« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »
September 29, 2005
Painting for my Life...
 |  |
Being quite on the blog usually means one of two things: either I am very down and dont want to write anything, or I am extraordinarily busy. Fortunately, it is the latter and in the last week or so I managed to spent a good deal of my spare time down the studio. I am work to three deadlines which all come at the same time for Christmas shows. I think now that I have got over my Oxford hang ups and have now embraced the visual world I am inhabited. I have been in a sort of manic faze where I seem to have a lot of clarity about what I can do. My time is limited and so the urgency has been even greater and now I feel like I am painting for my life. Which is actually a lovely feeling (while it lasts). I have been looking for ways to make Oxford my jungle inhabited by cats and birds instead of wild animals - as my response to Rosseau. Cats have not really featured in my work fo many years as they became quite cute-sy. I am living with a cat and a cat lover and it all makes sense to me now once again. The other theme I have got to do is the 'Human Condition', for the Scottish Gallery. I am always telling students not to say that there work is about the 'human condition' as it is such a cliche and that all art is about the that really.. Oh well, will have to bite my lip on that one.
Below are a selection of studies, drawings and mostly un finished paintings I have been working on. Having my entire art book collection down the studio has actually helped alot as it is nice to ponder over some heroes while i take a break..
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
Posted by robbie at 12:13 AM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2005
spinning the plates
You know that old caberet routine where a guy in a tux tries to spin loads of plates on rods? He has to keep checking them all and giving each one a wee spin to keep them all going and stop them from falling off and breaking. Last week's teaching at Brookes has been a bit like that. There are over 65 students and everything is new to them and they all need a gentle spin every 20 minutes or so. It was a very long an intensive week doing drawing excerises. But it was highly enjoyable too and made the days go very fast.
I did manage to get down to the studio most evenings after I had a wee swim. I have working on ideas for pictures for the forthcoming Christmas show at the John Martin Gallery with the theme Rosseau's Jungle. This is to coincide with a show of Henri Rosseau work at the Tate Britain. I have just been looking at my extremely old Rosseau book (had since I was 15) and tried to get into the spirit of his work. This has been quite fun and you can see the results in the below picture:
I am trying to use Oxford as my jungle setting and use cats (and specifically the one I live with in my new home) as the animals. But maybe I will have better ideas in the week ahead.
Oh I had a nice trip out to Hook Norton on Sunday with my friend Lucy. The landscape there in the Cotswalds is fantastic and we went to see some wonderful standing stones. I did a few wee sketches but I think I have perhaps done enough Pagan pictures for a while.
Posted by robbie at 5:09 PM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2005
moving again
This week i moved out of student halls and into my new room in a houseshare with Rachel and Michael. Rachel is the rowing correspondent for the the Daily Telegraph and has been very welcoming to me as I settle in. I have done a fair bit of socialising of late and it is now lovely to get to know a few more people in Oxford. Right now I am in the middle of moving my stuff which was in my studio up to my new home in a white van. I think I will always be hiring white vans for as long as I live.
Posted by robbie at 3:51 PM | Comments (1)
September 6, 2005
New students!
Another quickie to say that the new intake of foundation students are here at Brookes. 60 of them so far and so far it has been us talking at them with all the induction stuff and endless bureaucracy. We take them to London tomorrow and I am also finally moving into a new home as well, fairly near my studio. It will be nice to get all my stuff out of my studio so I can get on with some painting!!! and have a home again for the first time in over a month.
Posted by robbie at 3:51 PM | Comments (0)