2005, 2006... paper, getting good at drawing, lovely wrestlers

2005... I did all these little square paintings for a gallery that only sold square paintings (now defunct). Utterly pointless as a business venture. But it encouraged me to develop my on-paper painting techniques, watercolour plus others. Things got quite itty bitty but sometimes the cloudyness worked.

When we were smaller, my sister once drew a 'fartist's impression' of me, what I might look like if made of gas... these remind me of that.

















Also, wrestling was in the air.. I mean I needed something to get excited about.









and then 2006... wrestling chickens come home to roost... also it was when I started thinking of caricature, focusing on drawing, and when I started this blog...














This new kind of weirdness was quite special for me. I remember the first time Marlo Meekins sent me an instant message, I couldn't beleive she liked my work. (This was the era of Myspace. I attempted to Network.)

















These are all still quite 'bitty'... I've always tended towards the bitty, and relied on untrained instincts to provide any kind of structure or hierarchy. I'm getting better now at seeing the big picture, trying to avoid getting swamped in unnecessary complexity of my own making.

It meant a LOT to me to have peer approval about my drawing. It still does. I still hover between worlds of solid masculinity and concrete old fashioned values, and some kind of intangible artsy fartsyness, my own kind. (neither thing being very commercial on the local level.) I sometimes hate my 'artist' nature, but it remains.

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....

Walking cat

This one had a baby on his back.

This helped me to decide I want to stick with pure watercolour and not get all other stuff mixed up with it.



I might soon do a ten year review like Katie did. I think I need to tell some of my stories, people need stories to hang their reactions on.

A man with a spear will puncture your cultural fetishes

A silly bloggette of diary doodles... I smudged out the words, because the words in my diary are at once fascinating, incisive, scandalous and deeply embarrassing on many levels.

The doodles are flim flam, but you know, such is the way with many doodles. My doodles tend to be formless and girly.

I left some words in as a wicked tease, bet you're really curious now.


































'A man with a spear will puncture your cultural fetishes'. That's what I wrote. I think it might have been an idea for a painting.

Self

Visions of Chloe...






Scooting back and forth between some degree of realism and whatever the opposite is... then pulling back to some comfortable place in the middle... but where's the golden zone of creative fecundity?









Oh dear.

Odds, sods, heads, ambivalence

This is me good self with me big tall bulb forehead and weak chin.









Spare mood kitties.





Here is an astronaut. I was going to do astronauts then I got an ambivalence attack.

Now look here!

Right! (Said in Basil Fawlty style) These are the paintings I have left on ebay right now. They only have two days left to go. Ebay sales have slowed so I'll probably have a bit of a break from listing stuff once these are done. So take your chance, friends! I need pens!

Clicking on the pictures takes you to the auctions.


This small painting of the Beach Boys on the Jack Benny TV show I once showed to Sir Peter Blake. He said it was lovely. Honest that really happened.





This is only part of a little sketch from Piero Della Francesca.





And this is a painting of the Undertaker, who has the best gimmick ever out of any wrestler ever. Also he is supernatural and brill. it is a nice painting. You wannnnt it. You waaaaaaaaaaaant it.

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.