Snowprints, quietly

Feeling like such a bad person; totally forgot to post yesterday! I have been feeling down, which I guess was in sympathy to Stu's blues, so I really wasn't concentrating on anything in particular yesterday. Lucky I have already established that a missed post does not constitute failure unless it stops me in my tracks, which it hasn't. I will just have to keep on blogging after the one year mark to make up for my misdemeanours during the course of the twelve months. To be honest, I am hoping that the year's end sees me move over to a new subject, which will be the progress of our new business... started putting finger to keyboard yesterday with our business plan, so the process is begun. Ha, there now I've said it! I first toyed with starting up on my own fifteen years ago and elements of that time are still in my mind, but now with a lot more experience behind it, so my fingers are crossed. But I run away with myself; we are still in the Bateau-Lavoir year...

Snow forced me to tr

avel to and from cashdayjob by foot today, which afforded a great opportunity for gazing at snowy trees and hills; one of my favourite occupations in the world. I even allowed myself enough time to creep into the little thickets in the Braidburn valley, especially the willows by the burn and just hover there for a while in the early morning light listening to the water and the snow falling. I tend to chuckle to myself with delight at such times so if you were passing a group of trees this morning in the blue dawn and thought you

heard an angel laughing.. nah, it was just me.

Came back the same way and was rewarded with yet more light spectaculars as the evening brought orange

clouds lit by the city and reflected snow, scudding by at lightning speed over the valley; very dramatic and purposeful.

I also met a few snow people out and about today; a relaxed guy sitting on a bench by the Braidburn this morning holding a flower, and a monkey in a trolley outside Waitrose holding a banana. Sometimes I think I am going slightly mad, but I think it is just that there are more mad and creative souls out there than I sometimes give the world credit for. Long may they weave their little magic spells.

Watched the excellent documentary on Peter Howson last night (and the night before, joy of iplayer) and am now in awe of both the man and his experience. I had no idea how good an artist he was or the struggle he goes through on a day to day basis just to make sense of it all and deal with the creativity that just exudes from him. Totally misjudged his work, I have to say, having imagined him as some hard, cocky, trendy art guy; how much differently you read the images when you know a little more of the man behind them. One thing puzzles me, but this is a religion thing and so bound to be confusing... Howson came to religion through a series of revelations as he battled addiction and now sees himself as a Protestant. How does that work? Surely God doesn't take sides when he pops up in visions and tell you which side of the sectarian divide he is appearing from? To me that's the problem with Christianity in a nutshell; it always has to have a label, an affiliation... surely that defeats the purpose?

Maybe leave that one alone.

The next Summit

Ah, the ups and downs, the peaks and troughs... life has its little ways of kicking us when we are down, but also of pulling the rug out from under our feet when we are up.

And its always when you least expect it.... sound familiar? Guess we're all human after all.

Stu is really depressed today; I think he is reaching the end of his own personal endurance and to be honest I am not surprised. The hours he has worked over his career in catering would probably come to double a 'normal' persons when tallied up; there is always one day in his six-day week when he starts at 8am and finishes at around 11pm. That is a long day, and they add up into long weeks, long months, long years. So I am now worrying my little head off again as we are so close to reaching the end of the year, so close to being able to leave the day jobs and head off on our own. This in itself is scary but not nearly as scary as the thought of having to try and make Stu do another year in kitchens or, worse, find some half-assed shitty job that he will hate just to pay the bills. Yikes.

What this will do, of course, is push me harder to make it work for us; to get onto the nitty gritty of how we are going to make our own business work; the whens, wheres and whatevers of it all, for this is the real deal here and we are going to have a lot of hard work ahead of us...

But... and its a big, fat, hairy but, we have no options but to make this work. The line at the start of my blog said it all - I thought one day 'what would I do if my life depended on it?'; then I realised that it did.

Dug the car out literally and myself out metaphorically and crossed town to the gallery where I primed a canvas, looked out the window and thought long and hard. Tomorrow I will start on the business plan and get the wheels of wonder in motion. Had a bit of a Haiku day today, as always happens when I am in reflective mode. I will let them outline my mood today...

Despite the snowfall

The path at my feet was clear;

Even with closed eyes

You are losing hope.

I hope I am strong enough

To hold you aloft

Hold your mind still and

Search the patterns there;

Then open your eyes

The path goes past here

I saw footprints in the snow

And they go beyond

You don't talk much,

I cannot articulate;

So I wrote this down

Les anges, les etoiles et la neige

I really must stop leaving my blog until the last thing in the evening; it has moved progressively down the list after all the other evening chores until I am always totally knackered when I reach this stage.. Last night went really well; my previous show openings (of my work) have been pretty underwhelming so this was most definately a step forward. Last year saw my first 'official' solo gallery show, but as fate would have it, the location was Weston-super-Mare and so I had no friends or contacts to call on except my brother, who gamely made the trip from Bristol to be my moral support for the night. And I needed it; not the most busy room and of course everyone including the gallery owner a stranger to me. 'Experience', I told myself that night sitting outside a pink tent in a campsite in Sand Bay...'What doesn't kill you..'

A year and some on, the experience was greatly enlivened by actually knowing the main participants of the show and being able to call on the support of a few key friends to chivvy me along; luckily we had an amazingly good turnout despite the snow starting to come down (very beautiful) and the multiple attractions of Edinburgh in November calling for support.

My thoughts after the event centred on the issue of self perception; how hard it is to see your own work with any degree of objectivity. I love the description of Teresa in the Unbearable Lightness of Being; she is forever staring at herself in the mirror hoping to glimpse her soul peeking out of the humble, flawed body she finds herself in; I have always related to that in person and with my art.

So the interest in many ways of standing in a room full of people viewing your work is earwigging on the comments, listening to what the viewers see and trying to see it through their eyes. I was interested at the Edinburgh Art Fair when a gallery owner referred to a painter I really like as 'someone you love or hate'; it had me baffled for an instant as it had never crossed my mind that someone would dislike it, let alone hate it... I should know well enough that we all have different opinions; I remember a colleague throwing away a lovely (free with the newspaper) print of Picasso's drawing of Francoise Gilot with the words 'Infantile Shite'. I rescued it sneakily later and it is framed in my house.

So, polarisation of opinion... I have to realise that some people (many!) may dislike my work or find it 'scary' (a quote). There seems to be something about figurative and portrait pieces that can provoke this; not wanting to have the image 'looking down from the wall'. I love having little people on my walls, but I guess that is why I am drawn to paint that way.

A comment I liked on this point last night was one lady had a friend who 'Loved Frida Kahlo, but wouldn't have one on the wall'...

