2003, into 2004

2003, into 2004....

Beach Boys, Brighton, crusty painting, high faluting ideas, specific palettes...

Crusty etheriality...


Not long after I graduated, I discovered the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson, and I found this gave me a good deal more to believe in.

At the time I lived in Brighton, in a little terraced house on a steep road opposite a nice little church with seagulls on the roof. I was in the real world now, except I wasn't.













I was unabashed about being soft and having feelings.
(Goodness knows I always have to have something to be unabashed about. I'm pretty much abashed about everything else.)





Part of me finds these a bit namby pamby. Part of me accepts them as part of the past. Part of me quite likes the naive qualities and sometimes I think if you stick with naive qualities you attract people.










but it was all a bit fragile, breakable by unbelievers ... and by my self-doubt

and you can't sell your feelings and your sincerity very easily


though I remain unsure what you can sell very easily.

and the things you're sincere about change....

Fringebangs

Well, things went as they often do.

I had an idea for a kind of themed blog

about 'fringes'

or 'bangs'

Because I have been genuinely in a dither about getting my hair cut.

And I find it quite unnatural to blog about such a feminine self absorbed thing... so I thought it would be a good challenge.

Then I came up with tons of ideas for drawings and narratives.

But I work in a shop a lot of the time.

And I don't have time to make everything perfect and developed...

Especially not 'pointless' blog things.
as much as it pains me.

So what I have is a collection of drawings that does not feel in any way finished with or living up to the ultimate potential of FRINGES as a theme and all the marvellous things it could have been, say, if Marlo had done it. Oh well. it's also probably a document of my mild mental illnesses.

I saw this picture of Penelope Cruz in a magazine, and I thought for a while that I wanted her fringe. I hoped I was too sophisticated to fall into that old trap of thinking you want the woman's hair when actually what you want is her face. But I don't know. I'm not that sophisticated.





I went through this thing where I was transposing fringes onto drawings of myself.

Penelope hair: no.

I was not sure for a long time whether I should get a fringe at all, since my face might be too big and lumpy. When Katie drew me she made me look like someone who shouldn't have a fringe. Like a serious tarty mermaid. I was so happy when I saw this.





When Marlo drew me (Sorry Hannie) she made me look like someone who perhaps should have a fringe but doesn't.





I had some really terrible experiences at hairdressers in the past, that still haunt me. I remember once when it had started to go very wrong in my awkwardest teenage years the lady was trying to make me point to pictures in magazines (so embarrassing) and I pointed to one of an oriental lady... she said 'that's oriental hair, that's different' Oh so stupid! I should have known... best to stay at home and let your hair grow, it's antennas to spiritual awareness anyway isn't it. Never go out.





I've been struggling to return the favour and draw Katie, but I find her tricky, her features are round and cute and they seem to beg for the cartoonyness that I feel out of my depth with... so I've had some right old weird results and I don't think I'm finished.





And Duffy of course... funny old Duffy.

WTF is this and what does it want with me?





Wilful abuse of magic animation pencils





Little Miss transparent nose





The racoon-like gaping monster that my drawings have persisted in turning into for the past ten years... Well, you may spot an actual raccoon in the corner. The middle one is just a piffling personage, perhaps on a par with a Popple.





I actually started drawing models out of magazines... I spend more time in towns now... magazines can become quite alluring when you're daydreaming about things to draw...









Some naked tasteful naff slutty empowered deviantart women wear their fringes quite well.





I had more... I had fully blown theories about forehead shapes and things... unfortunately now I might have lost interest, and confidence in the very foundations of my investigative faculty, I'm sorry.

Ghosty Leggy Bob

Well... this is one of the things I've been doing. A few less cute bloggable drawings, a bit of long winded painting a weird blue portrait of Bob with no trousers on.





These pictures go in chronological order. My camera is quite crude.









Going back to a flat sanded smooth sort of way of painting for this. Re-learning stick-to-it-iveness.





Anyway I have plans for a few more blogs, have done a bit of drawing and will do more.

the Era of Too Many Rich Reds

Well since I seem to have quite a lot of pictures to show you, I might do the paintings first, pace myself a bit.

There’s a palette I’ve used for a lot of paintings over the past year or so. I’ve been trying to finish them so I can finish up this era.

‘The passionate controversies of one era are viewed as sterile preoccupations by another, for knowledge alters what we seek as well as what we find.’ -
Freda Adler

Lately I’ve been finding these colours problematically bright and sweetie-like. There are too many of them. (Though this also presents an interesting challenge…) In the paintings I’m planning, the colours will be more ‘limited’, one way or another. At least limited enough that I feel in control of the colour and that it doesn’t dominate the other formal aspects of the picture. And so that it doesn’t look horrible and make me want to be sick.

Let’s be thorough about this. Here are the colours I’m lumbered with:


Michael Harding Phthalocyanine Blue and Zinc White





Grumbacher Pre-Tested Oil Quinacridone Red





Grumbacher Pre-Tested Oil Cadmium Barium Yellow Deep





(I think I made the yellow big because yellows are tricky bastards.)

Grumbacher Ultramarine Violet





Old Holland Flesh Ochre





Mussini Burnt Umber



Later, when I came back to the palette and it all seemed a bit too warm and cosy, and I had just bought a MASSIVE tube of raw umber, I added that to the mix too.

It’s the size of the big tube here in front of the little tubes:





Only it’s this colour:





Wikipedia has this useful piece of info about Raw Umber:

Raw Umber is a color that resembles raw umber.

