The Last Picture Show

Spring Paintings, 1.

2010-06-22T03:43:00.000-07:00

i think given we're into march and april we can call these spring rather than winter paintings. . .

so here goes with what we'll call the first of those, given that most of the 'winter' paintings had gestation periods that went back months and months and these were more of the moment - often based around or directly drawn from drawings done during that dark period of october and november, including this first piece.

so. remember this?

. . . from november. and a recap of what i said about it here:

'This one's REALLY sketchy. Mostly I was approaching transferring a vague image I had in my head to paper in a different, more relaxed approach than trying to commit it to the white in very deliberate lines and found that this way came a lot more naturally. While not precisely as I was visualising what I wanted to put on paper, it's a close approximation. And it didn't end with me getting frustrated and scrunching up numerous attempts. . . Mostly with this, I was just determined to have full figures in a drawing. Instead of my old, over-cropped stuff. And again, arhitecture, no matter how vague. . .'

*

it was, undeniably, an image that had stuck before i even drew it and which was going to continue to stick until it was painted. one or two - bronwen and emma spring to mind - have pointed out how familiar the image looks, and i have drawn similar images in the past which i think i'll dig out another day. . . but i think the composition itself was and is very typical of me and the way i make images. put together figures. something i'll be writing a blog about soon. . .

in the meantime, from that drawing and some months later, came this:

now first up, you can see some obvious alterations - the tall mesh fence has been replaced by a smaller more rustic post and wire fence, which makes the base image immediately less foreboding but also breaks the image up a little more nicely. the posts are crooked, unevenly spaced - i thought this and the very pale, sandy ground would be nice in contrast to the solid, dark urban skyline. likewise, the church building has been made less elongated - again, i wanted some degree of contrast between background and foreground, and the figures are pretty elongated, aren't they?

the poses, specifically emma's are also slightly tweaked. the original rough drawing had been hashing an idea out, this was more of a refinement of the original concept i hadn't quite managed to produce in that drawing - so the pose is more graceful and a little more natural.

as i've said a dozen times the last couple of months, having full length figures in my work was something i had to do, and had to get used to - and i think this one came out really nicely. proportionately, it's her. which i sometimes find hard to achieve - i think i have this subconscious programming to draw and to paint women in particular proportions, and having spent a few years drawing and painting curvier women, going onto a model who couldn't be more petite doesn't really come naturally. to quote sarah, 'she's teeny weeny!'

anyhow. the birdman figure has also been given more to do. instead of being a shadowy half-drawn mess off to one side, he's a part of. . . whatever's going on (imaginations people, use them), even if only as a spectator. his darker clothing keeps the very colourful arc the other two figures make unbroken.

at a little larger than A3 this is a smaller piece than those i've been painting, and also came a little more naturally. it was painted entirely in acrylics - some colours straight from the tube, such as the grass - which as ever, made its completion a lot less drawn out. there is even some matallic silver paint in there, which. . is a first.

it's not finnicky and i didn't strive to make it 'perfect' as i'd once have done, but i like it - what more can i say?

Winter Paintings, 3.

2010-06-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

right,

summer has arrived - well, in theory - and we're still posting work from winter and spring (which if you live in scotland pretty much amount to the same season) and so, let's get down to some serious posting again.

first up, a composition that will look familiar to anyone who remembers these and their progression from the chaos of dark old october, to earlier this year:

. . . yes?

three drawings of essentially one composition that was sticking, but not. . . quite working out. i added the single 'emma in profile' image there because it was key in getting me from A to B, and to this *deep breath* here:

. . . granted, not in one GO. again, as with the other paintings i've posted recently, the figures here are lifesized. which is hard worker for starters.

this is one of those pieces that was started, abandoned, started again, reworked. . . emma's hair went from full length and curling around her shoulders to the short - barely a - bob in the final image in about three stages, and my clothing was changed at least that many times. from plaid shirt and t-shirt, to coat and superman t-shirt, to closed coat and red t-shirt.

this was clearly an image that wasn't simply fulfilling an old compositional idea and i lost. . . SO much sleep over getting it as far as it got. the faces were repainted, and repainted, the hands - sweet JESUS, don't get me started on those! is emma's right hand tucking itself under my coat because that was my original intention for it? let's just say 'yes' shall we . . . ?

the background too went from plain, to a detailed backdrop which didn't really work, another backdrop, and back to plain again - which was fine except that i then obsessed about getting the colour and tone JUST right. . .

this painting DIDN'T paint itself, then, no, it's not my 'moby dick' - that painting i've YET to try and tackle, but let's just say i HAVE a composition for a painting in my head that will never leave me alone until i paint it - no, but it was harder work than anything i'd painted in a long time. and i will. . AM hard pressed not to go and rework it STILL. i only refrain from doing so because i've been threatened with a kick in the testicles from emma if i DO. . .

. . . i love this, though. i'm proud of it. again, as with the otehr pieces i've done recently, the likenesses are really strong. practise, i guess. i think i did things with colour through trial and error that ended up taking me somewhere new, and somewhere i liked. and there are little details here that i'm incredibly fond of, such as that lovely butterscotch coloured freckle on emma's ear, the ear itself (remember that whole page of ear drawings? came in handy, huh?) the slightly more subtle freckle on her cheekbone, the colouring around her eye, her hair. . . and just the feeling OF the painting.

detailed areas. flat, undetailed areas. emma's hair shorter than it's been since she was about one year old, but it WORKS in the image more than painting her hair longer would have. and i know that because i bloody DID :P

emma pointed out to me early on that we're not quite touching in this. like the drawings i posted where the figures are in that moment before a kiss, this is similar, but it's an embrace ABOUT to happen. she's ABOUT to turn. . . if you see what i mean.

emma also provided a tile, 'shelter' to an otherwise umpteenth untitled piece. anyone who can tell me WHERE she got the title from gets a gold star. . .

anyway. details:

and that, for now, is your lot :)

-iain

Drawings 2010, 3.

2010-05-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

continuing the year's earlier stuff, these three - more finished looking - drawings are from around the end of february, three variations on compositions i was playing around with, the first of which should look familiar. these three are among my favourite pieces of that period and were more focused breaks from all the loose drawings, and time-consuming paintings. . .

there are all A3 sized and thus, are represented by photographs rather than scans. #11 proved the hardest to photograph because of its very subtle shading here and there, so, bear that in mind. the other two are good representations of the actual pieces though. . .

it should also be noted that straying out of my trusty A4 scale was kind of a big deal for me. . .

