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The demo evening was in February, and by the time the sketch was finished I felt I had been back in Spain for an hour! It wasn’t intended to be a finished painting but an enjoyable experience and something that could be started on the spot and if necessary finished at home later on.

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Yikes! My solo annual exhibition of paintings in the Westwoods Centre Northleach is only three weeks away! How did that happen? Will I pull it all together in time? I always get pre-exhibition nerves at this point, as it feels as though my soul will be on display to the public very shortly.

It is just four months ago that I sat in Todi, in Umbria on a sunny morning and painted the watercolour pictured here in this blog entry. It depicts the main doorway to the ‘Duomo’ or Cathedral in Todi, and is a reasonably accurate portrayal of the subject with its slightly rose tinted stone. Or have I painted it through rose-tinted spectacles? In fact there were workmen around the steps restoring the stonework with noisy machinery and red plastic tape connecting bollards around the place. So I painted selectively – my general rule is to leave out anything I like, but not to insert anything that isn’t there.

This is of course known as ‘artist’s licence’ and some artists are very economical with the truth. Turner was a shocker, and actually moved buildings in Venice around all over the place in his paintings to suit his mood. I like to paint what I see, but only some of it! Traffic lights, cars? It depends; my mood is essentially romantic.

Painting for me is a celebration of light, architecture and landscape, and I can only hope that people will enjoy seeing some of the world through ‘my eyes’ in my show next month. 

EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS New paintings and drawings from Chris’ recent travels at home and abroad. Including the Cotswolds, Venice and ‘Impressions of the Cities of Umbria’ from a visit to Italy in the Spring of this year.

Westwoods Centre, Northleach. GL54 3QJSaturday 9th – Sunday 10th October
10.00am – 4.00pm

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I’ve been meaning to produce a painting from a sketch of Assisi I did in May. But where to start? The photo I took at the time was very flat and colourless as it was raining most of the day! However the view was lovely and in my minds eye I could see it in early evening light with a misty landscape in the distance. So I’ve worked up a small watercolour sketch to sort things out.

It’s a good example of simplifying a complicated subject as much as possible; bold cypress trees in bring the foreground closer; misty distance creates recession.

Simple colour scheme, contrasting churches with landscape.

I think I’ve got it – all I have to do now is paint it! It will a lovely subject for my exhibition, if I can get it right.

Wish me luck! I’ll need it.

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There are many reasons that compel people to travel. For some it is pleasure, or a holiday; for others it is business. Young persons will spread their wings on gap years; older parents will visit their offspring who have started families abroad.

I love to travel to escape from the pressures of my everyday existence; to leave behind the familiar with a sense of adventure where I can become someone I would like to be, for a short while.

But I am a bad tourist. I will travel with high expectations to a beautiful historic sunny destination; arrive with a sense of exhilaration and drink a coffee at a table sitting outside with a view: but then the child in me will be bored. I wish I could leave him behind, but he is always with me, so even reading guidebooks and dutifully taking photos, or riding on tourist road trains, he will be restless and pulling at my jacket complaining. So I have to supply him with a pencil and sketchbook, and a box of paints. Better still, I set him off on a ‘mission’ to go on a trail of old cities to report on the picturesque; or even set him on a challenge of journalising in words and drawings on a theme.

Thus it was that I brought my restless fidgety child to Umbria, Italy, to find the places in his picture book and seek them out; then find more of his own, and make a new picture book he can call his own.

The child is of course me, a person who is nervous and uncomfortable in his own skin; unable to relax or settle inwardly unless… unless what exactly?

Inspiration – that is what I seek, and I am inspired or not by what I see or hear around me, even in the most ordinary minutiae of life. Perhaps it is the sense of wonder that is my greatest talent; it is my most developed sense. The ability to wonder at an older couple walking past; she telling him off for not shaving that morning. Or a child chasing pigeons.

It is about standing back from life, and looking afresh around us. We are so busy hunting, gathering, eating, sleeping, making love or arguing, that its easy to forget what a strange and wonderful place the world is. The desire to draw and paint, on paper or in words, is the call to others to say ‘Hey, look at this – doesn’t that make you feel good?’

Others like to express themselves through dancing or singing, or maybe cooking or mathematics, and that’s fine too. My lot seems to be to wonder, but I need to express that wonder, and somehow ‘report’ on it. That is the lot of the artist and writer.

Both the article and the drawing above were done in the blank pages at the back of books I was reading, while travelling on planes and at the airport. You know what it’s like, you want to write something down but you don’t have a notebook or any paper on you. That must be why fiction books usually have a couple of blank pages at the back!

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I was in London a week or two ago, seeking inspiration for painting. It must have been the only day for weeks that was NOT sunny! But still there is something about drawing directly from life in cities that I love to do.

These are three of the sketches I came up with, along the river by the City. Straight in with a pen, and add a minimum of colour wash if I have time. I’m hoping to do some paintings from these drawings, but the most fun is always the drawing itself on the spot, even if they do turn out a bit clumsy and squiffy in places.

The challenge is to keep the freshness of the sketches in the final painting. I tend to tidy things up too much when I try to paint ‘properly’. Perhaps I should try painting left handed.

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From ‘Impressions of the Cities of Umbria’

In the city of Orvieto, Southern Umbria, Italy

I had to admit I was lost. The twelve sided tower of Sant’ Andrea was what I was looking for, and although I had been there earlier in the day, the light had been against me. Now the sun was shining, but I couldn’t retrace my steps. Then, round a corner, and a charming view was before me amongst the cobbled backstreets of Orvieto. I gave up on my search, sat in the shade and did a pen sketch on my cartridge paper block.  Serendipity is the art of travel.

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However as I emerged into the Palazzo del Popolo there was a flower festival setting up, so I sat to one side, and painted a small detailed study of the main door to the Duomo. After a coffee the place was busying up, and I couldn’t resist doing a sketch of the delightful scene before me, in the book, which will make a lovely painting, with its colour, and festivities. Being happy in my surroundings, I carried on and drew again from a different angle. The light was so good I took lots of photographs before exhausting myself and returning to the car. I decided to return to Perugia Farmhouse by the slowest and prettiest route, but stopped almost immediately outside Todi, on impulse to record another quick watercolour of the city from a distance which came off OK. And all this on a day I was going to take it easier!

It’s been an enjoyable finish to an inspiring week; and the drive back, dawdling up hill and down dale via Masciarno, Spina and Pila was a treat. It seems like an indulgence at this point of great uncertainty in my circumstances, to spend a week in Italy with an old book, retracing the footsteps of another artist A.Pisa and the writer Edward Hutton. But then it is important, at a crossroads in life, when all is not clear, to believe in one’s own ‘story’. You create it with your family life and your work, and if you stop have faith in it, then it can lead to disappointment and regrets in old age. Better to keep writing the story as you would wish it to be; and weather the overcast day until the sun shines once more.

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