30 11 2016 weds

The very glamorous St Genesius of Rome; patron of musicians torture victims printers actors epileptics lawyers comics clowns converts dancers - and others

He was on stage when he was converted (by grace). Refusing to renounce, he was beheaded by Diocletion in 303.

20 11 2016 Tuesday

St Conrad of Picenza - poor chap started a fire which burnt everything. A peasant was tortured and confessed to starting the fire - was killed (I think, can't remember all the story) Conrad owned up and sold all his stuff to pay everyone off. Became a hermit. No mention made of wife who also was dispossed. He had the gift of healing, was a miracle worker (summoned cakes for his bishop ) was surrounded by birds. After death was found to be incorrupt.  Patron against hernias.

Comic book cracking on.Got to 1960 and America. Read the American diaries; marvellous!!
Bob in England for a few days.

28 11 2016 monday

Yet again I'm skipping life drawing to engage with the VSM book... its so hard. Always the sense that completion is close and then, will o' the wisp, poff. Fear I'm making a meal of it,.

Further interruptions; trying to book the Rome trip, coach website no working, have to go to bank, then can book room - its a jigsaw puzzle and each unit takes forever. That and the fact that Bob is off to UK and many things must be arranged before he goes.

23 11 2016 Weds

Quietly smug, ish. Done a few more pages though some need re-doing but more importantly I'm really getting to understand the subject - finally.
In a quandary about the saints. At least three that are waiting to be finished may well be really actually finished, but are in so different a style and method that they don't belong in the set. Leave them and call them something else? Uneasy.
Have started a triage, setting out the ones I prefer and questioning the dodgier ones. Bah. Not my metier.Need an editor.

20 11 2016 sunday

Cracking on with the comix... finding ways  to join the dots is the tricky bit, but getting there.
Not visually, BTW. Why one episodic event leads to another. It comes clearer but takes a fair old amount of research.

19 11 2016 Saturday

No work yesterday - stuff to do in house - nor Thursday, when I formally do house work and then visit Andree. Today I go out to lunch, then swimming. Evening in... not much time available on Sunday either. All rather disturbing though it does give me head-space to think things through.

One of the pleasures of the VSM book is that its finite. I'm not sure where the end is but there is one, and a project that is NOT open ended is very comforting.

Fixed on finishing the 3 or 4 saints I've started and will then pause. Will have about 30 and can write their stories, ask Jim to put them on the web site. Then worry about what to do with them, poor souls :)

16 11 2016

Day off yesterday; good thing too, ideas re-ordered.

13 11 2016

St Walpurga; bridging the gap between pagan and christian ethos. Obviously.

12 nov 2016

Finished Walpurga, photo to follow when I think of it - and more pages of the comic book done. Not flowing though, all rather uphill. Dreams!! Blimey, they are worrying. Fear my poor old psyche is tired of oppression.

12 X1 2016

Galloping on. Good clear day yesterday, stared before 8.00am - its been a while since I've been able to do that - as a result the comic book is now several pages long (-can't remember) despite delays to actually check facts. And having to watch some youtube videos on symbolic logic, which I did for 'O' level (twice - failed) to get the timbre of the drawings right.
The saints are ok, problems with Conrad but Walpurga is nearly -or possibly actually- there.

09 11 2016

Spent the day re-homing my presses since they took up too much room in the space we use as a  winter living room... took both Tristram and Bob to move them in bits, then to reassemble them. Here's the little etching press. Lots of cleaning and rearranging which was a mercy given that today the Americans elected the loosest cannon on planet to govern them; the activity took our minds of it all.
No painting as a result but another page of the comic book.Condensing info is the hardest part and gets done in my sleep. The illustration follows and I try not to think of it - I'm telling a story, not painting the Sistine Chapel.
Cleaning day tomorrow, Andree visiting day and then swimming. No way anything can get done. Except condensing info for Fridays illustrations.

Got several saints to finish too.
Cant resist adding Ounouhs contribution - most succinct.

07 nov 2016

Walpurga skipping along; Genesius is slight but rather lovely; Conrad of Piacenza already overdone, sigh.
Missed drawing to take Gracie to doc., referral to dermatologist to follow.
Have started on the dummies guide to VSM, long delayed. Two pix up; so far, so good.
Cleaned storage space to move etching press into. Thats ready for Weds. Tomorrow is a major shopping trip to Andorra. Going to be hard to work this week, evidently. But it ticks over in my head.

05 X1 2016

 St Hilarion b.291 d. 371  Companion to St Anthony of the desert, afterwards a solitary hermit. Miracle worker. My notes say he stunned crows but it could be that he shunned crowds.

The ever-popular St Arnold of Soissons (c 1040 - 1087). Soldier, hermit, abbot, bishop. Patron of BEER. Tried to escape the honour of being abbot but was chased back by a wolf.

04 11 2016

St Adela; disciple of Boniface, a Frankish princess, daughter of King Dagobert (656 - 705), who was widowed and founded a convent.
Fucked up St Hilare who was nearly there - how to stop fiddling? - primed 3 canvases. After that I'm out of materials so when whats there is done I will stock-take.

03 11 2016

So who chose the models for the nine muses?

I talked to Tim Wallace-Murphy about the Renaissance models (hes working on symbolism in Renaissance art) and he told me about the contracts between sponsor/paymaster/commissioner and the artist which are very detailed  indeed (I've since looked, on his advice) Notwithstanding, it seems the choice of model was at the artists whim.The contracts are about the artist having to do the work and not farm it out to apprentices, how many figures doing what. Though of course from time to time the sponsor is shown, kneeling by the virgin, whatever - and in many cases the artist crops up, silently judgmental.
The roof in Greenwich, of course much later, springs to mind - the Great Hall - poor James Thornhill,  messed about by monarchs dying and being crowned and dying and... and either he painting himself badly (not inconceivable) or he used the old devise of putting his left hand where his right should be, to indicate deceit.

At the Beaux Arts yesterday (Carcassonne day out) I found three saints. St Anthony, 18 century Naples, by Giovanni Riolla: Les Larmes de St Pierre by Juseppe Ribera (1591-1652) and AUTOPORTRAIT en Jean-Bapiste, by Henri Jean-Guillaume Martin (1860 - 1945) So spanning three centuries, one straight saint (didn't say which St Anthony nor were there clues in the picture), one saint in action (crying) and one saint as the artist pretending to be a saint.

They all three have loose handling and impasto, both of which I have in buckets, which pleased me - it seemed to allow for lack-of-control interventions.
afterwards I thought this may not be a characteristic of the genre but of the selection committee at the gallery... next time I'm there will see the dates they were added to the collection.

Liked all three.

02 11 2016

St Fulgenico of Otricoli (I think - lost my notes) He went to plead for Orticoli with the invaders and they drew a circle around him and said if he crossed it they would kill him. It grew hot. The rain miraculously came but not in the circle - you'd think it would be more useful the other way round?
Of to Carcassonne now in search of a clear head.

01 11 2016

 interesting view of the studio floor...

 and St Zita (redone)

St Votus,who with his brother Felix from Saragossa became hermits with John , so founding the abbey of La Pena (op sit)

Have been disproportionately knackered today, wondering if the turps is finally getting to me. Every time I sat down to look at what I'd painted, l'd fall asleep.