stuck

[WEDNESDAY 27 JANUARY 2010]
For once it is not snowing. It is just flipping frrrrreezing.

I have been doing this blog for a year now. Does time fly? I think not. Looking back over the posts of the last 12 months, I can see that a more apt title might have been ‘The Wednesday Painter: My Struggle’.

Today I am struggling with white neon. You’d have thought white neon would be relatively easy. I thought it would be easy: Just a matter of fading bright white through various shades of grey and into black. So why does the striking white neon still elude me?

I will go back to ‘the rock-face’. Pink neon is hard to render, but not as hard as white.

I am stuck. The pink neon has had another coat, I must leave it to dry and see where to go from there. ‘No/Yes’ is wet. ‘Ne Travaillez Jamais’ is on hold until I have worked out how to do red neon on a green ground. ‘Ssshh’ is wet and waiting the next move. The sinister crow: ditto. ‘SMILE’ is indoors, with nowhere to werk on it. I have just carried ‘Home Sweet Home’ out carefully and sat it on the easel, from where it now mocks me.

I am stuck.

I have at least primed one of those new canvases I made before Christmas - A small footnote in the werk of “the artist”. There are some men drilling into the brickwork on the other side of the wall – it goes right through me and it frays my shot nerves.

I have stayed away from the loft for 2 hours. In the end I couldn’t procrastinate any longer, and forced myself to trudge out here again. It’s grown colder in my absence, but the banging next door continues.

My year as the Wednesday painter has had its ups and downs. Mostly downs if my writings are to be believed. I have at least managed to get some paintings exhibited, and there was a period during the summer when I was putting in 2 days a week and my production rate hit a peak.

All I really need to engage me with werk is something to get my teeth into. I’ve been a good quiet Wednesday Painter for the last hour, absorbed in the orange-y glow of ‘Home Sweet Home’. I even refused the offer of a cup of tea.


So there: I did some painting, it was a slow day. It is taking a bit of time to get my hand in after the Christmas break and all those snow day interventions. The Wednesday Painter struggles on.