him for the sake of your argument, as if there were something in him besides rich and rare colour. Some day if we ever meet I should like to discuss with you the meaning of the word "values" and the word Impressionism.

Yours sincerely,

John S. Sargent.
 
In order to appreciate the value of Sargent's concurrence with Mr. MacColl's estimate of Cezanne, the following extract from the article may be quoted:

Cezanne was not a great classic; he was an artist often clumsy, always in difficulties, very limited in his range, absurdly so in most numerous productions, but "with quite a little mood" and the haunting idea of an art built upon the early Monet, at which he could only hint. He oscillated between Monet's earlier and finer manner, that of dark contours and broadly divided colour, and a painting based on the early Monet, all colour in a high key. In this manner he produced certain landscapes tender and beautiful in colour, but the figure was too difficult for him, and from difficulties he escaped into the still lifes I have spoken of, flattened jugs, apples, and napkins like blue tin that would clank if they fell. What is fatal to the claim set up for him as a deliberate designer,  creating eternal images out of the momentary lights of the Impressionists, is the fact that his technique, remains that of the Impressionists, a sketcher's technique, adapted for snatching hurriedly at effects that will not wait.

It is clear that Sargent was from the first definitely hostile to the more advanced Post-Impressionists; he receded very little, if at all, from that position. He regarded the Cubists, their followers and offshoots with uncompromising disapproval. He did not consider that either they or even the great majority of Post-Impressionists, by slighting representation, were contributing in any way whatsoever, as was claimed for them by a leading critic, "to establishing more and more firmly the fundamental laws of expressive form in its barest and most abstract elements." He held that it could be more effectually and much more emotionally attained by representing also the visual and spiritual values of the thing seen.'

From page 193 of John Sargent, by the Hon. Evan Charteris, K.C., with reproductions from his paintings and drawings. Charles Scribner's sons, New York, 1927. '

Website (Vanity II)

Either...

A website is an absolutely necessary piece of online real estate for every artist, where you can display, promote, and sell your work.

Or...

A website is an expensive way to waste time you could have spent painting. You have to learn to code, or pay someone to do it for you, and either way it costs you time or money. 

Your expensive premium WordPress theme looks great, but it slows down your site so much that Google hates you. So you waste half a day checking out fast loading free themes, every one of which is exactly wrong for your site.

Also, one third of your surprisingly low traffic is bored east european kids trying to hack your database for the fun of it, as you will discover when you're obsessively perusing your visitor logs in your host company's back end and wondering why nobody drops by. And your email sign ups will dump you the moment they get that free gift you gave them in exchange for their email address, never to be heard from again.

Which of these points of view is true? Well, they both are. Kind of. If you've reached a place in your art career where people are looking you up online, getting a website is a logical step to take, or at least it can be if you have a realistic expectations of online sales or some other kind of profitable contact from it - perhaps commissions, or exhibition invitations.

If you decide to go with the 'Heck, yes I want a website!' option, remember it's not all upside. Creating a customer base and selling your work without paying gallery commission? Well, that makes sense. Having to deal with the heavy lifting a good gallery would do for you in return for their commission? That's when it starts to look a little less inviting.

I've been looking at art marketing advice online, given that I'm ready to start selling my paintings, and one thing every art consultant agreed on was the absolute necessity of having your own artist's website. Given that all of them just happened to be selling artist's websites, I decided to take that advice with a grain of salt.

If you haven't reached the place where your name is getting Googled on a regular basis, maybe you should concentrate on your painting until it does. And, for once, I'll be taking my own advice and not getting my own website yet.

Vanity.

I've been drawing self portraits since I was an art student, partly because it's good drawing practice, but mainly because it's easier than persuading someone to sit for me.

Drawing the human face or figure means that any mistakes leap out at you, so you're less inclined to let your drawing become lax. Drawing yourself means you've always got a model, but it also means you get to examine your face somewhat more closely than you usually would, and see the harm that time is doing. (As well as the flaws that came built in - little lapses in symmetry, features that are too big or too small, a nose that points off to the side.)

If you have any vanity, drawing your face pretty much takes it away. Having said that, when I look back at photographs of me taken years ago, I wonder how that fresh faced innocent ever survived to become the evil old monkey into which I am slowly transforming. Altogether, I think I prefer the look of now me. 

Choosing paintings to show.

I wrote recently about looking back at what I'd been doing, and it seems like a good time to pause and take stock.

Having consigned half my recent paintings to the kindling pile, I then took a long look at what remained and picked around twenty pieces that could be worth showing.