11.

remember winter drawing #2? this is a progression ON from that, one of a series of variations and my favourite of the bunch, though there's another less stylised. this one has the subtitle 'freewheelin'', and if i have to explain that *shakes head* give yourself a slap.

this was another step into incorporating more of a background into the image i was producing. there was a lot of messing about drawing very loose building compositions with no figures in that led up to the likes of this, which i like. the other two drawings here are less busy, obviously . . .

there's a painting similar to this to come.

12.

this one, i love - it's kind of an 'iain image' if ever there was one. what i mean by that is that there are images emma says are instantly recognisable as my work by compostion and feeling as well as style, and i think this is one of those.

i like lots about this, i think it works and the likenesses are both really good, as i think is the division between dark and light areas of the image, and the poses. as someone who draws but is his own worst critic, this the kind of image you do five or six drawings for the 'that's okay, that's fine' pile to get to.

side-note: i can't take credit for the stray feathers falling from those great, dark oily wings - those were emma's idea. she does sometimes HAVE these little insights and ideas that i just wouldn't think of for one reason or another, so, credit where it's due. . .

and it's probably unsurprising for me to tell you that a painted version of this is currently 'work in progress'

13.

you can kind of tell this one was drawn around the same time because it shares a lot of linear and tonal qualities, though again it's quite different in feeling to #12 i think. . .

i like this one a lot too. side-note, remember what i was saying a couple of entries ago about emma's hair constantly changing length and that being a kind of artistic license? this is a good example - i deliberately made her hair shorter in this image so that the lovely area where her the back of her neck and shoulder meet and the dark hollow between her jaw and shoulder would be open to the eye. look at the drawing and try to imagine hair obscuring that area and you'll perhaps understand WHY i do these things. the drawing just wouldn't be the same without these little details. the same could be said of the neck on #12.

not that i have a thing about necks. . . . okay, i do, i admit it

*shrug*

i sometimes wonder in posting this stuff if it will be positively recieved, not because i don't think it's good, but because i'll be the first to admit my work has become utterly self-indulgent in the last year, moving away from very anonymous figure compositions and into, well, capturing the woman i love in one way or another and not really doing anything BUT that. i mean you kind of know when iain posts new work, it's not going to be anything other than another visual love letter to the little blonde spitfire, but. . .

i can live with that. i am happy with the stuff i produce, and i long since gave up being someone who paints FOR other people. art's not my career, it's something i do out of a compulsion to express feelings i have about the things around me with meaning, and those things within me that can't be expressed with clumsy words.

if nothing else, it's honest. . .

anyway - that's all for now. next - some more painting. . .

Action!

2010-05-14T05:10:00.000-07:00

From the sublime to - perhaps - the ridiculous,

At some point early in February I made the following, what was initially to be kind of an oddball Valentines Day gift for Emma, but I was never happy enough with it to hand it over, even though she - inevitably - loved it to bit, it was my first attempt at taking bits and pieces of old action figures and putting them together then sculpting additional details out of VERY fast drying putty, in this case the cardigan, pants, the hair and, well, her bosom.

I then painted the whole thing from scratch with acrylics which had mixed results, mostly because the plastic didn't seem to want to TAKE the paint until you'd put about four coats on. . .

It stands a little taller than five inches, so the first picture's larger than actual size. . .

I don't think it's a bad first attempt at something, I'm just overly critical - But I thought it would be a fun addition to the Blog. . .

That and Emm threatened to publically pants me if I didn't. . .

Interlude.

2010-05-12T14:47:00.001-07:00

Billy Bragg, "Cindy of a Thousand Lives"
-from 'Don't try This At Home', 1991

just one of those ridiculously good songs nobody's ever heard. . .

Drawings 2010, 2.

2010-05-10T09:25:00.000-07:00

*sigh*

if you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat, people? hmm?

so. one year on and my supergirl, my little blonde firecracker continue our journey, and this year so far a few blank canvasses have gone the way of the other paintings thus far - long gestation times - but my propensity to churn out loose drawings or spend hours upon finnicky ones has remained pretty consistent. . .

what's new, or one of the things that IS new is the very process of working which has altered dramatically. the newfound habit of messy ink drawings hashed out to try and capture fleeting ideas and compositions has given me a kind of focus that's led to MORE paintings being STARTED on confident footing. . . even IF they're still taking forever because of one thing or another. . .

anyway. the following is a second portion of drawings, all favourites from around february.

6.

similar to #4, though even more 'finished' in one way, and the one i prefer of the two (emma prefers #4), i think it's just more emma. like #3, again there were areas so heavily worked on that the paper was almost ready to tear, and like #1, this one's kind of all about defining shape, the shape of her nose and lips and eyes. again, it's a bit of a preparatory for a painting along with #1, which i'll be posting soon. . .

7.

this by comparison is more of a sketch. and stylised. if i'd gotten anything out of winter aside from those i've already listed, it was kind of a re-awoken desire for context in my pieces and i began - as you've seen in a couple of other drawings - to draw cafe scenes and to get back into looking at people like edward hopper again. plotting. so we get things like tables, cups and backgrounds and other figures starting to appear rather than flat space.

as a sidenote, emm finds my constant artistic license regarding the length of her hair hilarious. why do i sometimes draw it long and sometimes short? the simple answer is i don't really know. i kind of go with what feels right for a specific image, so sometimes it being short and layered looks better. it's a bit idiosyncratic, i know, but most things about me are. some days i take sugar in my coffee, sometimes sugar and milk, sometimes just black. . .

*shrug*

8.

and THIS one's even sketchier, but is a very good example of what i was just saying about context. background. details. a year ago i'd just neve rhave drawn something like this - but i love this, regardless of its sketchiness and the fact you'd never say 'that's really great', it is what it is and it captures some fragment of my life, complete with desk, cabinets, computer, bookcase, framed comic books on the wall, action figures, headphones. . . and emma. what she's pointing at and saying is entirely open for interpretation, though. you can use your imagination there. . .

9.

and this one. . . is another of those fantastically enjoyable sharpie drawings that on its own is - to me at least - brilliant enough in what it captures and says in the simplest of ways, but. . . i liked it so much i went on to do THIS:

10.

which i don't think needs any commentary. i. . . love this one with a passion, for obvious reasons, but beyond that it just captures so much in such an honest way. i'm very proud of this one. . .

and that's your lot for now

-iain

Winter Paintings, 2.

