Day 102

Study: Mangos
56 x 35 cm | Oil on Board
(Beginning)

Finally got around to the easel this afternoon. Had to get some gardening chores out of the way before another intensive week of painting and then a trip away this coming weekend. In the interest of time, I stopped at the nearest fruit stand which made for both a brief and shocking errand. As I selected just the right watermelon for today's study - from the 1 and 1-half on display - I excitedly skipped to the tills imagining how I might slice and backlight it, only to discover I didn't have enough change on me to cover the - £5.00(!) - he was asking for it. That's right £5 - which is about $10 US, depending on your conversion factor. I said "sorry, too much, I'll take it back out and get something a little less extravagant." With obvious room to haggle the guy at the till says "boss, this one, for you I make £4.50." Shaking my head as I head out to gently replace it in the bin, I'm thinking to myself - If I had that kind of money to drizzle away on a slice of watermelon to paint doesn't he think I'd buy myself some bootlaces from his "basic needs shelf" instead of the raffia macromé that's currently dangling over my soles? I then spotted 2 tomatos for a price reflecting the jingle in my pocket. Paid for those and left, but not before noticing the shop next store had these plump petit mango's glissening away for a relative song. Done. Getting the panel up and resolving the colour set-up was strangely not very straightforward. Eventually started ragging stuff in place to set up the viscous maneuvering tomorrow. The moon is waxing full before my eyes. I surely hope I've learned something from my last mango experience, or I could end up howling at shadows by this time tomorrow night, covered in that awkward colour located somewhere between the red and green on my palette - with sticky mango pulp all over my face.

Day 100 (Yip! Yip! Yip!...)

Study: Orange II
56 x 35 cm | Oil on Board

Day 100. What a landmark. I'll write more later. The pressure of getting one done today has made me very very late for a do. More later.

Day 99

Sketch: Orange II
56 x 35 cm | Oil on Board
(Beginning)

After a long busy weekend and then a lively quasi-fruitful week (if you'll pardon the pun) this place is looking rougher than a bear's bottom. Spent the day taking stock of materials I need, then cycled across a brightening London to Cornellison's for some white and deep red. As my luck would have it they were doing a promotion, so I got 50% off the lot. Marvelous. Next stop - after one swift refreshing pint of cider to take in the passersby in the sun (and review my purchases and receipt) - was the nearby Courtauld Gallery for a quick perusal of some powerful Guercino drawings. Whoa. I normally find rooms full of prints and drawings draining - but these were all original drawings and, having the exhibit virtually to myself, I could spin in circles in the center of the room and just go to the ones that caught my eye, meaning I got glass-steamingly close to every one there. In ink, wash, charcoal, chalk (sometimes dipped in resin) - and in about every combination thereof - he just whipped and slung line all over the place with blissful fury. Also had a quick peek at Mssrs Van Gogh and Cezanne. I feel I owe it to Vincent to stop and pay homage to him there, ear bandaged, and looking possibly certain that he's not long for the lackluster spectrum of our visual world. The Cezanne I spent the most time with was one done completely with the knife. As wonderful as it was, I dare say - somehow skimming the edges of blashemy - it could have done with a bit more paint - you know? - surface. Lord knows he could afford it. Ah, he knows I jest. After racing younger and fitter fellow cyclists along the Strand, up the Mall past Buckingham Palace and through Hyde Park, I arrived back here changed and prepared a panel for next study. Once I got everything set up and the orange in place, I started gathering some tonal information. Within about an hour it was clear the sun wasn't going to stick around long enough to get my colours mixed - and a nocturnal wasn't going to illuminate the flesh - so I'll try and do it all before a barbeque tomorrow afternoon. I'm not feeling pressure because it's Day 100 or anything...

