I flit from one to the next like a butterfly

[THURSDAY 06 AUGUST 2009]
Yes! It is the return of the Thursday Painter. The more it happens, the less surprise you seem to show. Surely it has not become such a regular occurrence that you don’t feel even a slight frisson of excitement at the prospect of spending another day here?

It must be bad: I’m spewing out an internal dialogue on the screen, even though I may well be the only person who ever reads it.

Instead I should be slapping another layer of paint on canvas. In fact this is what I have been doing prior to this rambling piece of prose. I am werking on top-secret painting number 2. Allow me to introduce number 2: A small canvas, depicting a commemorative date sometime in the near future, which will soon shimmer with a faux purple neon glow.

I could do with having SPQR here to take inspiration and reference from. But SPQR has flown the nest, and now resides with its new family (who were even more appreciative of it than I could have even hoped).

Number 2 has had another layer of purple glow administered. While it is wet I will layer on some more black for intensity, then it will be put aside to dry,

And now it is time to move outside for some ‘…SMILE’ action…

I don’t want to jump the gun or shoot my load, or whatever other metaphor you care to insert there, but I think that my monolithic ‘I THINK OF YOU AND I SMILE’ painting may be nearing a state of completion. I have taken it back inside to clutter up the house and block out the light in the lounge. (Sorry dear mother that you have to return from Paris this evening to find a disorganised gallery of my almost finished paintings.)


It is hot in here again: stifling, still, lethargic. Must press on. Having spent all my Wednesday Painting session focussed on one canvas, today I flit from one to the next like a butterfly: Number 2 – Number 3 – Smile – Number 1 – Rock face.

Yes the pink neon in the crack of the rock face needs some attention. If you remember last time I made the decision to push it deeper, well I did and now the neon nucleus needs brightening up.

The computer protests and crashes again. I protest and crash again. It really is heavy in here today. Looks like it’s just rained outside, but that’s no good to me. And it’s drying up already. And I’m packing up and going home.

dead-ends and wrong-turns

[WEDNESDAY 05 AUGUST 2009]
Good Afternoon. I return to the loft after lunch and recommence werk on top-secret painting number 1. It has been the primary object of my attentions all morning. I have taken umpteen forms of media to its surface, and taken many wrong turns. This time next week it will need to be finished, so it’s a relief that it looks to be nearing a stage of readiness for the outside world.

I took the plunge and opted for a more contrast-y finish, rather than the subtle lighter tones I had originally envisaged. Though it’s certainly not as stark and full-on as the black neon paintings I’ve made. I wanted the background to be almost like a stone slab or tile, with a shimmering, serene white neon legend set against it. After much mess and persevering , I am almost pleased with it.

With all this werk and mess, the actual numbers have grown grubby and off-white. A fresh coat of titanium white should set them right. Time to move it inside, so I can sit and ponder it this evening.

5.00pm: I’ve just propped top-secret painting number 3 on the easel, I need to go through the same steps as I did with number 1 this morning. Only without all the dead-ends and wrong-turns. I have a bit longer to finish this one, plus I made quite a lot of headway trying out ideas on it last week.

It’s been like a sauna in here all afternoon, and it’s really starting to get to me. Could be time to call it a day. Don’t worry though I’ll be back tomorrow for more fun and hair-pulling.

Nearly came a cropper

[WEDNESDAY 29 JULY 2009]
The time is 4.38pm: I’ve been beavering away all morning and into the afternoon. Much of it spent on one of those top-secret paintings, trying to knock it into shape. During my time away from it, I had aninkling that I could try some chalk for a more malleable glow, and so I tentatively set to werk. It seems to work quite well.

As I took a break and sat pondering what next, it struck me: More contrast. I set to dry-brushing some black oil paint in from the edges. It has certainly made the figures glow. I’m not quite happy with it, but a big step has been taken. My only worry is that this will lead to me having to darken the whole of the background of ‘…SMILE’. Eek!

I took a stick of white chalk to the areas around ‘I THINK’ at first it looked like I’d made a grave mistake. I hoisted the canvas down the hatch, and propped it up outside. Hmmm, not quite how I’d hoped, but a bit of light brushing smoothed everything out. Can’t look back now I thought and I applied the same technique to the rest of the words. It made a pleasant change werking outside in the daylight.

Earlier today I nearly came a cropper coming up the ladder with too many things in my hands. “Idiot”, I thought, and made a note not to try that again.

Back on that top-secret one that is proving a tricky one to pin down and bring in to line. I feel like every thing I try just makes me even more unsure, and I just can’t see how to make it right.

Thursday Painter (slight return)

[THURSDAY 23 JULY 2009]
My dad just dropped in to say hello. It took a bit of prompting before he clicked what the dates were all about. He also commented that I was quite prolific, seeing all the canvases stacked up around the cramped studio. But most of them are unfinished, I pointed out.

