Day One-Ninety-Something...7?...8?

Study: Tangerines with Clementine
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel

No excuses here - just some good old jubilation at having reached the top of my climb back into the light. This is not really the format or avenue for dissecting behind-the-scenes issues, but let it be sufficient to say that some matters of circumspect self-efficacy have been duly ruminated. Sometimes the passages leading out are both steep and slick, but they are part of my adventure for better or worse and they've taken me, yet again, at long last to the end of another study (and long sentence). I'm expecting any day now to be contacted by ArtNews to discuss just what goes through my mind in the days, nights and weeks that pass between swathes of paint being laid down towards the finishing of an alla prima study. I jest. But I do feel like my process (as it relates to my subject matter) and I need to have a serious come-clean about what sort of naughty preoccupations I've been having on the side centered around the human form. Between impending childbirth, parenthood and the figurative life drawing study - as much as I've tried to let it be - these have all collided to severely disrupt my enthusiastic still life arrangements of Nature's more plump and colourful, as was my creative wont. I'll have some time to work through this between now and when the figure sessions resume in a few weeks. As for this study, I haven't been more pleased to get to the better side of a shakey patch in some time. This image will likely need updating as the usual camera settings seem again outdone by the yellows, oranges and blues within the same format. In spite of much of the above, this study remains but one more segment in the forward push towards general progress. [N.B. And we are still on and excited for our big appointment with Universal Wonder in April.]

Day 196

Study: Tangerines with Clementine
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel
(Beginning sketch)

Thanksgiving Day in the USA. I haven't properly participated in this holiday in like 17 years and it usually pops into my agitated world here completely out of nowhere. But still, it stops me repeatedly throughout the day - wondering what nuttiness is occurring from one table to the next from North Carolina, to Virginia, to Pennsylvania. I was thinking of you all - and fondly too! For my day here, the plan was an early start at the easel, after a call to the people about ordering the parts to repair and recondition our fridge. Well the parts order was confirmed at very nearly first light, but this beginning sketch of an arrangement of citrus delights was wrapped up well after last light(!) Setting it up took way more time than usual despite a fine selection of all sorts and sizes from the trusty window box outside - at least 1-2 degrees frostier than the purpose-built item awaiting drastic repair downstairs. Seems a good deal of time is still getting away from me due to preoccupation with figure study. Some spent actually doing it. But the larger bit on researching where else I can get a session or 2 in to compliment the once-per-week dose at present that's yielding regression and digression more than progression. And as long as it's within cycling (in the rain) distance, costs less than a session in the pub, and keeps distracting crackling low-fidelity Bangles and Elton John's tracks to a minimum - then we're getting somewhere. As we race into The Season, most such life-drawing opportunities will be nudged to the rear burners. But I'm trying to make ready for January...Anyway. Today's study reminded me of Days 10-14 in January, when I was hacking and stabbing away at similar subjects with one insufficient mixture of pink, red and yellow after another, only to discover it was a chemical thang. I then got myself some Cadmium Yellow Deep and my agitated world began to revolve again. Here's hoping for a comparable breakthrough all these months later on this study here. Not asking for the world. Just some dizzyingly engaging progress. (Admittedly, some regular easel time would probably carry me a little too.)

Day 195

Study: Pear with Pommegranate
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel

