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A slight increase in size, and a change from paper to board, but using much the same kind of process I've been developing

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Trying to do very similar things on paper but using acrylics only, not ink. Well, it works very much the same way, but it opens up further possibilities of introducing colour, and on a larger scale. The first one I started the other day, using ink, but I added some acrylic highlights, and darks, because it ended up a bit close-toned (its still a bit dull).

width:21cm

width:12cm

width:12cm

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Only one today, but getting a bit bigger…

width:19cm

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All these are just 12x12cm.

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A steady stream of these smaller drawings is developing.

Here are some of them (reverse order of days, most recent first):

03/12/21

29/11/21

28/11/21

26/11/21

25/11/21

17/11/21

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Continuing to explore working over paper preworked with acrylic medium.

These pieces of paper are roughly 25-30cm.

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More notebook work

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Mostly tiny images on one page of my notebook.

The last two are larger (one page each).

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Mostly unstretched canvas, about 20cm wide

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I spent time last night looking at all the work I've been doing this year. It was enlightening.

I feel that I've been holding back on putting images here on my website until the art work concerned has reached a certain stage of development. Often, however, for myself, a lot of the interesting images are of unfinished work - sketches, ideas, scraps.

So, I now intend to be less 'editing' in my approach, and include more images, mostly without comment. Perhaps then, the blog will become more of a record of my ideas and progress, rather than its conclusion.

Some recent random images:

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I've not been too good at updating my blog recently, but I'm taking the opportunity now to play some catchup. Freedom day seems a good enough day to do that, though I have actually found it quite liberating being locked down for so long. This painting is quite large by my recent standards. But what is most interesting is the way it is developing now:

Gone is the simplicity of some of the recent small works, and gone too is the throwaway attitude of Romantic dada. I am squarely back in some sort of more traditional romantic world here. Not quite sure how it happened, how I got here, but certainly quite appreciating a new breath of fresh air.

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I've done some more work on one of those collages, and its beginning to get some shape.

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Restarting work on some old boards. Some of them are already roughly painted.

I've had some excellent feedback about this website, particularly the new 'Shop' pages. It suggests that work including collage AND painting (eg. Geology and Pointers) works for quite a lot of people. I've always liked those collage/paintings too.

So it makes sense for me to explore this more on boards, which lend themselves nicely to collage.

I'm thinking of using newsprint for the collage, perhaps already partially overpainted, of which I have quite a bit. And I will work on some more now.

Two pieces of newsprint, ready for cutting up:

And the first stages of three mixed media works:

Its a start! But there is plenty more to do…

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If you've visited my website before, you will now notice a few changes.

I have rewritten the site from the ground up, but have included most of the content from the old site. I've also added a completely new page called 'Shop'. I am now engaging with the business of selling work through my website, and not (currently) through any commercial galleries.

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As this painting progresses, I find myself wondering again about how these forms have emerged, and how I might start a new work with a clearer idea of what kind of forms I want, rather than simply allowing whatever emerges to take over. This is a constant debate in my mind.

And a constant response is to work with ink on paper, where I can experiment with forms to my hearts content. Thus I'm returning to some of this work now:

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I decided to go back to three pictures I was working on a while ago, but have left, unfinished. I had a real desire to work on something larger. Its hard to pinpoint why, but it has something to do with the sense of composition, which is hard to get away from when working small, because you can instantly see the whole work ALL the time. But its also to do with time - how working on a larger scale means that changes take longer, and this slows down the dynamic composition dramatically. In my paintings, there is often a complete change in the composition as I go along. I like to respond to what I see developing in whatever direction it pushes me. Within reason…

These were the three paintings:

I have started back on the first of these three (size= 1250x1080mm), which I last worked on three years ago. So far I am really enjoying it, and the painting has developed quite a bit more depth, though some of the changes will not be so apparent in photos, since they are more on the level of the brushwork.

But it is exactly this level that I'm so interested in, and the way that it slowly, but steadily, changes the overall composition, and meaning, of the work

This painting is still unfinished.

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Not a lot of change here, but I'm enjoying the process of working up the contrast a bit, and developing the space.

And something is definitely going on in the centre of this picture…

I did this drawing some weeks ago now, but it now seems relevant to the new painting I've started:

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I've had this canvas waiting a while to get started. I primed it with oil primer, which is unusual for me, and it takes a while to dry, so I sort of forgot about it. Then, looking around for something to work on, I spied it sitting there, and of course its now perfectly dry.

When I start a new work, I'm never quite sure how it will develop. I have an inkling of the way I want to go about it, but that's about all.

As it happened, I found myself working in a fluid way with thin oil paint - so different to quick drying acrylic!

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