On a positive note, many people came up to say how much they liked my work, and one in particular made my day by congratulating me on my 'lovely hands and feet'. (I'm assuming she meant in my paintings.) Put it this way; I remember a time not so far in the distant past when I expended a lot of energy repainting and repainting hands and feet; then over-painting them. Much has been learnt since then, and much still in process... but that is what I love about the whole thing. It is very, very much a journey for me; a narrative learning experience. I can't see a point when I will ever succomb to the need to be so commercial that I am producing work 'for sale'; this probably means I am destined to be skint for the foreseeable future, but I just have to keep moving and finding things out.

That was the other comment I liked, or that made me think; I was described as 'brave'. If brave is metaphorically laying yourself bare on a gallery wall and asking people to come and have a look, then yes, I am brave. But it has taken me an awfully long time to get brave:)

Have to say that last night, I enjoyed it.

Atop the ridge

Trying to do justice to a great day will be tricky tonight as I am suffering from a mixture of extreme tiredness and some kind of bug which is threatening to take up residence in my chest. I shall make a start and finish my thoughts properly tomorrow... Woke looking like a vampire who had been on the vodka all night; pretty impressive for a teetotaller who is definately not dead or undead. Doesn't kick your day off in the best fashion when you are trying to a) keep eyes open and b) not look anyone else in the eye as you look as if you have just survived a life-threatening trauma. Maybe I have forgotten what a hangover feels like, but it must be pretty close to how I felt for most of the day. Just so happy to be on the other side of it now, sitting at home watching the snow fall and drinking tea knowing that bed is just a short hop and a pizza away.

Really pleased with the turnout tonight; guessing about seventy folks through the door and everyone seemed to enjoy what they saw. Lots of questions raised as well and interesting observations made; this is the bit I will go into tomorrow when I have had time to mull it all over myself. Main thing is that another hugely important baby step has been taken along an irreversible trajectory. As I mused on the way home, it is a lot like climbing a hill and forever coming upon 'false' summits that turn out to be ridges; you know the feeling - 'just a few steps more and we'll be at the top.....oh.' Now I am standing on the next ridge I know it will just be a matter of time to catch breath and then set off for the next 'summit'. Whatever that may be.

Great snow tonight as well; having been convinced it would be a deep freeze disaster we just had some lovely picturesque powder floating in the streetlights on the way home:)

Hanging Happy

Officially no longer painting for the shows any more but managed to sneak one last angel in this morning which was still drying as I drove over to Leith to help hang the show. I am now totally exhausted as I woke with the evil early stages of some kind of lovely chest infection which is totally typical; the number of Christmases, events, weddings, I have spent nursing some kind of stupid bug is amazing... Feeling elated and scared all at once and suddenly annoyed with my hairdresser for cutting my hair just a wee bit too short, so I feel like I have a mushroom head. Potentially my most exciting private view to date and I am a helmet-head. With a cold. And it will probably have snowed by then, which means that I will have fallen on my ass and be black and blue. I'll let some pictures do the rest of the talking tonight and have me a cup of tea and a Vicks vapo rub:) Manana, manana...

Half Time

In a nutshell; took car to have MOT. Failed. Booked in for work to brake pipes next week. Phoned bank to extend overdraft. Took a bunch of paintings into Marchmont Gallery for their Christmas show. Painted another picture having said that I had finished....

Went to see LAU at the Queens Hall and they were totally amazing. Really amazing.

That's half way through the year now:)

Fat lady singing

Okey dokey, for the intents and purposes of the show kicking off on Friday; I have finished. Finito. Fat lady has sung. Last two paintings off the easel were two of my favourites of the four month period and the last one went out with a particular bang as Twig-the-psycho-kit finally managed to jump onto the palette on my lap and cover her back foot in acrylic... a pretty fast piece of work meant that the only area to suffer the pawprints was the studio floor (expendable and expectable), my jeans (nowt new there) and a small portion of sofa (not really visible to the untrained eye). A dunk in the sink, a scrub-a-dub with a sponge and a rub with a towel and the wee lady was back to normal if a little surprised looking. And the good girl didn't as much as try and land one on me despite my scrubbing.

Found an excellent word tonight in the course of my meanderings in cyberspace; 'palimpsest'.
Comes from Roman via Greek or the other way around and refers to a manuscript, picture or whatever that is erased and reused; literally 'scraped clean and used again'. Now all I have to do is find a sentence grand enough to hold it. Can be used also to refer to any example of rebuilding over existing foundations, the remnants of one city under another or the outline of a crater visible under a later impact. Possibilities are endless.
Think it is most definately time I went to bed. All kinds of things to do tomorrow and the eyes are weary.

Gazing at the Blue

Only two more posts and I am over half way in my year-long journey; I missed a couple of posts when I was on Skye with mum and the temptation was there to go 'oh no, failed' and quit, but I have continued. After all, the rules are mine and the blog police aren't on my tail. To put it another way, this is not an attempt for a Guiness record, just an adventure of my own devising.

Strange things happen in your head when you are painting a lot, quite fast. I was looking at the last three little angels that I painted on Sunday and couldn't remember starting them - then I realised what they had looked like in the beginning; like nothing. The first hour of painting left me feeling as if I was having a really bad day and maybe I should give up and do something else. A day later and the images complete, they are some of my favourites of the last month. Not sure what this says, if anything...

One of the new lessons learned which only dawned slowly today was a colour thing. I wish to veer off on a tangent briefly to explain where I am coming from here; one of the things I really 'get' about Buddhism is their stress on the two levels of 'knowing'. You can read something and 'know' it, for example 'we will all eventually die' but it takes years, experience, and study to have 'insight wisdom' of this fact. To really, really know it. So when I say that I realised only recently that a brown/black canvas with a patch of light blue will speak more of blue than a dark blue canvas with a patch of light blue, I mean it in this way. Sure, I went to college and read books that explained complementary colours and the relationship colours can have to each other, but it is only after a long time of looking that I have the lightbulb moment. It is about realising it on an inner level; and no, I don't think I am there yet, I just think I got a little closer. I would be ignorant to think otherwise. Learning continues until the day you die, which is why I hate to hear someone complain of boredom.

Finished a painting tonight where the subconscious mind took over and threw a curve ball at me; the image is of another red-headed angel in a dark background with a cat. The dress the angel wears began to look weirdly familiar to me as I added line and colour; then I realised that I had painted the dress I wore to one of my best friend's weddings, so many years ago. A red-headed friend with cats who is on my mind and in my dreams at the moment for various reasons.

Pop! Out it comes. I love the little ways of the mind. I have called it 'The Wedding Dress'.

Hoping to see the great Scottish folk band Lau on Wednesday night having realised that they are playing the Queen's Hall, one of my favourite venues; this depends on whether Stu's mood is such that he thinks giving up a free evening of rest will be acceptable; he is deep in exhaustion mode and I respect that. A chef's Christmas rota is not something to be sniffed at.

