Black

I covered three canvases today with complete and utter bollocks. One was previously a poor oil portrait, another was the start of another dull pomegranate painting and the other was virgin white. They all ended up with one thing in common. A waste of time and paint. On the positive side I bought some spray white gesso recently so it will be relatively easy to get them back to plain-ness.  Then I can start again. I am at kind of a creative zero at the moment. A broken rib, pain in my arm, pain in my knee, my dog dying, misadventures with cars, not enough money to live on, other shit health things. Yeah, that's right I was painting with a lot of black paint feeling like Jonny Nice Painter in the Fast Show:

Black

Black

Black

Black

Pomegranates - Grenades

After talking with my best friend Jeremy the other day I decided to have a go at oil painting still lifes.  After all I haven't done any for two years when I painted loads of flowers in vases. This time I thought I'd go for fruit. Still the influence of Cézanne - as there should be.  These are two pomegranates which fell off a tree close to where we live. We tried eating a third one - but it wasn't nice. I love the name pomegranate - which comes from "apple seed" in latin. In France they are just called "grenades" - so no apples, just the seeds. And they are not named after hand-grenades - it's the other way around of course. Chucking one of these would make less of a mess. What a difference there would be in the world if all armies did was to throw fruit at each other. I can imagine soldiers running across battle-fields pointing bananas, dodging the pomegranates.

Pomegranates
Oil on canvas 60x50cm
£550/650€/820$

Self Portraits

I am enjoying painting portraits - but there is a problem with subject matter, that I guess all painters have suffered over the years. Unless you find someone to sit still for you (or someone who is able to provide you with a usable photo) you have to resort to painting yourself. There is a fine tradition and history to this, so I guess it's ok.

I've painted myself before, years ago, and have posted this too, below. You will note that the main difference is hair. I used to have some.

Self Portrait 2013

Self Portrait 1984

Pain in the a....

Arm, actually. I am recovering from an attack of severe arm pain. I have suffered for years from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Lateral Epicondylitis (Tennis Elbow). Initially I had lots of pain in my hands, but this dissipated and all I have to put up with generally is permanent tingling in my hands, and occasional not too severe arm pain. But this was something new - Medial Epicondylitis - Golf Elbow (somewhat ironic given my loathing of golf - I'm with Bernard Shaw on this one) which caused incredible pain in my elbow and ignited my other two afflictions  and caused me so much pain I wanted someone to amputate my right arm. After a course of very strong pain killers and anti-inflammatories as well as physiotherapy I am much better than I was - just a bit of pain creeping down my arm from my elbow, and an inability to lift anything or to grip too hard. But the good thing (for me) is that I've been able to paint - gentle oil painting, no big abstract expressionism with this arm. This painting started out as one person but ended up as another.

Man with hat
Oil on Canvas, 55x46cm
500€/£600/$750

Here we go again

Here we go again100x100cm,  Acrylic on canvas
£1,000/1 200€/$1,500

Abstract painting in acrylic - not portrait in oils. I'm still painting more than one thing in more than one style at the same time. I like to mix things up. Maybe I'm mixed up... They are two very different processes - one very calm, one very energetic. Both involve different levels of thought and idea, different mental processes to lead to the final piece of work. It's good to sit calmly and paint - and then to leap about listening to Talking Heads. Stop making sense!

Portrait of a Gazelle, by Bigasso.

Marley
40x40cm Oil on Canvas

Carrying on my recent oil/portraiture, here's one I have completed of my son Marley. Not a perfect resemblance, but close. The digital reproduction here doesn't quite get the nuances of the original canvas - less texture. But I'm pleased with the painting on the whole. Getting the hang of using oils in a way I haven't really before, I think, and enjoying the manipulation of colour, paint and glazing.

By the way, if you don't get the reference in the blog title, you need to watch more episodes of "Thunderbirds".

Cats and Gods

We live in Place de l'Eglise. For those of you with no French that's "Church Place". Our house is in a corner, next door to the boulangerie - which provides a far more useful social function than the church. It really does give us our daily bread. And croissants. The church is a simple old building, built probably originally about 600 years ago, but rebuilt several times since (with sympathy). One of its endearing features is its wonkiness - the front door doesn't line up with the middle of the roof, which doesn't line up quite right with the window etc. It's not a very busy church: there's the occasional wedding which clogs up the square, but probably it's used most by cats. Two of our cats - Milo and Earnie, joined by one of our neighbour's cats, Gus, enjoy running around inside, and a couple of times now have been locked in at night. Amusingly, the key is held by the atheist baker next door. Anyway, this explains my new painting below.

Cats and Gods
Oil on canvas, 40x40cm
£400/480€/$600

Meanwhile, here's a recent Purple Cat I did for Tatiana and David, the bakers next door.

If you haven't taken a look at the Purple Cat website for a while, you should. There's always new things on there. Shortly the whole thing will also be available on purple-cat.co as well as http://www.purplecat.co.nf, and there will be a wide range of Purple Cat greetings cards available too.