Swamped with ideas ...

Well I have overwhelmed myself with work at the moment. I am drowning! What shall I do with all this stuff?

Alicante
60cm a 60cm
Mixed Media

My paper works finally led to a work on canvas which took me almost 4 weeks to complete. It was subject to many changes but looking at it now I can't understand why I spent so long on it. It is a combination of high art and low art and colours I feel that represent Alicante in the summer fiesta season. To me this is 'Alicante'.



A small collection of my recent paper works. I am more excited about doing this kind of thing than I have been for a long time. It's a new voice for me!

Damage

This was the first of my small 'autobiographical' paper works which began as doodle. I now have it framed and hanging on our second lounge wall alongside several others. It was this that inspired me to do the picture below and several other similar works. For the past 4 weeks I have been totally immersed in transfering ideas from this to canvas which seems to have taken an age to complete. For some reason I find it hard to be this free on canvas.

This however explains my relative absence from blogging! I haven't enjoyed working this much for awhile and have been on a roll. Lots of things seem to have suddenly come together!

New Direction

I have been totally absorbed for the past few weeks working on a series of auto-biographical paintings on paper that also incorporate collage from my own photographs. I think is a natural progress from my street art paintings and something that I am thoroughly enjoying. I plan a series of about 15 and have completed about 7.

I have also been busy teaching my art process which has been both enjoyable and exhausting. I need a holiday!

Decaying Paper

My latest photo project is taking close ups of decaying newspapers and magazines. I was especially pleased with this one.

For the first time ever I have just completed a painting based on a 'wall' photo - I never work from photos so this was quite a challenge. I will be showing that next.

Photograph or Painting?

Well, it's a photograph actually - from a collection of about 300 I have taken of walls over the last few months.

Sometimes people say to me that they don't understand the language of modern art as if it's some kind of 'secret squirrel club'. Well, I am not sure what there is a great deal to understand and, sometimes, I think that I must live in a parallel universe! This photograph could easily have been of a painting - so what is reality and what is abstract? Is it really so different from the monoprint below this post?

Ice, Ice Baby

Following my Ice Man post (below) Chris (Out Of Mind Abstracts) suggested that I might like to consider using paint in ice as an alternative to just freezing images in water. This immediately sounded like a really good idea and straight away I saw it as a challenge! Then, of course, I had to think long and hard about how to approach this. Not as easy as it sounds!

Anyway, after a week spent creating a block of ice that was frozen , re-frozen, added to and so on and so forth I ended up with a block of ice that took over 4 hours to melt! Over that time I took 305 photos - mainly close-ups. It will take me an age to sort through them but above is a small sample. It was a fun exercise to do and I learned a lot in the process.

It is always nice to get constructive suggestions so thanks to Chris for his idea. It certainly kept me busy this week and has given me much food for thought!

Bits of Me (Alternative Self-Portrait)

For some reason I was thinking about the fact that many artists do self-portraits and how much the idea does not appeal to me. Anyway, as a result of this short contemplation, I came up with the idea of assembling a few objects of mine which might, perhaps, say something about me but in a different way. So, in a way, this is my alternative self-portrait. The wooden box contains a number of items that I use on a regular basis - some daily. I wonder if I had done this 30 years ago how it might compare with now!

Ice Man

I am experimenting again! This time it's a digital image I created that has been frozen in water. It has given me lots of ideas on how to develop the idea further and I may do a whole series of things in ice.

SO

This is a new painting that is in a different style for me. I also used the colours yellow, green and orange which are three colours I rarely use. It is loosely in the style of Solbes Arjona who is one of my favourite Spanish artists. I did it as a one-off for the purposes of learning and doing something with a wider colour range.

SO
20cm x 50cm
Acrylic
2008

Street Photo

I think I have taken about 300 photos of crumbling walls, posters, graffiti and various textures over the last few weeks. It's all part of my search for new sources of inspiration. One of my objectives is to paint in a broader range of colours than the last few years and I am finding photographs a big help.

More to come!

Graffiti Experiment

I decided today to try my hand at graffiti and the result is show in the slide show below.I am not attempting to become a graffiti artist or a vandal - this was done purely to try my hand at this and to enjoy the experience of using spray paints. The work was done on brown paper stuck to a wall with masking tape in the patio just off my art studio.

I was thinking of doing this onto a ready painted canvas but it is not as easy as it seems especially as the paint comes out quite 'wide' and I would have to use a very large canvas to use this method. Of course, I would have only one chance to get it right and might easily ruin the work that had already been done. Well, I will just have to give this more thought. Good fun though!

PS
A couple of hours later I decided to add some brush strokes of acrylic paint.

Graffiti Experiment

Street Photo