Another couple of days, another year older. If not for the fridge, this week-long alla prima study would not have been possible. Even with the fridge the wobbly flesh within the pear could only barely support it slumped over the petrifying pommegranate. But it's finished now and we're moving on. That's the key. For as drawn out an exercise as it was, some aspects of this study can be considered strengths and steps in a positive direction. The idea of taking steps with direction are two long lost notions from my agitated reality for some weeks now - months even. It was nice to learn to lay paint down thickly again, but to do so without any kind of rendering formula or colour plan. And there were other delights like actually leaving untouched gessoed linen and tinted ground throughout. To think I might well have even underworked some aspects of a study this soon after a lapse. Preposterous really. But it felt like it tonight - tomorrow could bring a different sense. Wanted to thank everyone for the sweet birthday wishes from around the hemisphere both on here and by email. So nice. And to those who let it slide despite my subtle reminder within this very blogspace - and you know who you are brothers and sisters - no offense taken too deeply. The day was spent with my rapidly transforming beloved - with breakfast and gifts followed by a very long walk on a brisk sunny day to - and all through - Holland Park and back. Had a few stop-offs. One at the Anglesea Arms for oysters and ale (for 1) by fireside, and the other at our butchers for a couple of whopping sections of chateaubriand we had later by a blazing fireside here at home. So retiring have we become - those of us on gestation patrol - and so soon. But still. I think I'm going to ease right into it like the plush papa bear house robe I was given with my other prezzies.

Day 194

Study: Pear with Pommegranate
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel
(Beginning and nearly finished)

The days are filled with questions, speculations, evaluations and potential permutations. Is it going to go this way or that? Shall I pursue the figurative from the drawing sessions in paint - or take advantage of the clear mornings outside? Will it ever come back to me even in the simpler indoor still life studies? I visited an aging artist last week who can't lift himself out of the funk of depression. He couldn't quite put his finger on why he felt so numb about his world. And in the past, only medication could change things - and not necessarily for the better. We looked at paintings for over 4 hours and I could only bring him to a point beyond indifference about them towards the final hour of the visit. His grand apartment was like a museum to another time with hundreds of paintings everywhere - up on the wall and stacked deep and tall along every wall from the front door to the back. He showed me his sketchbooks and his 3 paint (mixing) mills - and reminded me how he taught the namesake of my particular brand of paint how to make the stuff a number of years ago. He still makes his own and beautifully inscribes every label of every tube, although he could tell the colour by sniffing it. When I rang him a couple of days later to check in and to tell him how much I enjoyed the afternoon, he said he was feeling much better and thought the interaction did him good. It did me some good too. I've forgotten completely where I was before the lens of my focus became so muddied with questions about the future. But questions are all I have when the agitation is careening joyfully tortuously along as it should. So the questions are here for now. Now what about Day 195? I think because it will be my birthday - I might give myself the present of slaying this mushy coupling of fruit on my stand so I can get on with the fiery red Amaryllis our guests brought the other day for lunch - if they last. And a thanks goes out to dear Jazmin Velasco for the nudge about the blank post earlier.

Day Whatever

Study: Pear with Pommegranate
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel
(Oil Sketch)

Well. Here we are after an aeon. Sparing my patient readership the post-prandial blathering, there will be more - later. Believe it or not...[Later] It is quite a bit later, but here just the same. Don't quite know what the problem has been lately, only that it seems I've been in something of a state of quasi-shock now off and on for a couple of months. Trouble sleeping. Hyper-self-scrutiny. All the evil stuff that makes for madness. And heartily hitting the hooch, given the slightest opportunity, and then the international phone lines - as my poor unprepared stateside siblings will attest.

Day 192

Study: Chocolate Roulade with Strawberry
57.5 x 35.5 cm | Oil on Linen over Panel