2010-05-07T04:30:00.000-07:00

. . . and let's have another one.

this one's 'gestation' - thanks, emma - wasn't quite AS long as that of the last painting, but was another of those pieces that was semi-abandoned for weeks and months at a time, called 'finished' around september but then heavily worked on in december to a point it changed completely - note the length of emma's hair. slight artistic license, but as of right now, not by much - and again, it benefited from being left alone, worked on and left alone again.

i'm really fond of this one, again. i think the colours came out great, especially. . .

Drawings 2010, 1.

2010-05-03T04:11:00.000-07:00

okay, emm,

(sarc.)

as i said - paintings then drawings til we're up to date. and i decided to jump straight into the 2010 stuff rather than dilly dally around with the dregs of 2009, which i'll post at a later date.

after heavy-going visceral ink, and then lighter post-november drawings, the start of the new year marked a period of just playing around with different ways of drawing, in some cases carrying on with the sharpie-doodle-then-pencil-drawing method of working, in others drawings were a little more finnicky, more textural. but sometimes more linear than anything else, ranging from very stylised to more realistic and precise. there are lots of all of these, but at emma's suggestion, i'll only post four or five at a time. with notes, of course, as ever. . .

1.

done within the last pages of the 'book of emma' this was one of the first things i drew in january and was mostly about trying to capture areas of shading around her neck, collarbones, shoulders, nose and eyes for a painting i was plotting - really just a means to an end, but it ended up being more finished and i love it because it captures more of emma than was intended - the crinkles between her eyebrows and the shape of her mouth - sarah polley teeth and all - especially. the latter, something i usually struggle with. . .

it's a favourite. . .

2.

a much more stylised, sketchy drawing this, and an image that stuck and would be repeated in three or four other drawings before, finally, a painting. i'll post another of these next time, before the painting itself, but i like this one for small details - emm's hair and the birdman's untucked shirt in particular. . .

3.

purely visceral and pretty much scratched with pen so hard into the paper it was nearly torn. i like this because it reminds me of etchings i did in art school. again, it's pushing myself, trying different things, seeing where it takes me rather than sitting doing the same old finnicky drawings. . .

4.

and this one is again a favourite. done in a slightly more relaxed and less frenzied manner to the last drawing, but a lot more precise and with realism a lot more in mind, i enjoyed doing this stuff and went on to do a LOT more of it. to some degree these are descended from all that messy october sharpie work - there are even a few very minimal strokes of sharpie in this one in the bottom right hand corner. . .

5.

aaaand charcoal, something i at that point hadn't used in months and which took a little getting used to again. this was a favourite of the first batch of charcoal drawings i did in january - giving those pens and pencils a rest - and i like this for what it is, as with the others.

i'd gone through a bad patch and through it, wanted something different from both the process of being creative AND what i produced, and these are all indicative of someone not wanting to put all their eggs in one basket.

they're a start. . .

Winter Paintings, 1.

2010-04-28T04:11:00.000-07:00

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.

Winter, 3.

2010-04-02T02:57:00.000-07:00

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. . .

Winter, 2.

2010-03-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

Alrighty then,

Much delayed follow up to that last post, mostly procrastination on my part and the usual headaches, literal and otherwise.

Again, these are a mixed bunch. Selections from the big pile - Some sketches, some little more than doodles and others more refined than a lot of the preceding stuff I'd been churning out. Variations on repeated themes and images, further attempts to incorporate more of a background as well as full figures into images. Again, some of these images show up in later drawings and at least one painting, more refined. Those you'll see, in time. . .

You can view these as a continuation of a period where I was back enjoying the simple process of sitting and drawing without ever getting critical about what I was doing. Just taking my time, trying things, seeing what I could come up with. . .

9-11.

Like #5 & #6, these are a rough ink drawing that serves as kind of a try-out or rough for - i this case - two pencil drawings, variations of the same poses and composition, though both feel very different, emotionally speaking. These are two of four or five, incidentally. This was an image that I was a little obsessed with capturing in JUST the right way, and these two drawings are essentially my favourites of the bunch.

12 & 13.

Again, same concept - Pen drawing and then a more refined second drawing, in this case done in a mix of pen and pencil. While still fairly rough, as with #10 & #11, I love the resulting image, the composition, the feel of it. It says what I want it to say which no amount of finnickiness ever could.

14.

There's almost nothing to this sketch, but I love it. Real indie comic book splash-page composition.

15.

Again, there's pretty much nothing to this small doodle. And it is little more than a doodle. But again, I love it. A more polished, finished painted version of this composition I'll post at a later date.

16.

Done around the same time as #15, again there's very little to this one. It was just an idea, an image I had in my head I wanted to get down on paper. I like this. It's not great, but it looks unlike anything else I've drawn and has a certain dynamism to it that I find appealing.

17.

Again - imperfect, but I love this image, and it's one I'd had in my head for a long, long time but never put down on paper before this, but which I went on to do more versions of. Yes it's a little goofy, and the birds are stylised rather than realistic, but. . . *shrug*

18.

Another Sharpie begins its slow death with this one, which I utilised by using the smudgey inklessness to express texture, using a new pen on parts like the coat to make them stand out. This, again, is an image that spawned variation after variation but again, was me pushing myself to include architecture, perspective and whole figures. well, at least ONE. I'm extremely fond of this one, particularly the depiction of Emm which I think is one of the best I've done of her.

19.

And #18 could be said to have spawned this drawing, another favourite of mine. I love this. Again, it's not perfect but I care very little about perfection anymore.

Emm, Edinburgh, Forbidden Planet - a very full drawing with a background, foreground and even stuff in the middle. Architecture, at least one full figure - shadowy or not - This was sort of a breakthrough. The beginnings of one, at least. Through which much of my long lost confidence started to slowly rebuild itself.

None of which would have happened without all that had happened in the weeks before, I think. I don't know. . .

. . . More next time.

Winter, 1.

2010-03-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

So,

November into December.

To some degree these are more of the same, in other ways some of what I did when things had cooled down a bit was a step back. Not a big step forward, but just doing - and the desire to do - pieces that were a little less intense and demanding. Understandably.

This first selection is mostly random. While not churning out pieces as I'd been doing, I was still producing more than I had been and being a lot less finnicky. And yes the drawings are a lot less finished looking than my 'usual' work, but again, the idea of sitting spending hours on finnicky, precise drawings had lost its appeal.

The pen would to some extent a backseat in favour of pencil by the middle of December, by which point it had taken on a slightly different role. . .