Roll on next year; I have seen the meaning of the words that have been in my head. 'Le Bleu de Chocolat'. The blue is always present in the chocolate, it just takes more looking to see it.

Things with wings

Another day, another angel... in the gallery today painting a small selection of baby box canvases and changing others; as I find out new ways of working the previous paintings look out of step and I end up changing backgrounds, colours... never satisfied! Every last painting is my favourite until I do the next one - I want to keep one every week and then end up taking it back and putting it up for sale as I have a new best angel friend. What a fickle person I am! It had been amazing discipline as a painter though; I hadn't worked on canvas for years before this experience and now I am discovering new things to do with it every day. Today I was playing with the hole puncher that makes flower shaped apertures; some ended up as collaged snowflakes, others as a dress design, and the card they were popped out of became a stencil to use with spray paint on a couple of backgrounds. Excellent and very messy; managed to get paint in my hair and all over a previously untarnished pair of jeans. The day flew by though, I can't believe how quick Sunday goes when I am painting all day; I took Stu in for work for seven-thirty and by nine-thirty I had done one angel already... I am becoming obsessed. Had to stop myself from doing more when I came home tonight but my eyes are going and I need sleep bigtime. So the week before the show begins; I can honestly say that I have given my all to this and I really hope something comes of it, at least in the form of another/more shows or opportunities to hang my work. The more I can get out there, the more I may sell and the more excuse I have to make more, develop and realise my potential. Bring it on.

Rainy day Art Crawl

I have been looking forward to today as it was reserved for one of my favourite passtimes; spending time on me ownsome wandering galleries and staring at art. I had a few not unpleasant chores to accomplish first, including picking up my new shiny business cards (double sided with pictures!) from an industrial estate in Midlothian with a strange coffee shop in a paper warehouse; amazing the things that exist and you would have absolutely no idea unless sent on a goose chase such as today. Found a great wee device (or in fact many of them) which is like a hole punch but punches out wee flowers; there are all kinds of designs, mostly pretty naff, but many useful too. The 'make-and-do-er' in me is very excited by the prospect of stencils and collage in different papers and paints; all adds to the pattern artillery! Should be pretty useful for the wee box canvas angels, although I am thinking of other ideas too now... maybe veering away from being quite as cute and user friendly and letting my dark side loose. But hey, that can have stencils and collage flowers involved no doubt.

One of the shows (Axolotl Gallery) I saw today had some baby box canvases that raised the bar a few notches; Christine Clark - who is showing at the Marchmont Gallery as well; pretty prolific by all accounts. Her work is intricate but very loose and free; much closer to a sketchbook feel which I always love. I think there is a tendency, which I saw a few times at the Art Fair, and I am certainly guilty of, to do an excellent and expressive sketch and then seize up when scaling it up to the heady heights of a canvas. I liked the way all of her pieces held onto that 'stream of consciousness' way of working; a very instinctive feel. Lovely little doll faces and mishmashed colour and texture.

The other artist there that I love is Fiona Wilson; another lady with a love of angels and a very strong figurative painter; painterly painter. I like the 'dark' side of her burlesque ladies and tatooed men (shades of June Carey, or vice versa) and the palette of muted night-time hues punctuated by scarlet nipple covers and irridescent wings. Murky and moody.

Down the hill at Braewell, freshly opened and very pleasing space, I had a bit of an epiphany with Joe O'Brien, who turns out to be one of those painters who don't reproduce well; I have seen numerous reproductions but not many originals. Seeing them en masse in a lovely quiet space was really moving; he is again (for me) a really honest and instinctive artist. You don't get the feeling he is painting out of artifice but directly from his busy mind of ideas; the colours are amazing in the flesh as well which is so often the case. The internet is an amazing tool for dissemination of information and without it I wouldn't be aware of half the art I see, but there is no substitute for the 'standing staring' experience; absorbing the feel and mood of the painting and the painter. Something I will never tire of.

The endless list of shows to see still includes a whole bunch of galleries but enough today; it is now darkening and raining happily outside which is a great cue to whack up the stereo and retreat to the studio; angels are waiting:)

Court mais doux

Okay, when is a post not a post? When its a post like this:) Just finished cashdayjob and have to be back in again in the morning in not-very-long-at-all and Stu will be home and wake me up in the middle of my paltry six hours sleep so that will diminish its effect, along with the cats who will doubtless try to prevent me from sleeping in the first place for no other reason than they are cats and they do stuff like that. For fun.

And.. tomorrow after paper sifting I am hoping to go on a gallery crawl par excellence and see many inspiring works, dish out flyers for the show and come home to paint three more angels. No pressure.

Storms and blues

Sad tonight as I missed the Sick Kids auction which I had a ticket for from Lynn in Gairloch; typical that the one and only day I was wanting to go somewhere- which never happens in my life usually- is the one day events go sideways in cashdayjob, which also never happens... So I missed two things as I was going to catch up with Ritchie and Pauline and have some dinner, which would have been a once-in-a-blue-moon event!! Last time I was out for a meal was probably my birthday unless you count the pub in Peebles for the ma-in-law's birthday lunch. Social butterfly I am not these days... which is one of those things that at the time you can never in a million years invisage but suddenly creeps up on you and bam! haven't been to a nightclub in... oh lordy, no idea how long!! I guess not drinking removes half of the point and all of the incentive mind; I dread to think what these places would look like sober..

I was also supposed to be sticking up some flyers for the show today but it was chucking it down with rain so that has been postponed until the morning after my haircut - here's hoping it isn't blowing a gale and snowing in the morning.

Started a few more box canvases en masse tonight as a way of clawing back some virtue out of a wasted day, which went well apart from the intervention of Twig the kit who was having one of her disruptive moods and seemed to want to be painted herself. Managed to avoid making her any more multi-coloured than she already is, however.

So, productivity grinds to a halt as I am knackered and feel that sleep is probably the best option now. Tomorrow, as they say, is another day!