And as if by mischief, I've managed to disappear for another whole week. Last weekend ended up being way way fuller than I was ever imagining it to be and it carried over into this week completely unexpectedly, in more ways than I care to elaborate on here. The drawing day on Saturday went down sort of as planned, in that there was a long day of drawing (samples here) - but generally it was slightly on the crowded and overfacilitated side. I'm a big fan of structure to a point, but the day seemed to take on an air of a life-drawing survey or overview and wasn't really billed as such. No real harm done though, still. Then - for my sins - on Sunday, I attended the first ever regulation NFL game to be played outside the US (and count) at the brand new Wembley Stadium. My cohorts, mostly nutters from the music industry, seemed to treat the whole shebang as something of an hedonistic all-day rock concert. And sadly they had far too heavy an influence on my comparatively reserved approach to spectator participation. It most certainly did feel as if I was party to a reality that would very soon become a swiftly waning aspect of my...uh.... foreseeable... reality. What with our life-changing blessing that is ever-growing, ever-closer, to rearing a head or limb with each passing day. And this is probably a good thing too. Anyway. Had to call this Roulade study a study. The only further touches made were necessary after (again) some unidentified last-minute house guest's fingers ploughed trails across its apparently irresistable tactile terrain, as it lay peacefully for days in the basement of the fridge. Done now. Since then, there's been precious little easel time as I tinker away through busy-work preparing for that next push that just absolutely has to be about to happen(!) There's simply no other way to put it other than to say that focus is a slight problem at the moment. Unsettled times. Earlier this week, as I gacked my way through a day, I recalled a hackneyed little trinket of an entrepreneurial expression from another life about lead dogs and changing views. Yawn. Well. Not to revel in my present stagnation, I must declare that the vantage point of an agitated dog chasing his tail can be pretty darn dynamic too. On other news, the scaffolders arrived this evening after dark - and after promising for 3 weeks now - to dismantle the scaffolding from out front by streetlight. What else? Oh, I recently politely declined to donate one of my studies to a small local charity auction. Such are the salient peaks in my agitated Autumnal world as it stands. This will - this must - get better.

Day 191

Study: Chocolate Roulade
with Strawberry
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel
(Maybe finished)

First up on the first day of the rest of my painting life is this mouth-watering North African Swiss Roll, otherwise known in the informed circles to which I have only sporadic access, as Chocolate Roulade. Splendid subject. The sole aim was to get in front of the easel, get a head wafting full of linseed oil and lay down paint for many long hours, thinking as little as possible about what was going on. All went according to plan over the 9 hour session, though, I can't quite decide whether to leave it as is so the painting spends the night on the fridge shelf and the sumptuous subject under the fishbowl (just so it thinks its under continuous scrutiny and stays fresh). As it happens, there'll be no painting on it tomorrow, when I'll be otherwise engaged in the last weekend of The Big Draw for most of the day (10am-6pm). My particular venue will be focussing on the figure. Surprise. Looking forward to some sustained study after the swift 5, 10, 15 and 25 minutes studies on Tuesday evenings. Drawing subject aside, it was very very good to be working with paint after so long. Not sure where I am with all the new direction I was so preoccupied with leading up to the hiatus, but my thinking is that I need to get on with the painting or get even busier with wasting away. No brainer, that. And that's just the ticket.

Day 190 (3 weeks on...)

Charcoal Study: Head 1
70 x 50 cm
Charcoal on Paper

So! Having received a torrent of emails expressing both hate and dismay, I needed to get something up. Besides it grew ever-tedious explaining the hiatus. One little broken rain gutter cascaded into a minor residential refurb and re-order and thousands of dollars worth of damage control and reparations. Since we needed scaffolding for the gutter and cornicing repairs - it made sense to do just about everything else we could imagine to the outside front of the house that might benefit from scaffolding. Bit it didn't stop there. Once the tools came out of the storage cupboards taking over the living space, they couldn't really go back until as much as possible was checked-off of a long and growing list. I'm now at long last to point where I can resume my studio work saving the small miscellaneous tasks for weekends and non-painting down time. Through it all, I have managed to remain committed to the Tuesday evening figure drawing sessions and these are refreshing on many levels. There is a long 8-hour session this weekend that I'm hoping to attend. Obviously, all this cheating on my studio still life studies is raising internal alarms about the immediate direction of the work as I creep back up on it. Of course, I'm ignoring these alarms and saying yes to it all. Will there be some figurative painting here in the not-too-distant future? Likely. Does this mean the still life studies and potential outdoor work are fancies of the past? Well, since my window-box and refridgerator are populated with subjects dying to take the stand - I don't think so. On other fronts, saw a surprisingly interesting retrospective of John Everett Millais last weekend. When I say surprising I mean there was far more to the man than the Pre-Raphaelite movement he co-founded. His body of work filled room after room in the Tate Britain. Rarely one to be enamoured with so-called detail and fussy tiny brush work, I couldn't help but be inspired by the veritable lifetime of work on display - especially later on when he loosened and untucked his cravatte a bit. It bears mentioning that, to date, he remains the youngest ever student to be admitted to the Royal Academy - at the tender age of 11. And judging by the prodigious drawings he did at 9 or 10, it could have been even earlier. I read somewhere that "no amount of paint can ever make a bad drawing - or bad idea for that matter - a good one." Ain't it the truth. I started back today by taking a good long squinting grimacing look at myself in the mirror and threw charcoal and chalk around until blue-black dusty stalagtites dropped from my ample nostrils. Looking forward to 2nd gear tomorrow.