There's a consistent theme of landscape, with sub themes: the tree 'portrait', the light effect, the path in perspective, water and reflections, the horse, the house. All four seasons are represented, though mostly summer. There are several attempts at convincing skies.

In all of them there's a tension between finish and its absence, mostly caused by trying to keep the balance between making the mark and trying not to overwork the paint.

Attempts at making more ambitious works have foundered on the twin rocks of lack of preparation and this problem of finish. A big, complex realist painting takes a long time and a lot of work. If you're thinking of painting that way, here's a tip: do lots of studies.

Success? I've found my themes, and I now know how to tackle a new subject and assimilate it into what I can do.

Failure? I'm not half the painter I hoped I was. My ambition has outpaced my abilities.

Conclusions? I need tuition. 

A Good Painting Spot

This was a good painting spot, because there happened to be a thicket of blackberry bushes within arm's reach to my right. Free fruit.

Of course, it also happened to be on a footpath which got more traffic than I expected, which led to some akward dances around the easel, but it could have been worse; read this Telegraph article to see what can befall an RA in the middle of London.

Even as a landscape painter I sometimes get an audience. The good thing is that onlookers soon realize that painting isn't interesting, and they drift away. Sometimes a troll will try to spoil your concentration by talking to you, but I've perfected the deadpan monosyllabic reply and cheerful countenance that makes them realize they're onto a non starter, and they soon leave in search of fresh prey.

People who do that were the bane of Cezanne's life, or so my reading about him would suggest. A sensitive man who was quick to anger, he was probably easy entertainment for bored peasants on a slow farming day. I've been leafing through the local library's copy of Cezanne: His life and works in 500 images, by Susie Hodge (available at a surprisingly high price on Amazon).

Anyway...where was I, and what's my point? Pick painting spots with free fruit, avoid those with bored peasants and/ or jobsworths.

Every day carry

Having seen other every day carry pictures and posts, I thought I'd empty my coat pockets and bag and reveal what lies within.

The folding craft knife takes a Stanley knife blade and will probably get me arrested if I'm ever spotted using it to sharpen a pencil on the open street in the UK.

The black Bic and the propelling pencil are my everyday drawing tools (biro on flimsy sketchbook pages, pencil on heavier paper). The Derwent eraser pen is the best thing since sliced bread. The HB pencil stub is a back up in case of technical difficulties with the propelling pencil. 

The watercolour box came with 24 half pans. I took out 5 I never used, and looking at the 19 half pans left, only 10 are showing signs of wear. A point to consider if you're thinking of buying a watercolour box - fewer colours is generally better. There's a number 6 sable brush in the box. The pens and pencils in the bag are, of course, spares. 

There's also a DSLR stuffed in the rucksack which gets daily use, for shots of potential subjects, reference for paintings, captures of finished works that are too big to fit on the scanner.

Brian Sewell

My favourite art critic just died. When I'm having a good painting day, I find myself commenting on what I'm doing in a poor imitation of his splendidly plummy voice.

It is ridiculous to think you could regret the loss of someone you never actually knew or were ever likely to meet, but he was one of a kind, and his death leaves a noticeable gap. We are a little poorer for his passing.

Here's a link to a YouTube upload of his Grand Tour series.

Oak in a field.

This is a series of paintings of some trees at the side of a cultivated field. I've done one a month for the past year or so, starting in March 2014 and deciding to paint a  series in October of that year.

Actually, it feels a bit cheaty passing them off as a year's paintings. I might do three more so I've got one for every month in 2015.

What has painting a series taught me?

Foliage can last longer than you expect.

Things are beautiful all year round.

The sky is different every day.  Different colour blue, different way it fills with light.

You never find the balance between mass and detail, but you get close enough.

Paint for too long and you're just second guessing yourself.

Colours change with the light in a heartbeat, but if you look long enough you see what repeats.

The smallest brush you use should be a little too big.

If your painting looks right at the viewing distance, don't worry about how it looks close to.

Those Goshdarn Frankfurters

I found an essay online yesterday, which I've linked to here.

It's a very readable and informative look at the reasons behind the cultural shifts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which have had such a lasting effect on us, covering topics as diverse as art and politics, and the unlikely alliances and strange bedfellows which have shaped our times.

If you've ever wondered why modern art became  incomprehensible, or why educational institutions have become hotbeds of gibbering idiocy, this essay will provide some much needed insight.

When I was a young student, towards the end of my time in
college, I instinctively rejected what I was being taught. I stopped trying to paint like a New York abstractionist and started drawing from life. My small, ill considered rebellion had consequences which affect me to this day, but I never regretted it. I'm just glad to have found some of the reasons behind the forces that shape our cultural landscape.

