When people visit your studio, and make comments such as “Oh, it must be so nice to be an artist”,I just wish that they could inhabit my shoes, on a week such as this one has been!I have succumbed to the art of procrastination,faced the terrors of the “blank sheet”, had the eureka! moment only to discover that the breakthrough was merely complete rubbish. Welcome one and all, to my world!! In mitigation, a couple of coffees with my friend and colleague, has now banished those blues and “Pollyanna!” is now back in residence, and I live to fight another day,……maybe?

All the time I have been working on “earth series” panels, I have been constructing a collection of spheres, which I am calling “creation spheres”, these objects have just evolved and have been created whilst waiting for paint to dry, or any other process that required a waiting time. I love them, and so am dedicating time to create a setting for them. I will try to find a way to upload images to this site, as I currently also blog on artists newsletter site and add images to that blog, it is so much better

Not a title for a new piece of work, but the outcome of my epic struggle with a panel that was just never going to work. What makes a piece of work, well, work!  and then their is the piece that is just ‘not right’. I have struggled and struggled with this damn panel, and maybe that in its self should have told me something, work should flow but this one? it just jarred and couldnt be rescued. This latest happening marks the end of this particular series of panels, and now the work must shift to other ways and media to express the concept. The concept remains but I need to explore more, and to bring the work out and off the wall, and to become more 3d. The music that is being composed to acompany this work is progressing well, and should be ready for exhibition by November.

I have been working on this panel off and on since March, and it is causing me such problems. Someone asked me, “how do you know when youre finished?”, and the answer is, when its as you internally visualise,  sometimes that comes straight away with out any effort, and sometimes as in this case, I have to work and rework, and rework until I get there, or trash it, which this piece is in serious danger of having done to it. I have been to the Scottish Isles and spent much time gazing in awe at the geology and stratigraphy, and taking countless photographs of such phenomena, it was so inspiring, the shapes and colours and textures, it will be interesting to see how this transfers to my work!

This week has been just one of those weeks, full of tedium and minor frustrations, nothing life threatening, but very very frustrating. My internet connection has been playing up, making logging on a work of art, rather tham my work being a work of art. My mobile ran out of money and then, went and hid from me, and because it needed topping up, wouldnt let me ring it to find it. Finally, my panel has been playing the “you’re not going to finish me yet game”, which meant that each time I thought I had got to the end of a process(layering), I discovered something else needed application. It is now Friday and I will be glad to reach the end of this week with my sanity intact. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

I have worked this weekend mostly on re-viewing, re-working, re-painting, and re- gilding. This is a tricky time for me, will the panel look as I have it in my head after all the processes have gone through, and sometimes the answer is absolutely not. This is the point when you wish that the process was less complex, and now the re-think and processes have to be gone through again. Currently the panel I am working on has has two new layers added, and has been under painted gilded and distressed every time, I am now witing to regild!!!! Although I must say that lengthy as this process is, it has previously resulted in one of my favourite pieces, lets hope the same will apply on this occasion. The next panel to be attacked is one that I have had languishing at the back of the studio, in the naughty corner so to speak. This panel went astray, and needs to be completely re-worked, I assess all of next will at least be taken up with this recalcetrant piece. At present all options are open, including being scrapped, or even in extremis, cut up.

My old friends at Wrights did me proud and the schlagg duly arrived, and so I was able to get on with gilding the panel, although the largest piece Ive yet done it all went without any problems and relatively swiftly, as did the distressing. I am so pleased with the out come, everything has come together and the final result is exactly as I would wish. I have been tidying up my shed, with the objective of getting back into glass work again, now that I have almost completed this body of panels, still on the same theme, but different media. It is just too limiting to stick to just one media I found, it left me frustrated and wanting . This week will find me struggling with a couple of problem panels that need re-working, I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will come together.

Having brought two panels to the gilding stage, I couldnt wait to get going, although knowing the mess that would ensue. I have yet to gild the 8’X4′ panel, that will be a challenge, and is set for today provided my schlag (imitation gold leaf) from Wrights of Lym arrive as expected. The gold has to be imitation gold as I need to tarnish the metal to create the effect I require. Wrights in Cheshire, is a company I visited a few years ago on a college trip, and it was completely fascinating, in that we were told that it was one of only two places in England that still beat gold by hand, I dont know if that is still so now, as most gold is factory milled. I remember seeing the gold being melted in a crucible, and brought to a bench where a pair of beaters rythmically hammered the gold. In another room ladies were sat at tables trimming and placing leaves between tissue. This brings to mind the lovely tutor I had, Nigel Leaney, who was such an inspirational man, he taught us about paint, not you would think one of the most riviting subjects for a lecture, but amazingly it was, with magical ingredients such as lapiz lazuli, dragons blood, myrh, and many such other, he was generous with his knowledge, and of himself. I must away to my studio now to check on that gold.

I have taken a rest from my large panels, and am working on rwo panels 1 metre square, and they are new versions of “flow”. I love these pieces as they are so expressive of the concept of landscape as a form that is hard wired into our subconscious. The form and flow work as a visual concept and as an artist actually working on the pieces the body takes on the movement and so the panel takes on the visual and the physical. Whilst work is in progress the eye, body and hand engage with the mind to create the form. For me the entire mind and body are fully engaged during the initial stages, this eventually progresses to critical focus and decision making, and this is where hard work and perseverence come into force, making minute selections of texture, colour et al. Once the main body of work is created layer building and drying times start to take up a lot of time, and this is where the critical eye comes in, choosing the right placement of layer and texture, this is the place where I agonise, fall in and out of love with a piece, leave it, go back to it, rework it, and that is precicely where I am at present with at least four panels.

The work progresses, as do the textural layers. I have just flat painted the entire panel so that I can assess the build up of layers and to see where more are needed, and more ARE needed. The two panels that I am working on, “Salt flats” and “Eroded volcano”, are so completely different from my perspective, that to change them over and work on the other is a complete visual rest. They are getting so heavy now, that my colleague is unable to help me move them, and I am concerned about moving them anyway, bit of a problem there. Maybe I need a new studio! (only kidding!)