Day 98

Top:
Study: Nocturnal Papaya
56 x 35 cm | Oil on Board

Bottom:
Study: Strawberries
56 x 35 cm | Oil on Board

The good news is that I was able to take two paintings as far as I needed today. The bad news is that I never got around to updating yesterday's blog, and this one is going to have to wait until later because it's too late at night now. I worked very late, ate very late and now am exhausted. I'm in a strange predicament where it feels like the painting is getting in the way of the blogging a little bit. I'll endeavour to get the editorial side back in balance soon. Although it doesn't seem long ago that I was hoping to be in such a predicament as this. When the habit forming obsession of it all would kick in and carry me away to another level. So much to do.
[Later] That's it for Day 98.

Day 97

Study: Two Strawberries
56 x 35 cm | Oil on Board
(Nearly there)

Late one. Rest now, more later.

Day 96

Study: Orange Slice
56 x 35 cm | Oil on Board

I can't help thinking it's been pretty plain to see, but I do have the occasional day that is better than the others, and fortunately today was one of those. It's difficult to remember when the last time it was that I went straight through from the gesso to the finished article. The trip to Shepherd's Bush market today in search of subjects included a delectable stop-over at the falafel stand, which could easily become a habit. I wasn't exactly sure what I'd be bringing home but ended up with this grand orange and some other things I haven't tried before. As I was thinking of how I was going to set it up when I got back, I felt the best way to get down to it was to eat one (of 3) and as soon as I sliced the first quarter and God laid that smile of Her's on me, I was off the the races. In addition to not having a panel ready - I had to also had to explore and mix a backdrop colour. The underpainting exercise, which is usually a swift study in tone, went super swiftly. So I decided to use what I gathered from this to guide me through the painting instead of trying to re-do it again with fat pigment - which was the old approach. Separating these two phases - even if only rationally - helped me tremendously to keep it loose and move far away from rendering - and stick to the the mixing, looking and trowelling. When I couldnt see what I needed to in the subject, the answers were right on my palette. If only I could bottle the experience of such psychological silence - no voices or criticisms. That would be uh strange. I've got to do another coloured panel to put behind tomorrow's subjects and get some sleep. [I'd just like to note that any feedback I get on this blog or work is hugely appreciated - but - I had a particularly fantastic one from a piano teacher in Canada, who began a recent lesson by getting her students to view the black plum study up close and then far away, as an analogous exercise to approaching a piece of music. This kind of news could carry me through the month - so nice. Here's to Dr. Brandi and her students!]

Day 95

Study: Black Plum
56 x 35 cm | Oil on Board | Sold

Finally got back to work today - and to this black plum. Had something of a rare marathon of a social schedule since Thursday night. This coupled with some emergency life-saving in our recently-neglected garden, the painting was starting to feel a hundred miles away from me again. Fortunately, once I did get back to it today, it was like getting back together with an old friend - particularly in trying not to notice the ripening flesh drooping here and shriveling there. About halfway through the session I realized the paint was getting piled so high it was running the risk of becoming an archival casualty someday sooner rather than later without the proper cantilevering systems in place to support its projecting branches, limbs and ledges. Somewhat randomly I swapped the music programming to some nostalgically annihilating classic rock stream and found myself abandoning all semblance of craft and habit. While I desperately aspire to pratice the art of detachment where my head plugs into the amplifier of my soul, the poetry of those dinosaurs of the revolution kept reminding me of the dreams of youth. During what must have covered a near 90% sampling of my older brother's rather eclectic 1979 album collection - with no electronic wawa gizmo left un-tickled. Once realisation set in that the paint was reaching out to me like a toddler in a mudslide - I bobbed my head to the thumping of some Woostock legend or other and burnished a page from last Sunday's property section right across the entire fat, precious format of it - and tonked it away. To my excitement and glee it was like peering at it through the windshield, on the highway in a honey downpour, without the wipers on a high-enough speed. Simply marvelous. After the wonder of the technical gimmickry of it soon wore off - I was sure I'd just stepped across the threshold of change in my process. The putting on and scraping back went on and on and was a pure delight. But as soon as I found something I thought I'd better leave - so I can get on with something else - I learned a new stopping tactic. This was reaching out and plucking the patient little bleeder from the stand and chomping through to it's fleshy pitted center. Time to move on. Going forward, is going to be both exciting and tortuous, but it's been coming for some time. And without change in the process, actual art and my daily efforts aren't likely to cross paths very often. There've been some things about dragging paint around - things I've been hell-bent on doing before I die - that I haven't been doing nearly enough of for some time now. It's that old music that reminded me. If things get too hairy - I can always blame it on both guitarists named Jimmy, Rush and Legs Diamond. Might even have to go out and get me a tatoo. Perhaps a mango or black plum.