1.

The bird mask minus its owner. I wanted to draw just this as a way of separating the two, that and to try and do something resembling a design of the mask itself because it's always been a bit vague and amorphous, and generally been drawn / painted in profile. I like this.

2-4.

Three Emma drawings of slightly differing style and levels of realism that pretty much speak for themselves. Straightforward with no underlying bleak story. Just drawings.

5.

This one's REALLY sketchy. Mostly I was approaching transferring a vague image I had in my head to paper in a different, more relaxed approach than trying to commit it to the white in very deliberate lines and found that this way came a lot more naturally. While not precisely as I was visualising what I wanted to put on paper, it's a close approximation. And it didn't end with me getting frustrated and scrunching up numerous attempts. . . Mostly with this, I was just determined to have full figures in a drawing. Instead of my old, over-cropped stuff. And again, arhitecture, no matter how vague. . .

6 & 7.

Now then. Here's where things took a bit of a turn, which sort of speaks for itself - Sharpie drawing as preparatory study. This out of the blue became a 'thing', a habit which led to the production of some great drawings I really love, minus the stress of being finnicky because I'd bashed out the basic concepts first. Admittedly, not the original plan but just something that. . . happened, pottering around, drawing.

And again, full figures, something I've avoided for years. And years. Oh, and years.

The pencil piece itself I like and don't in equal measures, but that's just me doing what I do best - Being my own worst critic.

8.

Simple. Again with these, no explanation necessary. I was just getting back to enjoying drawing again, without it being about thrashing emotions out of my system. I think it probably shows.

9.

One of my favourites from that period of late November into December. There's nothing to this but I love it. Sharpie and pitt pen for the thinner lines. I couldn't have done something like this in pencil. It wouldn't have 'felt' as this one does. if that makes any sense at all. . .

And that's all for today.

interlude.

2010-03-18T05:09:00.000-07:00

alex chilton,

december 28th 1950 - march 17th 2010

shake chris bell's hand for me, alex. . .

and thank you.

Big, 1.

2010-03-18T03:38:00.000-07:00

So.

We're onto November into December now in this 'Catch Up' summary drawn over however many entries, and I'll do the same again rather than bombarding you eyes with a gajillion images at once.

But before I get too submerged in another x-number of entries of drawings, I thought I'd post something painted to break things up a little. There's quite a bit of painting to post, but I think thi, an soe of the others I'll slot in between the remaining work from 2009 I have to post, fit a little better than any of the more 'realised' full colour stuff.

This one is. . . Kind of an anomally. And huge, those figures are life-sized. On paper. I had started it months before, abandoned it, worked over it, disiked it, repainted parts, abandoned it some more. It was always a BIT sketchy and while a lot of it remains pretty sketchy, the figures became more fully realised, and thus the focus, and that was what I went back to and worked on until I declared 'done'

The backdrop again is sort of vaguely Dundee. It should really be Edinburgh, but I guess the architecture of Dundee is more ingrained into my sychological source material when it comes to drawin buildings. Especially Perth Road, a long road I must have walked thousands of times my four years at art school. . .

I liked to think of this as not two people standing in front of some distant buildings as two people standing in front of a painting of some distant buildings. And again, bear that in mind, it's an element in some of what I go on to paint next. . .

I like it. The depiction of Emm is far more 2002 than 2009 - rounder face and so on - but i chose not to get finnicky and correct that. Actually, I kind of like that about it. . .

opoponax, 3.

2010-03-14T04:05:00.000-07:00

. . . i think i'll skip a large chunk of the rest. the stuff following on from that last batch into, well, i think its direction was fairly clear. and i feel more negative about posting that stuff today than otherwise, so. . .

another time, maybe. but probably not. anyway. . .

these eleven images are kind of representational of the end of that dark period. we're into november now - the lines are less gnarly, have taken on a different quality altogether in places and there's a definite narrative going on from one image to the next - though we're looking at selections here, not the whole pile - i think you can pretty much see the tension ebbing away. . .

also, yonder pajama wearing skeleton has become something more fully formed than the inky mess that first manifested. . .

34.

this is somewhat out of place in a way, a pencil drawing amongst all that solid black and white, but i wanted to post this because i like it, and because, like previously, backgrounds are creeping into my stuff in the form of interiors as WELL as exterior scenery, as seen here in the shape of, well, my kitchen. this was fast and done with more or less the same ethic as the ink drawings had been done with - don't worry about portraying what you see so much as what you feel. so while it's slight as drawings go in one sense, it's another step somewhere new. . .

35 & 36.

35 is sort of an anomally. the birdman figure was an abandoned piece from weeks earlier which i just randomly looked at one evening and said 'this needs another figure', which kind of went against my newfound habit of doing the drawings, leaving them and doing something else. a few corrections were made - which i regret now because they stick out like a sore thumb - in white ink, and a more straightforward self-portrait was added. i think. . . this is one of those pieces that has a narrative undercurrent, which 36 carries on with. 36 is noteable for being botha little less stylised, and for the fact that it was done in my trusty sharpie's - the second, actually - death throes. . .

37.

this one's open for interpretation, but even i don't know what's going on in it. i love this, though, mopstly for small things like emma's hair, my general dishevelled appearance - and the first appearance of the new suit and tie MASKLESS birdman look - the positioning of the fence, compositionally and by no means last or least, our skeletal oddball looking. . . well, skeletal. . . again though, definite narrative suggestion here. that illustration degree not going completely to waste, then . . .

38 - 40.

a mixed bag of stylized, random goofiness - 38 - further exploration of cityscape backgrounds and composition - 39 - and looser scratcvhing around with a new sharpie, seeing what can be come up with on one very white sheet of A4. i think by this point i'd become equally fond of that damn skeleton and the fully realised owl mask, but eprhaps even more fond of the medium itself. . .

41.

there's almost nothing to this. i don't think it could be any more minimal - and yet, i don't think i could love it any more than i do. . .

42.

the final three images - for today at least - are completely random and polar. i don't think they could be more different from each other. this one, i think, is a favourite of mine from a small pile of mask drawings i did around this time kind of. . playing around with how the character had looked and how i wanted him to go. i'm not sure why this one stands out for me, i just like the lines. . .

43.

bizarre that my hand should ever draw such a thing. do i necessarily like this? no. but the oddness of me drawing it lends its right to a place here. it's another small part of where we're going. this is kind of a landmark of ugly dundee architecture, a tower building belonging to the universtity which. . shows up less stylised in the background of at least one later piece you'll see. . . soon enough. . .

