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"Old
roots . . . . . and an oil painting created "En Plein Air"."En
plein air" is a French expression which means "in the open air" and back in 1972 Peter sold his very first professional painting, a
watercolour created "on the spot" of a dumped pink mattress, stained with rain, laying against a
decrepit decaying Bankside warehouse wall with a bright green weed
sticking out of a window ledge above; painted as part of an Art School extra-mural project and an unlikely picture for a sale
you might think? When his mother visited the exhibition, at nearby Southwark Cathedral in London, the Dean of Southwark told her "I could have sold that picture ten times over" .
. . . . . . . and, perhaps it is time now to square a circle (or is it circle
a square; whatever . . .) so - new "En
plein air" paintings (that chronicle the
changing face of a city Peter knows inside out and backwards) - London,
"the smoke" (from when it had smogs back in Peter's childhood in the
50's) and "down south" as they say here in the Midlands of England, and
that makes Peter, as the local window cleaner calls him,
"Cocker-knees" (Cockney). You have to be born within the sound of Bow
Bells to be a real cockney, and Peter, on cold, still, Sunday mornings,
as a child, could hear the sound of Bow bells blowing on the wind and
the sound of barge and Tugboat horns on the River Thames even as far away as
his makeshift easel (the kitchen table) in North London, Kentish Town,
in Islington. That was then, and this is now . . . . .THE RIGHT KIT FOR THE JOB
The
Artist first painted outdoors as a child, sitting in the back garden
of a terraced house in Islington, North London, in the early 50's,
and, far later, art school training required project work to sometimes
be "outside drawing", the idea being to "toughen-up" the artist in
preparation for industry because, back in the day, in the 70's, artists
still found themselves working for magazines and newspapers on occasion
and "drawing on the spot" as reportage, on location; indeed, one of
Peter's art
school tutors was Linda
Kitson
who taught the technique of "drawing very fast and not stopping to
deliberate" and who went on to be the official artist for the UK during
the Falklands
War which
necessitated that skill, which was Linda's specialty, of fast
reportage drawing, in that case, on the battlefront. Peter recalls her
asking a soldier how she'd manage to get all her drawing materials
around to which she was told "don't worry, there'll be no shortage of
people to hump your kit". But when Peter decided, in recent times, to
re-visit and paint his roots which necessitated some images had to be done "En
plein air" a different tack was needed, and he developed a way of
traveling very light yet able to work in as wide an array of techniques
as back in the studio.In
the late 19th Century the French
Box Easel was invented, a highly portable easel with telescopic legs
and built-in paint
box and palette that enabled "plein air"
works to be carried out effectively but Peter has developed his
own methods that are more flexible and portable. He has a "field kit"
that he has spent years developing that ensures direct, highly
effective focused work can be carried out, unhindered and comfortably.A tough but casual Jacket,
with multiple pockets, to house various materials.Pocket
sized specially designed essential paintbox and palette to fit the jacket.Shoulder bag,
with multiple compartments for ancillary materials.Paint -
a specially created minimal palette of studio-made paints.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GO OVERSEAS?
"If
one has to travel overseas then a different approach is called for.
There are all sorts of restrictions on carrying materials, be they
turpentine, plastics and more, and I prefer to buy the materials once
I've arrived at the destination. Even if you make your own paint as I
do it can still be done, you just have to be very organised as to how
to set up where you are. I've made oil paint in hotel rooms and then
chucked away newspaper I've used as a work surface. It's no big deal
really. Creating painting mediums is trickier but still feasible. There
are no "rules" as to how you work, that's up to the individual Artist.
Of
course, times change, and the idea of using some sort of sketching
easel is "just so yesterday" for me and contemporary pursuits are not
laden
with danger as in earlier days, unless through personal choice. Back
then, naivety could get you in serious trouble."THE HAZARDS OF WORKING "EN PLEIN AIR"
In
Peter's case, "induction" to "front line drawing" was perhaps somewhat
less risky than Linda Kitson's Falklands assignment, but still dangerous. While drawing in Bankside on the Thames
in London on
an art school project he was sitting on a wharfe wall, drawing a
derrick, when a friend shouted "look out" and Peter narrowly avoided
having a large crate of Bananas dropped on his head from a crane net
that was snapping and spilling its contents! This, and the
experience of sitting at the entrance to a platform at London's
Paddington Station in the rush hour to draw the panorama of the station
was a "baptism of stress" he has never forgotten."On
another occasion, tutors thought it was "useful" if we were sent to
Brick Lane in the East End to draw. I have clear memories of two of the
"nice" girls on our course, sitting side by side on the kerb, drawing
in the main street. A car drew up, two guys got out, and set about each
other over the bonnet of the car. Needless to say, the girls left in a
hurry. All this was, of course, way back before the financial services
explosion in the Isle of Dogs which would change forever all the
surrounding areas. In those days it was still a pretty rough area and
you needed to be mindful of that."If
people think real artists lounge around in berets and striped T-shirts
with their heads in the clouds then I'd recommend trying a year's
worth of that sort of art school training and assessing how you feel at
the end of it . In the 80's I even once nearly fell out of a helicopter over the
Isle of Wight in the UK on a BBC video reference-gathering shoot for a
local news slot and I once stood "lashed to the mast" (actually it was
a gun turret) on a British warship in the Bay of Biscay in mid-December
to get some reference drawings for a project and was it ever cold -
brrrrrrrrrrr!" Still, it was fun chasing Russian Warships.THE JOYS OF WORKING "EN PLEIN AIR"
So it is "nice" now to finally be able, as a self-published Artist, to plan "En
plein Air" sessions more effectively and it can be very pleasant. "It was a really wonderful stay in London creating this painting with great exploration ideas. We
walked all over the City taking coffee here and there and dining royally
- traveling by Oyster card on the "Tube" and on Buses. We did a long
hike that day and ended up at Bankside and the River (Thames) where
Peter chanced on this riverside derrick - a warehouse loading bay from
"back in the day". Cat and mouse were siting there pleased as punch and
it made a fantastic picture. Hide and seek on a London crane with ideal
colourings for Peter's palette. What you can find when you are not
looking (I am not looking, he is always looking!).HOW IT ALL BEGAN
At
the hands of the Impressionists in the late 1800's Plein Air was a
technique intended to capture the effects of sunlight and different
times of day on a subject, it was quite revolutionary then; Peter's
response is more about looking for scenes of character, but in the
1950s, as a child, he knew nothing of such Art
history
nor had a history of his own so was merely "doing what I seemed to need
to do - paint - what was
around me - and "I have clear memories of painting in the park and on
holiday at the beach but also of painting the view outside of
my bedroom to alleviate the boring grey atmosphere of London in the post
WWII era" in a kind of half-way house of "not quite Plein Air". Thus,
the word "bedroom" is used loosely since "studio" is how he tended to think of it even if he'd never heard of the word then. (This is a 2-part article about "En Plein Air" painting and the 2nd part can be read here)
See it in this
Collector's Edition book
