Gareth Naylor

Atmospheric paintings of Japan

Tag: 2021

  • Painting of car headlights on a country road at dusk

    Painting of car headlights on a country road at dusk

    I live next to a busy road in a Japanese city called Oita.

    I hate it.

    I want to escape this place and go and live in nature. 

    And the best thing to do in nature is farming.

    Or rather, that is probably the only thing I can do there.

    So recently, I traveled to a place called Nakatsu to meet two women who were going to teach me about organic farming.

    They live in a big house at the bottom of a hill and next to rice fields.

    The rice fields were a golden yellow color.

    And the rice was being harvested.

    It was a beautiful place.

    As is the Japanese custom, I gave them a gift – which was some cakes.

    We had a bit of a chat.

    And then the two women gave me some interesting compost to take home with me.

    It was light, dry blocks of rotten wood upon which mushrooms had been grown.

    They told me that it was excellent compost.

    And they gave me a lot of it.

    After that the two women took me to their field.

    I thought it would be next to their house, but it was actually quite far away and we had to go by car.

    Here they are growing green peppers, sweet potatoes and bitter melons – which they call goya in Japanese.

    I helped them pick some vegetables.

    And aftewards, they generously gave me some of their vegetables.

    I was delighted to receive this organic produce.

    This place though was very remote, very empty of human life and very quiet. 

    And I wondered if I would be able to live here by myself and be okay. 

    I could see myself becoming terribly lonely.

    However, I still want to try living in the Japanese countryside.

    Anyway, after that they took me to a roadside station.

    Here they recommended vegetable plants that would be good to grow in my garden.

    I bought these plants and some vegetables.

    I also bought some locally produced pickled plums and stick-shaped cheesecakes for my wife and daughter.

    My daughter loves salty foods like pickled plums and sweet things like cheesecakes.

    Coming home I had the good fortune to see a beautiful scene of car headlights on a winding country road and a beautiful evening sky in the background.

    I took a photo and later at home I did the painting above.

    The photograph though didn’t capture very well the brillance of the scene.

    At least in my mind, in the actual scene there was a very strong contrast of a warm orange evening sky against blue gray clouds. 

    So in the painting, I did my best to emphasize that contrast – even perhaps exaggerate it.

    I’m quite happy with the result.

    But one day I might have another go.

    That’s all for now,

    Gareth.

  • Painting of construction work by a Japanese river

    Painting of construction work by a Japanese river

    This painting is a little gem for me.

    But let’s begin at the beginning.

    So I walk by my local river everyday.

    It’s something I love to do.

    It’s also a place to get away from vehicles of which there are way too many in Japan.

    But recently the vehicles have found their way to the river.

    There is a lot of construction going on down at the river now.

    And it has become quite a busy place where I see diggers, trucks, vans, cars and even an electric bus.

    It worries me because they are building a permanent road there where before there used to be just a rough gravel track. 

    They’ve already got a road along one section which they recently built but it looks like they might extend this.

    It also looks like they are building car parks too, in which case they really have spoiled this area.

    It’s some more green space gone from the prefecture that says it loves forests. 

    To be honest, I think they only love forests because this is a very rural prefecture.

    I have to admit though that the riverside can become very wild and overgrown. 

    There are areas with incredibly dense clusters of trees and bamboo trees covered in some kind of creeper.

    It doesn’t look pretty.

    But there were other areas where there were just a few trees and it looked quite nice. 

    In a lot of areas though they removed everything and made it totally flat.

    The Japanese don’t mess around when they do something.

    One thing I’ve learnt as an artist though who lives in the city is to look for beauty wherever I can or failing that just look for what is visually interesting.

    Normally I find the latter in Japan.

    So anyways, I was walking by the river and I saw this scene of a digger and a work man and I thought it looked interesting.

    I know it’s not your normal painting subject.

    I think the soft cool blue background and the warm yellow foreground of the grass made the overall color and feel of the painting nice.

    I got that soft background by first painting the objects, leaving them to dry, and then painting a warm wash over the top of them. 

    I used a watery mix of yellow ochre and alizarin crimson.

    And the road with the digger, worker, cones and whatnot added an interesting element of objects and busyness.

    Another interesting feature were the long shadows cast by elevated railway lines.

    I really liked the effect of these shadows. 

    It may look a little strange but I like it.

    Next time I might make those shadowy lines even stronger and have the worker partially disappearing into the shadows. 

    I could perhaps also do with another worker figure.

    I now have a small collection of paintings of construction workers.

    I might at some point make a mini-gallery of construction workers on my website.

    That’s all for now,

    Gareth.

  • Peaceful painting of two people walking along a countryside path at evening time

    Peaceful painting of two people walking along a countryside path at evening time

    This painting began with another painting that I did around 2013.

    I loved the mood of the painting.

    It was a late evening scene with a countryside path and figures walking along the path that looked a little like ghosts.

    So I decided to have another go.

    I wanted to do an improved version.

    However, rather than improving upon it, I ended up creating a new kind of mood – which is how it normally goes with these “improved” versions.

    At least that is my opinion.

    But I’m happy with this new painting and I’m glad I had the courage to try and improve upon the original painting.

    That’s all for now,

    Gareth.