To the Fair

Bit of a super duper busy day today in paint world, but as Stu is off and dinner is imminent I am going to cop out entirely and finish this post in the morning... what a slacker. Just in from the Edinburgh Art Fair opening and mulling over the things we saw, so I'm sure a more measured response will be possible after a sleep and relaxation time. But it has to be said that I am in confident and positive form!
One of the things I find useful about such occasions is imagining your work (presuming it is not there!) on a stand and mentally figuring out if it would look out of place - whether certain galleries might be interested or receptive in other words. And whether my paintings would look acceptable among other works. This year I was pleased to discover that I felt more than comfortable in the comparison test and this gave me a confidence boost going into the show; this is after all the most work I have had on show in a gallery and it is all new. In fact I found the quality of work on display reassuringly mixed; there were some outstanding artists on show but also what I would file under 'mediocre'. The Axolotyl gallery had a stand which I was interested in as they are a newcomer on the Dundas Street strip; the work was very good but I must confess to being a little surprised that it wasn't more...um, different. Besides the very lovely giant chicken and fish by Roland Corbin there was nothing really that grabbed me; nothing that wasn't showing in another shape and form elsewhere in the show. Not a problem, but the gallery has very much arrived on a mission to bring us new and different art, and mentioned 'narrative figurative' in its opening blurb. Apart from a very nice angel whose creator I have shockingly forgotten, in the main the figurative work was in the form of life studies; very good life studies, but not in my mind narrative or 'new'. Sadly they also stood out as one of two galleries who handed me invites to Christmas show openings with the wrong date printed on them. I know this because our opening is on Friday 26th and the two I read were for Friday 27th and Friday 28th... maybe the gods are being kind to us and misdirecting the public at large!..
During the day we had a drive-around getting art related chores accomplished; case of wine picked up and poster displayed in Tusitala for the opening; frames from Cheryl, along with a great lacquer picture we bought in Vietnam finally framed and on the wall; looks great next to Ritchie's fishing man as it depicts a fishing boat full of its catch and fisherfolk.
Next to the printers in Leith to retrieve greetings cards to go on sale over the duration of the show, which are of four of the angel paintings, so hopefully at least if someone can't shell out a few hundred on an big angel, they can now pick up a memento. Lastly to Ritchie's gallery to drop off the all important rest of the show and hand over cards, wine and etc. in exchange for flyers and posters.
Friday tomorrow - counting down the last week accompanied by daily reminders in Facebook and blog.

A head of many hats

Had one of those morning conversations that make you realise that you know your co-habitee very well... Stu listens to Planet Rock in the morning on the computer, while Twig the kit tries to annoy him by 'typing' on the keyboard and making the pictures on the screen change. We all have our little routines and he is an old rocker at heart. Due to my comparitively tender years (ha) and lack of rock knowledge, this often turns into an impromptu lesson/quiz in which I am encouraged to broaden the scope of my rock knowledge by correctly guessing tracks played. This morning in addition to this we managed to get into a long debate on band names which do and don't begin with 'The' . I had read an article that suggested a lack of gravitas or weight in the newer bands trend to eschew the 'The', creating such names as 'Foals', 'Eels', even 'Kaiser Chiefs'. Would the bands of old lose in transation if they were referred to as 'Who', 'Beatles', 'Skids', 'Jam' etc, etc.? In real terms this morphed into two people listening to the radio reciting band names with and without the 'The' prefix and nodding sagely, shaking heads, chuckling... very sad.

When it came to my band guessing slot I failed miserably as well, managing to suggest 'Desk' as a stab at The Doors and invent the legendary singer 'Joe Penis'. Hey, I am tired as I have banged on about for at least three days now.

Sent off emails to printers in the hope of visiting them tomorrow and forwarding the cause of having cards in my hands, but no answers to date; will check in the morning. Not too sad in a way as I am dying for some unadulterated Ing time without spending my entire day off driving around the city. Have to pick up frames and wine for the private view anyway, so I guess it would be good to get the lot over and done with; we shall see.

Someone mentioned the phrase 'thinking cap' today and off went my mind on one of its creative meanders, which may or may not lead to another painting... Googled the phrase and found a gorgeous picture by a Californian artist called Brenda York - must look her up as it is so good I am half in a mind not to 'go there' in fear of creating something inferior.

And... I am still tired. Time to get my painting hat on and get a couple more lovelies finished - with decoupage snowflakes that I glued on this morning (!) before I pass out covered in cats.

Brenda York: 'Thinking Cap'

Electric pigeons

Entertained myself finding new galleries and art related things to befriend on Facebook; can't help but wonder at how much easier it is to find things out in this era. I have had a plethora of invites flooding my mailbox on FB and email for private views and openings in the capital and all over Scotland; it would have been a serious pain in the butt to hear about all of these things in landmail days and essentially probably impossible. Not that I will get to go to all of them as I am not superhuman (as the last few days exhaustion have clearly demonstrated) but it is great to have the choice of what to see and when, and even to co-ordinate so someone I know goes to shows I can't and gets the goss. Is clever, ya!

Think I have probably painted enough of my lovely leafy angels already, but just a couple more for the road, as it were... then I shall branch out once more and see where the mood takes me.

Found and purchased my first three Christmas presents and located the rest that I will need in the Mulberry Tree shop in Morningside; why didn't I think of this before? Great wee 'make and do' type kits for the kids, art and craft stuff, amazing hand made slippers, cards, cool bathroom consumables and heaps more; all for charity and a zillion miles away from your average panic-bought M&S or WHSmiths offerings.

Great wee comment from Draw Drumchapel in Glasgow, who asked to be FB friends: 'May you never wait tables again; love the work, if you're through in Glasgow drop in & see us, the kettle is rarely off!' Made me smile all day... I'll raise a glass for a (non-alcoholic) toast to that every single m.f. day of the week:)

Many little friends

The tiredness continues to build up like a mass of water ready to burst a dam, or like a mass of tiredness threatening to make me fall asleep in a narcoleptic way a la Moulin Rouge's Argentinian. (Do we ever learn his name?) Picked up Stu from his day's grind at 12.30am, bed at around two and up at seven to deliver him back to feed the x-thousand all over again, Festive Smile in place. Actually, he's lucky being in the kitchen far from the necessity of Festive Face; as front of house person I was always the one who had to keep smiling in the face of adversity or appalling manners.

And so to painting... dropped Stu off in the rain on Lothian Road for his token walk to clear the head and see some daylight, then back to start on the next three little boxes (pictured). Spent a couple of hours on them at home and then dressed somewhat randomly, including a scarf and both tights and socks and set out through flood and pestilence to Leith. Had a pretty quiet day in the gallery but finished the 'wee three' and another 8 x 8 inch canvas, still plugging away at the leaf headed angels. I have never had such a persistence of subject before, but each new picture seems to teach me more new things and take me to new places with paint and faces. It is an odd but essentially very productive exercise and so I am running with it. Until someone screams 'no more', especially if it is Ritchie afraid that his gallery may become infested by small leafy angels. 'Ingrid's angel friends' the label says.

Flicked idly through the Taschen 'Portrait' book on returning (with Stu, picked up en route blissfully early) and found the interesting Da Vinci grotesque woman that was also 'done' by Quentin Massys and inspired the Duchess in the original illustrations of Alices adventures in wonderland. And, if I am not mistaken, appears in a wee pencil sketch of Ritchie's that I found among paints in the gallery. Naturally I have now further removed the image by doodling my own 'angel' version, which takes the lady younger and wingier but with prettier face and hair. The wing/shoulder thing is also a plagarism of sorts, from an outfit I saw in Grazia on one of the more outlandish couture dressers of the world whose name I forget but I'm sure she works for Japanese Vogue. Keep up.