Day 189

Figure Study 1.0
70 x 50 cm
Charcoal Paper
(20-minute and under poses)

It seems it's been a month of Sundays since I last posted. I've been having one of those times where given more than about 1-and-a-half things to do all becomes a spiralling cyclone of agitation. Last week was rather more challenging than I was expecting with loads more time required of the framing and show preparations than anticipated - as usual. The show itself was a success for me on most levels despite the lack of sales of the displayed work. I did however trade cheque for painting in the backroom by prior arrangement, finding a grand new home for the large Pomegranate from Day 54 in March. Other exciting stuff of the last week included a last-ditch chance to see the Impressionists By-the-Sea show at the Royal Academy. This was a dazzling collection of all the usual suspects (Monet, Boudin, Courbet, Corot) along with a few surprises in the way of Whistler, Jongkind and Pelouse. Courbet's palette, particularly the cerulean, was simply charged with a vibrance I wasn't expecting for his period and the loose but fine brushwork of Boudin was as mind-boggling as ever, if lost a little whenever things were scaled up. Maybe this was due to the leisure of finishing indoors. Not sure. Apart from the the show I participated in and this one I enjoyed viewing, I've begun attending some drawing sessions to re-discover and re-nourish long neglected skills in understanding the figure. I'm hoping to translate these efforts into a figurative direction later in the winter but needed to get into the drawing now to better prepare me for all of that to come in a few months - See (1, 2, 3) The sessions are serious but relaxed - and still a little pacey - with professional models, artists and beginners all toiling away to a soft eclectic playlist of music. I shouldn't think I'll be populating Agitated Realism with many more of these accounts (may begin another figure-specific blog or section of my website) but wanted to show something of my time in the past umpteen days. Forgive us...Oh... And one other slightly MAJOR preoccupation that I've been hiding from my intimate readership over the last couple of months is the tiny matter of my beloved and I being wholly and utterly blessed with the gift of unplanned mid-life pregnancy(!!!) Yes. And as with any mid-life pregnancy it comes with many screening tests, scans and other nerve-wracking precautions. But by this time next week we'll know a whole lot more about just how delightfully wacky our already-nutty world will get come April 3rd. So. There it is. I've gone and typed it. Palette knives crossed, there'll be much more to follow on this. Also more painting is on the near-distant horizon to go along with the crash-course to end all crash-courses on multi-tasking and sleeplessness. My, my, my!

Day 188

No painting. Framing, framing, framing. That and clearing up the house after the plasterer finished. Now there's an artist. So compelling to watch a master of his trade at task. I also learned many things about craft, keeping tidy while you work and efficiency. No matter how many miles he paced up on his strap-on stilts skimming the ceiling to a shiny pink luster, it never looked overdone. Hope some of this rubbed off on me. But the best was watching him lay down that first thick layer. Incidentally, he seemed to be equally fascinated by the trowelled peaks in the surface of many of my studies. A kindred spirit perhaps. More of the same framing and clearing tomorrow. Could have maybe managed an hour on something today but was just too knackered to force it.