44.

. . . needs no commentary, explanation, or words of any kind.

Opoponax, 2.

2010-03-12T03:31:00.000-08:00

. . . second batch? yes.

these are. . . different. time went on, the ratio of scrunched up balls to drawings changed drastically, and the paper-attack look lessened. they became less severe as my circumstances settled a little, though subjectively they're still pretty bleak, especially towards the last three or four, by which point. well. i don't want to go there . . .

the selection process for these was part random and part humming and hawing. between this post and the next, last post of these drawings which lead into my newer stuff that i'm far less conflicted about, there are a couple of dozen leftover pieces that i'll post at a later date, i think.

some of these are a little obtuse. some get very stylised. some are more straightforward. . .

anyway. in all their black and white sharpie and paper glory, with commentary:

19.

one of a bunch of owl-mask drawings. i picked this one because of the additional detail. it's not just sharpie and i like the contrast of teh thick lines and thin detail lines and that there's more tone to thios than just black and white.

20 & 21.

he of the striped pajamas again. it should be clear that he really CREPT into the stuff i was producing given how unformed the first few drawings are, even the first one here. they're working towards forming a character. 20 i added because i both love the pure expressionism of the top drawing, and the oddball nonsense of the second - and both on one page.

there's nothing i don't love about 21. and 21 is the first fully formed image of this new odd addition to my rogues gallery of characters. minus the big black wings he was wearing in 15. those have been inherited by the soon to be maskless birdman. make of that what you will. . . also, this marks the beginnings of actual ARCHITECTURE showing up in my drawings instead of plain untouched backgrounds. which is. . . sort of a big thing. . .

22 & 23.

. . . and speaking of architecture. these were random, odd, sketchy. sharpie again, with that more detailed addition of a thinner drawing pen in 23, the more 'complete of the two. i did a bunch of these, and picked two sort of at random to show the difference between the looser ones and the more finished - vaguely - drawings.

24.

a straightforward birdman drawing. but i love this one passionately.

25 & 26.

and it's HIM again. i think there's an odd thing with this character in that as grim as he is, he seems more court jester than grim reaper. i picked these two because i love how gnarly he looks in 25, and how utterly ridiculous and random the notion of him doing his 'sound of music' routine is', even though said drawing is pretty much just a mess of black ink. but come on, wouldn't you rather see a skeleton in stripey PJ's than julie andrews? i know i would. . .

comic relief in hard times? i think so. . .

26 - 33.

i'll leave these without commentary. i wasn't going to post these, and i may NOT keep them up indefinitely, so. they're kind of a return to the darker tone of some of the early drawings in that last post, with reason. take them and interpret them as you will.

Opopanax, 1.

2010-03-09T02:56:00.001-08:00

. . . and so, we begin.

i'll scatter these black and white drawings between two posts. possibly three. they're by no means ALL of what was produced, more a summary, sometimes randomly selected from piles of what amounts to very similar images. . .

obviously these are difficult to verbally summarise in any way other than describing them as being produced very physically, sometimes frenziedly. you can kind of read my moods and different points of the great low i was falling into by how linear or non-linear the images get, the line quality, so on. . .

they're not aesthetically very nice to look at, and they may technically be all over the place but they. . . well, they performed a necessary buffer. an outlet. and certainly they could be called personal. though hoinestly, i'm posting them as much to put that whole era behind me as anything else. what evolves out of this visceral near-ugliness is, toi me, better than what existed before it, artistically. . .

anyway. this bunch do fall into categories though. i think maybe more of a directors commentary is needed this time around than liner notes. . .

1-4.

. . . if something bad's starting to go down, and you feel helpless or worried it's supposedly helpful to distract yourself. these were drawn during an afternoon where my mother's condition, thought initially to be a bad dose of food poisoning got worse. and worse. and worse, until she was ambulanced into hospital, completely delirious.

attempting to distract myself, i drew. the first two drawings you can see a jump in style - my mood shifted down a notch. i attempted to focus more, rather than drawing randomly - i had an idea for a painting i wanted to do and the composition was in my head but i couldn't quite get it onto paper on top of being in a self-critical mood and my state of mind got increasingly mroe anxious, which. . . i think shows. there were more drawings, now long destroyed, that were along the same lines so to speak. the same old same old. but it was an afternoon of nothing coming out looking 'right', something that was about to be pretty much abandoned. the painting i was struggling to lay down a composition for, incidentally, i'll post two or three entries down the line - it got there, eventually.

5-7.

three remnants of the next couple of days attempts to draw, which mostly ended up scrunched balls of paper strewn from one end of the floor to another and produced during a couple of completely sleepless nights. my mother's condition worsened., the words swine flu were thrown into the mix. her delerium got worse.

in the case of #5, i had almost, almost managed to calm my anxiety stricken brain enough to distraction and produce a drawing - in the thinner pen - that looked good, and then it went wrong. i think i screwed up the mouth, something i'm prone to doing - and pretty much ATTACKED the paper with a black sharpie. 6 and 7 could be said to have been done in the same manner, as were others, which i won't post because. . . well, you get the idea. and these are more linear examples.

8-9.

more 'remnants', survivors of paper-massacres that didn't end up scrunched up on the floor. as things remained grim, i carried on trying not so much to take myself out of the situation as to find an outlet that wasn't, well, jumping out of the window. and while i continued with the scratchy sharpie and sometimes liquid ink, and usually destroyed the fruits of my labours, i began to loosen up the 'attacking the paper' a little. not a lot, but a little. these are sort of significant in that they're the beginnings of something that develops later on, just as 3 & 4 led to a finished piece of work, these planted a seed or two. . .

10 & 11.

again, remnants, one marginally less loose than the other more. i did loads of these, and just picked two at random from the pile.

12 - 15.

these, i don't even remember doing, and again they're very stark but some of the imagery, again, will be repeated later on in a more conscious manner. these also mark the first utterly random appearance of the very odd, thus far unnamed pajama wearing skeleton. make of him what you will. . .

16 & 17.

these are random survivors of a drawing session done late into that first week my mother was in hospital, the remainders of which could be said to be a bit more like #10 and #11, but these stand out from this particular bunch. i should also note that all of these drawings are AS they appear on the paper, compositionally speaking. i think i had sort of. . . stoppsed caring about whether pieces of what i was drawing got chopped off by the edges of teh paper by this point. in fact i was just putting pen to paper and drawing with very little thought beforehand, a rather new concept given my habit of sitting staring at blank paper / canvas for minutes at a time before producing a single mark. some part of HOW i had worked to this point was no longer working. . .