Excited tonight as Braewell Gallery answered in the affirmative to the invite to mine and Ritchie's show, and they are just opening a new gallery on Dundas Street... must get over to have a look-see. Can't make the opening itself but will have a shifty next Saturday; excellent.

Bad tired

While on Arran last year working diabolically long days without pause, I coined the term 'silly tired' to define the condition of being so tired that it is, well, silly; able to fall asleep in the blink of an eye and living in a kind of dream world with a perma-headache. I am sure the parents of the world will associate this condition with small children, but believe me, the catering industry can replicate these effects in the comfort of your own body especially if you lose all your staff and gain a kitten.

The reason I refer to this feeling today is because I am under the influence of a strange side effect of silly-tired, which is the need to keep multitasking in the face of exhaustion and prolong the work experience as long as is humanly possible before collapsing. It is as if a strange force takes hold of me and I am no longer in rational control of the projects I am carrying out. Today I managed a rota misfunction and arrived at work at seven of the a. m. having arisen at half of the five. Then discovered that I was an hour and half early, that my shift was actually nine and not four hours long, and that the evil early wake-up will have to be repeated next Saturday, when the shift is actually scheduled. I remained the calm little centre of the universe but a few words of an un-docile nature were whispered inwardly. Having 'lost' the hours of the afternoon in which I had planned to visit IKEA for small household items including a new bathmat and a lamp, clean areas of the house and install these items, paint three box canvases and make dinner, I have been attempting to fit them into the hours of evening which were earmarked for sitting on a sofa under a cat in the light of the new lamp reading a book and possibly snoozing. And so continues silly-tired and its evil cycle of exhaustion, forever feeding off itself and closing down opportunities for restorative slumber.

But enough already; I still have three box canvases to paint and its already half of the seven.

Good crazy

This is not one of my days for writing epic posts or thinking deep thoughts; will settle for a quick synopsis and a small anecdote. Anecdote first, to get it out the way as really it falls into the 'had to be there' category. Having wandered away from my post in cashdayjob, I rushed back to serve a customer that had appeared and was waiting alone and sad. As I appeared, he 'shushed' me and said 'Listen to that noise'... long pause...'The Daleks are coming'. I love the public sometimes, always out to trick you with their crazy little ways....

Great morning feeling like I was at the heart of a little enterprise; emailing out flyers to contacts and galleries, ordering business cards which are my first ever, so that is cool and I am really looking forward to playing with them. Not, obviously, in an 'American Psycho' kind of way, but I missed having one in the eighties so feel as if I am catching up at last. Also send pics out for Ritchie Collins website, to accompany the show, and thought about but didn't quite get around to changing and updating other websites I appear on to make them tie in and look a bit more relevant to my current work.

Caught up with an old friend/colleague tonight as well so another invite to send just now. I am suffering from private view phobia; the only two I have had thus far were pretty underwhelming so my expectations are mighty low. Hopefully this will be a positive thing as any visitors or positive happenings will be amplified; I do really hope that we get some interest though as it has been a long haul getting it all together in the face of financial shit and too little time!

Cross fingers and toes, breathe deep and keep firing out the emails and flyers.

Helan och Halvan

Learnt this new and crucial bit of Swedish today; I have a small Swedish friend who calls me 'Half' in reference to my half breed status, with myself of course calling her 'Whole'. Now I find from another of our countryfolk that in the motherland, Laurel and Hardy go by the name 'Helan och Halvan' - whole and half, and so we have a precedent! Great title, there must be a painting in there somewhere...

While I am thinking of lost in translation moments, I had another great misreading today - I keep seeing words wrong on posters, cars products etc. which I am convinced is the beginning of the onset of some form of premature dementia (or I am being lazy). I read 'Pouncing yogurt'; the packaging actually said 'Pouring yoghurt'. I love the idea of a yogurt pouncing...scary breakfast that would be:)

Relishing my newly moved-about living room tonight; I am amazed at how different and roomy it seems and truly stunned that we haven't moved anything for about five years - I used to be the queen of the remodel, moving my rooms around every six months or so. Must have got old and comfy in my surroundings. Having said that, this is fast coming close to being the longest I have stayed in one house.. ever!! Only a few years to go and I have overtaken my house of childhood, and ever since then I have averaged something awful which I imagine is under a year per house; I blame the nomadic blood on my father's side. There must be something in it as I also have a total fascination with tents and would more than happily sleep outside regularly if convention and location allowed. Roger Deakin, writer, naturalist, conservationist, all-round good egg (sadly now deceased) used to sleep regularly in a railway carriage on his land; sooooo jealous. Just to be totally alone and to hear all the noises and see all the light changes away from the electric power; bliss. I used to love the sound of rain on the flat roof of my bedroom as a child and thought that was the best thing about my room; that and the fact that it was at the other end of the bungalow from everyone else; the loner in me was already in place....

Looking at getting some business cards done for my artistic life; spent my dayjobday thinking about it today and mentally designing things; also coming up with yet more leaf-headed angels for the little box canvases. I never expected to enjoy doing this many multiple paintings for commercial gain alone; but then the fact is that, despite these all being for sale for Christmas, I love every one of them as I do it and have seriously contemplated hanging onto a few for the house! Part of the remodel of the living room is also to do with getting some of our Vietnam paintings and work by other artists up; it is going to be one cool gallery in there soon and that will be great just to sit in and relax, read, think. I love what we have gradually made of our funny little house/flat, which I only bought out of necessity as it was pretty much all we could afford. Somehow it has become pretty much all we want. Not a bad thing at all being skint for two years as it happens; probably the most positive and educational thing that could have happened to us.

A short, sweet day

Miraculously, a clear and beautiful day greeted us this morning, following a particularly dismal spell of early darkness and rainy days. Both of us at liberty today, so had a packed schedule of domestic chores and art-related visits and shopping to attend to; buying box canvases from Ritchie and bubble wrap and hanging hardware from our friendly neighbourhood out-of-town superstore. First thing we had attended to the first batch of paintings heading for the gallery - putting on hooks and figuring out measurements and prices. No rest for the creative with a part time job; the cats and Stu had me wide awake at 7.30am drinking some very pleasant Brazilian coffee that a pal had brought back from his homeland.
Despite having an organised and productive day, even washing the car (Stu) and pruning garden shrubs (me) in the dying light of the afternoon, I felt weirdly unsettled and stressed today. Maybe all the focus on show-related chores is giving me butterflies; this is a lot of my work about to go up on show, and it has been a long time in creation. I try not to worry about it and think myself into disappointment ahead of time, but it is hard. Rearranged the living room this evening which helped lift my mood and as we give up the ghost for the night I am finally coming back together.
Also saw the proof of the show invite, which is exciting and I can't wait to get it out there...

