A busy day yesterday. Started work on an older composition called 'We're Very Worried About John' - based on a phrase my father says about an old television programme from his youth. It's an old idea, perhaps even a decade. I wonder why I'm working on such an old thing, but it has some charm of course, and hopefully these ideas are eternal anyway. The style however, and elements of the composition are done differently to my contemporary way of working, so it's interesting to compare. In particular, this has a false-box sort of background, which I've used a few times. Here it's very useful to give a sense of indoors and yet outdoors too.
I also spent time sorting out some photo reference images.
In the afternoon Deb and I went to Holmes Chapel for a performance by John Lindley. It was nice to see him and effectively take a break from a busy week. I also noted that Ty Pawb has an open exhibition and is calling for entries. Extraordinarily, they don't provide any information, no terms, no dates, apart from the submission deadline and exhibition date. Artists are expected to pay and enter without knowing what work is acceptable an what isn't, or any other terms.
I heard last night that both paintings have been accepted into the Stockport Open, a great relief as the trip on Friday to collect would have been expensive and time consuming.
Today, a full day continuing the underpainting to 'Ethics'. It's interesting to see it come together, the energy.
I had more time today, so my work was finer and better generally. The paint was drying as I worked on this hot day, creating unique problems. Each day, the paint from the previous day is completely dry. In such circumstances, it's good that I paint frugally and on a solid substrate, to limit the stress on the paint film.