Let this be a lesson to all you budding super villains out there. It's all very well building a secret lair, stealing nukes, or growing your own superbug...

But if you want to do some real damage - start a think tank.

Looking back

Taking time out to have a good long look at what you've been doing is one of the most terrifying exercises known to man.

A week or so ago, I spent an hour looking at all the paintings I've done since I started painting again in 2012. Getting on for 120 pieces, mostly in oil on board, most around 10" x 12".

52 of them ended up in a box labelled 'Do not show'. Right next to the front room fireplace, where they're likely to end up as kindling. Oil paint on MDF - that should get a good blaze started.

60 ended up in the box of salvation, back upstairs in the spare bedroom, waiting on being framed and getting shown. The quality is patchy, but generally high. Most of the works were begun on site, painting plein air, but generally finished in the studio, whether that amounted to a little tidying up or extensive reworking.

Most of them are landscapes, though there have been two forays into self portraiture, one still life, and an Old Master copy that taught me a lot.

A dozen or so are repeated variations of the same landscape over the seasons, a series that will be finished come September.

I like to think I'm forging a tool, putting together the skills and knowledge needed to bring something new and worthwhile to landscape painting. From a cold start back in 2012, my drawing has picked up and my painting is workmanlike. On a good day, I think I know what I'm doing. On bad days I wonder who I'm kidding.

But then, walking that particular high wire, and refusing to let either over-confidence or ludicrous self-flagellation get in the way of what you're doing, is all part of painting. My next step is to enter some exhibitions this year and see if I get anywhere. If someone else decides my paintings are worth showing, maybe I can believe it too.

Flaming June

Well, it was pretty grey and cool to start with, but things perked up.

Painting plein air a couple of weeks ago, working on a study for a larger (12" x 16") version. There's a short list of open shows I'm going to try and get into this year, and the finished version of this is one of the pieces I'll be entering.

Still working on the problem of keeping a painting alive in the studio. I'm pursuing two threads: the nineteenth century academic method of doing studies for a composition, and pulling them all together into a grand pictorial statement, and the more agile and responsive Impressionist method of painting from life and keeping the marks and colours intact in the finished work.

I've got studies from last year waiting on the time being right to attempt full sized paintings from them, notably a house in Rowthorne, and a field on the way there. I passed by the house last week and noticed swarms of workmen going in and out. I just hope it's still standing when I go back in August. They trimmed the hedges and the ivy on the walls last year when I was halfway through the drawing.

Two lucky purchases this month, the first being a copy of 'Victorian Painters', by Jeremy Maas, which I picked up, literally for pennies, on Amazon. It's a brilliant overview of English painting in the nineteenth century. The second was a similarly priced copy of W.P.Frith's memoirs, with stories from the life of the successful academician. Given that he personally knew Turner and Constable, and that the book features stories about both men, I found it of particular interest.

Putting a horse in a painting

...Is not a simple matter. Everything you choose to paint has to function as a design element, as a piece of a harmonious whole.

Some things are easy to incorporate in a composition. A house is a rectangle, a mountain is a triangle, a hill is a breast; all simple, pleasing forms. A mass of trees or a cloud share the happy facility of being pretty much any shape you choose.

But a horse has uncompromising facts of anatomy which must be accommodated without upsetting the balance of the picture. As a living thing, it will draw the eye no matter where you put it, even if it's only incidental to the main focal point of the painting.

And it is a collection of shapes: the truncated triangles of head, and neck, the sagging barrel of the body, and last, and most awkwardly, the legs. Many, many legs. Put those legs against a plain ground, like a grassy field, and they will divide it into beautiful, interesting paper cut outs, with nuanced straight lines, graceful curves, and odd little sharp angles. Which might be bad, because these shapes are too interesting, and could take attention away from where you want it to go.

One solution is to incorporate the horse into a tonal mass so that it doesn't stand out too much, blending into the background a little.

Paint the horses lying down, and you either have rounded boulders that fit in easily, or a sprawling mess with legs pointing everywhere. Painting is about as honest as stock photography, in that you're always looking for the best angle to show off your subject, and trying to avoid the awkward views. 

If you want to see what to do with horses' legs, check out Uccello's 'The battle of San Romano'.

Work in progress.

Just uploaded this recent painting to my Saatchi account:

Right now I'm working on a 12" x 30" 'Ramsons', for which I started painting studies and taking photographs a couple of years ago.

Actually I've painted everything but ramsons, as they haven't started flowering yet, but they're in bud, so all we need now is a warm, dry spell of sunny weather...