18.

and finally for this batch, further development of what i first scrawled in #8 and #9 with that mishapen and messy, vaguely birdish mask starting to become somthing very specific, the heart-shaped face of an owl.

and again, this goes soemwhere in time. . .

by this point, a lot of tension had been eased, things were begionning to still, and i think the more controlled - though still loose by my usual standards - line kind of expresses that. . .

anyway. further down the iceberg's tip next time. . .

Leftovers.

2010-03-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

. . . . right.

so where to begin. the start, i guess. dozens upon dozens of pieces to upload and post that tell some kind of a story of going through a dark period last october into november, drawings for the most part but which - i think - don't necessarily make for easy viewing.

someone you love deeply almost dying kind of has. . . an adverse reaction on your work. and work into that other things going on at the same time - they were some pretty dark times. 'pretty' pictures' are not made on darker days. . .

thus, we'll begin with some leftovers - some rescans, some unposted stuff, some from as early as last spring, a couple of others from early october. before, you could say. . . and again, some i like, some i'm posting because emma - the subject, as ever - likes them, and some are better than others. . .

a note - i work from my imagination. i don't use photographs, i don't draw from life. i used to do both, but, especially working from photographs for a few years led me to a place where i became VERY dependant upon reference material and when it came to drawing from the top of my head, once my favourite way to work, i became overly critical of everything i produced, and that. . . bled into my other work. the decision to NOT work from source material has pros and cons - sometimes for example, the likeness of a person is lost a little in favour of capturing more some essence of them. i couldn't say whether that's a pro or a con, it's just something that is. some of what i do comes off very stylised, some doesn't. my brain decides. it's. . . i think, as honest a way to draw, or paint as there is.

so. some of it is better than others. but even the weaker stuff has elements i like. as you'll see when everything 'kicks off' in the next entry, the aesthetic goal of everything looking 'right' sort of goes out of the window in favour of expressive, visceral purging. and it does very much become about imagination, and abandoning old, finnicky, realist habits. . .

these, meanwhile, mostly speak for themselves, though some liner notes might be helpful. i'll post those at the end.

'liner notes':

1- the 'very short-haired emma' drawing is an oldie. about a year ago she had her hair cut almost - but not quite - that short, something she immediately regretted and fortunately her hair grows almost freakishly fast, the progression of which can be seen over the course of the other drawings, although it's often hard to put older stuff in chronological order because i - to appease her unease over how short her hair was - more often than not drew her with LONGER hair. . .

2- the dark, inky 'sleeping emma' piece that follows is one of my favourite pieces from last year. acrylic/ink on board, this kind of thing i feel i'm 'in my element', it's messy and loose in places (okay, most of it) and then finnicky in others like the hair. i also really liked that wing / shadow because it could be either, but wouldn't have worked with the usual, standard owl's wing. and more on owls, later. . .

3- the single, colour piece is me messing around with watercolours, not especially liking it and then inking lines over the whole thing. and yes, i know her head is disproportionately large. her head isn't that big in real life, i promise. i should also point out that she doesn't wear that cardigan ALL the time. i'm just especially fond of it. . .

4- the three panel piece. this is from the 'book of emma' and dates back to about the same time as a similar, almost comic book page. i like this a lot, even though as emma pointed out before i was even finished drawing the thing, the third panel looks more like sarah from 'chuck', which we'd not long watched. that's the subconscious for you. some you win, some you lose. . .

5- ears. some of those are emma's, some of them are mine. and some of them are composites. i was clearly a bit OCD that particular day.

. . . and the last two were the last two done BEFORE everything went. . . dark. the humour and prettiness of these is all but missing from what follows.

so these were as good a place as any to begin all this again . . .

New Work.

2010-02-08T09:12:00.000-08:00

. . . . This week.

This poor blog is rather abandoned, which I ought to do something about - In fact that was a resolution of mine at New Year, and here I am five or six weeks later writing something for the first time since frakking November.

Some of it is simply forgetting I have an audience besides Model / Subject / Muse / Sidekick (etc) Emma - and some of it is weird Social Anxiety stuff I should be over by now. Something like Artistic 'Stage Fright' I guess, being overly self-critical sometimes, and other times just obsessing about the personal nature of a lot of what I do. In one sense most of these images are very simple, but there definitely feeling and a certain amount of emotion involved in them.

Also, simply, I'll be the first to admit that my work is predictable. You pretty much know what's coming next and whether rightly or wrongly I make my mind up that nobody REALLY needs to see ANOTHER Emma painting, or drawing, in spite of the fact that a certain evolution has taken place with both since I first painted her, a year and a half ago.

And not just in having gotten more used to the subject, it's. . . more than that.

I mean you'll see what I mean, but. . . Honestly, I feel like my work is evolving very subtly into something with more aesthetic substance.

And it's far too easy to keep it all to myself for whatever, reason, so. . .

Watch this space.

random.

2009-11-07T03:38:00.000-08:00

saturday is the day for random drawings from what amounts to a sizeable backlog pile. all pencil, different dates, different levels of completion and quality and some i'm happier with than others, but. . .

happiness

2009-10-12T05:02:00.001-07:00

happiness. exactly as the title suggests. one of my favourite emma drawings, so far. some artistic license used in giving her longer hair, but. . . i like it.

another very straightforward drawing from the book of emma. . .

"Sunday"

2009-10-11T05:29:00.000-07:00

... and so we begin, again.

more to come. . .

reboot:

2009-09-10T07:30:00.000-07:00

almost three months later. . . ?

sometimes we do drop off the face of the earth for a bit, inexplicably or otherwise. it's been three months of ups and downs and comings and goings.

new work soon. ish.

honest.

Emma That Was.

2009-06-12T05:24:00.001-07:00

Righto,

This one's a bit different and is one of the oil pieces I've been working on. It depicts - as the title suggests - Emma, circa 2002 when I first met her - long, thick hair, nose stud, eyeliner and a little rounder in the face.

I've given her the same blue cardigan and turquoise shirt because I think they look great with the slightly stylised fleshtones i tend to use, and the brushwork in this is a bit more my usual fare rather than very smooth like in 'Emma #3'

Is it finished? Probably not. Am I done with it for now? Yes. I really liek it in this state, to be honest. Sometimes I have this awful habit of overworking things - I get to a point where a painting looks great, and I keep on going with it and absolutely ruin it and there is definitely a point where you should say 'this looks good' and put your brushes down. . .