I have a brain that doesn’t like wastage. So when I have a great big tube of a colour, I mind less about using it liberally.

Some of the artist grade oil colours are very expensive, so I become quite… aware…of this when I use them.

The thing is, at the moment I’m veering more toward using acrylic and other waterbased media UNDERNEATH a final layer of oil glazes, rather than using oils alone.

This is because acrylic dries fast and flat, is pleasingly opaque and allows for a more dynamic ‘drawing’ process in which changes and adjustments can be made spontaneously. The combination of acrylic/ the other plethora (plethora!) of media compatible with acrylic/ and finally the richness of oil colour gives quite a lot of scope for intricate other-worldly finishes, and quite a lot of scope for the painting to develop a strong sense of purpose along the way.

So this is Shelby, she’s a lady I painted with just oils, and taking advantage of the blobs and crags that inevitably appear. Using the above palette, I should add. I don’t think she’s finished.





Here’s her face in closeup so you can better see the texture. She’s painted on a ceramic tile:





in contrast, here’s a tiny painting from a while back painted in this palette but with a drawn/ mixed media underpainting and quite a lot more sensitive detail. Of course, it all depends on how much you like sensitive things….





Now a peculiar half-breed… a painting that was getting on quite well being shiny and plasticky, but which has had a decisive opaque oil makeover in recent times. It’s another startled giraffe:









That’s all in the same palette. But I have been subduing it more, painting in flatter swathes with tertiary kind of mixtures, rather than being dictated to by the bossy primaries.






Now… this one’s got really weird. Bob said to me it’s funny that I should turn on a particular picture and call it weird when I’m always painting weird dog explosions and minotaur tantrums. But I’m finding this one tricky. It’s based on some of those old drawings, but it needs to evolve its own authority, it might need a radical change.

I think maybe it’s a transitional type of thing where I’m figuring out HOW I’m going to paint and using wilfully obscure combinations of subject matter and atmosphere.





And Kurt’s developed a bit of a tan.




Here’s another old one in the same palette. This one’s all in oils, but with the texture worked up to a fair old level of detail and teeny tiny brushstrokes and flourishes. There are lots of ways I like to paint, but I think this isn’t quite the way that’s right for Right Now.






I have more painted stuff to show, but I will save it for an imminent follow-up, since it’s all in different colours and generally it’s got a lot more to do with bats. Then there will be some drawings too.

Everybody loves me! I'm freakin' adorable

This week I have been intent on capturing the wrestlery thumb-like pink cuteness of Kurt Angle the wrestler.... with varying degrees of success. (The title of this post is something he once said.) I think I’m building to something. I like doing at least two people on a page. Peoples’ faces are so gorgeous and so ridiculous. It’s nice to have two in order to milk the comedic and miscellaneous chemistry that occurs between a pair of mushes.

I’m also still a beginner at this caricature business, and I haven’t quite figured out what I ultimately want from it, apart from the obvious cheap thrills. Now let’s see….




The above page was my breakthrough page. I think a key factor is the regrowth of Kurt’s eyebrows (in real life) after several months of overzealous silly plucking. They add a lot to the expressiveness of his face, and it was his distinct expressions that helped my Kurtify my Kurts in this instance.

The big one on the top left ended up looking more than somewhat like Slimer from the Real Ghostbusters. I regret this a bit because Kurt is cute. But he does have a big rounded intense manface.

The demonic gargoyle biro one in the middle at the bottom looks nothing like him really, but I liked the way the process was taking on its own momentum and getting towards some way out places.






Then I noticed that the problem is a cartoony Kurt gets a little bit Disney. Like a cute Disney goblin sidekick. That didn’t interest me.






Nope, still in loveable babyman territory…

I felt I almost had to go wilfully nuts at this point, or try to see him anew. To get a bit bad at drawing or a bit very good. I got a little somewhere.







I wanted to try to get across some of the startling bigness of his eyes without them getting too… obvious.

It helps to include the bod.








Kurt’s big pink wide eyed neckhead has even found its way into pre-existing oil paintings. He looks like he’s just fallen in love! (This isn’t finished.)






Next time: Stuff that’s not Kurt!

Here’s a bit of a preview of something else. It’s a very poor blurry photograph of a hermaphrodite Ric Flair Britney Janus Wind God detail from a nearly finished epic landscape painting.






I love all your comments and interest and stuff.

Spooky goat man variations and cartoonlessness

Here’s a little watercolour study of Kurt Angle done in the spirit of Turner. This one is FINISHED, I think. It’s teeny tiny.

But it turns out he’s really hard to draw. Here are some frustrated little studies. I will understand the shape of your head Kurt, one day.

Now here are a couple that have been nearly finished for a long time. (See my current grey blog entry for more on my nervous twitchy issues around finishing stuff.) These are still not finished, but on a screen that has less meaning. One is a softer more diffuse supernatural Randy Orton goat man (he needs more electricity though).

You might have noticed that I draw Randy Orton a lot. This would be difficult to deny.

One’s a slightly more rugged fluorescent Randy Orton goat man. I used a lot of white lines on him.

I was trying to incorporate some zeitgeisty graphical lighting inflections from game screenshots. Spell effects from RPGs and things. It seemed a wholesome way to attempt to be zeitgeisty.

Those are the at the spookier end of my idiom I reckon. Very dense and peculiar layering of materials going on here.

It’s nice to do two of something. It allows you to explore subtly divergent variations on an atmosphere.

I’ve got nothing very cartoony this week. It’s a shame. It’s one of the most challenging things to do well. Soon though. Soon it will come together.