(Sits and twiddles thumbs.)

No matter. I've got a monthly 'Oak in a field' on the go, with only five more to do before I end up with a year's worth of 8" x 12" paintings of the same corner of a field in different lights and weathers. Standing in the same spot for a couple of days every month has probably set the farmer on edge, given the risk of travellers opting to squat on his land. But he's not come after me with a shotgun yet.

Painting the same subject in different lights and seasons is great practice. I've been forced to deal with painting things I'd usually avoid: snow, bare branches, open ground. But when you don't have to worry about drawing or composition, since they're the same from painting to painting, you're free to concentrate on the look of things.

I've also been forced to deal with passers by, given that it's beside a busy road. Most of them are lorry drivers, confused by the sudden countryside, and anxious in case they've taken a wrong turn.

The most memorable was an unusual couple who walked past. She, twenty something, pretty, brunette, talkative. He, same age, shirtless (on a cold autumn day) and raving while he literally wrestled with the air. I suspect chemicals were involved. But they were polite enough, and soon on their way, she chatting amiably, while he shouted at the trees and hedges.

I'm just about to draw out a 12" x 24" of an autumn hedgerow on its support, from drawings I did last year. Small paintings I'm happy to start on site, but bigger works need more rehearsal, and a preliminary drawing helps sort out problems of scale and composition before I take the painting to the subject. I will be working mostly on site, even on larger works, in future. I find both kinds of painting - plein air and studio -  are necessary, for every painting.

I tried painting a large studio painting from studies, last year, and it pretty much died on the easel. Without the injection of a real response to the real subject, actually there in front of you, a painting has an uphill struggle before it gets within reach of success. I find myself using photographs less and less every year.

For sale, one previous owner.

So I'm selling the mitre saw I bought.

Stop laughing at the back.

Why am I selling it?

It's not the right tool for the job. It's not accurate enough. And, let's be honest, I'm not the best woodworker around. The mitre cuts are close, but just a little out. When I assemble the cut stock to make the frame, there are gaps.

Not huge gaps, you understand. Nothing that would make the average joiner blink an eye, but unacceptable in a picture frame.

I've tried fixing this. Test cuts every time I set the blade, the cut pieces examined against a compound square. Excess wood shaved off with a block plane and a mitred shooting board. I even built a rotary framing sander from an old grinding wheel.

All to no avail.

Failure is not always a challenge. Sometimes it's life's way of telling you to try a different approach.

I'm a handy sort of chap. I could, for example, in theory, learn how to make my own shoes. But there are many excellent reasons why I don't.* Similarly, I have never tried to do my own dentistry. Just last month I also discovered that I really, really shouldn't attempt plumbing.

And I'm not going to do my own framing any more, but I'm going to pay someone else to make a really good job of it.

What valuable life lesson can we draw from my humiliating about face?

'Enthusiasm and determination are no substitute for surly acceptance of one's own inadequacy.'

Sounds a little harsh. Let's put a better spin on it.

How about this:

'When a task requires resources and skills you don't possess, pay an expert to do it.'

Better. Here's a cloud study:

* Not least being that it would be weird. Who does that?

DISTINGUISHED LOCAL TREES

I hesitate to attribute to a tree any such thing as character, but there are trees around my home that are as recognizable to me as old friends.

Off the top of my head, I can bring to mind two fine examples of Aruacaria aruacana, the 'monkey puzzle', in gardens. Add to them, at the side of a country road, the ivy covered oak that looks like something out of a Disney animation. Then there's the handsome cedar on the front lawn of a local National Trust property.

They draw the eye, and give pleasure. I have drawn, and painted, and photographed them.

Over the past few weeks I've ransacked old sketchbooks and pored over folders of paintings to gather together the best tree pictures I have made. They are collected here, in a book, for your viewing pleasure.

Algernon Blackwood wrote a story, The man whom the trees loved, about a painter who specialized in portraits of his favourite trees. While I share that character's affection for his subject, I hope that I'm not only a tree painter, just as I hope to evade his fate. (The trees steal him away.)

I also hope this small book gives you some of the pleasure I have enjoyed in making the drawings and paintings that fill it. I have always found the countryside to be a place of beauty and pleasure, and the trees in these pages have played a large part in that.

Photographing your paintings: Using GIMP to get the best out of your image capture.

Taken a picture of your painting?

Disappointed in the end result?

Looking a bit flat and dull?

Read on, and follow my GIMP recipe for getting the best out of your image captures.

Open your image file in GIMP. Then open the Colors > Levels dialogue.

