‘my thoughts/my work’

update / completed work!

having spent a good number of hours; testing my fading eyesight!! I completed the painting, eventually requiring more than the three layers I had anticipated.

I thought about the title as I was working on it and it came to me … finally

Its called: ‘The feel good factor’

here’s the finished piece, again the image isn’t that brilliant, need to sort out taking better photographs:-(

following my trip to zimbabwe, its underatndable that little contact has been made

In the southern African nation of Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe has enacted a law granting state security agents full authority to surveil landline and mobile phones, postal mail and what little internet is available anyway, according to a government notice published on Friday. Snip from wire service report: The law gives police and the departments of national security, defence intelligence and revenue powers to order the interception of communications and provides for the creation of a monitoring centre. Postal, telecommunications and internet service providers will be required to ensure that their “systems are technically capable of supporting lawful interceptions at all times”. Critics have said the law is a government ploy to keep tabs on the opposition at a time when political tensions are mounting and Mugabe is deflecting growing criticism from Western powers.

an update: after painting the first layer of ‘green’ it was back to square one – repaint the black, then the blue and then the green again; this has been undertaken three times before the white (three layers) is added and then I can work on the text. Its going fairly well at the moment, but very time consuming and hard on the eyes. (especially now I have learnt that I need to wear glasses – longsighted; it comes to us all over the age of 40 I’ve been told. I have become a ‘speccy git’ at this point I am reminded of the episode of Men Behaving Badly… when he gets his first pair of glasses… you must see it, full of laughs and I will be rewatching it over the next couple of weeks!!

anyhow, here’s the latest installment:

again, just looking about and came across this artist and his work – something different to see (no pun intended!)Â

Artist Cayetano Ferrer photographed the trees hidden by a 30-foot wide billboard in Daejeon, Korea and then pasted the image on the billboard. He purposely left part of the billboard white and put that missing piece of the image on another smaller billboard nearby

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then folowing links I found some more of his work – see through signs, what would health and safety say? well, actually, they are prints which he has photographed earlier and then placed in front of the original space… cool idea.Â

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been working very hard, little disruption except a bbq down at the allotments, purchasing more tropical fish…..

but despite that i was able to cram in some quality painting time and work on the current painting…

the next stages:

I was asked a question recently about the wat in which I paint – why don’t you paint the background first rather than painting around the black? Well the short answer is because I like to create different marks on the surface, by painting around the black outlines I can get more definition and change the depth of paint. Also, by underpainting selected parts of the canvas I can increase or decrease the depth of tones. Well there you, reply was are you mad?!!!

after the cobalt blue layer has been painted

the first base layer of the intended colour

is applied

aplogies for poor picture quality

bottle of red!!

……. and of course there is always one up manship, goes beyond ‘keeping up with the Jones’s!’

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                                                                                                   taken from the original!                      Â

Last month, artist Damien Hirst unveiled the most expensive contemporary artwork ever made, a skull bedazzled with more than 8,000 fine diamonds. It’s expected to sell for as much as $100 million.

In response to the skull’s exhibition at London’s White Cube Gallery in Mason’s Yard, an artist named Laura created a replica covered with 6,522 Swarovski crystals and dumped it outside the gallery in the middle of the night

well, you saw the blank canvas; I have spent the last couple of hours (6 approx!) mapping out and applying the first layers of paint… thought I’d mention at this stage Ido not use black, it’s paynes grey!!!

There follows a short sequence of some of the stages:

 detail

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first layer of paynes grey

detail

the addition of first blue layer

ok, this was the second installment, I will try to keep the photo record updated when I’m painting……….

I have just finishing reading this; which has given my an idea about getting my work ‘out there’, still working on the practicalities, but who knows….. it might work!!!!