weds May 20th 2013

Working during the day and into the night on artificial light just means that the opportunities for fucking up are bigger.
What was quite an interesting pic - the bridge one, based on the Giovanni di Paolo Procession of St Gregory going to St Angelo, I think, had some sweet cross-references going for it, in member's of the procession being identifiable as Great Pictures of Our Time -or recognisably informed by - but since clocking that have swung into all the colours of the rainbow and lost some careful painting under layers of glazes, what the hell am I doing? It all seems sensible at the time.

Had the afternoon off yesterday as a french friend came to visit and then the evening as other friends have turned up. Have eaten; been missing that, rather stupidly. Thought the dizziness was onset of 'flu. Duh.
Dreamed about the use of black; faux charcoal.

All this whilst waiting for the other painting to dry. Glad to say Ive avoided fiddling with that one as the desperateness of the current one makes that one look good.

Tomorrow being Thursday is housekeeping and french visit; Friday Im expecting transatlantic visitors for the weekend. So today, back to the grindstone.

23/05/2013 thursday

...up and alert early so spent most of the morning scraping off the last two days work - its there really, was cross that it needed just filling in so went for the opposite and took off all the surface marks that I could. Difficult to loose those little twists and flicks of brush that made something work, but pleased with myself. Will now leave to dry (properly - using a lot of oil) and finish rapidly.
In the meantime have become enchanted with a medieval drawing of a religious order crossing a bridge. Its up for perversion; started to draw it out.

21st May tuesday 2013

Writing the date always gets to me - not just that the months are sliding down the year but the year itself; can it be true? 2013??? Impossible, thats science fiction.
But I digress.
No drawing yesterday, it was a feastday in France so the mayor thinks the hall should be closed.
The picture Ive been working on for an age suddenly developed its identity. Happy day! Today, it has got smeared and lost. :(

Its in there somewhere. Too chalky. Kat gave me a new palette so can physically brighten it. Needs to dry really and Im loath to stop fiddling.

Its the picture I started of Thetis taking the armour to Achilles, copied from a very bad photo of a print from 1890's.Whats that all about then...  lovely structure, if self-conciously so, subject fairly pointless and rapidly turning into La Bricollette which was at least amusing. In a fit of insight I scrubbed Thetis and whilst wrestling with the notions of subject/topic/audience made a face in the clouds and the see - the watched, the Jove, the unknown observer. Delighted me, for a while. Now, as Ive said, chalky, overworked, not good.

Back to it.

may 15th weds 2013

-and so it goes. Just sorting out and finishing loose ends, hoovering cobwebs, metaphysically and physically. This things finished, anyway. Weird reproduction.

Sunday 12th May 2013

Back from Tuscany - seen a deal of renaissance art. Possibly too much:) Still digesting. Did one poxy watercolour and made some hasty notes.
Yesterday did a partial tour of the Artistes a Suivre, a series of local exhibitions that this year seemed to have excluded anyone local. People flown in from all over the countryside. The prevailing view was of 'modern' french taste - designs for decorators, nice house stuff. Bon gout, bongu bongu as we ended up calling it all. There were exceptions - one fabulously good non-figurative painter who could really paint, Yves Marcerou, and a young woman fetish maker, Corinne Becot. There may have been others but these were all I saw. Dispiriting.
Drawing tomorrow. Looking forward to 2 hours of solitude-in-group. What Ive left out en process in the studio doesn't bear thinking about.