Frownlines

Met a great baby in the course of my working day who was really thoughtful; he just had one of those faces with very mobile eyebrows and already developing baby frownlines.. all the while I was in contact with him you could see all kinds of thoughts and emotions fleeting across his wee face. His dad commented that he is probably set for an unhappy life; 'It's no good to think that much, only leads to bad places'. He's probably part right and part wrong; I have had my frownline fixed between the brows for as long as I can remember and the main reason I started meditation was to 'turn down the noise in my mind' in the words of Carly Simon.

It always strikes me as odd and amusing that some sections of the population see this as a flaw and inject chemicals into their own flesh to erase the telltale signs of thinking and ageing; these are two of my favourite things. I don't think I would be able to cope for long in the cashmoneyjob if I didn't spend my entire time plotting, daydreaming, scheming and sketching in my mental drawing book; I don't think I could do any of this with an immobile face. I've ranted about it before so I shan't repeat the exercise, I just find it unbelievable that people should seriously equate immobile brows to happiness; who worked that equation out?

I'm hoping the wee boy with his mobile eyes earns himself a Nobel prize one day and can return to his father and say 'So; what's wrong with thinking too much??'

Annoyed today (and thus, no doubt, frowning) because I was all fired up to do some more multiple box canvas painting and the slack s.o.bs at the art shop hadn't got any canvases in stock. Pah. So I i will have to make do with the one I have left and do some more work on the big board that I promised myself I would leave alone until I had done a bunch of box canvases.

Ho hum.

Mary Shelley

Feeling like the Frankenstein creator tonight - why? I have created a monster... discovered that it is humanly possible to work eight hours in a supermarket, return home and create three wee box canvas paintings of which I am very proud. What does this mean? That I am about to discover new depths of fatigue as I throw myself hellbent into the last few weeks before Christmas shows open and maximum small painting sales can be envisaged. My legs and left arm are actually wobbly, although that is probably due to my lifelong and unshakeable crazy ways of sitting when painting. My sitting on feet era is over due to the cumulative abuse finally making my knees cry for mercy, but I still manage to 'perch' in ludicrous ways on my little chair, feet on tippy toes and butt-cheeks balanced perilously over thin air. I never notice until I stand up either, or pause to find a masking tape ball to throw for Twig the wonder kit, who will otherwise start making off with my brushes or digging in my paint box to get attention... the only time I really scream is when she actually jumps up on the easel and that is more because I am seeing vivid pictures of acrylic paint coating every surface of the house. She has managed to add her little signature to a couple of pictures by sliding down them on her way down the easel; she does it so quickly I don't get a say-so...

So another three little angels are sitting waiting to head off into galleries soon. I am actually feeling kind of euphoric but stupid as I feel that I am learning more from these paintings than I have in the rest of the year put together. What I really mean is that the cumulative lessons are finally coming to fruition and I am beginning to loosen up much more than I have previously found able to do. And on canvas too, which I have never thought of as my surface of choice. The big fat lesson, of course, is to kick all preconceptions into touch when you approach a new work, surface, medium, whatever, and let the painting lead you. Muck about, relax and see what is possible, not making decisions about things before you have had a go...

I am just pleased that things are starting to flow a little easier from my brush and pencil; I have spent my entire life wanting to find a way to capture the images in my head - it drove me to tears as a child and probably as an adult too. Now, gloriously, each day seems to bring me a little closer to the elusive angel.

More monsters tomorrow:)

Angeltastic

It has to be a good weekend when new pictures of art events and new pictures are vying for space on my Facebook profile and blog! Having had a truly superior and inspiring day yesterday visiting the Number Four gallery in St Abbs, today I spent my usual Sunday slot at Ritchie's gallery in Leith and set to creating little box canvases for the now-looming Angel Haven show. And...I was on fire!! Angel-tastic day of really enjoyable painting and listening to music and chatting to the odd customer.. a bit slow on that front but still red-dotted a picture of Ritchie's for payment later and advised on a commission they want to go with it! So, all in all that will be a decent payday for a brisk fifteen minutes work after closing time!! It is really worth going in a bit early and hanging back a bit late - I have never, ever been a clock-watcher and just enjoy the time to myself dottering about getting paintings done in a cat and distraction-free environment. Found a great Taschen book on 'The Portrait' and put it aside to have a browse and a cup of tea at some stage in the day... never got there! Too many little angel ladies were begging to pop out onto the box canvases that I used to so hate working on..

Ritchie is hitting his stride with his side of the show by the looks of things- lots of lovely little ones all over the place on box canvases and wee boards, and a small but very cool collection of 'icon' influenced angels with gold leaf downstairs in the office waiting their moment.

Really kicked my temporary colour-block I think; for a few paintings there I was struggling to come up with colours in my usual way, which is essentially instinctive. I think maybe I was doing that thing I do of thinking too much about something, which of course causes it to malfuncition.

Watched pot never boils, over-thought colour never harmonises.

And with that cheerful note I am going to keep the ball rolling and head off for more of the same in the studio, where I have also (of course) started another new big 2 x 2 footer despite having told myself that I have to concentrate on the little boxes for the two remaining show now...

But it is going to be sooooo cool, I just know it; I was 'dickering' (great word, just stole it off someone) around with drawings of buildings, which I hate, and suddenly spun off into a great elephant and angel image. Really free, man. It's gonna be a winner, and far more interesting than buildings, to me anyway.

Delivery Number Four

One of those truly magical days when it so nearly went horribly wrong right at the end, forever erasing the wonder. Luckily, it didn't; wonder intact. Went down to St Abbs to deliver paintings for the Christmas show at the very lovely Number Four gallery and so, so nearly ran out of petrol in a monsoon on the return journey! Phew.

The gallery turned out to be somewhere I was familiar with; St Abbs has a great bird colony on the cliffs and I had visited a couple of times years back when I was fresh in the country and out and about more; once I came on my own and came dangerously close to flying off the cliff top in a gale, so I approached with caution on this occasion.. Last time I visited I remember peeking into some lovely old farm buildings overlooking the plateau above the cliffs, where craft workshops were supposed to be, but were closed up. This is now the gallery, and so much more has been made of the space and location; I am in awe of the work that has gone into it and in love with most of the artwork. Jenny Martin, who runs the gallery, also creates some gorgeous minimal landscapes on fabric with very cool Japanese style minimalist frames - a kind of glass sandwich with wooden top and base held together with string (cord, twine...) which works really well. I also became very attached to a lot of different ceramicists - I always love a good potter and there were a remarkable number of great pieces here, especially little relief pictures by Hilke Macintyre and patterned ceramic plates by Pollie and Gary Uttley. Both of these I am eyeing up for myself, as long as the cats are able to keep their paws off. I should have written more names down, as I was quite overwhelmed a) to find so much great work and b) to be about to hang my work among it! I think it will look awesome though; my long deliberation about which pieces to take, and all the reframing, was worth it in the end. It is a good feeling when you are content and proud of a piece you leave behind somewhere...

