< Studio
16.05.24
Last night out of all the painting I had available to me to paint I chose a weird little portrait.
I have finished all neighbours episodes on youtube that I want to watch. For a moment I thought about going through them again but sanity won out. I do have to keep my youtube usage in the studio to 144p as I am using my mobile data rather than wifi. I thought therefore that some late ‘90s live music would be best. I watched/listened to two Elliot Smith live concerts. Live at Reading Festival in 1998 and Fuji Rock in 2000 (which I think is one of his best live performances. It is also a beautiful backdrop for a concert). The portrait is of a friend from a photograph taken at a New Years Eve party. I thought it was interesting because of the light sources there are no skin tones. It is painted on a piece of wood I cut from the old slats of my bed.
15.05.24
I recieved linseed oil in the post which means I can continue with at least ten paintings that I was using that as the medium. I had put my previous linseed oil in a non air tight container, in which it had too much contact with air so it had begun forming a crystalised skin on top. Saying that the small amount of painting I did last night was on the tiled toilet specifically a sticker for Timothy Taylor’s Ale which for some reason has an image of Chairman Mao on it. This painting uses Walnut Oil as its medium.
14.05.24
last night I embarked on Neighbours eps from 2001. Alongside this I painted a bit. adding some stickers to the tiled wall of the toilet I am painting. Madge dying was genuinely sad.
13.05.24
Last night I went back to this old style toilet cistern painting. As the first pass/block in was completely dry I started adding some detail. I also finished all 97 Neighbours episodes available to me on Youtube from 1998. Which I am genuinely gutted about.
On Friday night I stood out the front of my parents’ cottage with them and we witnessed the Aurora Borealis. I had never seen it before and tbh it wasn’t a desire of mine at all to do so. I didn’t know it could be pink, it was truly beautiful to look towards the north star and see this huge block of colour. It gave me a numinous feeling. I wonder if it was there everyday how long it would be before people literally didn’t give a fuck about it.
09.05.24
Last night I carried on blocking in this painting. Earlier in the day driven mad by the hot weather and the fact that my hair was so long, I had to wear a beanie hat when running/being on the allotment. I took a sharp pair of scissors to my mop which was liberating. I think I know how a sheep must feel when it has been shorn, except I’m not breed for my meat or slaughtered on an industrial size scale so some cunt can have a Keema Naan. The slap that Susan gave Karl must have reverberated around the world in 1998.
08.05.24
last night, I decided to celebrate my good day by starting to block in this painting. Whilst doing this I watched Toadie tell Billy Kennedy that his dad Karl had been cheating on his mum Susan. Karl’s midlife crisis has taken six months at least to be found out. FUCK KARL KENNEDY.
07.05.24
Today I had the privilege of helping MK Gallery Associate Artist Julia Collar with a sensory tour of the Saul Leiter: An Unfinished World exhibition. The young people from St. Pauls, MK College and Slated Row schools were all lovely, enthusiastic and engaged. How could they not be with Julia giving such a tremendous tour filled with intriguing sensory props based around motifs in Leiter’s work and allowing the willing audience to fully experience Leiter’s work using all of their senses. We could smell the streets of New York, petrol, hot dogs and wet concrete; hear the sounds of a bustling metropolis; feel the cold of snow; experiment with light and use frames to crop in real time what we could see. Julia had many more sensory experiences in her trolley that we all got to discover. Do you know the five core senses? What about the others like vestibular system, proprioceptive system, interoceptive system, themoception and numinous. Numinous being the sense of awe - a sense I am always grateful to experience, however fleeting.
06.05.24
Last night I paused the Neighbours episodes from 1998. Instead I listened to the Miami Grand Prix whilst I painted. I was exploring how the light affects the background directly around it, how it creates a halo. I also added Phlato Blue into the mix. Normally with Phlato I add it and then think, shit I should not have done that. Satisfyingly that was not the case this time.
02.05.2024
The last few evenings I have gone back to a painting I really want to finish quick sharp as I want to enter it into some open calls. Definitely have an issue when it comes to the last 10 percent of a painting. I have been sorting out the wood of the lampost and the light itself. Once that is done I think at least one more pass on the leaves in the background should do it. Just went and voted in the Village Hall. Man told the two Poll clerks that he had his first pickled egg in the hall many years hence when he was a kid, hadn’t been in there since.
29.04.2024
Last night whilst the underpainting was still wet I worked a bit of colour into it. Mostly to increase contrast between shapes. Tbh this is a bit naughty, I should really be letting the underpainting dry, but I was enjoying painting and literally NOTHING MATTERS.
27.04.2024
Last night after cleaning two palettes, something that I am way too slack on. I started a new painting. I decided to use a mix of Raw Umber and Burnt Sienna as the base and then figure out shapes by wiping the paint away using a rag and my finger. Once I had done this I added a few lines to start placing the important elements of the painting. The photos below are at an angle because the light in my studio was creating quite a glare on the painting.
