I went in to the studio for the first time in a while. I had been itching to do some painting ever since going to the Sickert exhibition, and so I got my paints out and had a play around with some very small canvases I bought a while back. I am painting in acrylics because I want to be able to layer colours quickly. Acrylics have many drawbacks, but I have used them for a long time and the ones I am using at the moment - Golden acrylics - are pretty good.
Working small is tricky. If you are not careful, you can end up getting tighter and tighter. The trick is to try and work the same way as you would if you were painting a large canvas. It is worth the effort I think. I love paintings that take up a whole wall, but actually I think I am often drawn to small works. I like that feeling of being pulled into something. Small paintings can be jewel like.
The other advantage for me is that I only have an A4 scanner so it means that I can scan the works directly and not force them through another process by photographing them. If I ever come up with anything I like, I'll post it up for you to have a look.
Monday, 15 June 2009
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Norwich wedding
We were very honoured to attend the wedding of Helen Szirtes and Rich Horne yesterday in Norwich. There was a civil ceremony and then a reception in the evening in the medieval Dragon Hall down by the river.
Weirdly, one of the waitresses was someone we knew from Norfolk - Mandy who does fitness classes at Sedgeford gym, where I used to play tennis twice a week. I suffered a terrible wave of nostalgia. I miss that so much. I can't believe it's nearly three years since we left.
The wedding featured star turns by various members of Helen's family, including Helen herself playing piano in accompaniment to her uncle playing a Hungarian piece on the violin. Helen's father George Szirtes is of course a famous poet and wrote a very lovely poem for the occasion. There was also a rather moving reading of Your My Best Friend by Queen. Good luck to them both.
We had hours to kill between ceremony and reception and wandered around Norwich on a very hot and sunny day. What a lovely city Norwich is. We used to go there often when we lived in Norfolk. But the drive to Norwich from Cambridge is hideous and feels a lot longer than it is (especially at night, in the rain). Joad Raymond (who is at UEA) has to do it several times a week and I sympathise.
Weirdly, one of the waitresses was someone we knew from Norfolk - Mandy who does fitness classes at Sedgeford gym, where I used to play tennis twice a week. I suffered a terrible wave of nostalgia. I miss that so much. I can't believe it's nearly three years since we left.
The wedding featured star turns by various members of Helen's family, including Helen herself playing piano in accompaniment to her uncle playing a Hungarian piece on the violin. Helen's father George Szirtes is of course a famous poet and wrote a very lovely poem for the occasion. There was also a rather moving reading of Your My Best Friend by Queen. Good luck to them both.
We had hours to kill between ceremony and reception and wandered around Norwich on a very hot and sunny day. What a lovely city Norwich is. We used to go there often when we lived in Norfolk. But the drive to Norwich from Cambridge is hideous and feels a lot longer than it is (especially at night, in the rain). Joad Raymond (who is at UEA) has to do it several times a week and I sympathise.
Friday, 12 June 2009
Gates and railings
Cambridge was very excitable today. Honorary degrees were being handed out to Bill and Melinda Gates and the Aga Khan among others. Drivers waited by limos with darkened windows. The town was absolutely packed. I peered through the railing along with everybody else, but saw no one I recognised.
I was supposed to go for a drink with Peter Kirkham tonight but we thought better of it. As well as handing out honorary degrees, the students get their results, so the pubs will no doubt be full of the cream of the education system getting hammered. We have postponed until next week.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Payne's Grey
It's been a while since I posted any of my New Statesman strips to the blog. So these are a few recent Payne's Grey.
Saturday, 6 June 2009
I wish I had a gown
It has been a social whirl for us in the last day or so - very unusually for us. Our friend Simon Davies popped in and stayed the night. Simon heads up the Graphics course at the University of Cumbria. He was picking up Susan Harvey's paintings (they are married) because she has another exhibition coming up. Our walls are going to look very bare indeed.
It was fantastic to see Simon but I didn't see him until I got back from my evening at Robinson College. Maggi Dawn who is Chaplain and a Fellow there invited Anne Cunningham and I (and others) to dine at top table. Maggi very sweetly said that we should wear a gown if we merited one. I didn't even wear a gown at my degree ceremony. I thought it was a bit silly. Gowns had nothing to do with an art degree. I wore a second-hand suit and a scowl.
I was painfully aware that my BA (Hons) Graphic Design/Illustration was the equivalent of a swimming certificate in this company. It looked fun wearing a gown though. I like all the Bela Lugosi swishing as you go round corners.
