Tarporley Collection, Broken Pedal, Wallpapering, Painting Scans

Two busy days. Painted a little yesterday, completing the Lost Boy painting and adding to the first Claire Luce portrait of 2025, now entitled 'Song Of Experience'. Then, a trip to Tarporley to collect my paintings there, and restoration of one of the frames back to perfect condition. Just about every exhibition requires a bit of restoration after the show. The Love Affair frame now perfect once more.

We rehearsed the Morecambe Fall in Green show but - curses! The so-called ruggedly indestructible £75 Yamaha expression pedal seems to be broken, a particularly unwanted expense. It was often unreliable. Plugging it in needed some wobbling to the connection to make it work, and last night the range was about 85% at minimum to 100% at max. This morning I dismantled it and cleaned the potentiometers with contact cleaner, but it seems to be completely dead. I can't be sure if it's the pedal or the MODX which is at fault, but the MODX has two pedal inputs and both behave in the same way; both worked when the pedal worked, both broken when the pedal is broken, which indicates that it is the pedal, but, of course, both circuits in the synth are next to each other so that could equally be a cause. Ideally I need another synthesizer, and/or another pedal, to test.

After the pedal repair, I wallpapered part of the hall, which had a damp patch which needed mould removal and new anti-damp paper. The drain outside is the probably cause, so this was sealed. How much of life is repairing. In the afternoon, I scanned (photographed) three new paintings. The photography takes a lot of work; setting up the lights on my custom stands, setting up the stands for the camera rail, setting the flatbed, the camera. I have ordered more wire to make 2 new lights, it would save time if all of the lights were ready with bulbs attached. I could also replace the tripod-rail system with custom built wooden stands which could fit the rails exactly and at the right height.

The Masochistic Gaia is therefore complete, and I've entered it as planned, plus the vegetable Oliver Cromwell, and the hugely relevant Theresienstadt painting into the ING Discerning Eye, all at £5000 or £7000. This is likely to be my last entry there for a year or two, though who can say. My last success there was with the Facebook painting.

Luce Underpainting

Woke early and decided to underpaint the new Claire Luce painting.

Mouse Lamp, Claire Luce 3, Blockx Mars Red and Natural Umber

A slow day yesterday. Confirmed submission of Another Violet Night, this will release on October 31st, and painted a mouse lamp to look like an actual white mouse. The plain lamp was an ugly black resin. I also shaded a study for the cat in 'Can There Be A Refuge' painting.

Today, re-drew a Claire Luce portrait, with shading this time. It seems that a shaded outline works well, and my 0.5mm pencil seems better for this than my usual 0.3mm line drawing pencil. The likeness is much more easily checked and adjusted this way.

Was happily helped to deliver two paintings to Tarporley for the weekend community exhibition there. New paints arrived. Blockx Mars Red is instantly beloved. A fine and powerful red, more violet than Venetian Red, but much redder than Mars Violet. Mars Red and Mars Yellow Orange would make perfect flesh I suspect. Oddly, I use mars violet and light red, and rarely ever involve venetian for flesh, using the still beloved venetian for other 'general red' use (often for my signature). I can see the Mars Red replacing this, especially as the Harding Venetian Red is very fluid, almost watery, like many of his paints. Blockx Natural Umber is indeed a raw umber, rather neutral and green-shaded compared to the Michael Harding version I use in every painting. Blockx Natural is very close in hue to Winsor and Newton Raw Umber Green Shade, though more opaque and a little more granular. I'm less certain if this will replace my invaluable Harding Raw Umber, but I will give it a try when my Harding tube runs out. Every Blockx colour I've used has proved to be lovely, they make the best oil paints.

Also signed a new contract with Galleria Balmain today, and heard that I have at least one poem accepted in the Morecambe Poetry Festival Anthology 2025.

Another Violet Night Submission, Good Vibrations

Submitted Another Violet Night for release yesterday, but it appears there's a problem with some of the content. Time will tell. Also affected some repairs on the house regarding a damp patch, and adjusted and standardised the volume levels of MODX backing tracks, an important step towards more live performances of my recorded material.

Today, a music and social session in Congleton Library.

Hello Yellow Brick Road, Palette Knife Dies

Woke early for a long day of painting 'Hello Yellow Brick Road'. Everything was difficult today, things kept breaking or not going to plan. I needed to be agile.

First, my Winsor & Newton No. 26 Palette Knife broke at the weld. It would probably last forever as one cast piece, incidentally. I bought this knife wen I started painting, perhaps in 2004, perhaps 2005. I knew this was a good shape, as my father (also a painter) used this shape. Halfway though painting I had to diver to buy a replacement. At first break I made a repair with Polymorph (it held well!) which meant I could continue.

Underpainting was completed by 17:45.

Drawing vs. Art

Drawing is about copying what you see, not what you think you see. Making art is about copying what you know and how you feel about it, not what you see.

Louis Wain, Hello Yellow Brick Road

Slept well, after an evening of dancing and singing. I watched The Electrical Life of Louis Wain which brought me to tears with many affinities and sympathies. I was reminded how much I miss Cat, the kitten who appeared in my life on the year I started painting, and left in 2020, the year I stopped, for a while, as I turned my focus to music.

After that, I prepared the panel for 'Hello Yellow Brick Road', and transferred the drawing. The stormy sky needed some preparation, there are no source images or objets for this apart from the lighting guide, so more preparation is required. I think the colours should be simple enough, so I've skipped that stage.

I've also worked on a black mouse lamp I was gifted. I've painted it white and will paint to the look like a real mouse. This is very much a hobby project. Plus, some work re-cataloguing album cover artwork. I file the covers as artworks too, and some of these were not quite right. The day is done. How fleeting each day is.

Hello Yellow Brick Road

A slow morning, then started work on a stallked painting idea from 2023 called 'Hello Yellow Brick Road'. Here is the idea sketch:

Like many such sketches, these are as much a mnemonic to me as compositional guide. The area on the right is blue sky, an ironic joyous destiny, so perhaps the painting is a satire on an emotional level. I set up a simple scene as a lighting model:

Then blew up the idea sketch and enhanced it a little, this time shading some parts in pencil. This will be my ancient typical size of 234x336mm.

Other things done today include recoding the 2nd and 3rd version central panels for 'Love Is Dead' to G575, like the original 1st version. These versions were painted years later, but are part of this artwork, so should be coded with it. Another job was revising the poster for John Lindley. With sadness I noted that The Little Street Cellar is to close this weekend, the venue where our monthly music nights take place.