The day was kind to me as well; weather so sunny and crisp that the right hand side of my face was pink and glowing by the time I turned off the A1; the views over field and coast were just fantastic and I felt myself coming all over landscapy again. If only there were more time in the world I would put all these ideas into being and have a housefull of paintings, all of different experimental ideas and genres. Alas, I do what I can in the time I am given.

Had one of those really 'wow' moments coming back as well; couldn't have timed it on purpose - just as the most amazing view up the coast to the Bass Rock hove into view, low sun steaking the fields gold, the trumpet solo from Slaid Cleave's 'One good year' came on the ipod. This is a moment in music that will tear me up on a dull Monday morning, so in this instance it was just beautiful; I love that song and it is one of those that holds a place in me and Stu's little story. Hey, we all have them, I'm not the only sentimental fool in the world!

And so now we wait - I will take Stu down to see the show as it will look just great, I know; the preview weekend is the 13th - 14th November and then it runs right up to Christmas. How cool would it be to see one of my favorite paintings sold for Christmas; 'Suki's Rubicon' marked a real change and development in style at the start of the year and I love it dearly as a painting and because of what it taught me. I would, however, be pleased as punch to see it go to a good home; I am always happy to send the little ones out into the world...

Inhale, and..

' The deep breath before the plunge'; that's the quote I've been thinking about for the last week and it finally found me- I couldn't remember it or where it was from but it was hovering on the fringes of my memory. Then we decided to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy over lord knows how many nights (having no TV means that we often slap in a DVD to watch on the laptop over dinner) and lo and behold, on about day five I found the scene with Gandalf leaning on the ballustrades of Minas Tirith (no idea how you spell it) debating the impending final showdown with Mordor. So... that is how I am feeling this week. That's what that whole paragraph was about. Deep breath - pause before shows opening, Plunge - shows opening and result being somewhere between lots and nothing. Read a wise article a while ago that told me not to expect the great dramatic moment where someone shows up and announces that I am the new messiah, or similar, but to enjoy the drip, drip of small and encouraging moves onward and upward towards my goal. Wise indeed. Earlier this year I was soooo excited to have some pictures in a gallery window for the first time; my first official solo gallery show last year was a bit of an anticlimax through no-one's fault but my own overblown expectation. The guy with the messiah announcement didn't show up, not many others did either and the event sunk without trace. Or did it...? The point, I think, is that it taught me things that I built on over the following months, it instructed me in areas of gallery ettiquette and lingo that I was previously unaware of and it gave me a really good long breathing space on my own to look at the big picture, not the piddly detail right in front of my nose.

So essentially I will try very hard not to be disappointed whatever befalls me and my work this autumn, but try to wait and see how the experience pans out in the longer term.

Tomorrow I'm off to deliver the first five paintings to the Number Four gallery in St Abbs, so the plunge begins.

Bubble Wrap

Where would we be without it? I tend to have a couple of sheets in the back of my car permanently to wrap pictures, probably making it look as if I sleep there, but the bubbly plastic wrap has become the saviour of painting packagers everywhere. Luckily I am a recycler of the stuff and have a few suitcases full because tonight was the wrapping of the first show to leave the house for Christmas... It has to be said that the course of bubbling does not run smooth with a cat in the house, and Twig did what they do best and chewed string, ran off with masking tape and leapt with gay abandon onto any piece of wrap that moved, yowling gleefully. But hey, that was to be expected. Importantly the whole mission was accomplished without loss of life or the insertion of tape or string into Twig's stomach (or screws for that matter, they were also fair game as toys) and all five pictures are now safely stashed in the hall where the clawed beasts cannot venture and turn my hard work to plastic ribbons.

Also managed a job that has been sitting waiting on my attention for about nine months now; the contents of my desk drawer. These were removed to a cardboard box in the hall (now occupied by the paintings, which is the only reason that the job is now done) when Stu started renovating my desk way back in the spring. Logic told me that if I hadn't needed anything in said box over the course of this time, which indeed I hadn't, then the best course of action was probably to chuck the lot, but I persisted and found among the rubbish a few gems of usefulness. Okay; I found an awful lot of pens with no writing capability, an awful lot of notes and lists written on scraps of paper, a few old bills and a collection of useful cards and leaflets pertaining to shows and galleries. Nothing that would have been missed, admittedly, but some worthy things saved.

Twig is, naturally, now in proud possession of the box and will remain so for the evening, after which she will have no interest whatsoever in it ever again. It will, however, probably remain in the middle of the living room floor for at least a week before it is rehomed. And gawd bless 'er if she isn't rummaging in my handbag and making off with a banana found therein; why? Keeps my on my toes...

Set myself a fairly easy schedule for tonight and have now completed the tasks and am off for a treat - reading in bed while awaiting Stu's late return. Varnished the new painting 'The Advent of Bun Hanzo' and nearly finished its framing, but I am out of tape so that will have to wait now until I am in the gallery on Sunday to purchase more. Also received proofs of the greetings cards I have been waiting on, which are to sell alongside the show in Ritchies (and no doubt use as my own Christmas cards); they look really good and I am pleased to have something like that done, as I realise not everyone is going to want to buy a painting, but at least I can send them away with a memory jogger in the form of my name and email on the back of a card.

And that, I think, is that for now; box canvases start tomorrow for various destinations, so that will be my evening occupation for the next three weeks until the main show hangs.

Back to The Mitchell

Recovering my rejected paintings from Glasgow; submitted to the RGI show for no apparent reason as I am not an RGI member and I am not from Glasgow; right enough there are exhibits that share this with me, but I still didn't have much of a chance. Luckily it gave me a day out in Glasgow, and as a bonus I got to go and see the show, which was only achievable by missing the actual collection day last week and having to beg special dispensation to collect my sad, rejected works a week late while the show was running. Surprisingly easy and relaxing run through to Glasgow made far more pleasant by Stu's company as we managed the normally unmanageable and had a day off together. You would imagine that the laws of probability would make this happen every, say, seven or ten weeks, but we have managed gaps of months this year; it's made weirder by the fact that prior to that we worked together for over three years. Good to see him sometimes while not eating or sleeping...