Over cheese and biscuits, we met Dr David Woodman who is an expert in things Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic and is also, I see from a quick Google, a bit of a star at real tennis and squash (Cambridge No.1, no less). What a great character for a novel - a real tennis-playing Indian Jones-ish expert in the Dark Ages.
Today we took Simon for a stroll around town, had a cup of coffee in Heffers and bought some bread from the market for bacon butties when we got back. No sooner had we said farewell to Simon than old friends Steve and Jodie Dimes arrived with their two sons. They had been to see the Graphics Degree Shows show at Anglia Ruskin. I must get over there myself and check out the illustration show.
It was fantastic to see Simon but I didn't see him until I got back from my evening at Robinson College. Maggi Dawn who is Chaplain and a Fellow there invited Anne Cunningham and I (and others) to dine at top table. Maggi very sweetly said that we should wear a gown if we merited one. I didn't even wear a gown at my degree ceremony. I thought it was a bit silly. Gowns had nothing to do with an art degree. I wore a second-hand suit and a scowl.
I was painfully aware that my BA (Hons) Graphic Design/Illustration was the equivalent of a swimming certificate in this company. It looked fun wearing a gown though. I like all the Bela Lugosi swishing as you go round corners.
Over cheese and biscuits, we met Dr David Woodman who is an expert in things Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic and is also, I see from a quick Google, a bit of a star at real tennis and squash (Cambridge No.1, no less). What a great character for a novel - a real tennis-playing Indian Jones-ish expert in the Dark Ages.
Today we took Simon for a stroll around town, had a cup of coffee in Heffers and bought some bread from the market for bacon butties when we got back. No sooner had we said farewell to Simon than old friends Steve and Jodie Dimes arrived with their two sons. They had been to see the Graphics Degree Shows show at Anglia Ruskin. I must get over there myself and check out the illustration show.
Friday, 5 June 2009
How do I define myself?
I was having a drink with John and Malcolm the other week and made the mistake of saying that I thought that on some level I had always defined myself as a writer. John was very quick to point out that I had apparently said on an earlier occasion that I had always defined myself as an artist.
Note to self: must stop having conversations in which I come out with nonsense like 'define myself'
I suppose the truth is that I definitely saw and see myself as an artist. Drawing was the thing I got kudos for at school, from teachers and from other kids. If someone had asked me what I did, for years I would have said artist, or illustrator or cartoonist or some combination of those things. For years I struggled to decide whether I was an illustrator who painted, or a painter who illustrated. Honestly - I really did struggle with that. Artists can struggle with stuff like that for surprisingly long time.
The reason I said what I said about writing, is because I have always written. It was also something that was noticed at school and I started writing things in my own time. At college I wrote poetry and began two unfinished novels. When I left college I started writing short stories - or at least roughing them out. Some of those stories ended up in the Tales of Terror books. So I've always thought of myself as a writer. I just didn't have the nerve to tell many people about it. Am I a writer or an artist? I suppose I'm both.
The reason I was thinking about this is because I survived much of the unpleasantness of school by having drawing as my 'thing' - the thing that sets you apart, that buys you some respect. Other people could do maths, or dribble a football, play electric guitar, or whatever - I could draw and paint.
My son is much more of an all-rounder than I was (which is great for him) but though he does not necessarily see himself as an artist - he definitely is. As this lovely drawing that he brought back from school yesterday shows. I know lots of adults who couldn't draw as well as this. . .
Note to self: must stop having conversations in which I come out with nonsense like 'define myself'
I suppose the truth is that I definitely saw and see myself as an artist. Drawing was the thing I got kudos for at school, from teachers and from other kids. If someone had asked me what I did, for years I would have said artist, or illustrator or cartoonist or some combination of those things. For years I struggled to decide whether I was an illustrator who painted, or a painter who illustrated. Honestly - I really did struggle with that. Artists can struggle with stuff like that for surprisingly long time.
The reason I said what I said about writing, is because I have always written. It was also something that was noticed at school and I started writing things in my own time. At college I wrote poetry and began two unfinished novels. When I left college I started writing short stories - or at least roughing them out. Some of those stories ended up in the Tales of Terror books. So I've always thought of myself as a writer. I just didn't have the nerve to tell many people about it. Am I a writer or an artist? I suppose I'm both.
The reason I was thinking about this is because I survived much of the unpleasantness of school by having drawing as my 'thing' - the thing that sets you apart, that buys you some respect. Other people could do maths, or dribble a football, play electric guitar, or whatever - I could draw and paint.
