My mother reading the christmas card list and my dad holding two tomatoes. I tried drawing my mother before christmas, got her to sit for me for about an hour and yet it was impossible to draw her then. She was too self conscious and put up an unconscious barrier made of her thoughts- or she just wouldn't relax (all her fault you notice). This time she was unaware and it was much easier to draw her likeness. I was just looking at the portraits I did at that market and they are terrible. People were talking to me as I worked and I was on the spot performing on demand. This doesn't produce good art. How particular it all is.
Now that I mentioned it I could post some portraits I did of my father which are quite nice from when we were on a train journey together to London and the ones I refer to of my mother which are terrible if you mean likeness wise but still they capture something, as all drawings do. (If you click read more you can see) I bought some new paint and I love it. It's very thick and to use needs to be diluted with linseed oil (which is what oil paint is made with). The blue is amazing though. It is an amazing colour - you can see a little of it on the neck of the vase there. I made this composition a while back and painted the background, but didn't get round to painting the flowers till now. Obviously in the couple of months passing they'd dried. Fortunately I'd used photos so I could complete this just over the past couple of days (first free time in a while!). I like it.
There was a 'Love Coleshill' Christmas Fair this weekend in the Market Hall so I went along as part of the Coleshill Post team and sold some lavender products I have been making. The bottles at the back are Lavender Water made from infusing cut Lavender (from the garden) in boiling water. It's a natural relaxant and also an antibacterial agent. It's good in your bath or dabbed on your pillow to help you sleep. I also sewed a few small pillows which are filled with lavender, and then got quite into the sewing, so I found a platypus pattern online and made one, and then some mushroom pin cushions too! They sold quite well in the short time I was there and I met lots of lovely people. The main attraction however seemed to be my portrait drawing. I had five requests in three hours and seemed to spend the whole time doing that. I had only ten minutes or so to sketch people on the spot but the customers were happy so that's what counts!
I sketched and painted today. Its only a 50 cm tall doodle in oil. I have a new heater and its making working fun again. I have also been working on a larger painting that isn't finished yet so I might post that later when it is.
Mysteries. Time-travel. That same green car. This is Loughborough Junction in July 2008. What were we all doing there? Something to do with a courier flight to Tokyo.
Everett's many worlds theory considers that at a quantum level and consequently at every turn, given we constitute quantum sized bundles of stuff that constantly fluctuates, the splitting of pathways between this outcome or that, does not mean one doesn't happen whilst the other does, it considers that both or all happen but in different worlds, forever separated by a turn in the road. I always think, where are all these worlds, how are they arranged? Are they like skins in an onion? How amazing would it be to see them all happening at once like looking into an ants' nest except every ant is a different pathway any one ant could have taken in one instant.
So when you think 'what will happen in five years?', you can safely say 'a lot' will happen in five years. And if you think that in a period of seven years your entire cellular structure over that period has renewed itself or been replaced, if that is more your tone, that actually you are not the same person you were seven years ago in any sense, then you might worry less about who you were then or what you might become and therefore what is happening just now. Imagine if you could see an army of you's wading through time in a line that spreads across all possibilities at every passing instant in the virtual zoopraxiscope of you's separating constantly into strangers from one another a sort of stop motion clone wars parody. It's a crowed vision. I am only thinking in terms of individuals but it would be going on everywhere all the time with everything. What a mess. Whether I got that guy's nose right in my latest drawing seems rather less important suddenly. But I digress. Five years ago, almost to the day I took this photo. I take a lot of photos of strangers. But when you are out there what difference does it make whether you think you know someone or not. This woman and her five year old son - I am guessing, seemed pretty dudey to me. I often think how strange it is that we're all living now but living such separate lives, worlds apart from other cultures tied by the flow of money, resources and the weather and yet in fact we all have the same needs. Everyone worries about the same things at different points, feels the same reactions to the same