The First Century

There we go; the unthinkable is achieved -my one hundredth post of the year. When I have tried to write anything in the past I have suffered a lack of discipline so this form of working obviously appeals to my need for structure. The same is true of my painting and the frittering of time before settling down to work is a similar phenomenon; I need to organise my time quite well if I am to get anthing done- lucky I am the Listmaster! Nearly let me down tonight mind you as tiredness led to incomplete listmaking, which in turn nearly led to *lack of ice cream* a serious state of affairs for any household. Thankfully the near-error was corrected with an emergency dash to the local Super market for a pack of Feasts; close one though.

Just finished some new potatoes for printing; I'm doing some chrysanthemum clouds on the new one, which is a kind of Swedish landscape by the sea with cloudberries. I've just discovered from my wee Swedish chum that cloudberries are yellow, not red, so some alterations may be needed. Typical. Good to catch up with the news from the Motherland though; I just love to hear about the 'summer house' and days by the lake, so I can build my own iddylic picture for use in paintings such as these. It all looks very Tove Janssen in my head - must get around to finally visiting one day, I'm sure it will all be quite emotional. The other connection to Swede chum is my painting 'Archie's Park' which was based on the view out of her window and is now one of my top selling cards (in their first two weeks at the Book Festival). I hadn't visited the Park for ages as chum had been Motherlanding so it was really funny to see how much I had kept true to the place - little round cherry trees, dogs doing dog things and the lone football goal which says it all about football for me... take away one of the goal posts and they will still keep firing the ball in; somehow it reminds me of headless chickens. The football at Hearts was in full swing when I swung by for coffee which meant that parking by the Park was impossible and I discovered a few new and interesting neighbourhoods getting lost in the immediate vicinity and beyond. Had that surreal moment as I crossed the Park when someone (presumably) scored and I heard a great disembodied multiple cheer drift across the lawn.

Just ordered a new album on the strength of a t-shirt I saw on someone today - The Decemberists - checked them out on Amazon and decided to go with a hunch on this one; anything that uses folk-prog-rock-pop +++ in the description has got to be interesting at least.

Started looking at some new ideas around the old angel theme concerning the idea that angels are also all amongst us; thinking of using the filigree potato print that I used as clouds to form a kind of 'aura' around some fairly normal individuals in portraits. Maybe wings as well or not; I'm not clear on that yet, but definately something to explore in the sketch book.

This is a quickie as we had a super late night due to Stu's work so I'm off for curry and bed. Ciao.