Day 94

No painting today. Sorting out some much needed gardening, non-painting painting stuff and social engagements.

Day 93

Study: Black Plum
56 x 35 cm | Oil on Board
(In progress)

Slightly exhausted I'm going to have to update this posting after some rest.[Later-Monday] Avoiding being too loud and garrish with the palette has always been a challenge of mine. Recently I've noticed this coming under control considerably and I think this is from working consistently from life. That said, I feel this palette is a little on the restricted side - not a bad thing by any means - unless it's restricted by this cool minty permanant green. So dense is this pigment that a 225ml tube of it could easily cover the interior walls, cell padding and inhabitants - of our local assylum - and to great emotionally calming effect. When I get back to this I'm going to go a little nuts and maybe introduce a mixed green of yellow and blue, of all things, to try and temper it a little. This might give me a chance to get more punch from a violet around the outside. Not that I'm finding this colour is actually there - the thing is pretty deep blue black, and dusty. But it needs some colour variation to give it shape - just to state the obvious for a line here.

Day 92

Study: Black Plum
56 x 35 cm | Oil on Board
(In progress)

Back from dinner with an eccentric Dutch/Lillipudlian couple who are just gagging for their own reality TV show. How fluid the Dutch are as they top your cava with one hand, and clear your plate of carmelized pear remnants with the other - and then with a mysterious other, nonchalantly pass you the most debilitating version of a post-prandial wiggarette this side of the English Channel. Oh the plums! I felt there was alot of potential left in the last study, so thought I'd see what could happen if I got this subject on its own - without the other to hide behind and before. As I mentioned earlier (and no doubt throughout dinner) my more direct process has been concealing opportunities along the way that I feel might be best left un-obfuscated. I've decided to try a more reflective and colourful surface to set everything up on, rather than the reliable old MDF of the last couple of months. More consideration is required to retain those expressive insights that emerge from beyond the sheep-fence of jargon providing the source of my visual vocabulary of late. I was astutely advised recently on possibly approaching the underpainting with a looser - just what could happen here - approach. Although I had earnestly intended to follow this advice, I immediately proceeded to carry out the tightest, most dense underpainting of any subect to date. This is a minor thing, though, considering the very turpy tonk this will get tomorrow to bring it on home from the cheap, droopy jaws of mere rendition. No fridge time required now - drying is okay.

