Two days glazing 'Crushed Are The Meek', split days: 13:30 to 17:30 yesterday, 09:00 to 15:00 today. It looks good, certainly better than the already good underpainting. I'm sad that too few people will see it in real life. At times I wonder if any will. I have so many unseen paintings, unheard music, unread stories.
I looked again at 'All Things Bright And Beautiful'. In photograph the colours looks strong, but are much more subtle and beautiful in real life. The photo made it look too bright and that it needs work, but I didn't want to touch it, the greyness of the underpainting somehow shines through. Again, I was saddened by this, as all art competition and open exhibition judgements are now made by digital photograph. In the pre-photograph days I used to be selected almost every time, it was exceptionally rare for all of my works to be rejected from an exhibition. Now, in the photograph judgement era it's rare to have any accepted, despite my work being of higher quality. There is perhaps more competition now, perhaps ironic competition from acrylic painters, digital artists and other easily made works which photograph well. Well, this means that I must work harder to make my work seen in person. How doubly blessed I am to have paintings in the Oil Art Advisory. I pray that this will last.
Perhaps I'm absorbing this frustration from this painting, perhaps an idea of the English system, of general class injustices. Whatever the meaning, it conveys a mood, of sadness. Feeling is always my primary aim. Feeling first, then language and intellect, the mirror of our evolution.
Three works now remain in production and unglazed: 'All The Broken Hearted', the sad daisy painting, and the desert Ophelia. I'll work on the latter next I think, to finish it in time to enter it into the RBSA. I can paint classical paintings (that is 19th century French academic style) no problem, and it's a genre I like, although I'd need to add more, something exceptional and unique. I don't want to paint Gerome's senseless sensual nudes. I could now paint my 'Judith Beheading Holofernes' far better, perhaps I should re-do this, though I have myriad ideas. One is the Sisyphus painting, a painting about the hopes and dreams of rest in a world of endless work; it should express Camus' philosophy, Sisyphus' psyche, and fulfil the other requirements of an artwork. I may paint this at 760x1117mm, as large as 'The Resurrection Of The Lyceum In 1911' from 2011, a time of growth, ambition, challenge.
