Firstly please accept my profound apologies for not blogging in the past two years - hopefully I will remedy this situation in the next 2 years !
Over the last 2 years I have made a variety of artwork both in my South coast studio and in my fleeting pilgrimages to a bolt-hole in East Anglia. I have begun a nostagia trip involving lots of photography, the odd sketch and the odd painting. My lastest oil is on mdf and is 600 mm square and this is a format that I will stick to for a series of food related diversions - in this case - a painting of the Ferry Cafe in Felixstowe Ferry, at the mouth of the river Deben in Suffolk. The twist is that it is not as the cafe is in 2012 but a return to slightly scruffier, more atmospheric and more nostalgic days - before computer cut vinyl signs, turquoise paint and jet ski's. There, I've said it - I promised I'd never mention the mechanical, aquatic equivalent to a bumble bee trapped in a jam jar but that's that. I prefer the quiet, halcyon days of gaff rigged sail and bouyancy aids stuffed with kaypok.
In my Portsmouth studio - as those intrepid and lovely people witnessed for themselves, at Artspace Open Studios, last weekend, I've been working on a labour of love - a large historical reconstruction of The Battle of The Solent in 1545. More specifically, an oil painting on the finest quality linen. The scene depicts, The Mary Rose, a Tudor warship and the love of the indomitable, Henry the Eighth. The scenario is 5 minutes before she went to the bottom of the briny and she is surrounded by the French and English fleets. I am packing in lots of detail and working with the precision of a Swiss clock-maker - only I am using 0000 brushes with about 10 tiny hairs ! I would be totally lost without my trusty magnifying glass but that's another story. In addition I have probably made a couple of hundred life drawings and a collection of small wooden 3D pieces.
Haircuts only happen once every year so I have probably saved myself a fortune over the last thirty years. I go from a collar length, almost nautical look to a pseudo shoulder length 1970's rock guitarist's style and I like and am happy with them both. I go to a fashionable gents salon in Albert Road, Southsea and the three staff are all crazy - so once a year we meet up for twenty minutes or so, chew the fat and thin out the hair. The aging process gives me a helping hand with the thinning and now in the summer I sport a trendy Panama Hat to avoid a sunburnt cranium !
I have just survived - well almost - a second intake of students. In fact it is the last intake as I am leaving regular employment as an art teacher to become a gentleman artist, wit and raconteur ! I will continue my Advanced Life Drawing Workshops and take on a few private students on a one to one basis and I'll also do the odd master class too but I really want to focus on my own work wherever and whatever that might be.
More ramblings later - not two years later - I promise !
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