David Hockney

 I posted this on the  Guardian's  comment page, and shared it with Painters Online: it's  not that I think any words of mine deserve repetition, but it's as near as I can come to a memorial tribute to the greatest British artist of our time.

Well, I knew it had to happen - he fought back from a stroke a few years ago, but physically had been on a long decline; as an artist however, he could still surprise you (and how he revelled in it, quietly chuckling away as he took a long drag on a cigarette). What I valued about him was that he was never obedient - to rules of painting, societal expectations, received opinion; but he didn't break rules just for the sake of breaking them: he was never so predictable. Though he used modern methods and equipment, he still valued traditional techniques, as witness his comment that acrylic paint is often at its best when used for glazing, the application of transparent colours over opacity - an ancient technique, one facilitated by the fast-drying medium.

 I don't know that his views on the camera obscura really add up, particularly when applied to Vermeer - but his pursuit of that opinion indicated his endless curiosity; and his courage in expressing it. I'm not sure that the book on which he collaborated added much to art history, since by definition its claims could not be proved. The point is, though, that in the end it doesn't matter - artists use tools of all kinds, are fully entitled to, and always have - the point lies in what they do with them; and as he tried everything he could lay hands on, he would have scorned the idea that some expressed at the time that this would have been "cheating", or that it in any way detracted from the reputation of artists who may have benefited from extraneous aids.

A look back to my 75th Birthday

 We had a famiily get together to celebrate my sister-in-law's - shouldn't that be sister's-in-law? - 75th birthday, and mine, which followed it.  

I was presented with painted birthday cards from my great niece, and great nephew - as I'm old, I forget ages; but I think something along the lines of  13, and 9.  Probably completely wrong.  However, they're clearly bent on artistic careers; or at least I hope they are, at least in the sense that they derive as much pleasure and consolation from art as I have for the last 60-plus years.  

So here we are: great nephew's work on the left, great niece's on the right. 

The Guardian, and the Pope

 I am not a Roman Catholic; I'm not even a Christian.  I am a reader of the Guardian - and I felt that their total avoidance of covering the Pope's Easter Message was deplorable.

Leo took the USA's promotion of a war of terror on civilians to pieces - the Guardian perhaps expected that, and saw no news value in it.  Well, shame on  them, and on editor Kath Viner.  The Pope's address was significant, and should have been promoted and celebrated as such.  Instead, we get the usual Guardian sell-out to Hello magazine standards of trashy journalism.

I have - admittedly minimally - supported the Guardian financially for some years now: I have been published in the paper, by a previous editor; I comment regularly on those VERY few articles on which it permits comment - my faith in it was never total.  And now?    I don' t  feel I've anything left in common with it; I don't feel it and I belong in the same company.  My fault, or theirs?  I think it's theirs. 

 Niton under water - my landlady, a carer, cut off by floodwater and can't get home to tend to her dogs (they'll probably just go to sleep and wait; dogs are pragmatists).

Now, Reform - which incidentally my landlady sort of supports: she might be a touch more skeptical now - claims that global climate change is all a hoax.  It's "just weather".  Well, we have had extreme weather before, which perhaps was not linked to climate change (though who knows?), but these extreme events are very unusual in my 75-year long lifetime - and I think it's beyond time that we started worrying about it and taking it seriously.  Even if it were not real, in the sense of it being a new phenomenon, it's certainly causing huge problems worldwide - and frankly: of course it's real.  Surely we can all SEE that?  Wildfires in the south eastern hemisphere,  now creeping into  Europe, already devastating the USA; melting glaciers and ice-caps; flooding - is this all supposed to be benign coincidence?  

I'm not a Green: I'm not impressed by Zac Polanski; but I don't really want to see  my home slide over the cliff, either.  We need to demand concrete, determined, planned action from government in order to protect the very ground on which we so shakily stand.  

Facebook, Computers, and the Whole Damn' Thing!

 I'm out of Facebook after having to buy a new computer: I've spent a month without any computer at all: mine turned up its toes and sought absolution on Christmas Day.  