Day 91

Study: Two Black Plums I
56 x 35 cm | Oil on Board

I'm trying some new photographic lighting scenarios for grabbing the images now that we're getting so much more sunlight. [Later] So I figured these were deep and splackled over enough. I'll start another tomorrow. Not to autocurse my situtuation here, but contrary to my gripe during the depths of winter - I'm going to have to consider seriously putting the portability of my study-stand into action. It's getting so bright in here in the afternoons. Blindingly so. I find myself short of a hand to hold things. This is because it gradually works it way up my side following the shoulder that rises like it's holding an invisible phone to the ear. Then up it goes like I'm 9 - and looking-in a high pop-fly in the mid-day sun. Then it's way up straight overhead, upper arm pressed to the right ear awaiting the painting to answer a question from the sunny rear of the class. All this to put the right retina in enough shade to see what the hecksdybedecksdy I'm doing. I forget it was there until the reminder came screaming down in the form of a drop of purple medium off the edge of a knife, to my oblivious right cheek from up where the pop-fly normally would have. I'm sorry if this makes my generously helpful brethren on the eastern seaboard feel bad - but hey - that's the breaks I guess. Me here in the dark, maritime London all winter, with seconds of sunlights a day - and then it gets all hyper-solar on us here real quick. Can't even see the edges of the planes on my forms for the long shadows being cast from atop the heights of the impasto ridges. Apart from this, I'm feeling the constant pull of a more indirect process struggling to come through. Often as I'm working over some passage of secondary space - or when scraping-out for the umpteenth time, I'm shown so many beautiful and accidental strata of colour - the likes of which would be impossible to directly impose into the thing - and I think do I have the courage to leave it showing? Well. it's clear from the contiguous terrain of agitated ridge reflection that I wasn't - this time. It is coming though. Perhaps on the single plum tomorrow, which I'll be attempting to build up more loosely - with air enough for birds to fly in and through. I'll see if I can't try to let a little art sneak in as well - for longer - and stay. All this painting is finding a way to suffocate parts of my creative expression. Just when the reigns seemed within reach.

Day 90

Study: Two Black Plums I
56 x 35 cm | Oil on Board
(In progress)

I'll be writing more on these love birds later after I've had some dinner. But, I will say now that this study get's dedicated to Mr. Fat Paint, himself - David Oleski - who not only lays down a deliciously superb plum amongst many other subjects, but also because some 90 days ago he was the one to urge me to take on this oil journey and to take it to the masses and the few. [Later] These dark darlings had to be left to ripen for a day while I regrouped and recovered from the pineapple experience. Moving from barky surface to butt-smoothe was just as jolly as I was hoping. As has been noted elsewhere, the utter lack of colour variation is a starker (than usual) exercise in observation, if not a little hide and seeky. With now you see it now you don't reads on the warms and cools - and all deep. I'm reasonably settled on the colour for now, athough the slight variations aren't showing up as much digitally. To avoid over-doing it on this another will be started tomorrow after I turn some of the planes of this to the light and also into the dark slightly. I'm noticing the shuffle between the square and wider formats to be useful in avoiding a formulaic approach to space, moving from both front to back and laterally. The other bonus is that these smaller ones fit nicely on a cleared bottom shelf of the refrigerator for a near suspension of the drying process - handy to find - when the study so often carries over to the next day and alot of swiftly drying blues have gone down. It also gives the butter this - I can't beleive it's not linseed oil - kind of flavour - the toxic implications of which are elusive in the handbook.

Day 89*

Study: Orange and Quince
76 x 46 cm | Acrylic on Linen | 2006

No painting today. I've been nursing a minor sports injury to my beloved, picking up new fruit, catching up on some miscellaneous errands etc and making ready to squeeze out into the next session tomorrow. The painting shown here is one of my (*not done today postings) from my acrylic days way on back in 2006. It was interesting to see the differences in attitude and approach from then to now. I would say how much I'm looking forward to seeing the work of April 2008 - but that would be going against our rules about focusing on the study of now, and what is possible to create from that, no matter how painful or confusing.