Day 187

Study: Grapes with Orange
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel

Decided to give this study another long session of my time today. And though I am posting it in finished format, like the last couple of these linen-over-panel pursuits, it may find itself back on the easel after some time out of sight. Something in the surface seems to yearn for it. Perhaps I can bother my good colleague Tad about that oil and sandpaper thing he mentions from time to time. Sounds nitty and gritty. I have to remember patience, and that I'm not trying to learn how to render what's in front of me, but rather trying to learn balanced a way to work. And it's a long long trip, and at the end of the line there will hopefully have been some painting going on. I can definitely see many more serial attempts at this subject - with the objective of doing it all in one go while the grapes are firm. This is not unthinkable considering this has about 8 hours in it over 5-6 days of on and off attention between distractions. We had a plasterer in today making our water-damaged walls as smooth as a puppy's paw pad - which will make for a quietening of the subconscious. A lessening of agitated line in our midst. I've got about 8 frames to knock-up over the coming days, some for sold paintings and some for this weekend's show, so easel time will be limited. Wonder what will end up on the stand?

Day 186

Study: Grapes with Orange
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel
(Beginning oil sketch)

After a long week of many none-painting tasks like finally resolving my new website, designing promotional cards for print, organizing framing to be assembled this week and a handful of other things - I finally got a moment with the grapes and orange. I'm not sure how much further I took this in this last session tonking and scraping away as much as I put down. I'm a little frustrated that I can't seem to get a sustained amount of time in order to put it to bed before the grapes lose the magic - making it all that much more tired - and feeling it needs a new start again. I'll make this call tomorrow. There is alot on my plate this week so I hate to scrap and re-start it - with only realistically 2 days max (maybe another half) at the easel. My so-called new approach seems to have become a stab in the dark beginning with each time back after a mini-lapse. And this ain't gonna work. On a brighter note, another painting is going to be heading across the pond and across the wilderness to its new home in Canada. Must rest now.

Day 184

Study: Grapes with Orange
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel
(Beginning oil sketch)

Still trying to get myself and this study back into the groove with a new bunch of grapes...[Later] Well after a late dinner I came back to this with the intention of spending another hour or two at the most and then getting some much needed sleep. But time got a way again and here I sit typing at 4am. It would have been enough just to get in front of the easel today after too many days distracted by all the other activities non-painting about this painting lark. Much of that is about wrapped up, but the scaffolding is still literally hanging over me for the work on the front of the house. Anyway. The new bunch of grapes I bought today are better within the space than the last and work better, it seems. Just trying to get a grip on the complexity of it for now while testing some colours next to one another. With this oversized viewpoint there are many layers of volume to deal with. The containing space, the middle space, and the space around the each part of the bigger mass. Combine this with directional light, reflected light and transluscent light - and my rusty hands and eye - and I'll likely be right back here at this hour tomorrow. Too dozey to continue.

Day 183

STILL sidetracked, but end is in site as of 2.40am Wednesday. Will I ever paint this week?

Day 182

Still not back to my easel. But had a long day of tortuous non-painting activity to support my painting. The orange and grapes are sitting tight and withering slowly while I flail about up to my ears in website construction. Woe is me. Painting tomorrow come what may. I couldn't possibly handle another day like this especially - with rain.

Day 181

Study: Grapes with Orange
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel
(Beginning oil sketch)

Well the front of the house is now scaffolded again for the second time in 3 years. Kind of depressing but the repairs I need to do are vital to the fabric of the house, not to mention a way to avoid much more cost in water damage in a chronically maritime climate. While the boys were throwing it up I continued to resolve the remaining issues with the design of my offical website and navigation. Hoping to have this live by the Tile Kiln Studios show. We'll see. Also was able to get up and down the road to pick up some fruit for study. Have been gravitating towards grapes of all kinds now for a while so finally decided to embrace the complexity and see if I can get it work for me in my new explorations. Was only able to get a start on it before going to friends for a lovely dinner and playtime with the precious Isabella. Got straight back into it when I walked through the door without changing - taking a rare chance in white jeans - which seemed to keep everything noticeably restrained. I'm going to enjoy the challenge of the here one minute gone the next light that shines through the plump little edible pebbles. As least that's the official line tonight. For invariably the longer I spend gacking away, and the bunch dries, the quicker the lights will go out like old fashioned bulbs on a Christmas tree.