stimuli but still we can't predict each other's thoughts or actions. Care about the next man. Any of the paths at any point lead to a different you, a different world. I am not convinced Mr Everett. A lot of what this suggests is chaos, causality is weak, choices become meaningless. I wonder if its based on a very narrow, linear interpretation of time, the neat progression of one thing to the next, eliminating the opposite charge, the reverse spin, the occurrence or disappearance of one packet of information orr another, on a myriad paths; What about nature and the tightly logical and organised patterns we see everywhere around us, day after day it all works, keeps working with or without our acknowledgement, acceptance or awareness. Where are the parameters that keep it all so regular and beautiful in this world he imagines? Why aren't there four armed monsters driving buses with pigeon eyes and toadstools for feet? Yes, also I painted this, a while back now probably October. I was literally painting without thoughts in order to do something expressive and apart from drawing which can get quite intense and confining. I always painted and always painted for myself. Drawing is different, its informative and specific, it's more delicate and disciplined (usually) and so painting is more freeing, I don't stop myself, I just do what I feel. I had no opinion about the painting except that it was fun to do. It was physically and mentally just fun, but I actually like it now, for that reason, a snapshot on a sunny afternoon or two. But what is most amusing to me is that of the few visitors I have had to my studio of late all have asked about this painting and so I am posting it here for you too.
Seeing as I am working on another project that I can't share regularly I am just going to post a few random things I have done over the past few months. Starting with this request for a feline portrait. Lotty she's called. You would believe the number of people who asked which way up its supposed to be. Yes. About three.
I drew a little sketch for the team over at AH a while back, but hadn't yet at that stage battled a 15 page story and my graphics pad skills were still a little (more) nascent (than they are now). I think I have improved a little since then but see for yourselves. Here is the original sketch. If you haven't already you should read the AH story from the beginning, it is as its namesake suggests completely and rather awesome. www.AwesomeHospital.com
This is online friend and rap artist Euge *also known as Adam WarRock when on the mic. Euge posted a picture 'back in the booth' on Saturday and it struck me as a great photo, his mind full of ideas, energy and anticipation for the night ahead. So I just went and sketched it, messed around with some colours. He was recording tracks for his upcoming Album "High Fidelity" (see the teaser trailer here Papercutters & Dangling Headphones) - I can't wait! Euge has a skill for making music, often on the spot and he is as prolific as he is talented (so check out his website). He is also someone who inspired me to follow my dreams so this is a head nod to him. If you would like me to draw yours or a picture of someone else just let me know. I could make a similar digital image for a token contribution *like 5-10$ (or whatever you think) I am just starting out after all. Send me an email if that sounds like a plan. These are my notes from the launch pad, my current road map. This is what I am trying to synthesise into my practice with the faith that it will improve. Through hard work and observing (if not staying within) boundaries designed to channel the sometimes crazy artistic drive that I have within, I should learn and I will. I am gaining a new perspective. I remember what art meant to me back when I was purely absorbing it, making it because I had to, to learn, to escape or just to be with my favourite characters, now it is evolving for me into something else; And that is not only what I wanted, but what my art needed.
I have been busy this last week. Not in the busy in my head with deadlines and written projects, but busy in the heavy lifting constant movement kind of way. A busy I almost forgot and which is keeping me in shape! So because of all the 3D action away from my drawing pad, I haven't drawn anything. I am preparing my space and it is coming on very nicely thank you. I feel so very lucky but I did start work on this room over ten years ago, and a new burst of life has completed its journey from barn to room. To keep any of you that might check in now and again interested, and to reward you for your effort, I am posting some doodles from around the time this studio was first set up... they date back to my time in Namibia, Malawi and Zaire. I hope to get going soon but you can't hurry these things. All in good time. All in good time. Click to enlarge...
Preparation for this exhibition has over the last week or two taken over my life. Framing and printing, pricing and hanging, deciding how much wine to buy! Man-o-man I hope people turn up.
|
The ARTIST
etc |