the moon outside SOAR

view from my window just now (about an hour ago)

Some ongoing work

I made the colourful swirly painting at the front immediately after I found out that I had got an interview for a job I really want. I was so excited! Some work to be done on all three. This is the swirly one:

A life drawing

A drawing I did last week.
I applied lots of graphite pencil to the paper and then mostly made the image using a rubber.
It's very liberating after using pencils.
It all went well apart from the hand/claw! I had to correct it as it had gone awry but at that point the model just couldn't keep her hand still. A legitimate excuse.

life drawing?

This is an image made by a friend, Chris Sanders, at a life drawing class.

I love it! I've got a long way to go to loosen myself up as much as her.

untitled (autobiographical)

I really enjoyed doing this. It is a combination of elements from my recent and less recent life.
It's a way of working that I want to develop - combining abstraction and recognizable imagery (and words in this case). There are lots of ways that this can be done and this is just one of them. Another path to take...

still in progress

work in progress

It is autobiographical. More work needs to be done.

more life drawings

A long way to go and I'm looking forward to it.

More life drawings

Some life drawings

I don't claim to be a great life drawer. When I started doing it, at 35 Chapel Walk, I had never done a life drawing before. So, I have made progress - I started in early summer and the class stopped at the end of July. It resumes in September and I'll be there every week, as before. I love it.

More to come.

Gorilla

The next of my animal paintings is from a photograph of a gorilla. It took me some time and I made a lot of changes. Towards the end, I remembered the thing about being relaxed when painting and this helped me to finish it. My first thought for a title was 'What would you like Mr Gorilla?' but I think this makes far too many assumptions and closes it down. I guess it's fun though.

It's a step in a good direction for me - along the path of learning to paint. Still a long way to go and I am really looking forward to it.

I had intended to put some life drawings in before this image but I have left them all at the studio...so that'll probably be next.

Some parts of my life

I can't remember when I began this very large autobiographical collage. It took me a long time and was very hard work. It includes things that I had been collecting for a very long time. So, there are things from Canterbury (1996-99), Oxford, Coventry and more recent things from Sheffield. It is something that I had wanted to do for a long time. I tried not to think for too long about composition - I went with my first feelings. This photograph is of when it was shown at an exhibition at 35 Chapel Walk called Ash: from dust you came, to dust you will return. It was shown in a large space above the stairs. I was very pleased with it. There are a couple of photographs of my Uncle Harry in it.

It's called 'Some parts of my life'.

Donkey

I then decided that I wanted to paint animals. This is related to my thoughts about animal-human relations. This donkey was my first attempt and I am very pleased with it. It's from a photograph and was almost effortless. I think the wash background, which I painted most of first, really set me on to the right track.
The easiest painting I've done and a lesson learned for me - that feeling relaxed when painting actually shows in the image - and it's great. But is it art?

My Uncle Harry

I then decided to paint quite a large picture of My Uncle Harry, from a photograph on the internet. He was  a tramp for over 40 years and ended up living in caves in Derbyshire. When he died, 1998 or 1999, he was living in a farmer's hut. The internet photograph is horrendous. If you want to see it search for 'Harry the Tramp'. I think my painting softens it quite a bit. I need to do a little more work on it - I have been doing some life-drawing recently and want to do things that I have learned to it. Here it currently is:

Some improvements are needed.

Having said that...

...I want to paint using recognizable imagery, I then made this Mandala. It was in response to a difficult crit, after which I didn't feel good about myself and my abilities. I wanted to make something beautiful using a simple technique. I enjoyed making it - it took ages. It's a combination of painting and collage. The pieces of collage were cut from stuff from Coventry and other things. I have just remembered that I made the circle using a vintage table of Steve Pool's. It had a loose glass top - which I didn't realize and I broke it.

I quite like it - it's a simple decorative thing with some personal resonance.

So...

I then made a decision that I wanted my paintings to have recognizable images - a mixture of this and abstraction perhaps. I don't know what I thought the self-portraits were. Anyway, I made this serious decision and this painting was my first attempt at this.

It's ridiculously amateurish - I borrowed some ways of doing things from Basquiat, in a very clumsy way. I painted over it. The significant thing for me is the decision as regards recognizable imagery.