My son is much more of an all-rounder than I was (which is great for him) but though he does not necessarily see himself as an artist - he definitely is. As this lovely drawing that he brought back from school yesterday shows. I know lots of adults who couldn't draw as well as this. . .
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Pandora's Xbox
It is my son's birthday today. It seems utterly impossible that he is twelve years old. But he is.
He had a party last Friday - friends of his from school met up and went to the swimming pool and then we had a picnic and a kickaround after (or a rollaround for those who didn't like football). It was a good day with great weather and a really good bunch of kids.
We have steered clear of computer games for most of his life, but this was the first birthday he had ever really asked for anything (apart from new pencils or a book or whatever) and so an Xbox 360 has finally come to live with us. I remember telling one of my son's friends in art club that we didn't have a Wii or a PS2 or an Xbox or anything, and he gave me a look of utter disgust. If I had said that I fed my son nothing but gruel he would have been more forgiving.
One of the many issues that will come up with the Xbox is the issue of age-rating on games. There has been a lot of talk about age-banding on books and how it will put children off reading a book that is banded as being too old for them, or make a child feel foolish for reading something too young.
Age-rating seems to have another effect altogether. Basically it is ignored by most parents - on games as well as DVDs, but especially on games. An age-rating is an incitement to buy for the child. The bigger the age gap between child and age-rating, the more desirable the product. Primary school children regularly play games that are rated 15 or even 18 with the full knowledge of their parents, who clearly feel these guidelines are yet more intrusive nannying from the state, and not applicable to their child who is much too sophisticated to be affected etc etc etc.
And I've done it too. My son has watched 15 rated movies. He was given a list when he started secondary school of movies to watch when they were doing the Romans. One was Gladiator. Rated 15. He was 11. He was probably the only one of his friends who had not seen it. We are so mean.
When I was buying my son's Xbox there was a French teacher trying to buy Resident Evil (rated 18) and other games for her 12 year-old students. Good on HMV for refusing. 'But it's OK - their parents trust me,' she said. Well, that's OK then.
I blogged a little while ago about the loss of childhood by over-protection by state and parents, but there is another loss of childhood - that very precious bit of childhood before the onset of teens and troubles - by the continual pressure on children to grow up and out of it as quickly as possible. There is no good reason for children to be exposed to explicit simulated violence. We weren't as children.
It is just laziness on our behalf and a fear of being seen as uncool parents that allows it.
He had a party last Friday - friends of his from school met up and went to the swimming pool and then we had a picnic and a kickaround after (or a rollaround for those who didn't like football). It was a good day with great weather and a really good bunch of kids.
We have steered clear of computer games for most of his life, but this was the first birthday he had ever really asked for anything (apart from new pencils or a book or whatever) and so an Xbox 360 has finally come to live with us. I remember telling one of my son's friends in art club that we didn't have a Wii or a PS2 or an Xbox or anything, and he gave me a look of utter disgust. If I had said that I fed my son nothing but gruel he would have been more forgiving.
One of the many issues that will come up with the Xbox is the issue of age-rating on games. There has been a lot of talk about age-banding on books and how it will put children off reading a book that is banded as being too old for them, or make a child feel foolish for reading something too young.
Age-rating seems to have another effect altogether. Basically it is ignored by most parents - on games as well as DVDs, but especially on games. An age-rating is an incitement to buy for the child. The bigger the age gap between child and age-rating, the more desirable the product. Primary school children regularly play games that are rated 15 or even 18 with the full knowledge of their parents, who clearly feel these guidelines are yet more intrusive nannying from the state, and not applicable to their child who is much too sophisticated to be affected etc etc etc.
And I've done it too. My son has watched 15 rated movies. He was given a list when he started secondary school of movies to watch when they were doing the Romans. One was Gladiator. Rated 15. He was 11. He was probably the only one of his friends who had not seen it. We are so mean.
When I was buying my son's Xbox there was a French teacher trying to buy Resident Evil (rated 18) and other games for her 12 year-old students. Good on HMV for refusing. 'But it's OK - their parents trust me,' she said. Well, that's OK then.
I blogged a little while ago about the loss of childhood by over-protection by state and parents, but there is another loss of childhood - that very precious bit of childhood before the onset of teens and troubles - by the continual pressure on children to grow up and out of it as quickly as possible. There is no good reason for children to be exposed to explicit simulated violence. We weren't as children.
It is just laziness on our behalf and a fear of being seen as uncool parents that allows it.
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