30 04 2018 Monday

Only thing I've managed all weekend is to fail to take some photos and to slash a previously finished painting with white, in order that I can over paint. Thought of using nitromorse but its too violent.

Once the white is dry will monochrome the space. Might be one way of making the damn thing work.

Today will be easy or I'm going back to bed, head under pillow.

27 04 2018 Friday

Back from med tests in London. Transpires that I have 46% of lung function which accounts for general knackeredness. Effectively, Im half a human.
More tests to come and steroids loom. Plus statins for dodgy blood stuff. LaLa.

Did a watercolour in Rochester - because it was calling so loudly and I found a nice little tin of paints and a decent block of paper - it was sooooooooooooo bad that it needs shredding.I keep it to remind myself that I am seriously mortal. And while things are that bad, it shows Im not going down the tried-and-tested.

Overheard two artists taking... we were the only people walking down a side street and I couldn't help  but hear them. A senior one, floppy bereted, very well turned out accompanied by possibly his student. They bewailed the lack of sales, the impossibility of exhibiting. Then the older man said;
at least in doing it you solve the problem of whether to do it or not.

Now home with a good days worth of paperwork ahead of me, haven't set foot in the studio. Plan to do all the nasties today then go back to work. I've spent my life getting to this level of incompetence; got to be worth something.

Various sensible ideas involving exercise and singing - and a new floor that can be mopped daily to keep the dust down.

18 04 2018 Weds

It occured to me in a flash this morning that I don't have to be a painter. Was thinking that as I have to be in London for a week, Id take some materials and work there and discovered I really don't want to.There are no shows, no sales, no audience and I'm finding it all too difficult. Why not jump ship?
At least the paperwork/ housework/ rental business would get done.

16 04 2018 monday

Sat woke full of the joys after a terrible few days; painted fluently. Rode the dynamic, as my old Dad would say. Finished one pic and steadied myself for lunch.
Downhill all the way. Unavoidable interruptions (TC, mentally ill, needs help; to KC who is a saint and did the necessary; GC round with tears and trauma. Lesson, perhaps, avoid people with the surname initial C??)
There must be a way to contain and /or control upheaval.
Today totally lost from 8.30 onwards (=no life drawing)  as had to translate at docs for ill Bob, then hospital, then docs, then chemist. Got 2 hours now before brother-in-law gets in from airport and all that beckons is a bath.
Breath deep.

12 04 2018

This mornings interruptions endless, all necessary and obliging me to deal with them. So now when I get to the studio it all looks dreadful. And the light is awful, still raining but normally that makes a nice even silverlight. Not today. Maybe I'II do some studio cleaning.
Beats the bank/ letting site/filing I should also be doing.
Thinking - still - about how other  artists manage I recalled Kitaj. He had a team (including me) whose sole job was to make his painting time easy. Plus gallery staff to cart off finished work. And there were days when he would wail what a day what a day whenever anything slightly out of the usual happened - which was perforce quite often. If he didn't get an easy time, then who did, who can. Better get on with it and carry on the work internally.
Actually Sandra did rather  better by having a studio away from home and a nanny/housekeeper. She worked in shorter bursts than most though - one sitting only.

11 04 2018 Weds

Mondays drawings were unspeakably bad - really - which was my unfocused fault. I'd been thinking vaguely that I was too slapdash and should return to a technically based root for a period. Then a new boy turned up at the group and he'd been to one of my old collages, Farnham, so we got talking. Hes been studying lately in some traditional life drawing group in Clapham (somewhere in south London, can't remember) and was anxious to try out his skills with a model so is joining us.
Chacun a son...
Anyway, drawing away thinking dear god, this is boring - and I had to do all that traditional stuff when they were training me, all those many eons past.
Messy results, differing directions.


Here's a half-finished 6th Extinction. Its better than some of the others. Waiting for drying to whap on some more glazes.Got another 2 clear days, except for the accountant, the femme de menage and the wall pointer. How do other artists manage?

06 04 2018

Blown away with this auto portrait of Munch's which Filip sent over this morning... hes been working on the patterns in the bedspread. I cant get over the relation of the clockface with Munchs face...

Have to go to Limoux this morning and this afto is packed so it'll give me something to think about. Bit of an impasse with the pix Im working on - all a bit muddy. On every level.

03042018 tues

 searching to avoid the aesthetic has resulted in another aesthetic, I fear..
yesterdays drawing (all rather nice, alas -) Todays painting, so far; is this finished yet?