31 03 2023

 ...the colours Ive used in the dancers were taken from the drawings of the tree - a pretty conceit, I thought - but now I have to face up to the tree. And now the leaves look like an inverted skyline, which I like - should I big that up and labour the metaphor?  And the sky is possibly a river... well, is it or is it both? And can fish/and or birds get a look in?

I was in the rocking chair by the window, looking at the pic and pondering these things, when a collared dove came and sat next to me in the open window.

Going to have to finish it soon. My wrists have packed up - have to wear the supports - and shoulder hurting. Another memo to self; take up drawing! Small, portable, easy drawings....

30 03 2023

 Getting there. Light terrific in the mornings, flows easily - still long way to go but less miserable about it.

29 03 2023

 Reached the laborious stage - so the ferrkitall is not far away. Will gesso new canvases and turn this to the wall.

27 03 2023

 Not just colouring-in, the thing is developing its own life... featuring death, natch.

Got dragged to shops today and managed to sneak in some canvases, 60 x 60 (x3), 50 x 50 (x3). Much prefer to work on the larger sizes but the little gallery is now unmanageable. Will decant some of the larger pieces to the downstairs spare room at no11 and worry about where to put them later... my old bedroom there has got sold work awaiting collection in it. Not that much! But want them safely out of the way.

Keep telling myself to work on paper. 

25 03 2023

And so it goes. 

Glad to be able to use the tree drawings from Cannes. 
 

24 03 2023

 Grinding on.... reached that iffy stage where I understand what's happening and it becomes colouring-in, illustration. I can leave it; I can ferk it up; I can continue and see if it goes off on its own.

21 03 2023

Its a funny thing, but when I put Divorce outside the studio to dry, the other painting that's drying there , Domestic Life, looks a lot less bad. 

It's done, for what it's worth... and since I got interested in plagues and ring a ring a roses, (apparently no genuine connection) started a painting on the subject.

Remembering those that died in the first wave of AIDS/HIV - all I knew of the London art world destroyed - then of course the covid deaths. Yet we persist, and rather cheerfully. Doesn't do to take death too seriously.

Bruno still here but leaving me to work, bless him. Bob away till Friday.
 

18 03 2023

What studio time I had yesterday was spent wrapping sold painting - cuttin g card, folding bending, strapping - today covered in bruises. Life, eh.

16 03 2023

toshed it over with some glazes before turning to wall - now inertia and tristesse inhabit me. Still, friend coming to stay the week so probaly dosnt matter.

15 03 2023

Spent studio time (not a lot of it) just looking at the divorce painting and hating it. When it began it was luninous with good sense and insight and now it just seems daft. Overpainting in parts and it just gets worse. Will turn to wall, clean up, try to forget it and whatever the hell I think Im doing.

10 03 2023

 I am soooooooo done with this, finished or not. 

08 03 2023

Like pulling a tooth - can't get the damn thing to do what I want. Nightmares freaky, this childhood stuff is v disturbing. Don't want my painting to be therapy.

 

04 03 2023

Little by little ---- 

I wanted the parent-figures to be possibly male or female (either/or/and) which is hard to maintain - the brush keeps trying to more-bouffant the hair, to lipper and earing or to stubble and muscle. Strangely embedded predisposition. 

The little ones I wanted to look as if they were enamelled, to firmly separate them out into another world. And an inhuman one, as children are. I want them more casually vicious. Ibid. 

The mark making in the two worlds is quite separate too, sweeping and loose marks for the adults, tight and tiny ones for the rest. Thinking of what might be seen from the window and why...