Finally Finished 'Michael's Room.'

20" x 15"

A while back I posted a work in progress which was a pencil line drawing with acrylic wash. The idea being the acrylic would act as an under-painting as I applied reasonably heavy watercolour washes. With previous paintings my initial pencil work has disappeared when wet so the acrylic was there to hold the figures together and it worked! After the watercolour I then worked up the shadows and highlights with gouache.

I wonder if Michael's little sister managed to get Dolly's head back? (You don't ask that question everyday)

Old work

I was visiting the family and playing a blues fest last week so much of the work I wanted to get on with has ground to a halt. I finally sat down in front of my half finished painting Monday morning and then received a call with more work so can't complain!

However I can now post my latest editorial commission, the article was about leading clever people and the various personalities and skills you will have to deal with successfully.


After lots of revised roughs we finally settled on centaurs with over-sized craniums pulling a nerdy managing director on a chariot in different directions. This was to fit a double page spread.

Some more news: I SOLD A BINGLEY SECRET AT THE WEEKEND!!!! One down five more to go ;-)

Exhibition photos

Oooooo! Photos from my little exhibition at Jane Fielder's lovely gallery in Bingley. I haven't been there yet but I'm hoping to pop in this weekend (after a 5 hour train journey) and maybe answer a few questions posed by the 'Bingley Prosider.' I haven't even seen my paintings framed in the flesh yet so just that prospect is enough to get me overly excited and there is going to be a piece in the local paper 'The Keighley News' this week.

On another subject... me and Suzanne managed to finally get into the Banksy Exhibition at the Bristol Museum. We queued for 6 HOURS, that's how popular his work is in the UK, so obviously we were expecting some brilliant work. Unfortunately both of us were not hugely impressed, the purely original pieces like the ice cream van installations and some of the canvas works were really good little punky ideas but we felt most of it was 'statements for statement's sake.' Often you would look at a piece such as breaded fish fillets swimming in a fish bowl, get the gimmick/pun and that was it, a bit one dimensional. Dare I say it but the exhibition felt very college-like, 'hey stalagmites look like genitalia' - no joke Banksy actually makes a reference to that. Still glad we've seen it though.

Progress Photo 2

Here's the experimental under-painting. I started the colour work today but then had a load of promotional work to do for the exhibition:


There are six originals available to buy along with there individual poems, I've already had interest which is great and apparently the Bingley Prosider would like to do a piece on the exhibition. Fingers crossed things continue like this! :-)

Progress Photo

This is the final rough before I transfer it on to some stretched paper. There's a comical narrative in there which, with any luck will become apparent when I start working up some tonal values. I mentioned some experiments in my last post so I was thinking of firstly doing an under-painting in acrylic and then adding colour with watercolour and gouache - I got the idea from looking at C.F Payne's work. Can't wait to start this tomorrow!! :-D

Newish piece - Those Soapy Depths

Long time, no post... apologies for that! Pleased to say I'm very busy at the moment so just a quick post. Here's a watercolour I've had rolling around in my brain recently so I just had to sponge it up and wring it out onto some paper. There's also bits of gouache in there which, along with a few other experiments, will be my next step.

'Bingley Secrets' is or are at the picture framers as I type this so can't wait to see them.

ArtOrder

Just finished my first ArtOrder challenge. It's actually quite a large watercolour so took me ages to scan.

Mr Hoyle

This is the final Bingley Secret based on Sir Fred Hoyle who was born in Bingley. I suppose the poem really explains what is going on so READ IT!

15"x11"

Mr Hoyle

Mister Hoyle loves his astronomy
Especially his cosmology
He sits all night in the fire tower
Star staring hour after hour

To get the clearest possible view
He needs clear skies and a vantage too
The telescope is the main trouble
Think of a big scope then think double!

In fact it’s so big the firemen went
And on a new fire tower they spent.
So now there’s no chance of division
if the men stay out of his vision.

Wish You Were There?

Here's a recent commission for Management Today magazine. The brief was asking for three seaside-type postcards based on the humourous translations at the bottom of each profile. I used watercolour and pencil crayon on these and they were very quick to do in the end probably because they were so small.

Bingley Secrets Finished!

That's right folks, the exhibition you've all been waiting for, you thought it would never happen... blah, blah, blah.

Can't believe I actually made the last few brush marks on my mini series today! Boy, did I have a celebratory cup of tea! I decided to post nearly all the remaining paintings so those of you who can't make it (ahem...) will still be able to see most of my work. Oh and I'll put the poems up too, in fact here's one for 'The Bride In The River.'

The Bride In The River

‘Did you hear about Steve?’
‘No, why, what’s he doing?’
‘He’s stayed off work, on leave.’
‘Oh right, where’s he going?’
‘He’s on his honeymoon.’
‘What, he got married!?’
‘Yes, it’s a bit too soon’
‘hmmm, does sound hurried.’
‘He met her on the Aire’
‘Ha! Was he canoeing?’
‘No, twiddling his hair,
sat on the bank fishing.’
He felt a tug on the line
And started to reel in,
then in absolutely no time
he was planning a wedding!’

Apologies for lengthy silence after my last blog - I moved house, in fact I moved counties so I've been a bit preoccupied. Anyway you should note an improvement in the regularity of my updates because I now have access to the internet in the evenings.