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October 26, 2004
tummy bug
Not much to report except that I have been down with a nasty tummy bug over the past few days which has laid me very low and hence have done not much work. I actually could not walk as the bug had made my back so weak I could hardly stand up. Well, today I seem a little better.
Today, I finally bought some new materials (white paint, primers, brushes etc), so now I can commence my garden painting. Although I have to do some preparation work for another job interview, this time at Oxford Brookes University to teach part time on their foundation. But, they want me to send them my plan for delivering the fine art component. So it is a day at the computer for me.
I am also pretty devastated about the news that DJ and broadcaster John Peel has died. He was such a part of my life and for many others of my generation who grew up listening to punk and beyond in the late 70s. And he was still as relevent today as ever, at 65. Thank you John for all you gave to the world of music radio.
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October 18, 2004
Hastings Bonfire Society Weekend
Big man and the bonfire parade
Just when I thought that maybe I was becoming a bit disenchanted with Hastings, along comes the amazing Hastings Bonfire Night. I went to this last year, before I had moved to Hastings and it was the first glimpse for me of what an extraordinary place Hastings is. This bonfire night is no ordinary bonfire night. It is an extraordinary pagan ritual, where the WHOLE town, are either out watching, or dressed up for sinister parade with costumes and fire, which ends up at the most enormous bonfire on the beach.
I went out with Claire, David, Mae and Harper about 8 on Saturday night. The town was already in the throngs of parades and people. I took my sketchbook as I just wanted to scribble as much of what I saw down as possible, even though it was dark, cold and busy. I got enough down to help me create a drawing on Sunday which you can see above. I quite like it, and it actually was inspired by two earlier drawings I had done on Saturday. I had taken a break from the yellow garden painting (a forced one as I have no more white paint - and i’m skint - donations of white oi paint gratefully received) so I decided to make a couple of more involved drawings using conte and pencils. I had been avoiding soing any finished drawings for some reason. So I took a couple of ideas from my sketchbook and produced these two:
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It was nice to make these drawings as I find I can do things in these sorts of works that so far I can’t get away with in my paintings, which tend to be more social real or expressive.
Incidently, we were also out with a couple of actors and their partners from Channel 4’s No Angels. David has been directing this in Leeds for the past 16 weeks or so and only returns at the weekends. The actors were Derek Ridell (you may know fron The Book Group and Francis Magee. Francis lives in Hastings as it turned out and Derek was down with his partner checking out whether Hastings would be a good place to move to. I think he was impressed. And what with Jake and Dinos Chapman moving back, and Hastings being listed as the fasted growing middle class area, the place is fast becoming the new ‘East End of London’. Maybe my studio wont be £5 per week for too much longer.
And on now at Hastings museum and art gallery is a Gary Hume curated show called Painting is Dead, Long Live Painting. WHich I have not seen yet but will tomorrow…
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October 13, 2004
The Yellow Garden and Joe Fan
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| watercolour study | 8th October | 13th October |
I have just recovered from my first dose of a bad cold this autumn, as the weather has taken a real tumble. But, today I am back on feet and back in the studio working on my new garden painting.
And yesterday I went up to London to see my great friend, Joe Fan, at his exhibition opening at the Thackeray Gallery. See all his images on their website
I am tentatively calling my new painting ‘Battle of Hastings’ as it features two men standing back to back with a hedge btween them. So, it is a sort of stand off in Hastings and the title is just a piece of simple irony - and it means that I am doing a series of pictures with ‘battle’ in the title (an extraordinary concept. It is much harder to paint this type of image on canvas than it is as a watercolour. I did another small watercolour to help me work it out. I think this will be another long one to do, and therefore I need to get some other small boards prepared for some quick works while I brood about the big one. I am still in a quandry about whether it should be painted with alot of line drawing or to be more painterly - a constant struggle with me. I think painterly will win out, at least until I get some decent brushes.
Well yesterday in London, was a lovely diversion for me. I had not seen Joe Fan for two years, and he was coming down with his partner Fiona, and their two year old daughter Maisy. I had never met Maisy before, and she was just a delight, and it was so lovely to see all three of them. I met them at their Hotel in Kensington in the afternoon, and we went for a drink and for some food before the opening which started at 6. The exhibition itself is a joy. I have always loved Joe’s work, but these new works, are for me, the best he has ever done. They have a brittle edge which are almost gothic, but then they also make you want to smile. Joe did extremely well for an opening night. He sold loads. For loads of money. Well done the Fan Man.
I went for a drink with Joe and a couple who ran the gallery, before I went off to get the last train to Hastings at 11.45pm. Joe also had a little surprise for me. A note with greetings from some of my old Aberdeen friends and Gray’s School of Art colleagues. Joe had got them all to scribble a few words of hello. So thank you Michael, Keith, Cam, Craig, Simon and Kaiko, it was a lovely surprise, and I would dearly love to get up to Aberdeen soon to see you all.
greetings from my Aberdeen mates
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October 6, 2004
The Autumn cometh
Well after an extremely productive two weeks, I can at last show you what I have been up to. It seems that the routine of the Autumn and all my travelliing and commuting of late has got me back into a working rythym. And I think that at last I am making some progress. I have been concentrating on creating numerous compostions through drawing, watercolours an even one or two monoprints. You can see some of this work here.
It seems that ater all my walking and commuting, that the one place I had forgotten to look at for source material was here in the house where I am staying in Hastings. A few days ago, as I was waiting for David (my sister’s partner) to cook the dinner, I decided to do a drawing out of the window from my bedroom. This is the sort of thing I am always tellingstudents to do when they cant think about what to draw.
Not a great drawing by anyone’s estimation, but it gave me a few ideas of how to develop it. Hastingis is full of of steep terrace gardens going up or down one of the many hills. I had spent a lot of this summer helping build a wooden wall embankment in this garden and had been aware of all the conversations, discussions and (non) neighbourly comments.
I proceeded to make three further studies from this sketch in the studio:
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There was something about these images that I thought it could go further, so today I risked starting a large oil painting based on the the essence of these studies. I decided it should be portrait format and and that it should cover up over the hill and a view over to the East Hill and English Channel:
The above images show the first paint I put down with not much real definition. I was just trying to reflect the muted colours which were in the watercolours. I loved the feeling of the composition already without any description. So, I started to paint in some definition for the composition:
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