So - well, there we are.  I've got an Ipad now, which (when I've learned to use it) should help me post better pictures (can't vouch for the artistic quality), I'm frozen out of Facebook for trying to add a third account (contrary to their terms and conditions, which I'd forgotten) when I couldn't get  back into my old accounts.

So Woe, as in Woe, is me!   Oi weh, oi gevalt, dammit.....

I'll just have to feed this blog and seek alternative social media outlets, won't I?  Pay attention, since that's what I'll do - damn' ee, Mr Zuckerberg, and your impenetrable platform, more difficult to get back into than  my bank account, and I hope you suffer the tortures of the damned.

This blog might get a little less art-centred, as I seek an alternative outlet: hold out for it: can you bear the suspense? 

Camera and Computer Problems, but Posting Anyway

 I have two cameras - both elderly. An Olympia compact, and a Nikon Coolpix S220.  Both used to transfer photos to my PC; the latter claims to have done it - but I look (peer would be a better word: I don't see too well, and that doesn't help) and there's damn' all there without so much as knobs on.

So I'm doing my best, and generally losing most of the morning trying to do it.  The following paintings are all oils, two of them on ACF canvases (well worth your investigating ACF) and the long one on a conventional canvas (and it's a respray job: its first iteration didn't work at all, and was God's punishment for trying to work from someone else's photo.

Hoping these will actually work for me and appear here - here they are.  Why don't other people have my problems?  Ah - that'll be because other people invest in decent equipment..... a lesson for us all there, I think...

House on the  hill - ACF canvas and oak frame, oil.

Peering into the depths on the Cripple Path, Niton/Ventnor Undercliff.  Also an oil on ACF canvas. 

One I've shown before, revamped - on Canvas Store long canvas, oil.  

If anyone would like an occasional job, photographing paintings; and/or could help me to build a new website, both at modest cost: apply within.  

Rest in Peace, Andrew Corley

 

These were my preliminary drawings for Andy Corley's portrait.  I'm in two minds about showing the portrait itself - it was personal to him, and I can't ask for his permission to share it, because he died suddenly a few days ago: one of the established characters of Niton, Isle of Wight.  I first met him because we had a fixed Friday routine: every week, at the fish and chip van.  Andy's health  had been in steep decline for some months: every footstep was a struggle; my last words to him were "don't forget your stick next time!": he'd managed the walk from his house to the van, and I wish now I'd stayed to make sure he was able to get back again.  Although he was plainly ill, he was always in good spirits, and none of us expected his death so soon: I don't think he was even quite 65.  I am so glad that I was able to present him with his portrait, and gladder still that he was pleased with it - I don't know what his friends and relataives will think of it, but well: he and I knew what was wanted, and for better or for worse, what he wanted I was able to paint for him.  Andy, I'll miss your rotten jokes, which though rotten still managed to be funny; and your always asking after my health, when yours was so frail.  You were a kind man: there aren't so many of those about in the world that we could afford to lose you. 

I hope that portrait hasn't died with Andy - he wanted it and valued it: I  hope his surviving friends and relatives valued it as well.  Shortly before he died, he told me he'd had a nasty turn when walking into his sitting room and discovering the portrait staring back at him: so I like to think it worked; and - I will post it shortly after all - it's not great work, but it's what he wanted.  And that's the whole point of a portrait. 

Next stages, Work in Progress

 

Work in Progress, the Cripple Path, Niton Undercliff

We were a long way from being finished here, but it shows the build-up so far.  Painted in oil on an ACF Canvas - leaving aside the quality of the painting, the quality of the canvas is superb, and they're a pleasure to paint on.  

The next two stages will follow: just as soon as I can get a decent photograph - having camera trouble, or more probably camera operative trouble.  