26.04.2024
Last night and yesterday afternoon I finished off the first pass of this painting:
Here is a detail shot of the chain:
25.04.2024
last night I finished up the tiles on this painting, not sure why so many of my paintings are light with dark straight lines atm. It feels a bit like a form of self flagellation. Once I have rendered the chain, which I plan to do this afternoon, the first pass of this painting will be done and I will set it aside to dry.
Thought I would show what I mean by a rudimentary scribe:
The paintbrush above was kindly given to me in a bag of loads of used brushes by the Mouth and Foot Painting Artist, Keith Jansz. Once I had used it up as a brush I repurposed it.
I spend a not insignificant amount of brain space on the Voyager 1 space probe. So was super happy to hear its trasmitting data again.
23.04.24
Yesterday I primed some crappy shop bought canvas boards with a final layer of high quality grey primer.
Then last night once they were dry I started a new painting. I have several ways that I begin paintings but for this one I put down a layer of oil paint (high in turps v low in walnut oil) then using a rudimentary scribe I scratched out a rough outline of the lines and basic forms.
I have to stop myself from doing too much of this. I then move on to using a paint brush to indicate shadows and erase any of the terrible lines I have put down.
The last couple of weeks I have also been dabbling with a sketch of the exterior shot used in the 1990’s and early 2000’s on Neighbours for Erinbourough Hospital. Generally only do it when im sat in Tesco Cafe and I have nothing else to do. Ignore the outline of a horse with a big cock which is just visible through the page.
18.04.24
Last night I spent a bit of time picking out the shadows of the boulders and blending the mess of green. Also flying through the 1998 episodes of Neighbours. Madge having an aneurysm is worrying times.
17.04.24
Yesterday I force liberated some snails from my alloment. I put them on a log by my studio, it only occurred to me later that I had essentially put them on a platter for birds. Hopefully They got off it quick sharp.
Been working on alot of skies recently. Hopefully getting a bit better at them. There is a subtly of both form and colour that I am really trying to get to grips with. With this in mind after a weekend in London I have been working on a painting of “The Island” in St Ives. I drew it whilst having a beer in Porthmeor Cafe last October. This is the first pass I have done on it since blocking in the colours. I am very unsure how I feel about it tbh, I go from thinking its passable to despair over my inability to control paint with green pigment in it.
11.04.24
Last night I finished the 1997 episodes of Neighbours and moved on to 1998 ones. Karl cheating on Susan at the same time Billy was cheating on Anne is peak Neighbours. I also worked on the sky of Godrevy Lighthouse painting.
10.04.24
Last night I picked up on a painting I have not touched in a couple of months. It’s of a view across St Ives Bay of Godrevy Lighthouse and Godrevy Head on a very changeable day in October 2023.
Godrevy is one of the lighthouses Virginia Woolf was inspired by when writing “To the Lighthouse”. Indeed she first visited in 1892. Have you ever tried to read “To the Lighthouse”? You are a better person than me if you finished it.
I am writing this after running round a wet and windy Willen Lake. In a coffee shop the likes of which I have never seen in Milton Keynes, Canal St. Campbell Wharf. Delicious long black and cool atmosphere.
9.04.24
last night I messed around putting some skin tone and features on these guys in the background. I know the guy’s shoes are too big, but Im leaving them as long as possible because I like them.
In the last week I have also been slowly adding some shadow to the ceiling of the painting below.
I also have at least one other person, or bot, who is on the same level as me:
29.03.24
last night I cracked on with a painting I have given very little time to. In fact blocking the colours in has taken me months, simply because I leave it for swathes of time - it is bottom of the heap of paintings I have on the go.
I didn’t quite get it finished. I spent this morning at a community cafe in the village I live in. An 85 year old man sat down and proceeded to tell his life story. His wife leaving him and moving to the US with his son. His sweetheart dying in his arms at a hospice. His next door neighbour who must get a piece of cake or she wouldn’t be making his dinner. His cancer that they will not operate on because he would die on the table. I had an Almond and Honey cake with a cafetiere of coffee. I then went to my studio and got to work finishing the blocking in.
I am most pleased with the bag and jumper hanging on the side of the shutter. Now that it’s blocked in, the painting can go to back to the bottom of the heap.
28.03.24
Last night I spent a small amount of time blending the stewards in the background and feeling out the gaps in the green fence behind them.
But to be honest I was not feeling it so moved on to the study I am working on of “The Island” from the cafe in Tate St Ives.
I was also watching more episodes of Neighbours from 1997. I cannot understand why Karl ever cheated on Susan Kennedy.
Anyway here are some detail shots of the yellow lichen on the rooftops.
Did you know lichen is an example of a symbiotic relationship?
Below is a detail shot (honestly its abstract AF) of the corner of Norway Square in St.Ives. Also visible is the entrance to several of the studio spaces in Porthmeor Studios. A place I hope to spend some time painting in at some point in my life.
27.03.24
Last night I worked on this oil painting of Fernando Alonso’s world falling apart in 2012.
Specifically the race stewards in the background. Whilst doing this I watched old Neighbours episodes from 1997. Remember when Karl had to do an emergency tracheostomy on his son after a freak accident at Lou’s Place?