Day 88

Study: Pineapple II
76 x 76 cm | Oil on Linen


It did scream to the fore over our improbably sunny weekend, whilst toiling away at this ferocious challenge of a subject, that just because one is accustomed to the Bodhran bounce of the linen and has some salient measure of the electromagnetic spectrum doesn't amount to one's free entry to the vision-to-technique-to-inventory lounge. Far from it. But, fortunately for me, the brand of realism that comes off of my easel is a smidgen on the agitated side. When I said in a blog or 2 ago that I wasn't "scared," I wasn't being altogether straight with myself or to those gentle souls who follow the penitent offerings of this mostly daily push. Fact of it is, I was damn scared and found myself - more than once - literally trembling as I loaded my knife and took my Zoroesque swipes at this bastard of nary a plain plane pointing towards Mother light - reflected or otherwise. So, I did turn to my mantra - and did look for "the general," and did move from the warm to the cool and then I did get down on my knees often and thanked Krishna for that merciful negative space whenever it revealed itself. As I continue along in the said push towards the set of 1 hundred pieces from which I'll comprise my first London show, I'll look back on this April swelt of a day, with my sweetly ballasted yucca poser, and deeply understand the bitter sweetness of lessons hard learned. In the end it came down to this artist's compromise of colour (with texture and pattern) over a complete understanding of the 8-by-13- by-21 mathematical matrix before me (and not a few other things) and opted for a bit of agitated order. I might even do another. Sue me.

Day 87

Study: Pineapple II
76 x 76 cm | Oil on Linen
(In progress - image to follow)

A beautiful Spring day in London. We're actually on quite a roll here - weatherwise, that is. It's just been so sunny and warm out. Despite this, I spent most of today grappling with the pineapple study. A considerable amount of deliberation went into the decision to scrape back the previous 2 day's juicy evilness and re-design the space. Actually, I woke up hell-bent on reclaiming more of the real estate for the edible part of the subject. After all this is what's rapidly filling the studio with the ripe smell of the tropics - or the juice bar - depending on your olfactory mindframe. And this is what the whole devilish job of it is. Besides, I needed it larger to get the tools around it. If I can be forgiven the pun, no matter how you slice it, there's an overload of information in that bit of it to get the tools around. I was really pushing to finish it but then realised I needed to eat and give my twitchy lumbar region a rest after standing for 7 hours. The big realisation of the day was that I have been, up to now, easing into a comfy little system for resolving my paintings (or not) - which I feel is not a good thing. And this challenge has provided just the necessary jolt to shake me awake from this and revisit my process to allow for subject matter that doesn't involve a contiguous surface of flesh, fuzz or skin. Another thing this barky matrix has is more Golden Section and Fibonacci sequences than a Dan Brown novel. And thank Jah for that after 2 days of staring and trying to understand. In the end, I was left with no choice but to crank up the funk and let the madness of Marcus Miller's base guide the palette knife. I laid into it again with a rather fauve triad of orange, green and violet that slides to russets and blue-greens for accents and (dis)order. Didn't use the chalk putty medium this time, but will on the next one... And there will be a next time because nobody hurts me like I do, do, do. [Image to follow as it's all currently mummified in plastic recycling bags.]

Day 86

Study: Pineapple I
76 x 76 cm | Oil on Linen
(In progress)

Too late to write but here's the state of affairs on this. It' always best to recognize sooner rather than later that this composition isn't working with me, so there's every chance this thing will get scraped and re-started or finished - and then re-cropped/stretched after it's dry. More later. Bed now. [Later] Started in on this complicated surface today to experiment with different ways of tackling the mass and volume of it while trying to retain a handle on its unique pattern and texture - and this is before really addressing the foliage. Although I was beginning to get a little excited about some of this, it occurred to me that the direction of the work recently was yielding heavy texture as a consequence of my process - and for the first time texture (and pattern) dominate how light and colour play across the form with this subject. The calypso-istic palette is exciting too, but above this and some pretty intense scrutiny and minor discovery of the modules that make up its structure - it's getting scraped back to the ground. For one, it's taking me off course, in terms of content, context and format (ie, the body of the fruit is not big enough compared to the surrounding space) and the secondly the the angles aren't settling down within this space. No. I can't abide the mere dimensions of a thing on my stand having such a command over my process in this way. Afterall I'm the one wielding the gosh-dang knife here. And I'm the one who has to try and sleep at night with the gremlins. Yes - the cackling gremlins - as they swing from pointed leaf to pointed leaf in the tropics of my skull - with their shrill Ozian taunt - "youooou can't fit it, youooou can't paint it, so you have to ren-der it! Illustrator! Luh-ooooo-ser! Luh-ooooo-ser!"

