The Thief of Time

The funky foursome are finished and the design for the hotel sign is done, but there has been some procrastination (isn’t that something Pooh had trouble with? – well it appears to be a common artist’s trait as well). I’ve bought new materials, reorganised my pastel box, painted my toenails and done a lot of dreaming! But in all honesty, I have been very busy “thinking” whilst procrastinating over the next painting. It’s my desire to master a personal style, knowing that if I just paint without thinking about it I’ll play safe and get myself bogged down in detail. I’ve done a fair amount of analysis – collating paintings I admire, studying the colours and styles and appraising my own work. During this journey, I have come across hundreds of paintings and artists – but there are only 3 that I have obsessed about. By that I mean researched, bought the book and lost hours on the laptop: Mervyn Peake, Kyffin Williams and Eyvind Earle. Apart from the fact that they all have first names that are difficult to spell, they all used strong notan and produce drawings and paintings where colour is secondary to line and form. My series of chickens has probably stopped at 2, and whilst my hunt for the perfect Horny Hamish continues I shall try to convert my thoughts into some landscape paintings.

I couldn’t find the Pooh quote on procrastination, so I thought I’d leave you with this one….

" When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it."  A. A. Milne, Winnie The Pooh.

Sun, sea and sand

Too much choice to blog about this week. The weather has been wonderful, I’ve been out sketching, taken 500 photos, tracked down the horny beasts (at last) and even seen a golden eagle. I’ve been cycling for the first time in years (and don’t I know about it!) and been picnicking on our building plot with G & T in the flask. I have suntanned hands and a red nose after a few days out in the sun, aching limbs and head full of pictures to paint. So that’ll be all for words this week and I’ll leave you with some images of Scotland in the sun……..

                      

Fishermen and the opaque chick

It’s been a funny week – all to do with a lot of socialising and some disturbed sleep. As we approach midsummer the days are getting longer and longer, it only really gets dark for about 2 hours. This means I stay up longer thinking it is too early to go to bed, and get woken up by the light before I’ve had enough sleep – so I’m buying some blackout blinds to match the dark rings under my eyes! I'm a bit tired, and consequently, the funky chickens haven’t moved along a great deal this week. I joined a small local art group who get together to paint and chat on a Tuesday night. At 9.30pm we were still painting with warm sun still streaming in through the open door. When everyone was concentrating too hard to chat, we listened to a melodic blackbird doing his evening song. I did some quick chicken sketches whilst others laboured over delicate watercolours. I was very careful not to blow any dirty clouds of charcoal dust onto their translucent masterpieces. I'm not a fan of watercolour - I think it is the translucency that puts me off  – I’m more of an opaque chick! Whilst not clucking about with chickens I’ve been creating a watery scene for a hotel sign. This afternoon should see a paper pile of salmon and fishermen turn into a colourful digital graphic ready for my client to approve on Monday. However, the need to slump over my computer is less inviting than doing work on last week’s unfinished chicken picture – but the funky foursome will just have to wait for another day.