Work in Progress

 

An oil in its earliest form, on ACF canvas - a new brand I'm trying out, and very pleased with it so far: it's tight as a drum on its stretchers, and made from a terylene cloth, which gives a smooth or at least not disruptive surface quite like high quality linen - which would be far more expensive; and painted with Michael Harding's Burnt Umber: some will warn you against Burnt Umber because of its tendency to sink - and indeed, it does, which is why I don't use it in upper layers (that and the fact that a mixed brown has more life in it; many ways to mix a deep brown: read my little e-book on the Amazon Kindle Store).  Oil Paint Basics, if you need the reminder: and I'm working on an update which I hope will be possible to make available in physical, paperback form.    

You might notice, in this early version of the painting, a resemblance in the cliff face to one Donald Trump: this is absolutely not intentional, and will be corrected in the final version.  It's very, very easy to paint a face in a rock formation or cloud without intending to: I've done it before: one of my clouds looked a lot like the Honey Monster... 

The trouble with showing a Work in Progress is - you've got to get it right; you can't just hide it away and pretend you'd never made a start on it.  So, with reckless courage - here is Stage 1.  

Small Watercolours as we ease into the year!

 I've been playing with a few small watercolours and drawings in ink in the first month of the year - one or two health issues proving troublesome, so I've not been in the mood for anything big - still, I can use these as the basis for larger works when it gets a bit warmer and - with any luck - I start feeling better.

Knowles Farm, towards Niton Village

The lower one is also based on the Knowles Farm area, just another part of it: looks quite scenic until you try walking through it, when you discover that a legion of cows has marched through before you, and left their calling cards.  The one just above it - I made it up, the composition taken from an online photograph.  These little studies are on Hahnemühle Rough Torchon paper, 12 x 17cm.                       

Just a bit of a play with the hake

 

This is a better than nothing effort - had a bit of paper to hand, some watercolour left in palette, so took the hake brush to it -from a photograph of mine at Knowles Farm, Niton, IW.   And not a recent one, the greens were abundant at the time, and so were the cow-pats.  Started with a play-about with Davy's Grey, then added a bit of colour on top.  Just to prove I'm not in complete hibernation.  

Lightfastness issues with Alizarin Crimson

 Normal service has been suspended due to bad light, Christmas festivities, a bit of illness, and sheer laziness. 

 But I thought this link from Golden Paints/Williamsburg would be of interest to painters in both oil and watercolour.

Note that this doesn't apply to "Alizarin Crimson" in acrylic, because acrylics don't (and can't) use the real PR83 pigment.  

https://justpaint.org/alizarin-crimson-now-you-see-it/

Down to Reeth Bay, Isle of Wight

Already, much of the greenery has faded - this was a view from last month of the path leading down to Reeth Bay, also known as The Haven, on Niton Undercliff.   Oil on 8" by 10" board.  

 

ACF canvas - first trial

 ACF canvases are a new company offering terylene canvases - the sort of cloth you can make trousers out of.  And although I've only used the one so far, I entirely recommend them - terylene is a long-lasting material, and offers a very smooth surface, for a cloth.  I was pleased with the way it handled oil paint - and the paint I used for this one was from several manufacturers, notably Rublev, Michael Harding, Daler Rowney, and Cass Arts own brand - all of them well worth your attentioon.

The painting is a 12" x 14" oil of part of Knowles Farm, a National Trust owned slice of land near Niton, Isle of Wight.  The only thing I have against it is the proliferation of cows with explosive digestive systems: you can have too many cows, I find.....  They make walking a hazard....

This one is for sale, at around the £200 mark.  

 

An 8" by 10" oil - I wish I could remember where this is, but I didn't make a note of the sketch from which I painted it: an omission of which I'm often guilty.  I've broken a rule here: the tower is bang centre, and normally one would place it to one side, to comply with the Golden Section: but there it is, I thought it was probably best placed dead centre, and hope the small building to its right helps to balance it.  Cremnitz White, Lemon Yellow, Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Ultramarine Blue Red Shade, Viridian, Buff Titanium - and probably other colours I've simply forgotten: there's almost certainly Burnt Sienna in there somewhere: we try to keep the palette limited, but in practice all sorts of colours get thrown in, in normally tiny quantities.  Should anyone feel like buying it, well - don't hesitate to tell me.  Prices always negotiable.