Another night of constant stomach pain and barely any sleep. In my semi-awake state I started to plan a new Dadd Cabinet. It's been 12 years since the first one and my woodworking and craft skills are far above that stage. The major hurdle is the money for the expensive materials. I need at least £200 of oak lengths, £100 of specialist art glass panes, and £100 of gold leaf and gold plating.
I reframed an old painting called Smooth Vasovagal Reflex, one of my most sexually explicit in imagery, though the work itself was about the vagus nerve function. I'm unlikely to exhibit this soon. The painting on Perspex is in excellent condition, but the frame only so-so. It has the old, 5mm thick, edges, and ideally needs glass to protect the delicate painting surface (Perspex is easily scratched and the damage nearly impossible to repair flawlessly). The glass would make it all too heavy. For now, I've wrapped and packed the painting away.
In the afternoon I did a little more painting, though my stomach has been in constant grinding pain. I glazed 'Sacre Coeur' and 'The Red Madonna', a pair of tiny paintings which were to be a triptych, but I decided to give up on the third of the series. These are essentially love tokens for Deborah.
The second is a flaming heart in the same bold colours. As with yesterday's painting, these were underpainted in 2022. I was worried about the glazing colours, which to use. Reds can be so difficult, but I loved this result. My only other option was to use red all over, glazing red over the turquoise background (which is a mix of raw umber and cobalt turquoise green). Yet, cobalt turquoise blue is one of my favourite colours, and it would be a shame to hide those magical hues under a red glaze. I must say that these paintings look far more stunning, and very different, in real life compared to their photograph. The glazed colour combination is a key part of the look and indescribable feeling these emit.
