It's time to get some serious work done on the Lyceum painting. I had a great idea two or three months ago and it's taken until about yesterday to realise that it wasn't going to work. So last night I brainstormed a pile of new ideas and have a new candidate. It needs an eagle so I decided to make one from DAS air-dried clay. I microwaved it to dry it quickly, which worked to some extent, but there's a soft mashmallowy lump in the middle that led to some brilliant crazing on the outside.
You don't see many bird sculptures compared to heads, that's because the heavy wings tend to limp over and drop off, which is happening to mine. I might have to make another one from Polymorph.
Yesterday I was commended in the Jobling Gowler Art Competition 2011 for my Colours of Cheshire painting. I like painting to a theme and always enjoy entering competitions with one. The painting for Buxton (the face/mountain in the older post below) hasn't made it into the show. That's a tricky one to get in, but I'll keep at it I think. I've also failed to get a painting into the Stockport Open. That's less of a disappointment because it's easy to enter, there was no specific theme and there were over 700 entries with only space for 150 or so, so easy come easy go. During the pickup today a lady said that she liked my painting, recalling it from when I dropped it off. That simple compliment made the trip feel worthwhile.
The small yellow spot in the back of my throat is still causing me problems but at least now after several months I have something to target. The doctors remain aloof to the point of rudeness. I expect I'll have to wait to see an expert about it to fix the problem for good but I feel the end is in sight.
More to do: I've got three sound jobs including a commission for seven pieces of music, and tomorrow the setup for the Nantwich Arts Festival. I need to collect my painting from Buxton over the weekend, which is awkward as I'm supposed to attend at Nantwich all day on both days. But the Lyceum painting must be a priority! I really should have the underpainting done this month, never mind not have anything done!! Zip! and Zip! again.
Finally, I display one of the strangest and most inappropriate of my Lyceum ideas. This shows a monolith made of bricks and theatre architecture in a desert of ashes and black destruction. Charlie Chaplin (an attendant of the theatre way back when) looks on. The original theatre was destroyed by fire and the current one has had a it's fair share of moribundity due to lack of attention, a much worse death for a theatre. Fortunately my chosen idea is positive to the point of transcendental religious experience, and in fact is an "assumption". More on that when I paint it.