So far

I like that all of the things I did, up to this point, look different. I haven't adopted a style. It's like I am trying lots of things out and this has carried on being the case right up to the present - as you shall see! I am learning to paint and draw and I am really enjoying it, taking my time, trying things out, using different materials (but mainly acrylic paint so far) and not thinking about anything much other than the pleasure of making work. I do have a thought about it being 'art' though - which is good! It is early days....and everything to play for.

Trees

When I did this large painting, on paper, I thought that it was the best thing I had ever done. It started as four angry black stripes and became a scene. I liked it a lot. Ric Stott came up to my studio, probably early in 2013, and I showed it to him. He seemed to like it. I still like it. Wish I had done it on a very large canvas though.

Sorry that should be five angry black stripes. If you look carefully you can see my hands holding it up.

The plinth

This is a view of an exhibition of my bric a brac in the plinth in Parson Cross library. I really enjoyed doing it - although it is very twee. It was for Christmas 2012 (or was it? I can't remember) I am now, myself, the proud curator of this plinth, currently showing the work of Hannah Roast, one of the artists that I share a studio with.

Would anyone like to show their stuff there?

Self-portrait

This was the painting that I did over my first painting. You can see the swirly lines underneath. I did it from a drawing I did in Dick's drawing class at SOAR. I think it is ok. Could do better now. I did a second, more pleasant, self-portrait to try to compensate for the ruggedness of this one, but I painted over it.

Clown

This is a drawing I did of the clown in the previous photograph. When we viewed our first house that we bought (in Oxford) I saw this clown in one of the bedrooms and told the residents that I really liked it. Very kindly they left it in the house for me - this was in 2001 (I think) so I have now had it for 13 years.

It's perhaps not the best drawing I have done - but it does capture the spirit of the clown. The horn in front of it is an artwork by a fine art student at Coventry University.

Views in the snow

I don't know which year these were taken - either 2011 or 2012. They are from my bedroom window.

The area I overlook is called Stannington. The view is beautiful all year round but something special in deep snow.

painting on paper

This was a gestural painting on paper, probably in early 2013. I think I was angry when I did it. I like something about it.

It is untitled.

Albaicin

I did this drawing of the Albaicin in Granada, Spain in the Summer of 2102 when I and perhaps some others were worried sick that Helen had cancer. Very happily it turned that she had not. It was done from our roof terrace over a number of days. It was one of the most amazing views I have ever seen. Granada is a lovely city and I will definitely go back again. It is magical.

Underwater

is the title of this painting. Again, I just painted it straight off on to a canvas painted black. Simple strokes and a simple idea. I named it Underwater afterwards - I only thought about this being the location towards the end of painting it. I quite like it.

Third painting at SOAR

I painted this in the week of the publication of the Independent Report on the Hillsborough Disaster of 1989. The report was a huge indictment of my football club, Sheffield Wednesday, South Yorkshire Police and others who had lied to pass the blame on to Liverpool fans. Shame on all who were complicit in this travesty. I was angry, confused and had a headache all week. This was the only thing I could paint. I went on to paint green all the way around the word 'grieve' but I should have left it like this. You'll Never Walk Alone. Justice for the 96.

Second painting at SOAR

I really like this one. I just painted it straight off on a canvas painted black. I like the feel of it - simple gestural strokes on a portrait shaped canvas that is divided roughly two-thirds, one-third. It feels like something that I've always wanted to do. I like the sense of freedom and pleasure in these early paintings.

It is called 'Wonderland'.

I've decided

to start a new blog which will show my paintings, drawings and other artworks. I'll go back to the first painting I did at SOAR in Parson Cross and move on from there. So, the first one would have been done in about October 2012. I loved making it and was very excited about painting on canvas for the very first time ever. It started with a big yellow brushstroke (probably more than one actually) on the left hand side of the canvas. I'd had the thought of this stroke for a few weeks before I started painting it. I still like this painting although I did paint over it a few months later. I think it became a self-portrait which I will show later. I used emulsion paint, acrylic and pastel crayons. The circle is free-hand. Here it is:

It is untitled.