The RGI show was good and reasonably priced which was nice in these belt-tightening times, and we even splashed out on the catalogue. Most of the names were known and predictable but a few wild-ish cards in there too; to be honest I didn't mark off anything in the catalogue as 'of interest' that turned out to not be by a member, ex-Glasgow Art College, RSW member etc. but the pieces chosen were all very fresh and I was relieved in a way to have been rejected for a bunch of predictable sellers and crowd pullers; far better than finding a room full of new names that had knocked me off the wallspace. Enjoyed going around with Stu too as he always adds a fresh eye to what I have to look at; oddly we both chose the same artist as out 'show fave' but different pieces; Joe Hargan's 'Summers Dream' and 'Anima Mundi'. I'm not always a fan of every of his pieces, but these two were both really loose and imaginative, and both great colour. I am smarting a little at seeing so many great colourists as I give myself a hard time about my own use a lot of the time. Sometimes I am almost pathologically lazy or clumsy with colour choice and I end up, as I did this morning, correcting or altering what I have done. Bun was subjected to a last minute change of an orange panel (which Stu quite correctly and helpfully described as 'cheap' orange) for duck-egg blue and cream. Made a huge and educational difference which is well illustrated by viewing the 'before and after' pictures. One to learn from. Pleased as pie now she is finished and liked my oldest chum's comment on Facebook that it seems joyous and fun; I am indeed in a good an optimistic place right now so long may it persist. And thank you Bill.

We had a really big yellow moment at the Mitchell; there seemed to be a real collection of paintings using yellow in a postive and daring way. I have always had a bit of a problem with yellow, especially incombination with other primaries, so I am determined to set myself some excercises in colour combination to aid my learning curve. Milan was very yellow; never has a city struck me as being connected with a particular colour as much, and such an individual one; yellow houses, artwork, shops, clothes.. .I have never seen such a proliferation in a city.

Finished all the little niggly details for the Number Four gallery paintings, which I deliver on Saturday; two I have reframed in Stu's superior surrounds, and done some patching and revarnishing on the ones that had just returned from the Marchmont Gallery. Thinking of putting a couple of cheeky wee box canvases in the car in case they would like them too; good Christmas pressies and that...

A good day, a yellow and grey and blue day. Off to eat dinner and watch 'Violent Cop' on the laptop for our dining pleasure.

Host of Angels

Just put on my T-tree oil face cream from Body Shop, forgetting that Twig the kit is obsessed with that kind of smell; there is little more tickly and disturbing than a furry kitten sniffing every inch of your face including nostrils, eyes... when I do my teeth she tries to french kiss me to get the minty flavour. Freak.

Officially finished the last of the angels tonight; at least the last of the angels for the Christmas show at Ritchie's. Something tells me that after this year I may be painting the winged ones for a long time to come, at least on and off; they really strike a chord with people and I have a feeling its more the wings and the flying than any religious connotation they have held in the past. That and the 'guardian angel' idea, which, lets face it, we could all do with being true. Flying is freedom is self at its finest; escape from the humdrum and the ability to see all. The last in the line for this show, but the first in her own little series (could only be 'of two, but we shall see) is 'The Adventures of Bun Hanzo'. Bun is, or was, the wayward and adventurous daughter of the legendary swordsmith Hattori Hanzo of 'Kill Bill' fame; killed at seventeen in an ill-advised duel she quickly assumed the role of guardian angel to the young women of her village and performed her trademark acrobatic martial arts all the better for the addition of a set of wings. She was also a school champion jive dancer, a fact that influences her 'moves' in the arena of life-saving, ass-kicking angel work; always impeccably dresssed in her trademark floral platforms, frowned upon in her teen years but relished in her role in the afterlife. Bun epitomises the survival spirit and devil-may-care attitude idolised by her mortal peers and her presence, sensed but never witnessed, has created a powerful underground mythology among her target audience.

I am thinking of writing up all the narratives that have evolved this year to accompany the show; from Madame Tabere, the Engel flusterer to the 'roof of the world' messenger angels via the tree dwellers that kicked off the project and the very lovely Bun Hanzo.... quite a cast.

Feeling once again the trepidation which quite understandably comes from the idea of putting up your artistic output for the last six months on general show. Will anyone bother to see it? Will they like what they find? Am I barking up the wrong tree entirely - my target audience is unclear to me still. While I would love to have my paintings on my wall and know there are others out there who feel the same, I don't have the commercial clout of so many others, I think that goes without saying and is something I will have to live with; but I am me and thus unique.

On that note I shall adjourn to the studio, empty easel in place, and set about some of my more commercial projects; the little box canvases are selling well and regularly and I enjoy doing them, so what's to complain about. They also give me good ideas as I tend to paint them straight out of my head, so any path can appear before me. Let's see.

Stages of creation

I did that thing tonight that I was talking about the other day; spent half the night on a painting, finished it pretty much and celebrated what I thought was my finest hour to date. Then came back half an hour later and picked holes in it (metaphorically speaking, I'm not that weird).
Now, at close of business, when the green lights running in strips around the tops of the wall are reading 'market closed', I am content again and looking forward to adding the finishing touches (is there a cool French phrase for that? Must be.) tomorrow. Would love to do it now but the fat lady is singing and I am in danger of messing up if I try and work any further tonight. The painting in question is my much heralded (by me) 'Bun Hanzo', yet another character appeared from the depths of my addled brain. I have already got a frame for her and I have been plotting her sequel in my sketch book in traditional style. This is where I say 'this is the last one for this show, I'll do something else now' and then pick carefully back in my own footprints and start the next 'last' one. The next last one is Bun again, this time with a very coarse, pallette knife and scrafito background in neutrals overprinted with 'wallpaper; Bun is the only colourful element in this one and she is all zingy silk kimono and pattern overload like origami paper, but still as a stone in the corner of her humble dwelling contemplating the scene. Or that's how it looks in my minds eye just at the moment...translation follows shortly.
Bought my first Hemingway book today having realised the large gaping maw in my literary knowledge, ie: haven't read any of his stuff. Good old Oxfam came up with a very sixties edition of 'Green Hills of Africa' so the journey starts there, once I have done with Kirsty Gunn's novel that I am cherishing at the moment.
Bought a print from a fellow artist in a moment of gay abandon on the internet tonight; a great little piece of a kind of abstracty harbour in lovely neutrals and blues, colours after my own heart; by Jackie Gardiner. I do like a treat.
The weather tonight is so wild it is trying to enter the house at the seams and is sounds like the biggest bucket of water in the world is being tipped over my roof; almost as disturbing as the one tropical storm I have witnessed in Thailand - and that was pure scary. Bed time, perchance to sleep for the crazy rain.