You'll see a box with a histogram, which is what you'll be adjusting. Note the channel, just above this, which is probably set to Value. Press the arrow to access the menu, and pick Red.

You'll see a graph, with a black curve in a white box. It probably doesn't extend all the way to the sides of the box. At the bottom you'll see three arrows. Slide the right hand (white) arrow to the left until it's just outside the final range of the histogram curve. Watch your picture get a little lighter and warmer. If the curve doesn't go all the way to the left, slide the left arrow a little to the right, just outside the limit of the curve. Watch your picture get a little darker.

You're not done. Select the Green channel. Repeat the process.

Next, select the Blue channel. Same again, never adjusting more than improves the image. Use a light touch, but experiment to see what happens when you go too far. You can always undo any mistakes you make.

Lastly, repeat with the Value channel. Use a light touch, and make use of the central slider to adjust the overall tone of the image.

Think you're done? Click Edit > Undo, to see the original file, then Redo to reapply the changes you've made. Have you improved it? Save your file. This process really helps when your initial capture is a little flat and dull. It separates out the tones and colours and makes the whole thing pop.

Frame making with a compound mitre saw.

Readers may recall this post I wrote about buying a new hand mitre saw, some years ago. Unfortunately, that proved to be a poor replacement for the previous saw*, and still languishes in its box, waiting on me finding an eBay punter to take it off my hands.

So just after Christmas, I bit the bullet and ordered a powered compound sliding mitre saw online. I read some reviews for models in my price range beforehand, and looked at some review videos on YouTube, before settling on a Metabo I could afford.

It came in record time, with the wrong plug attached, a glitch the seller was quick to resolve by sending me an adapter free of charge. I read the manual through several times, given that learn as you go while using a razor sharp whirling wheel of death and dismemberment seemed like a really bad idea. I fixed the saw to a sturdy slab of plywood, only to discover that its cast metal base was tilted up at one corner. Not in any hurry to send it back for a replacement that was not guaranteed to be any better, I soldiered on and made a test frame using the saw.

The mitres turned out well, which was, after all, the point of buying it in the first place. I cut some picture frame moulding to fit a couple of small paintings and assembled the pieces to make sure the corners looked okay, which they did. Tight, accurate mitres.

And now I need an underpinner and a point gun.

Things to bear in mind:

1) Safety. You'll need safety glasses, hearing protection, and a dustmask. A turning blade can throw things in your face. The saw is surprisingly loud, and will damage unprotected hearing. And wood dust is just plain nasty.

2) RTFM. Read the manual before you turn the machine on and use it for the first time. Again, YouTube is your friend. There are a lot of videos about using mitre saws.

3) Make sure the wood is firmly clamped, and let the saw get up to speed before making a steady, smooth cut. This helps avoid tear-out.

4) Keep your fingers well away from the blade.

5) There's a work light and a laser on the cutting head. The work light is useful, but I find the laser distracting and not much use for its intended purpose of showing you where the blade will cut.

6) The sliding function is useful in dealing with wide stock, and the turntable for cutting mitred angles is smooth and accurate; but the tilting head for compound angles is a liability when it comes to cutting simple mitres. If it moves, it can get out of whack and mess up your cuts. Something to consider if you have a model in mind. I've fixed the head bolt upright at a measured 90 degrees and never touch the tilt lever at all.

In fact... if all you want to cut is picture frame mitres, you might be better off getting a table saw and making a mitre sled.

7) Lastly, never get complacent when using a tool like this. If you're slightly anxious about using it every time you plug it in, that's a healthy attitude. 

Accidents with power tools can turn very ugly very quickly. (Do a 'woodwork accident' image search on Google if you don't believe me. A little stomach churning, but very educational.)

Is this a good solution to the problem of framing my work?

Meh. In a perfect world, I'd send my PA up the road to Bramptons to see if my huge annual order was ready, and have her pick them up by the skip load in my personal hovercraft. I wouldn't waste a minute making frames or priming boards, or stretching canvases, because time you spend doing these things is time you could spend painting.

But it is a solution, and the best one available to me here and now.

Framing your work presents it in its best aspect. It's an essential part of professional practice. Learning how to do it yourself, and do it well, is one solution to a problem all painters have.


* I lent my previous mitre saw to a relative. Never, ever, do that.

In fact, if anyone ever asks to borrow one of your tools - your precious, lovely, useful, expensive, well maintained and cared for tools -  just stab them until they go away. Use a freshly sharpened pencil. Make an angry face. Say, 'No. No. No,'  repeatedly, in time with the little stabby motions, as you advance on them. Go for the soft spots, and strike with venom.

They have to learn. It's for the best.

Painting snow.