Something of a frustrating day. I didn't want to charge into painting as the last few days have been tiring and long. I started with simple admin, documenting the router table, then looking at a few art ideas. Suddenly enthused, I scanned two: the Kafka portrait and one called 'The Earthly Concerns Of A Telepathic Daisy':
I prepared and drew this out but the composition had problems. The square shape and central face made it too flat and unexciting. I needed to add more, so did this and have referenced Wyeth and Van Gogh - both relate to the subject. I've sized it for 400x400mm, a little larger than in the past few years. I'm starting to size things larger this year.
At times I don't know why I'm painting what I'm painting. I seem to walk the line between too arty to be decorative, too arty to be 'liked' or imagine placed in the middle of a stylish wall; yet not arty enough to win a contemporary art award or attract serious collectors or critics. This said, the 'contemporary art awards' I see favour pretty decoration anyway. I look at some of my works, like the long awaited, long dreamed of, Rachael Hudson painting and wonder who would like such a thing? Only me perhaps. I don't feel it would win an award, or even be selected for a competition, despite its uniqueness. Indeed it hasn't yet been chosen to be displayed. I have similar issues with the Kratos cabinet, the AI Vermeer. Too arty? Not decorative enough? Not arty enough? Perhaps I could add more to the Hudson painting, make it all better. I have plans, had plans, for a whole Rachael Hudson installation. It would take my pointless, uncommercial, undecorative art to an extreme.
So, I'm starting to imagine a setting, a wall, a competition. I've not done this much, I chiefly consider how 'good' the idea is to me, and that's all. One offshoot of this thought is the desire to paint larger. I now have a few exhibitions and competitions in mind, so can think of what to create for those.
After lunch I started work on the text element of the H Beam Piper portrait (a painting ideal for such a competition). I stuck some collaged book pages to the panel and didn't like the texture. I became more seriously worried about the archival stability of the old and scented newsprint of this ancient yellowed book. I felt sure it would have become browner and browner, and ruined the painting. So, I scraped it off and decided to try an image transfer of the text instead, in the more permanent medium of laser print.
My test transfer on a piece of wood worked, but alas the actual transfer didn't - it melted the acrylic priming, and worse, heated the glue of the surrounding masking tape so much that it became permanently gluey and mixed with the acrylic priming. Essentially, the panel was ruined; and with it, two days work of preparation and gilding.
So after that, I found more more MDF, and sawed a new panel. I've just prepared that. I am unsure, however what to do about the image transfer.
The RBSA Prize Exhibition has a deadline of the start of May. Could some new work be finished? I fear that most of the competitions have deadlines that are so close that I can barely make any. I started my painting year in April. Most competitions need work in May - hopeless.
We can but try our best in the forlorn trudge of life. Let us roll our rock, eye on the horizon. We have far to go before the eternal sundown.