Yes, I am a prolific starter.

However, I am pleased to report that SPQR is finished, and signed:


Just have to hope the commissioners are pleased with it.

It feels like about 4pm, but it’s only 12.47. Like last week, I think I’m a bit frazzled from my marathon session of Wednesday Painting. I am also a little giddy having finished a painting. As far as I can recollect this is the first I’ve completed this year. A cause for celebration, you might think. Only now I’m not clear which to pay attention to in its absence. The top-secret paintings have all been werked to death this week, as has ‘…Smile’.

So now I’m back at the “rock face”, adding some extra magenta glow in the darkness . I take a few steps back, I can see the problem now, I must set the neon deeper down inside the crack. And this is what I set out to do… We have made progress, but it is not quite singing out from the depths just yet.

squalid-looking flies basking on the fence

[WEDNESDAY 22 JULY 2009]
AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
It is 3.55pm, I’ve just been doing one of those tense, close detail tasks, the kind that makes me hold my breath until I go blue in the face and start shaking uncontrollably. I had to scream to release the pressure.

Wildlife watch: Earlier this morning I stood and supped a cup of tea in the sun. I wasn’t the only one enjoying the warm rays – there was a gang of squalid-looking flies basking on the fence:

Also this morning, I brought SPQR out of stasis, and I’m pleased to report that after a couple of minor touch-ups, it looks ready to be unveiled to its benefactors. I will hang it in the house and consider it this evening, just to make sure.

I will be here for two days again this week. I have to say that I find this temporary set-up quite agreeable, it allows me to relax a bit more into the werk, rather than pressurising myself to get a certain amount done in one day.

There are top-secret werks to be done now, just as soon as I’ve had a cup of tea.

I’m back at werk, my brush loaded with Cobalt Blue and Cobalt Violet, painting up another violet-purple glow. It has some way to go before it reaches the level of SPQR, and there’s only a short time to get it there. But I cannot werk on a wet ground, so it must rest.

5.41pm: I’ve hung two paintings in the house – SPQR and that unnamed pink neon one. Time for a little pick-me-up – water with a drop of Herbas de Menorca chamomile liquor, it sounds vile but tastes a little like pastis. Not quite as good as pastis though.

Just been absorbed in another intense bout of activity: making the letters of ‘…Smile’ as white as can be. It is tense werk, so I feel I can allow myself another little pick-me-up: this time I opt for the Anis with some water. Much better, but that’s the last of the Anis.

It is 8.35pm: Following another period of white-glow rendering, I’ve carefully lifted the huge canvas down the ladder and it now sits in the hallway. It looks good, but not quite finished. I will pay it some viewing time this evening after tea, and werk out the next course of action.

My werk is done for today.

they call me the Thursday Painter

[THURSDAY 16 JULY 2009]
Yes it is Thursday. Yes I am here. As far as I can tell there hasn’t been a massive disturbance in the space-time continuum; black holes haven’t imploded and sucked in the stars and planets of the solar system; this isn’t some groundhog day, stuck on repeat, déjà-vu scenario. I have just chosen to spend an extra day here in this increasingly filthy, eternally pokey, loft-cum-studio.

What has occurred since yesterday is a crisis of confidence. All that hard werk I did has been firmly punched in the nose this morning and it’s left me reeling, dizzy and sick. I think I’d better go and have a cup of tea…

I don’t really have much choice but to press on, I got as far as ‘I THINK OF’ last night, so I need to finish adding glow to the rest of the words. Then we’ll see where we are after that…

I’ve added the slightest hint of a shadow in places to suggest 3-Dimensionality… Hauled the behemoth canvas outside, noted where it needs extra glow emphasis… hauled it back up through the hatch… Time for lunch.

Looking back: yesterday was pretty intense, no wonder my brain feels a bit frazzled today. I’ve done a bit more werk on those top-secret things. And then went back to add that extra glow emphasis to ‘…Smile’. Not much time to do anything else except clean up and ship out.

not time for hunny

[WEDNESDAY 15 JULY 2009]
I am on a pretty tight schedule with these top-secret paintings, so I have spent the entire morning werking with acrylic, diligently painting over the numerals, layer upon layer, over and over, again and again. I have lost count of the number of passes, somewhere around 7 or 8.

The joy of acrylic is that it dries so quickly. I have a special makeshift palette for acrylic paint (another tool of the artist):

[Sadly it is not yet time for hunny.]