Day 180

Not a day for painting after all. Had an early appointment followed by breakfast in town and a trip to L. Cornelissen's for some Mars Black (at a generous 50% discount.) Severe vacillation set in upon returning home as to whether to shop for subjects or load up and hit the great outdoors. Clouds came and went and so did the time and spirit. Was able to make some more headway on the website, that's becoming increasingly more necessary as time rolls on. Still have some framing to organise and the little matter of the scaffolders arriving very early tomorrow to provide me the safe means to carry out repairs and refurishment on the front of the house - around the painting of course. A tremendous opportunity to roll-out the ol' multitasking skills in between - uh - walking and chewing gum, that is. Lordy.

Day 179

Study: Peppers with Egg
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel
(It for now)

The session was more of a race against the deflating flaccid capsaican company than one of real finishing up. The bridge is near. This study has some exciting things going for it in the direct painting arena as well as some fairly strained aspects to it with regard to its natural, more indirect, leaning. The possibilities with the silica, marble and chalk putties are not being optimised alla prima. Even in alla prima over a number of days. As a result of this and my own heavy hands, I lost some of yesterday's verve in the backmost passages but fortunately not forever. So. This will face the wall for a while to stick down and it might get more groping at a later date. Each day, or hour even, at the easel is a walk in time - a reminder of a time when time was, as a wise friend says, "not modern." I can only press on keeping my eyes open to the road signs and try not to run out of gas or find myself lost at sea-of-sand without camel or compass. Newness and juiciness tomorrow. Either a trip to the luscious organic stand or 2-wheeled easel-aslung outing to points as yet unknown.

Day 178

Study: Peppers with Egg
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel
(In progress...nearly)

Had a good full session on this today but only came closer to finishing it despite my bolder plans. There are some matters of warming the colour up in many areas and cooling it down in others to tie it all together. Also need to set the hovering egg down on the table. The surface quality and nature of strokes - if they can be so called - in this recent approach is still a ways off. Apart from the very red red of the pepper and the green green of the other one, I'm enjoying the pushing and pulling of neutrals but missing the thick paint somewhat. Still anxiously anticipating the next breakthrough in the elusive selectivity involved in how to have both. I guess there's no rushing experience. Could black be joining my palette soon? How very grown-up. Also coming to terms with the idea that things are looking increasingly like they want to go wet-on-dry - or at least wet-on-green 'n grippy. But this will involve having more - even many more - than one piece going at once. And I'm not so sure how I feel about this. I have enough difficulty deciding what to do next as it is without having to choose between a studio full of on-going studies for now. That said, I still need to make several more panels tomorrow and crank things up another full notch. Time to dig in for the autumn. (And there's also a pull to take advantage of some these fresh crisp clear days with some outdoor study. Time to dig out. In. Out. Layers. Black. Waning moon. Sheesh!)

Day 177

Study: Peppers with Egg
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel
(In progress - detail)

The weekend tasks kept me away from the painting aspect of painting but was able to get partially back to it today. The section of the image (above) that's give me the second-most amount of trouble is the area where all items meet. I've never really been big on focal point preferring light, texture or colour to play this role. But as these are receding downstage giving way to less surface, and colour scheming - it's something to consider going forward. Especially now that it's gotten my attention and I've relayed that to the blog for my regulars to scrutinize and hold me to. But the thing that's been the biggest pain is stripping in an understudy green pepper after the other lost it structural stablility and tumbled over the others nearly clearing the deck. I'll put the last to this tomorrow and move along.