This looks good.

*puts brushes down*

Two Colour 'Studies'

2009-06-08T08:29:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how to classify this pair - they were both done in much the same vein as the black and white pieces - scrap pieces of cardboard, A4-ish, acrylic over initial pencil sketches and quite stylised, but rather than work over the usual white gesso base, i used a flat block of colour, one orange one a pale blue colour and THEN drew, THEN painted. . .

The results are maybe a little more finished looking to some degree than the other small pieces I've been doing, particularly the rather warm looking orange piece which features the return of Emm's oversized wool cardigan complete with 'Watchmen' badge. the original orange basecoat can be seen in the 'halo' and behind much of the other details.

The blue piece, which looks by comparison rather cold is completely different. It's less stylised and probably the closest to realism I've come in any of these Emma pieces so far - So the two combined kind of showcase both sides of my work I guess. The stylised Expressionist side, and the lesser showy side which is all about being precise and which I dip into much less. . .

Anyway. Enjoy.

Coming soon, an all singing, all dancing, all Puffin blog. Okay, there may not be singing and dancing, but there will be puffins. . .

Black and White, #3 & #4

2009-06-04T10:28:00.001-07:00

. . . two further black and white pieces, one - the second here - more stylised, while one is a bit more realistic than the other three have been and maybe isn't technically black and white because i used some buff titanium acrylic which is just an essentially colour for anyone who paints people.

buff titanium. the absolute best base for fleshtones there is.

admittedly here it's used to make things a bit more subtle, and thus i'm maybe going to rework the 'ode' paintings i've done thus far including #3 to incorporate it - i like the way it works with the black and white, it adds. . . . SOMETHING.

anyway, i think this much more realistic little painting - again, about A4-ish and done on a scrap of cardboard and left rough in areas while worked tightly in others - is one of the best things i've done recently, it has some lovely quality. it's simple and uncomplicated. simple and uncomplicated is good. . .

Book of Emma, pg 6

2009-05-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

yes,

a third post this crazily hot weekend, and another page from the slowly filling up 'book of emma' featuring the sketchbook debut of fergus the dog, also known as baron ferqus de montmartre the doggerel dog. . .

strangeness. fairly sketchy, and emm came out looking a bit like rachel mcadams (no bad thing, because SHE'S gorgeous), but i like it a lot :)

pencil and a bit off pitt artists marker pen as usual. i should have those items welded to my hands, theyr'e all i ever draw with. . .

Black and White, #1 & #2

2009-05-31T04:32:00.000-07:00

okay,

so i've been doing small, slightly more stylised pieces this week (along with working on 'ode #3' and a few colour oil pieces) of which these two are the first, and i'll be posting these as i do them in chronological order.

like the concept image for 'ode #2' and the rough with the two bird masks, these were (and being) done on smallish scraps of cardboard as, i guess, a form of artistic recyling and again were done in a combination of black and white acrylic and some black chinese ink i got as a gift from a good friend.

and yes, i know how crazy the proportions in the first one are, but. . . i am an expressionist painter above and over anything else. proper prespective and photographic realism are best left for people who get soemthing out of doing that kind of art, i very rarely do. . .

much more to come

easily. . .

2009-05-30T02:57:00.000-07:00

the nerdiest thing i've ever done artistically (believe it or not), but it was a request from emma so who am i to say no?

emma and yours truly in costume as green arrow and black canary. and yes i went for the hooded look rather than the jaunty hat look. . . i'd feign protest and grumble about it, but it was lot of fun to do and i like it a lot :)

Book of Emma pg 5, and a rough

2009-05-27T11:06:00.000-07:00

struggling with poor daylight one more, but photographed rather than scanned again, these images kind of hint at the direction forward both 'the book of emma' and the 'ode' series seem to be headed in - though in no way is this small study featuring not one but TWO bird masks indicative of the currently in process 'ode #3' which is proving easier asnd less troublesome than its predecessor, which i'm still feeling conflicted about. . .

anyway. in regards to this sketchbook page, it started out as the central image and sort of morphed into a makeshift comic book page, minus dialogue of which there'd be a single line in the bottom panel (see detail), 'iain, are you awake?'

so again, we're dealing with a certain amount of autobiography. . .

lots of shading on this page, so it's hard to capture in any subtlety, but i'm happy with this, and it's something that i want to take a bit further. . . .

Ode #2

2009-05-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

lots of images for you today.

first up, the second 'ode' painting, again done in acrylics.

this one was tougher than the first, more small details that proved to never be quite right, such as emma's right eye which i finally just covered with hair, and her right hand which gave me the biggest headache of anything i've worked on lately, however they turned out alright in the end and i like this mroe than 'ode #1' in spite of those niggling details. the composition is very much aligned with a lot of my older work, stuff i've always liked, and the design of the crazy never-the-same-twice came out really nicely with the addition of an odd little barb towards the end of the nose. . .

i also thoroughly enjoyed painting em in her pj's :P

then next up, some obligatory details, which i'll probably repost at a later date - the weather's bloody awful today and thus photographing ANYTHING is proving pretty difficult.

and - aren't i good to you? - after those, just to be a completist, the original concept ink sketch for the painting, done in about ten minutes. it wasn't intended to be a concept for the second 'ode' painting, i was just doodling and the idea stuck. . .

and that's your lot for now

-iain

emma, #3

2009-05-22T00:28:00.000-07:00

oil on canvas, framed

. . . and i never frame anything. this was the third large-ish painting - basically life-sized, the first close-up below is the EXACT size - i did of the lovely emma after two colour pieces specifically FOR her to choose from, before giving her both.

this one i did for myself, and though the three are very similar i like this one best partly because there's a little more feeling in it somehow and i think i'd fnally gotten a grasp of the pale fleshtones and blonde hair which i'd initially found slightly awkward after years of painting the reliable contrast of dark hair and light skin.

granted a little artyistic license means both are a little darker in the painting than the subjects own hair and skin, but. . .

i love this piece, i'm proud of it and happy with it enough that i put it in a frame. granted it's a bastard to photograph and the close-ups are a better representation of the colours than the first image, however. . .

it paved the way for everything that's been coming lately. the drawings, the 'ode' series and other stuff in the works that you'll see. soon enough. . .