I’d like to say that I never signed up for this obsessive, fine detail werk when I decided again to play the role of “the artist”. However, such behaviour remains with me since those art school days, when I would take a simple, usually repetitive, idea to fanatical lengths. Mostly I liked the idea of systems and the production-line ethic…

If only I had the patience and temperament to fulfil these intense lines of werk. Truth is I can be a testy little bugger and every so often I have to pull away and take a deep breath before I scream or my hand has a spasm and draws a violent, unhinged line across all that hard werk. Right now is one of those times. STEP AWAY FROM THE CANVAS. As soon as my hands are steady again I’ll turn back and continue.

Only now I’ve lost track of which numeral I had got to. The problem with acrylic is that it dries so quickly… Looks like I might as well werk from the start on this one.

It seems to happen when I get to the fourth character: I have a tendency to hold my breath whilst I werk, and it reaches a crux point, where I have to turn away, exhale and give my poor, fidgety eyes a break. Oh woe is me: the tortured artist.

ENOUGH. I paint over that number nine for the last time.

We’ve moved onto a layer of oil paint: Titanium white with a hint of lemon yellow. This is quickly smudged outwards to create the subtlest of glows. It is the first step of many steps on the third stage of the painting. (stage 1: creating a ground to werk on; stage 2: filling in and building up the numbers; stage 3: making it glow.) We have a long way to go, and not much time.

5.40pm. Time for a little pick me up: My slapdash version of a Pastis - a splash of Anis in a plastic cup of water – it tastes pretty good considering.

8.12pm. Yes I’m still here. Took half an hour break around 6pm, drank coffee, came back ready for more werk. Have been buzzed by a wasp and seen the biggest spider. Got to get on, there’s painting to be done.

8.30pm. I think we can call it a day now, a proper days werk under my belt.
[For the record, I started at 10am.]

top secret

[WEDNESDAY 08 JULY 2009]
Wednesday Painter reporting in at 2.41pm: I have been werking away on three top secret paintings. Choosing fonts; drafting them onto canvas; filling them in; masking them off; painting in the surrounding negative space…

And most of this whilst on my knees.

I give the old knees a break and stand up at the “rock face” for a while. I am *almost* pleased with where it’s got to. Not long now.





Back on the top secret werks: I spend some happy moments scuzzing 2 of them up, painting roughly over, then knocking back; pouring white spirit down them, then water, then more paint. I finish with a faint layer of white acrylic to knock everything back. My hands finally look more like I’ve done a good days werk. But it’s not over yet…

More oil paint - a dirty, diluted grey - brushed on, then wiped off straight away. Followed by a wash of watered-down white acrylic: wipe it down and stand back.



My werk here is done for now.

a broken vow

[WEDNESDAY 01 JULY 2009]
The loft is pretty humid today, stifling, still air, and a real lack of oxygen. Keep getting really short of breath. I’ve been drinking plenty of water, but that’s just making me need the toilet every half an hour. Excuse me: duty calls…

At present I am werking on ‘…Smile’. It calls for more glow, and I dutifully respond.

Post-lunch: God it’s even hotter in here. I’ve switched off the main light, and I’m werking by daylight lamp. The crow has been given a bit more definition.

Now, I know I vowed that I wouldn’t start any new paintings until some of the current ones were completed, but I’ve had to break that vow. I’ve just begun a set of three commemorative date pieces. I’m just building up a ground on two of them, before I add the numbers.

I think the heat is starting to affect the computer. Every word I type takes about 30 seconds to appear on screen. Lucky for me (and the Mac) I have an engagement with Big Star and the Tindersticks tonight, which means I need to leave early. So off I go…

green fingers and a head full of cotton wool

[WEDNESDAY 24 JUNE 2009]
There’s a crow perched on a deep red strip of neon, you can just about trace its sinister outline silhouetted against the dark, foreboding sky. This subject has occupied an industrious hour or so. My view at this stage is that I may need to study the form of the crow a bit more, in order to better capture its character. However this would involve either waiting around in the garden until a crow presented itself, or searching on the interweb for source material. Both of which could take me away from the studio for hours on end. I will take the crow outside and consider it over a cup of tea.

It’s a blustery day out there. The pollen’s getting whipped up off the fields and my hayfever has flared up – cue ten minute sneezing fit.

Not sure what to werk on next. Two paintings are in quarantine, out of sight, in the hope that they will be ready to be unveiled to the public soon; Three paintings are on a fallow week after being werked on last week; Two have been werked on this morning, so they’re being rested for now. Which leaves me with only a couple of options. I should probably stop thinking and just get on with it.

Trouble is none of the canvases I could werk on are getting me particularly fired up, and I’ve set myself a firm rule that I won’t start anything new until I’ve finished some of the 11 or so that I’ve got on the go.

It is 12.29pm. I have cleaned all the brushes I’ve used this morning. I will take a lunch break and hopefully things will be clearer with some food in my belly.

