A second full day of underpainting Moon Over Shakespeare yesterday. So much of this painting is invented, fantasy. In some ways, it's a paragon of painting because it can't be copied, imitated, made by machine, made digitally or in any way other than meticulous oil painting; but of course this is because it can be 'anything' so is a sort of raw expression. Dali railed against this in 50 Secrets because of the madness it causes, but he did so because he too did it, and all painters do when they paint; all paintings have changes from 'reality' in them. Well, Shakespeare and the flowers are real. Here is the underpainting so far:
Today I've paused to deliver three paintings to the annual Bickerton Art Exhibition, one of the few which is going ahead. I've been informed that the Cheshire Art Fair is postponed until spring. This feels correct. At the moment I would not feel safe attending the preview, for example.
I started by calibrating some orbit spirit levels which were all wrong. The factory could have gripped the top with a steel arm, optically levelled each one, then sanded and polished the bottom smooth - but they didn't, so these are not accurate. I created a level (level enough) base with a ceramic tile, then stuck metal washers onto the base of each one with soft epoxy clay, then gently pushed them to level them as the clay set; so each one is now very level. The differences are as good as the natural wobble of the spirit, which itself is not 'perfect'.
Then I assembled a test rig with my 15mm stainless steel tubes but alas! First, the end was so rough that it was a tight squeeze to fit onto the adapter, badly scratching one in the process. Second, the tubes are not round or smooth enough to slide along. Perhaps steel itself is never round enough, which is why SmallRig themselves use aluminium or carbon fibre. The tubes wobble, slide, get stuck, all bad. That's a precious £60 wasted. I must try aluminium.
