Slept long, until 9:30, unusual after two days of waking before 7. My father fell over on his back, outside last night. Bruised, he picked himself up and slowly crept upstairs, as usual, to prepare for bed. This morning he was difficult to rouse and seemed to be semi-conscious and partly paralysed. A stroke of some sort perhaps, we thought. An ambulance was called. He went to the local hospital and then, in something of an emergency, transferred to another regional hospital. A worrisome morning, though I feel he will recover in a week or two and that he is in the best place.
I managed to complete the tedious and exacting setting up of the sale of the Radioactive Soundtrack (or "Radioactive (The Official Soundtrack)" as it's technically correctly called. This was done by 3pm, and I managed to make two pieces of sheet music too, one for the in-game music, and for the main theme of Xenex.
After 15:00, I tried to fix mum's bike, but the brake cable is rusted into its sheath and immobile. After that, work on a mask for Deborah, a planned concept for the cover to our Tunnicliffe Fall in Green single. It would be nice to finish this and prepare it for a Christmas release.
I watched a South Bank Show Documentary about Francis Bacon yesterday. I took away some interesting ideas. He used photo references, but didn't want to represent 'things' as much as an instant mood; as do I. I capture mine in an instant flash, and try to interpret that faithfully. He said that he liked to use the reverse of canvases as the marks were permanent. I have this exact opinion, and joy from, my watercolours, but my oil work is slow and exacting, not spontaneous. I have, however, sometimes painted freely like that, once or twice. I almost always use photo references, but I suddenly thought that I might be better not doing so at all, painting only from imagination. Drawing skill is really useful. Painting from imagination would negate it, so I'd have to be careful not to let this skill fade, but Picasso too changed radically from exacting draughtsman to 'free' painter. There are a few advantages to painting from imagination alone. First, it's uniquely mine, the artists' style and vision. It represents me to the best degree, what is most human. It's painted solely and wholly from 'internal' references, nothing 'real'. What is real, out there, can be seen by anyone, painted by anyone. As we get better at painting we become more like a camera, and therefore more redundant as artists. Did Bacon decide how closely to copy his subjects when painting? How exactly the likeness, which areas of difference were good, which bad? When painting from the mind, it's all good, as it should represent the personal vision wholly, and camera reality not at all.
Of course, many 'abstract' painters feel this. Perhaps this is the very essence of abtract expressionists, yet are they painting from the mind or just using what is random? The latter I fear. The genre may be called 'abstract' but nothing IS abstracted, it's any 'old thing'. Those three words are the danger. What is represented is as vital as ever, as is the display of skill. Skill, that thing absent from abtract expressionists, yet hugely present in Bacon's work despite it not being photographically representational.
