29 02 2020

Here's an old painting of the Plague, which seems appropriate... not for me or home but the world in general. The pic on the easel is following the theme.
Weird times anyway. Yesterday felt tremendous, energetic and happy; and after a very short time in the studio decided I really really didn't want to  paint. Don't remember such a feeling - distaste for the process, weariness at the outcome. Perhaps because of the total lack of encouragement, internal or external.
Off now to have another go. Will finish the current work, plus the crown, then clean up. Properly.

28 02 2020

... hard at it, which means a lot of time lying on the day bed looking at the easel. I suppose its one way of painting; 10 mins slamming the stuff on, half-an hour getting over it.
Well, its raining.

25 02 2020

Done fiddling.

23 02 2020

SO pleased with this :) And a couple of other things too. Some corner turned.

22 02 2020

By the time I got round to drawing at La Franqui it was a bit windy so bashed out one seascape only. Quite like it. Great day out. Sea side terribly refreshing.

21 02 2020

 Dead hen picture finished, <sniff>

 Death and the maiden, dunno - needs something - and this needs everything.

BUT off the the coast today. Taking drawing stuff.

20 02 2020

Yesterday started badly with my pretty black hen dead, feet in the air, no apparent reason. I'd been painting a captured bird that afternoon, a distressed and screaming bird -
thence to Carcassonne, Ian to hospital, other stuff = no studio time. When I did look in was alarmed that I've taken to doing really ugly stuff. Did I ever have notions of The Line of Beauty kind of thing? Why would I inflict nastiness on a viewer?

19 02 2020

Voila, a self-portrait in the absence of any work fit to photograph. It's getting harder. Day off to take Ian to hospital today, that may help - the mad dreams are back and really not useful.

17 02 2010

- I remember now why I'm a painter. It is flowing so well... feel like a proper human, or perhaps a proper me.
Painted out most of what I've done.

14 02 2020

...continuing. Find focusing on the Duchess has brought back many memories and Im able to recall the two angels with their incense censors that flanked the alter. Resisting the temptation to add them, so far. Have done a couple of little studies which please me, will pass onto Richard since they are on board and he wants small boards for the gallery. Beginning to consider the next... love this crossover, when there is a queue of things waiting to be painted and no-one waiting on them :)

12 02 2020

Really good days painting - how often have I said that?
Death and the Maiden proceeds apace and the next two - perhaps only one - and lining up.
And sold 6 books in the last five days (in dollars).
Disturbingly happy.

11 02 2020

Last few days in Liverpool for Cecily's 100th. Whole event lovely but crowned with storm Ciara, nasty and hard to get home. Did better than some cousins who are stuck there.
Went to the Walker, the Renaissance pix are missing due to funding arriving to remake their galleries. The pix are dispersed and renovated. Bah. Nice Corbet, nice Duchess of Nemours.

 Fond of the Dutchess as she used to lie in my then parish church, St Charles Borromeo. It was built for her - the church - as a catholic exile from the french revolution and a relie of Queen Victoria;  Catholics weren't allowed churches in the UK. Exemption for the royals, of course.
In the day she lay in a side chapel and it was possible to attend mass and hide at the same time by getting in behind her. She was my friend.
How she ended up in the Walker is a mystery.

 Courbet...

and in the John Moores prizewinners section was this by Roger Hilton, Matts papa... lovely bit of stuff.No wonder Matt is so damn good.

And voila! A Kitaj I've never seen. Terrible photo, pity.

Morning spent cleaning studio and getting ready for whatever is going to happen next.

05 02 2020

Cheered up upon realising that life will never be better. The obverse of that isn't worth examining.

A single shaft of morning light yesterday...
and crappy landscapes from Sunday, what are they FOR?

 Finished - again - the vineyard thang, completed with the addition of the words, petit reynards dans les vignoble - pleased with the reference and the coherence it grants. Words, words... hmm.

03 02 2020 #2

want to set down some landscape notions in an attempt to clear my head...
 enfin, landscape, other than the behind-the-virgin stuff, began with the railways. (So Pete says and it makes sense) (Though the imaginary Dante illustrations should figure somewhere - Botticelli -)

Prosperous people took holidays and made paintings of them. Artists followed the money and made paintings for those that couldn't do their own.

Landscape became the extra window in the living room. Fashion. Then a vehicle for a type of art - cubism, fauvism, pointillism and whatever else. Courbet? Manet? Those interested in changing light -
THEN it carried a spiritual message - Vincent van G, Emily Carr, or so I suppose by the way they are interpreted. Nash? Palmer

After that I can only think of landscape as the behind-the-virgin again - resurrection in Cookham churchyard for example (not necessarily religious though) Stage sets. When do they become meaningful, what meaning can they hold? Without the meaningful foreground -
Will do some sensible research.
Feel slightly hung-over which I can't be -  but didn't sleep so tired and ratty and really not happy.

03 02 2020

- ah, missed the palindromic date yesterday :(
Out watercolouring with Pete, Crap.
Maybe its seasonal but yet again, I'm thinking of giving up. Can't do it; no one wants it; the epoch of the sole action of the solo artist is ended.

01 02 2020

This was the last drawing from Max's garden and the only one that worked. Had I seen it by accident I would have thought it mannered - for me (now) it has the authenticity of its several precursors in order to achieve these few marks.
Having a hard time working, more questions than answers crashing about. Not helped by living in the studio - Bob is ill and has my room - not a problem but not simple. What is?
Saw Mat Hilton last night and his work, non especially new, all tremendous. He is always impeccable. No time to talk properly, the place was packed, but did establish our Sheffield connection. Nice.