the book of emma pg 4, and some teasers

2009-05-21T00:37:00.000-07:00

the fourth page of the emma sketchbook and again, more along the same lines though admittedly a little more detailed this time with the shading and such:

pretty much how i remember her looking when i'd go into costa coffee during the summer of 2002 for a latte and biscotti - chunky thumb ring, pigtails, nose stud, notebook pen and pencil tucked into her apron, big badge with her name and a smiley face on. . . the angel wing is obviously artistic license, of course ;)

anyway. THESE are some high contrast teasers of the 'emma #3' painting i'll be posting tomorrow ahead of 'ode #2' which i'll be posting over the weekend with more drawings and some randomness. the colours are a lot more subtle, but you'll see that. . . tomorrow

the book of emma, pages 1 - 3

2009-05-20T00:55:00.000-07:00

the first three pages from the aforementioned 'book of emma' sketchbook which are pretty indicative of what the thing's all about (if the name alone doesn't give it away). . .

the first page sort of gave birth to the idea, just one of thos ethrowaway drawings, but i liked the way it looked and felt.

they're a little stylised and not overly finnicky, but i'm happy with all three drawings stylistically and expressively speaking, particularly pages 2 and 3 which make kind of an autobiographical 'before and after' kind of visual couplet, the first a representation of my first meeting proper with emma ross, when her hair was drastically longer and mine was considerably shorter and without a trace of grey.

details like her woven leather bracelet, chunky thumb rings and long retired nose-stud are included to exemplify my ability to remember seemingly minor details seven years later in spite of not knowing what DAY it is half of the time. . .

the third page is my favorite of the three, not for the obvious reasons of what it shows, but more i think compositioonally and such it just came out really nice, and the lines are nice and crisp instead of wavery and all over the place. . . for a change.

so there you go. watch this space, there's much more to come. . .

note: i'm photographing these rather than scanning them. don't ask me why but i feel like scanning pencil drawings kind of. . . loses something, scanned pencil pieces never look quite right for some reason. . .

-iain

Amiina

2009-05-17T03:11:00.000-07:00

some strange but enchanting icelandic loveliness for this sunday afternoon:

tracks are from the first album, 'kurr' and the 'seoul' EP.

also, this featuring the late, great lee hazlewood which is just. . ridiculously beautiful:

side-notes: changed the 'ode' photographs. i think they better convey the tones now.

am currently working on three other canvasses of emma, two in oil and one the second 'ode' painting, as well as having started a sketchbook entitled 'the book of emma' which i'll be uploading pictures from in chronological order as they're done, as well as the paintings and studies i have on the go now, and the wonderful full-coloured piece, 'emma #3' which is possibly my favourite piece of my own work ever.

watch this space,

-iain

'Ode', #1

2009-05-14T13:39:00.001-07:00

sort of the beginnings of a completely unplanned series, but sometimes you start something and you can see avenues and directions it could go in beyond a single image. . .

black and white - and a little blue - acrylic on canvas, 24" x 24", detailed in areas and left intentionally unfinished and sketchy in others which used to be kind of my schtick.

a few other noteable iain-esque inclusions which should speak for themselves. . .

some details:

Hopper

2009-05-12T00:05:00.000-07:00

no words really necessary. the intimate early 20th century paintings of edward hopper and the intimate late 20th century music of the blue nile. really beautiful combined. . .

Warhol

2009-05-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

The Last Picture Show, Take One. Roll Tape:

Andy Warhol, and video-tape. I'm not sure which seems most removed from the world in which we currently live, and sometimes I'm completely astounded by how far technology has come in the last decade or so. Maybe too far. Maybe it's just me, but the small, smooth silvery disc of a DVD lacks the charm of a clunky video-cassette. Lacks any charm, in fact. Like CD's and records. Tapes and CD's. Mix CD's are just nowhere near as enderaing as the humble mixtape - I should know, I made enough of them in my day. . .

But back to Warhol. Or should we call him Warhola? 'Andy Warhol, he's a scream', as a great man once wrote. . .

When I was eighteen, in art school, we had a Monday class for the latter half of the morning where we discussed different artists and movements. Our tutor was called Louise, she wore a lot of very close fitting natural fibres, had a very short haircut and had the misfortune of being allocated a store-room to teach in because all the other groups had been given the free rooms. We'd be crammed into this store-room, more than 20 of us, hunched together, it was awful - though it was certainly better than the preceding art history lectures with Julia DeLancey who spoke in such a broad American accent that I think most people were too busy trying to listen to herm, they forgot to take notes - something which bit them in the ass when the exam came the following June.

At times, we were asked to write papers on the artists and read them out. One Monday in November of 1994, Stephen Dorrance, a tall, overtly butch guy who looked no more artistic than a bank manager and I were gven Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein respectively. I had struggled over the weekend to come up with five minutes worth of a talk on the subject that didn't focus on either the Factory or his involvement with The Velvet Underground too much (which were my primary interests in him), and had even gone so far as to borrow Kevin Beetlestone (the class's obligatory tartan trouser wearing, feather-haired gay man's) book on the artist, scribbling notes which i later didn't even consult. Something I make a habit out of even now. I can't tell you how many shopping lsist I've scrawled, only to completely ignore.

Anyway. Warhol's work doesn't lend itself to over-analysis, really. I don't know that any form of art does, or should be over-anallysed, but in this case, I think it kind of speaks for itself. It's bold, solid and image based, as all Pop Art is. You know what it's about, it doesn't need to be picked apart.

Principally, you can love him or hate him, but what Warhol and Pop Art did - and I spoke mostly about this during that excruciating talk - was to promote the graphic arts AS an art form, particularly illustration since Warhol had BEEN an illustrator. You know, here's a soap powder box, and it's art. And to a degree, there is art in more than the average person is aware of. People go shopping and don't stop and think of such things as packaging design as ART, and yet it involves creativity and thought and a particular kind of artistry.

And of course, he has that great quote about everyone in the future being famous for fifteen minutes, which alas proved prohetic, since we now live in a world with really dumbed down culture, and people who are 'celebrities' for absolutely no reason. Whatsoever.

My first awareness of Andy Warhol stems somewhat bizarrely not from either his work, or larger than life personna, but from his - rather random, and somewhat surreal - appareance in this music video from 1986, very shortly before his death, and regardless of having gone to art school, and studied his work, written an essay on him in my first year. . . it's still what I kind of associate him. Ghostly, bewigged and out of place.

And carrying a ghetto blaster, probably about a thousand times the size of an Ipod.

Which again, is somehow far more charming anyway. . .