Day 85

Study : Pineapple I
76 x 76 cm | Oil on Linen
(In progress)

At the risk of repeating myself, one of the huge balancing benefits of living in one of London's biggest drug and crime enclaves is this. When one potently fragrant pineapple disappoints and dries out, I can just amble on down the Uxbridge Road a pluck another one of Costa Rica's finest out of the box and bring it on back. What to do with it once it's here is a whole different matter. I don't pick up my new boards until tomorrow, so I had to tighten the drum pitch on a 30 x 30 bit of stretched linen I had just to be able to fit in the head-dress on this flamboyant little savage. It was pretty clear to me from the first swash of pigment that this is going to be - uh - tricky. But I ain't scared. Come this time 3 weeks from now and this will all be well behind me. I'm awaiting delivery of a few supplies, including a new palette knife. This I'm counting on to help me carve my way around the this voodoo grenade before the real trouble starts. The likelihood of that arriving before the trowelling starts is not very. But for now, I'm going to go and lay my head down and (quietly) repeat my bite-off-more than-I-can-chew mantra to myself - 'general to specific - big to small - warm to cool, general to specific...' and see how it all goes tomorrow. Yikes.

Day 84

Study: Comice Pear I | 35 x 35 cm
Oil on board

Well it hasn't taken as long as it normally does after a break to step back up to it but it took long enough. I can't explain why this is but there is an overriding sense of 'now - where was I?' Then the more I try to remember - the less I can, and then start filtering for blocks which are boundlessly available by the skullful. Eventually, after trimming, feeding and preening about every single living thing in the garden this morning, I stumbled into the studio and began to set up. But, of course, the pineapple has gone the way of the desert dog [D.83]. So my alternative was this un-toppleable Comice pear I brought back from Yorkshire. The one I probably should have painted there instead of playing in the plein air. I began by mixing and painting a new backdrop colour for the still life stand that would help me see the pear better after a long break. The third one was the one I went with. All was fine once I started observing the pear in context, mixing colour and moving it around. It occurred to me about 6 hours into this that the reason I can never remember (while I'm away from it) where I was with my work is because when it's happening like it should - which is rare - it's about being nowhere. Breadcrumbs are no help. I won't be doing anything more to this painting. I sense a change or shift in my process coming on. Tomorrow it's off to the market to see what plump ripeness I can find to take me to a really agitated nowhere.

Day 83*

Study: Bananas I
56 x 35 cm | Oil on Board | Sold

Upon my return from the North, I was really very anxious about getting back to this painting to work out a few things I wasn't thrilled about in the mad rush before we left on Friday. I was anxious and apprehensive, because I'd spent considerable time encapsulating it in such a way that I thought would most closely simulate cramming the whole kitandcaboodle back into the tube whence it came - with board. After eventually finding the perfectly shaped box lid - deep enough to form a shelter over the wet paint - slid these carefully together into a plastic bag. Before sealing it with high grade duct tape I even placed damp towel in on top of the box lid for good measure. I drew the blinds in the coolest bathroom in the house, closed the door and left it stashed there like a fine bag of green bud for a some beatnik of the future to discover on some rainy day in a not too distant millenium. Now, to cut a story that's rapidly gathering column inches here short, when I returned 4 days later and did absolutely everything I could think of doing to avoid unwrapping my vapor capsule - I did. And it was just a little drier than the dry on a dying desert dog's nose. But it's not as bad as I remember. I'm also lucky the panel didn't grow some fine green culture. There's always another. And next time it's getting a dedicated shelf in the fridge.

Day 82

Oil Sketch: Seascape I
35 x 35 cm | Oil on Board
(Updated)

Updated Image from Yorkshire - as it was with no further work on it.