Wednesday 28 April 2010

Winter Paintings, 1.

alright,

correspondence from migraineville - it's been an age.

first off - thanks, guys. one and all for. . . well, for making me feel more okay about posting all this stuff than i expected to, or otherwise would do. after a decade out of art school, a huge chunk of which i was creatively inactive, i feel pretty self-conscious about my work and posting it's sort of a big deal. putting it out there rather than keeping it hidden away being seen by just myself. and emm. who pretty much remains both muse, and boot up my ass when i'm procrastinating or stuck in a rut.

i have a fair bit of work to post still before we're up to date and i'm posting 'current' pieces, but fortunately the 'current' pieces are taking so long that it'll be some time before those are posted anyway. which allows me to spread this stuff out. i could post stuff everyday, but that would be kind of like being bombarded with imagery rather than given time to look at it in bite-sized pieces.

so. posting these was something i didn't want to do in the middle of all those drawings, although i'll be posting my painted stuff from the latter half of last year (not much, given events) one at a time, and posting more drawings between. an entry of a painting, then some drawings, then another painting - capisce?

okay. shall we start then?:

this first piece is, as most of my work is, untitled but has the subtitle 'visible forms'. it's another of those anomalies, a painting that was FIRST started last MAY in it's original very linear form. it was along the lines of those 'ode' paintings. black and white, and i think you can visualise it like that even now. . . but - it just was NOT coming together.

it lay abandoned for some months until the fall when i approached it again, sanded it down a fair bit and began working over the original image in colour, initially planning to paint BOTH figures in the same more realistic palette. and then i got stuck again. weeks later when i went back to it with the idea to carry on, the events of october happened, and with it the spontaneous decision to essentially paint over the birdman character and have him suggested rather than defined.

paint was allowed to dribble, and smear.

from that point on, the painting more or less formed. areas were left incredibly rough and unformed - a patch of canvas where i was mixing fleshtones can be seen on the left side LEFT as it was rather than hidden, and the result is again - maybe - the sense of figure standing in front of something two dimensional. she's standing in front of a very abstract, textural painting of the birdman rather than the birdman himself. . .

oh, and again, these figures are life-sized. i do like working big.

it's not perfect, and there are areas i will correct at a later date, but there's far more i like about what is essentially a painting that was abandoned not once but twice. for now it's set aside to rest, and is posted here as a start.




















Friday 2 April 2010

Winter, 3.

so,

just enough time before scooting for easter to make another post here, the third batch of winter drawings. bored of these yet? thought so. anyway- again, selected from a big old pile, this time by both me AND emma. some favourites, some more representational. directional. again, some sketchier than others, some more finished.

but enough of my pointless talk.





20.

more dying sharpie, used deliberately for effect rather than a fresh pen. this was another image i'd been carrying around in my head and for once managed to execute it almost exactly as i saw it. i like this one a lot. . .



















21.

. . . this meanwhile is one of emma's picks. there's nothing to it and i never really reflected on it as anything other than a slightly goofy doodle. . .



















22-25.

various pencil drawings. 22 & 23 are emm's picks, the other two are mine. 22 was a deliberate attempt to draw emma in something OTHER than that damn cardigan that although synonymous with her (to me at least) i'd gotten into the habit of just automatically drawing, in spite of the fact she scarcely wears the thing anymore. 23 leans towards being more stylised. 24 & 25 meanwhile are favourites of mine, and depictions of emma in 2002, and 2009 respectively. 24 i'm especially fond of.




















































26.

this one's very sketchy but i love it probably more than anything more 'finished' here. it was sketched during a reflective period shortly before christmas, thinking about the couple of months that had led to that point, and this was what came out. the title, 'hymn' just seemed fitting somehow. . .



















27.

this by contrast is probably the most intricate, finnicky, finished drawing of all of these 'winter' drawings, done around the same time as 26 (and also, 19) and featuring a partick glasgow skyline, and one of the best drawings of emma i've ever done, as well as certainly the most realistic looking wings i've ever drawn - as opposed to very stylised flat shapes. detail. lots of detail. i love this. we both love this.



















28.

by contrast, this is that more stylised execution again. albeit in differing amounts, lending the possibility the figure is standing in front of a drawing of a building rather than a building itself. the bird on his shoulder is halfway there, but wouldn't look nearly as good done realistically. she's a small quirk, but my favourite part of this image.



















29.

'?'
















. . . emma picked this one- you can tell. make of it what you will. . .

and that's all for now.

next time, something completely different. . .