How To Paint Book, Banana Surprise Glazing, Love And Fragility Complete

Spent most of yesterday working on my 'How to Paint' book, which is already my biggest book in word-count and it doesn't feel so much as half written. There are many issues, chiefly the overall structure and adding more personality and verve over the dry technical points. It is ultimately a technical manual, but needs more than this, it needs to inspire more than inform. I realised, when writing, that this era of free and instant access to technically correct information makes personality and opinion much more important than mere fact. Perhaps this is why opinion is valued; it's the humanity among the dry data. The phenomenon of Populism is the worship of opinion over academic fact; perhaps this is why.

My painting has technically improved a lot this year, partly due to the analysis in this book. My own book has helped codify elements which were before esoteric.

Most of the today was too slow and too tired. I awoke after a long sleep of many dreams. It took hours to feel awake, and at 16:50, I still feel half dazed. Despite this I pushed on with painting and have glazed 'Beware Of The Banana Surprise', and then a glazing of the new ear and neckline of the male figure in 'Love And Fragility In The Age Of Perfection'. The neck and ear were, before this, poor in tone and finish but now almost stand out as the best part of the painting. If there is an error to correct the key steps are wait for everything to dry, then glaze with opaque underpainting colours, then re-glaze. This worked on The Starcrossed Escape too.

H Beam Piper Glazing 2, Art Filing, New Canvas Stretching Method

Second and final day of glazing the H Beam Piper portrait yesterday, but I'm unhappy with some aspects and will consider options. Much of the afternoon was spent re-organising my art catalogue, ensuring that I have an image filed correctly for as much as possible, and a shortcut image for everything that does have an image. A few artworks have no images, when I have the artwork and am able to add one, so I scanned and added a few of these. This is still the case for some artworks, mostly for sculptures and items I've filed as artworks, like my piano stand or router table, which aren't really artworks, but still need documenting, to learn from.

Backups today, and singing training. This afternoon, stretched a canvas with a new method.

These metal clamps grip the canvas lip at each opposite, then I pull the canvas taut with the Irwin bar clamp. The canvas is then held taut, so I staple each end. This is a very slow process, two opposite staples at a time, creeping from the canvas centre to the edge on alternating sides, but it's much better than the exhausting attempts at gripping this slippery canvas with pliers, and trying to staple with one hand while holding the tension with the other. This method also centres the tension correctly, as both sides are held taut before stapling.

One 24x34 inch canvas, the same size at the Mechanauts, has just taken me 90 minutes to stretch in this way, and it was still very tiring, as each clamp needed to be screwed (and released) very tightly, but the results are excellent, better than I've ever achieved before; and this method is more foolproof, a procedure that doesn't require trained skills or strength. With everything I do I think, how can I do it better? Only by asking this can things actually become better.

I have another canvas to stretch, but I'm out of 10mm staples, so must wait.

H Beam Piper Glazing Day 1, Replacement Cap For Blockx Oil Paints

Painting today. Day 1 of glazing the H Beam Piper Portrait. Hard to believe the underpainting was on 26th of April. I was looking forward to this glaze. It went well, although there are still several technical aspects of the painting I'm unhappy with, but will learn. He certainly has a 1950s look, and I keep being reminded of Tamara de Lempicka's chemist portrait.

Two of my Blockx oil paints have split caps so I decided to try and make a replacement using Polymorph. I heated up 2.43g and formed the transparent grains into a line, then dabbed them dry them before spiralling this hot snake around the cleaned tube thread, then formed the top into a 'T' shape. It seems to work, now cool I can see that the thread has been cast in this plastic. The shape is instantly better than the tops the oils come with.

I can't be sure if my caps are sufficiently air tight without a long wait. As an alternative, I clamped the split cap and filled its rim with hot-melt glue to effectively fix the old cap too. I rather prefer my new T-top design though, so will give this a try first.

Art Filing

Bah to a long day of feeling like I've hardly done a thing! Started by releasing War And Nuclear Love on Bandcamp.

Much of the work of the day was going through my full art catalogue to check that I have sample images of every artwork. I have a folder for each artwork which contains the full scan and all of the necessary materials used during creating it, but also a second folder with big thumbnails, images of every artwork for quick access. This doesn't have all of the artworks however, and there are a few, like colour variations or deleted works that weren't in my artwork spreadsheet either, so have done a lot of work today tidying and correcting this. This will ultimately, one day, assist in large scale batch conversion of my artwork; if this is ever needed.

