Small pieces on the easels
Smaller pieces on the easel
Some work in progress
Psycho Too
A continuation of my Psycho meets Disney theme (the illusion of the American Dream) sees a more painterly base layer image of Marion Crane (as opposed to the screen print-style of Psychobabble) as its starting point. A lot of work to get her up to speed before I manipulate, add to the surface and continue building the layers. Who know where it goes, but in my mind that’s always a good thing.
A slightly more traditional portrait of my sister’s erstwhile dog, Angus. A beautiful, muckle beast, Again, work to do but I want to keep the mark-making broad and retain some of the base layer.
Just starting to conduct a little visual research on the anatomy of a horse. It’s important I understand fully the musculoskeletal system before I embark on a very large piece (2.5m +) in the Spring and Summer. I’m hoping to get to the local Kempton Park to photograph racehorses in the next couple of months. I’m excited by the thought of crafting the beauty and strength of the animal along with my mark-making approach.
Work in Progress
Some other work on the spin.
A few of pieces of ‘work in progress’ to show you that are presently on easels in my studio space. Whilst I’m still working on the larger portraits from the ‘Carte Vista’ theme, these can be found here.
In ‘Psychobabble’ above, I’m now upping the scale of my smaller ‘Psycho’ pieces I did a couple of years ago into 2 metres (plus) canvases. They’ll explore filmic narratives mixed in with cultural iconography and ideas around framing and suspended animation and the notion of life as one, big conveyor belt (see some of my earlier Cambodia work in Painting).
Above is a small oil study of my Goddaughter, Arwen. It’s had one ‘pass’ so it needs a lot of work. I’m attempting to play around with a different, less restricted colour palette in anticipation of upcoming commissions. So it acts as a good test piece.
This charcoal drawing, Dog Day Afternoon, has been hanging around for ages. I haven’t even ‘fixed’ it yet! But it’s now up on an easel (again) and I’m determined to finish it!
(Not-so) Hot off the press
A Letter-press session in Brighton.
What seems like a lifetime ago, 2018, I did a short 5-hour letterpress course with Mister Magpie in his wonderful shop in the North Laine in Brighton.
The aim was to retrospectively illustrate a wedding poem I’d written for a couple of friends in 2013 (see below), ‘The Wondrous Tale of the Cat and the Fox’. And if you’ve ever done letterpress before, you’ll know that it involves a lot of prep, is highly technical and one mistake is a big mistake!
And, of course, I made not one, but two mistakes - misspelling Wondrous. Twice! And whilst one can get away with the more archaic spelling - Wonderous with an E - you most certainly can’t get away with Wonderdous! A lesson to learn - make sure you know exactly what you’re laying out before you ink things up! Because there’s no turning back!
One thing the session did was reinforce my admiration for the printer's skills in the ‘hot metal’ days when entire newspapers were set (backwards) in lightning-quick time. Insane when you think about it.
It also made me smile when Mr Magpie helped me set the ‘leading’ and ‘padding’ with bits of metal and Allen keys. I’m old (and fortunate) enough to remember Pica scales and letter pressing from my early college days but it’s a reminder of the provenance of the words and techniques we take for granted on our computers today and the skill and graft it required back then. My hat is well and truly doffed.