3 o’clock on the dot. I have green fingers, and there’s green neon light glowing fresh and wet on canvas. I have a nagging ache in one of my teeth, having got a bit of foodstuff caught in it during lunch. My eyes are watering, nose is streaming, and there’s an unbearable itch at the back of my throat. I sneeze again... and again… and again... None of this is making it any easier.

For some reason the Pod of i has chosen to play Hotel Blôedel by The Fall every week for the past 4 or 5 weeks. I skipped it last week, because I was fed up with it. I will let it play out this time. But it has been noted.

I’ve done a little werk on the “rock face”, but my head feels like it’s full of cotton wool, and my nose like it’s on fire. I’ve made it through ‘til 10 past 5, I reckon I might just finish up and go inside.

A Eureka! moment

[WEDNESDAY 17 JUNE 2009]
My morning has involved two things: Procrastination and close-up brush-werk.

I lost an hour and 20 minutes somewhere in the internet. I only stopped to check what some crap I’d been flogging on EBay had sold for. Got sucked in and paid the price. I’ll never get those precious minutes back. (Though I did sell a nasty, oversized 70’s shirt for 12 quid, so it’s not all bad!)

Before that, I had been patiently werking away filling in those letters again on ‘I Think of You and I Smile’. I mixed a gentle Titanium White with a smidgen of Lemon Yellow, and commenced with the task that is something akin to sign-writing. The next step, post procrastination, was to blend out this wet layer, to produce a serene and subtle glow. It has worked to a degree.

I shall take lunch and give my eyes a break.

Refreshed and fed, I will leave ‘I Think of You…’ for now, so that I can plan my next move. I’m in a white neon mood, so ‘SSSHH’ is up on the easel. It doesn’t quite yet have that effervescent quality I’m seeking, and I don’t think it is within my grasp today. On to the next canvas…

And once again you find me at the rock-face, forming a hair-line crack and rendering a deep magenta glow. Just lying on the floor surveying my werk. A Eureka! moment. I need to add in an extra section of “rock” to bring the composition together.

It is time to leave the rock-face, to pack away my tools, and head for home.

Neon Painting: Paths of Least Resistance

The Path of Least Resistance 1 (blue), 2008, oil on canvas, 40cm x 50cm.

The Path of Least Resistance 2 (red), 2008, oil on canvas, 40cm x 50cm.

A few words about the artwerks:
Neon lights in oil paint, tracing a path of least resistance...

The images could be perceived as:

1. A hairline crack or ruptured fault-line, a sinister glow leaking out.

2. A river channel meandering across the topography.

3. A phosphorescent liquid seaps through the darkness.

4. An electric current surges and strikes out.

You can view and buy these and more of my artwerks, commission free at Saatchi-Gallery/yourgallery and artists.de

An almighty crack

[WEDNESDAY 10 JUNE 2009]
I power-up the trusty old Mac, it is midday, and I have been a-painting. This new regime of not switching the computer on first thing seems to be a success. It forces me to knuckle down to werk with the paintbrush, rather than pontificating to myself and spewing forth each and every thought on to this computer screen.

It’s been lashing down with rain all morning, but it’s finally stopped – so I shall take this opportunity to adjourn for lunch.

Some post-lunch werk on SPQR and I take the decision to put it aside to rest. I will go back to it in a couple of weeks and then I will know if it is finished. I have also put away another small, untitled, pink neon piece. The feeling is good. Again I must refrain from taking photographs, which I fear may sap the life out of the originals… I would also spend too much time poring over them and finding faults. No, they need to be kept out of sight so that I can see them with fresh eyes in a few weeks.

My knees just let out an almighty crack in protestation at my crouching down for too long. I have been werking on the fourth canvas of the day, and I feel another will be up on the easel before long. This one has sat untouched for so long I have had to brush off a layer of dust and fluff.

Rather than embarking on something else, I’ll use the remaining time to give some brushes a much-needed deep clean. Oh, the drama!

Meanwhile, at the rock-face...

[WEDNESDAY 03 JUNE 2009]
Half-an-hour late opening up, powered up the sound-system and commenced werk – painting over those white neon letters again, building them up to a brilliant white.

This kept me occupied right through ‘til 11.30, when I took a break and took SPQR out into the daylight. I was quite pleased with what I saw. The neon sings out, and the purple glows a luxurious intense violet. Just a few areas that need the lightest of werk and it should be finished. Yes, you read that word right FINISHED.

And I have only just switched this old computer on, to make my first entry. It is 12 noon.

Another hour of whiting-out, now lunch.

And back again. Bringing more darkness in, black oil paint all over my grubby mitts. Maybe I should go back to werk on the rock-face…

You find me at the rock-face, chiselling away, rendering 3-D physicality around pink neon.


And on to the next one – more darkness and more pink neon.

And finally, some blacking out of peripheral edges…

And relax.