The filing tasks are endless, but I must aspire to creating actual art.

Gallery Admin, Loneliness Of The Sun

A third hot and sleepless night. Spent a long morning documenting the 14 works delivered to the gallery yesterday, typing up long descriptions, filing these with the art, the updating the relevant website pages.

The visit inspired me to paint large, and I one idea is to enlarge some of the small paintings which have been proven to work. I rather like the recent 'Loneliness Of The Sun', and I thought that blowing it up to the same size as 'Imagining Happiness' would be ideal, as both works are similar; a simple mood with a monolith. I noted that Happiness is the same size as 'Triumph of the Mechanauts', 24x34 inches, and by chance I have stretchers ready for that size, so in the hot afternoon cut a canvas for that, and, by a happy coincidence of the width of canvas roll, cut a second piece for the other (large) stretcher I have (30x44). After that I'll have four large surfaces prepared and ready.

A scant few things done for a long day. I ache to charge into something more substantial. The heat is still sapping; 25.1 degrees in here as I write.

Art Writing, Painting Delivery

Spent most of yesterday writing and working on the unusually troublesome structure of my book on oil painting. I've sold quite a few books this month and year in print and audio. My book sales, and music plays and sales, have been steadily growing and this trend is continuing.

Today, Good Vibrations in the library, and a trip to the Oil Art Advisory to deliver four large paintings: 'Triumph Of The Mechanauts', 'Tiger Moving Nowhere At All', 'Imagining Happiness', 'Abandoning Someone Who Was A Friend To Me When I Had None'. They loved them all and have decided to immediately hang them. I've never felt so supported and enthused. I'm painting large again this year, primarily due to the influence of Zoe and Max, and will continue with greater ambition. I know that this year and next are years of power and growth.

Onwards we forge.

Record May Heat, Frame Gilding

Too hot to work, though I try. Went out this morning to join Deborah, and for most of the day read more painting research. Rehearsed one tune for Wednesday and packed and wrapped artwork for delivery, plus measuring and weighing it all.

Also applied artificial gold leaf to a frame which I've now sprayed twice. The spraying looks fine, but the frame is badly crackled with varnish and the paint is not adhering, just a slight knock can cause it to flake off. The gilding is poor, it looks ugly and would not adhere, and it's impossible to mask off for accuracy as masking tape will peel off the spray paint. This frame was intended for 'The Empty House', but it's too meagre and too poor for such a good quality painting, so I'll throw the frame away and make another. Of the frames I've restored or improved, two were failures and this is one, no bad loss as these were cheap charity shop frames. This one has served its purpose as inspiration for the painting. I'm now more able to make my own frames which loom substantially better than found ones, though of course there is a cost of materials for a custom frame.

Glazing The Blood Of Winter, The Works

Glazing 'The Blood Of Winter' this afternoon. I rarely enjoy glazing and never look forward to its chore. It always improves a painting but it feels like I've already done the bulk of the creativity. Here you can see the underpainting and glazed result, though you'll never appreciate the subtlety of the layering in a digital photo. The shadows are grey in the underpainting but have blues and greens in the glaze. The glazes are very thinly rubbed on, delicately affecting the colour. If glazing with the same colours, the result is simply smoothing the underpainting, not special. A principle is to glaze warm colours over cold and vice versa, but in general we're adding colour itself, new colours, more variation and more intensity than on the underpainting.

Half of the day was taken up with preparation of some watercolours for Knutsford and helping my father with his stamp collection. I listened to Queen's The Works for the first time today too, a good album. I must aim to write my songs more with Freddie's voice in mind as it's a range that works for me. In the past I've been too limited, I was growing in voice and still very much am. The songs which use these higher notes sound better now, or will sound better if and when I re-record them.

One of my early songs, inspired by Queen's 'We Are The Champions' and from 2003, is called 'I Won In The End'. It feels too self-triumphal to sing, too reminiscent of 'Tomorrow Belongs To Me' from Cabaret. Last night I thought that it could be simply changed to 'You Won In The End', making it instead a tribute song.