I've been having a bit of a think lately, about where my painting is going. And I found it helped a lot to unearth some of my older paintings and have a good look at them. One of the inspirations for this was my brother - little Brian, as I think of him, is younger than I am. He has, however, a birthday this week: well, they can't be avoided. And he expressed an interest in a really rather elderly painting of mine in very dark blues and greens - I didn't feel I could fob him off with the original, which was only an oil sketch on the (rather good) Tyneham oil painting paper, so repainted it; twice, in fact, once in oil, and again in Chromacolour. It reminded me of the techniques I once employed - by no means to be despised, I feel! What it failed totally to remind me of was - where on earth was the scene it depicted? I could call it various things; it's a moonlight scene of trees either side of a bridge; frankly, it could be of several different places. But it would be a bit of a cheat if I applied a geographical description of it - I just have no idea where it was; it was based on a very quick sketch, roughly executed, in an antediluvian sketch-book. Question is, though - does it matter? Do you care where your sketches, as it were, come from? I've little doubt that most POL-ers are much more careful than I am, or used to be, anyway, in annotating and dating their drawings: I just didn't bother n the past.... I wasn't interested in where the scene was, just in how the light and shade and colour worked. Yet now, I find people look at a painting and say something like - "where is it?"; and half the time, I'm damned and double-damned if I know.... There used to be something deliberate in my ignorance: I didn't want to paint postcard "views", so tried to cast the information from my mind. Unfortunately, as the years have worn on, I no longer need to make such an effort: if I don't label the drawing, I just forget where the hell it was.... In fact, someone looked at my website recently, www.isleofwightlandscapes.net if you're interested (and I'm sure you are! I have a donate button there, for your pleasure and convenience! Don't hold back!) and said: half of these aren't on the Isle of Wight at all, are they. Of course they are, I replied, defensively and completely unconvincingly; prove otherwise, I rashly continued. No, they said ... horrid people.... you prove otherwise; where is this one for instance? Well, er, that's, um, ah, yes, well... moving on...... Because, of course, I had no idea at all. Could have been on the Isle of Wight; could have been Muckle Flugga, except I've never been to the latter. I couldn't remember, and was irritated because I didn't see that it damn' well mattered one way or the other. I suppose it does, though; if you're going to call your website Isle of Wight Landscapes, people are entitled to assume not that you're a painter who happens to live on the Isle of Wight, but that you will actually show paintings of the I of W. This is a bit of a problem, however,because, varied though the island is, it's not the whole world, nor even that small section of it I happen to have seen. Must I restrict myself to the island...? Well - I think maybe the title of my website was maybe not brilliantly chosen, but I have no intention of showing just paintings of Isle of Wight scenery, as represented on the innumerable postcards we send round the world. I think some of those who think of the island have a very stereotypical view of it, consisting largely of chalk cliffs, gorse, heather and, of course, yachts. We also have towns, villages, woods, little tucked away places - and it's the last of these that most appeal to me. If people think that paintings of the tucked-away places of the island aren't actually "island" paintings at all, well then: I beg to differ. And anyway, I hate yacht paintings: I really do.... I know, I know ... lovely things, graceful lines... but if you've lived here all your life, you've seen thousands of these blasted boats; or cheery paintings of the Hunt, cunningly avoiding blocked up badger setts and the bleeding remnants of the fox amongst a seething mass of hounds and purple-faced squires with their grinning village-idiot hangers-on.... (calm down, Jones: deep breaths...) Anyway; what do you think? Are we doomed to paint "views" that people can recognize, or go so far away from same that we paint idealized landscapes that have no reference to any given place? Do you choose your subject in relation to a given view, landscape or place? Do you take a bit from one and a bit from another and make your own painting - and if you do, do you attach a "local" name to it and wait to be challenged by some local worthy on detail, ie, "that were never there!" Do you go for an impression of a scene, or feel you must reproduce it as accurately as possible? And if so, in either case - why? Answers on a postcard please....