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July 31, 2004
Radio Tenby
Thank you to the Tenby Crew for reminding me of the eighth law of painting:
No.8 Never paint anything with a tartan bow round its neck.
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July 30, 2004
The laws of painting, one to six
No.1 The second mark is always harder than the first.
No.2 The first mark is pretty tough.
No.3 Leave the painting for several months hidden in the racks
No.4 Burnt Umber will seriously affect your brushes
No.5 Don’t let any Flake White get into the Alizarin Crimson
No.6 If it ain’t working, don’t give up, make it work or paint it out.
[nos. 8 to 30 will follow when I've worked out what the hell they are anyway]
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July 29, 2004
what what what?
But what, they cry, from the far eastern steppes of Kamchatka; pray tell us, they call, from as far west as Tenby; what are the laws 1 – 6?
Posted by john at 08:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 28, 2004
The laws of painting.
No.7: When a painting isn’t working it will get worse before it gets better.
Posted by john at 10:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 27, 2004
the big joke
Ha, ha, ha, oh how we laugh.
Some say we are just here to keep the DNA moving on. That we are just here to mix up the codes in some big experiment.
And to enable us to mix up the genes as much as possible the DNA has us programmed to find the nearly unobtainable unbearably attractive.
Well, ha ha ha!
Mind you one of the side effects of this cruel programming is the creation of Art, by sensitive people unable to stand the unbearable attractiveness of the almost unobtainable.
Posted by john at 08:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 23, 2004
Little things in a big universe
Little things are needed, every now and then, to make us feel important in some way.
Otherwise the mind numbing awareness of our insignificance, in the universe as a whole, is visited upon us in varying degrees of intensity.
[we can discuss the universe as a whole at a later date]
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July 21, 2004
A need of painting
A need to get my hands on it,
to get my hands dirty,
to be in amongst the muck,
painting or drawing
directly.
The me of me making the marks.
Not quietly sitting
making soft controlled lines
with a sharp pencil point or
fine wiped clean brush
with a carefully prescribed colour.
But using big brushes,
black charcoal and
fingers and hands
rubbing in the paint or charcoal.
Connecting with the media.
Nothing between me
and the paint
unchallenged
unstuck
with freedom to feel
Posted by john at 09:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 15, 2004
Once is not enough
I schlapp on the under-paint, the lights and darks describing the form, then apply the first colours. It looks good. It's tempting to leave it like that, dynamic, vital, vigorous even. But it’s flat, it has no life. The brush strokes may be alive but the figure isn’t.
So I do it again, all over again, looking again, looking harder, seeing more.
[Though I paint wet-on-wet while painting, I wait for the paint to dry before each go, as I need to build up depth and layers too.]
The figure comes alive, but the brush strokes die.
So I do it again, looking again, finding the corners and the edges of the form where no corners or edges exist, and apply the paint to something I can’t see but only feel.
Then, and only then, are both the figure and the brush strokes alive, only then does the painting work for me.
Posted by john at 09:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 13, 2004
pushing paint
Oh, people talk about the wonderful colour, they talk about the marvellous composition, the striking subject matter; but no one notices the consistency.
Probably because it’s a temporary thing.
Consistency is what happens just before I apply the paint – just before I schloop the paint on, I should say. Because if I get the consistency right then the painting is a joy.
Too runny and all hell breaks loose further down the panel. Too stiff and it drags and screams like a young child who doesn’t want to go to the party.
Get it right, get it hot-buttery, get it extra-double-creamy and it’s Dinky toys all the way to the sandpit.
Posted by john at 06:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 09, 2004
How tight’s the lid?
It’s all boiling away in here; bubbling and rumbling. And my lid doesn’t fit very well. So it’s forever spitting and spilling over and generally making a mess of the cooker.
Some say I should just take the lid off and have done.
And this makes sense, as anyone past O level physics will testify: the pressure would be released and things would stop spitting. Either that or turn the gas down.
But I have to face up to the fact that I’m not a pan on the gas.
Metaphor can only help you so far...
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July 02, 2004
Creation – the myth exposed
The nature of nothing
The sounds you can’t hear
The space before the something
The empty space
The empty space full of feelings
[thoughts – intangible, unpalpable, unpalatable]
The realisation of the thought
The bringing forth of the idea
The idea is the nothing of it
The idea is the space
The idea is the empty page
The idea is the blank canvas
The idea stops as soon as any marks are put down
As soon as the nothing becomes something – what happens to the idea?
Posted by john at 04:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Order of creativity
Aspirant creative
Closet creative
Trapped creative
Compromised creative
Establishment creative
Confident creative
Liberated creative
ORDER OF PRAYERS
Matins
Lauds
Prime
Terce
Sext
Nones
Vespers
Compline
ORDER OF COLUMNS
Tuscan
Doric
Ionic
Corinthian
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