self-portraits

Did a couple of self-portraits - well one and a half, experimenting with colour and tone trying to create 3D effect using colour intensity. Ran out of time to finish the second one but felt I was getting somewhere. (click image to see bigger)

Not There

did this one last night but not very happy with it. wanted something quieter and less like a schoolboy's lame sci-fi fantasy.

minotaur video

after a lot of struggling with windows movie maker i've got a one and a half minute video of the painting and drawings with music from Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

tate-modern-no-soul-for-sale

visited the tate modern yesterday on the occasion of their 10th anniversary: no soul for sale: 60 odd independent art collectives given space in the turbine hall. bits i liked best:

• skatepark on the southbank on the way there; 
• girl knitting herself into a grey sleeping bag; 
• guys who set up a little pub in the back of the hall (except that they were the only ones allowed to drink); 
• guy making eery wailing noises on some kind of repeating recording on the stage as we left; 
• all the info about the art collectives and what they are doing; 
• aase's red hat; 
• girl in an orange kimono at borough market.

click pic to see the gallery

friday

 
 

ink drawings i did this morning

before dinner

been feeling a bit constrained in my paintings, afraid the further i get that i'm going to spoil them. also precious about the work that goes into the initial drawing, i find it quite tiring trying to get the proportions right. so last night i did a quick charcoal drawing consciously trying to emphasise the strength of line over getting the figure right. then i added some red and white acrylic paint. the charcoal comes off on the brush as i try to paint over it and it has some water-repellent qualities. i don't have any black acrylic paint so i then used drawing ink to fill in the shadows.

work in progress

fascinated with the minotaur at the moment - this is a one and a half minute time-lapse video of a painting i did last night

lounge

sitting in the lounge which looks something like this at the moment putting together pics from our walk last sunday evening and loving this artwork i found by Baruk Arikan

on the way to work

i gave myself a mission to collect enough pictures for another mosaic on the way to work. the challenge of taking pictures amongst busy commuters and colleagues was surprising. felt wierd pointing my camera at things, asked the woman with the red glasses if i could take her picture which was daunting but she was nice even though she was late for work.

mosaic

most colourful pictures I could find in thirty minutes before bed. had this idea going around in my head of putting all my pics up on the wall in order of predominant colour.

click and click again for big

wednesday afternoon

the day has whizzed by with some additional accomplishments:
0.1 hung out washing
1. brekky at haberdashery
2. played with reclining pic of denise to see if darkening background would make a difference
3. learned to do an animated gif in photoshop
4. had a brief rest
5. changed blog to remove old flickr feed
6. tried to put twitpic feed instead but failed
7. found the rss feed from twitpic includes thumbnails
(must be able to display them then, so far can't)
8. briefly investigate yahoo! pipes as an option
(could play with that all day)
.. later ..
9. got a yahoo pipe feed of my twitpics working

wednesday 5.5.10

Achievements this morning:
0. put washing on
0.1 did breakfast dishes
0.2 did stretches
1. took photos of two pictures i did recently of Paul (pastel, paint)
2. took a better photo of my turquoise-orange painting that shows up the colours better
3. learned how to do torn paper effect in photoshop from here
.. and it's still only 9.19

Pussycat in the dark

Trying out the "blog this" feature in Picassa to post a photo that I took of Denise before I left the flat in Kensal Rise. Cat meowled and followed us nearly a kilometre until we were just about home.

gloucestershire

 
there was mutual intrigue between myself and a field of bullocks when I visited Stroud recently

Dusk till Dawn with Gargoyles

Dodgy old seats on the Eurostar at 6.55am, lunch at Amelie's cafe on rue Lepic, a fantastic sunset and a fantastic evening with a friend from Clichy and said friend's friends were just some of the delights of my most enjoyable day in Paris ever.

Paris in the spring

A kind colleague has agreed to let Susan and I stay in his apartment near Montmatre when we visit Paris next weekend. This was a trip arranged before we decided to go our own ways - a birthday present for moi. I wasn't going to go but in the weekend we decided that it could work just fine and it seems such a pity to waste good eurostar tickets. Positively irresponsible. Some people will and do think me/us crazy.


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Losing my Identity

This is an experiment. I felt like writing something but somehow the keyboard and I don't quite get on and think it's the nasty way I have to twist my wrists and sits in a chair.. yuck I'd rather lie on my bed looking out the window so that's what I'm doing talking into my microphone and letting the computer do the hard work.

It just occurred to me with all this talk of identity theft on face book, if people know your birthdate and your name pretty soon they'll have your wife and kids as well. When I first put up my blog it didn't occur to me that I should keep those details a secret so I had my mobile number and my address on the Internet.

Then one day as I came home late to my apartment in dodgy Deptford, while fumbling in my pocket to get my keys I must have let my wallet slip out and onto the ground. But I didn't realise.

The next day I received a text message from someone who had my wallet and said he lived just downstairs so I could pop down and get it.

He had found a and looked my name up on the Internet and found out who I was where I left and gave it back to me including all the cash and we became friends.

Battersea power station

 
 
 
 

Opotiki animals

While on our mad, road-trek around the East Cape over xmas, one of the places Gianghi, Peter, Susan and I stopped was Two Fish cafe in Opotiki. Amazing. I love small town New Zealand.

Peak District

In March, Susan and I took the campervan for its first drive up to Scotland and on the way stopped to check out the Peak district and stayed for three days it was so nice. The first night we couldn't find a campsite so we just parked up on the side of the road. In the morning we went for a bike ride and found the most amazing campsite called upper booth or lower booth - I can't remember which. But anyway it was superb and we were the only people there.