Building a picture... 2

Another 'work in stages' for those that are intereseted. See the final pic here!

Building a Picture

This went down quite when I published it over at the Myspace Art Association the other day - so here it is again. It shows the first four stages before the final painting (shown as part of my first post last December).

In other news - nothing happened. For those living outside the UK, be warned that this country seems to suffer a collective post Christmas hibernation. Having built up my red wine reserves over the festive period (much respect to those who gifted alcohol this year - I feel the love!), I made a nest on the sofa and have slowly been burning through the stockpile. February beckons though - and I'm sure to emerge blinking into the light like a bear with a sore head - stumbling around the Tescos wine aisle looking to replenish spent nutriment. I'll be flipping bottles from the shelves like a grizzly plucking salmon from a river.... "Grrrrrr" (coughs).

Short Stories 2

Finished this over the Christmas Break. Not the greatest photo-reproduction (taken in my murky studio) - but I'm well pleased with the picture, thanks largely to the lovely Heidi Russell, who kindly lent her 'boat race' to the project (despite feeling spotty with seasonal vitamin C deprivation and having to squint into a low winter sun). Thanks missus - you're a star!

Right... what's next!

New Year Resolution....

....Is to do lots more drawing.

I've gotten pretty lazy about keeping an A5 sketchbook (a habit I've done well to keep in previous years) - which acts as a sort of diary and clearing house for ideas. Usually a mixture of representational study based on observation (from 'life' and photo) - and more imaginative dredging of the imagination (which start out as automatic drawings - and develop into 'things' as the work develops). I'll post any interesting ones here. To kick things off are a few scans from a previous A5 sketchbook I turfed up the other day (c. 1998).

Peter Blake

Usually nonchalant in such situations, I was un-characteristically wobbly when meeting Peter Blake at the V&A Illustration awards the other day. Although nerves prevented me from embarrassingly blurting Peter into a corner of the gallery with a tirade of superlative praise (thank god), it was a bit fantastic to meet a British artist of such standing.

The only shame of the evening is that the 2nd prize for book cover illustration wasn't 'a nice new jaw' - given that (looking at the photo) I seem to have half a dozen fleshy rolls of flab under-hanging my (smirking) mouth, that tower over Mr Blake like a duvet of freshly fallen (slightly sweaty and bristled) snow. Thankfully the subsequent polite applause was not enough to trigger an avalanche, jepodising the national treasure smiling to my left - (oblivious to the fate of 'burial by chins' that very nearly was his).

Thanks to Annemarie for the photo (since cropped to key areas of interest).