H Beam Piper Glazing Day 1, Replacement Cap For Blockx Oil Paints

Painting today. Day 1 of glazing the H Beam Piper Portrait. Hard to believe the underpainting was on 26th of April. I was looking forward to this glaze. It went well, although there are still several technical aspects of the painting I'm unhappy with, but will learn. He certainly has a 1950s look, and I keep being reminded of Tamara de Lempicka's chemist portrait.

Two of my Blockx oil paints have split caps so I decided to try and make a replacement using Polymorph. I heated up 2.43g and formed the transparent grains into a line, then dabbed them dry them before spiralling this hot snake around the cleaned tube thread, then formed the top into a 'T' shape. It seems to work, now cool I can see that the thread has been cast in this plastic. The shape is instantly better than the tops the oils come with.

I can't be sure if my caps are sufficiently air tight without a long wait. As an alternative, I clamped the split cap and filled its rim with hot-melt glue to effectively fix the old cap too. I rather prefer my new T-top design though, so will give this a try first.

Art Filing

Bah to a long day of feeling like I've hardly done a thing! Started by releasing War And Nuclear Love on Bandcamp.

Much of the work of the day was going through my full art catalogue to check that I have sample images of every artwork. I have a folder for each artwork which contains the full scan and all of the necessary materials used during creating it, but also a second folder with big thumbnails, images of every artwork for quick access. This doesn't have all of the artworks however, and there are a few, like colour variations or deleted works that weren't in my artwork spreadsheet either, so have done a lot of work today tidying and correcting this. This will ultimately, one day, assist in large scale batch conversion of my artwork; if this is ever needed.

The filing tasks are endless, but I must aspire to creating actual art.

Gallery Admin, Loneliness Of The Sun

A third hot and sleepless night. Spent a long morning documenting the 14 works delivered to the gallery yesterday, typing up long descriptions, filing these with the art, the updating the relevant website pages.

The visit inspired me to paint large, and I one idea is to enlarge some of the small paintings which have been proven to work. I rather like the recent 'Loneliness Of The Sun', and I thought that blowing it up to the same size as 'Imagining Happiness' would be ideal, as both works are similar; a simple mood with a monolith. I noted that Happiness is the same size as 'Triumph of the Mechanauts', 24x34 inches, and by chance I have stretchers ready for that size, so in the hot afternoon cut a canvas for that, and, by a happy coincidence of the width of canvas roll, cut a second piece for the other (large) stretcher I have (30x44). After that I'll have four large surfaces prepared and ready.

A scant few things done for a long day. I ache to charge into something more substantial. The heat is still sapping; 25.1 degrees in here as I write.

Art Writing, Painting Delivery

Spent most of yesterday writing and working on the unusually troublesome structure of my book on oil painting. I've sold quite a few books this month and year in print and audio. My book sales, and music plays and sales, have been steadily growing and this trend is continuing.

Today, Good Vibrations in the library, and a trip to the Oil Art Advisory to deliver four large paintings: 'Triumph Of The Mechanauts', 'Tiger Moving Nowhere At All', 'Imagining Happiness', 'Abandoning Someone Who Was A Friend To Me When I Had None'. They loved them all and have decided to immediately hang them. I've never felt so supported and enthused. I'm painting large again this year, primarily due to the influence of Zoe and Max, and will continue with greater ambition. I know that this year and next are years of power and growth.

Onwards we forge.

Record May Heat, Frame Gilding

Too hot to work, though I try. Went out this morning to join Deborah, and for most of the day read more painting research. Rehearsed one tune for Wednesday and packed and wrapped artwork for delivery, plus measuring and weighing it all.

Also applied artificial gold leaf to a frame which I've now sprayed twice. The spraying looks fine, but the frame is badly crackled with varnish and the paint is not adhering, just a slight knock can cause it to flake off. The gilding is poor, it looks ugly and would not adhere, and it's impossible to mask off for accuracy as masking tape will peel off the spray paint. This frame was intended for 'The Empty House', but it's too meagre and too poor for such a good quality painting, so I'll throw the frame away and make another. Of the frames I've restored or improved, two were failures and this is one, no bad loss as these were cheap charity shop frames. This one has served its purpose as inspiration for the painting. I'm now more able to make my own frames which loom substantially better than found ones, though of course there is a cost of materials for a custom frame.

Glazing The Blood Of Winter, The Works

Glazing 'The Blood Of Winter' this afternoon. I rarely enjoy glazing and never look forward to its chore. It always improves a painting but it feels like I've already done the bulk of the creativity. Here you can see the underpainting and glazed result, though you'll never appreciate the subtlety of the layering in a digital photo. The shadows are grey in the underpainting but have blues and greens in the glaze. The glazes are very thinly rubbed on, delicately affecting the colour. If glazing with the same colours, the result is simply smoothing the underpainting, not special. A principle is to glaze warm colours over cold and vice versa, but in general we're adding colour itself, new colours, more variation and more intensity than on the underpainting.

Half of the day was taken up with preparation of some watercolours for Knutsford and helping my father with his stamp collection. I listened to Queen's The Works for the first time today too, a good album. I must aim to write my songs more with Freddie's voice in mind as it's a range that works for me. In the past I've been too limited, I was growing in voice and still very much am. The songs which use these higher notes sound better now, or will sound better if and when I re-record them.

One of my early songs, inspired by Queen's 'We Are The Champions' and from 2003, is called 'I Won In The End'. It feels too self-triumphal to sing, too reminiscent of 'Tomorrow Belongs To Me' from Cabaret. Last night I thought that it could be simply changed to 'You Won In The End', making it instead a tribute song.

Writing Oil Painting From Beginning To Master And Beyond

Decided and managed to paint an underpainting yesterday, the speed and joy of working on a small painting. The idea, The Loneliness Of The Sun, was from a few years ago. Perhaps I should have painted today, I have 'The Blood Of Winter' and the 'H Beam Piper' paintings to glaze, but I didn't remotely feel like it.

Instead, I read more of Max Doerner's book and started the big job of reordering and writing my own book on oil painting, provisionally entitled Oil Painting From Beginning To Master And Beyond. Already at 45,000 words, although this draft is very haphazard. The 2025 draft covered everything in a tree-like structure, but I want to rewrite and re-organise it all. I must make it more personal and more entertaining, warmer, but still contain as much as I can about the crafts and skills I've learned.

Frames Spraying, Singing

Sprayed some frames first thing as I was unhappy with the violet look of the 'Hope and Death' frame. Looks much better now.

Then singing practice for the first time in a few weeks. How good it feels, and how much better at singing I am now than before, than ever before. Listening back to tracks from Secret Electric Sorcery, from a mere 4 years ago, fills me with shame and horror at how bad my vocals sound compared to my abilities today. This is a good thing of course, we should be improving over time. I know and always knew that this vocal phase of my music, from around 2019 or so, was one of growth and study, but this means that, over the many albums of this era, I'm rarely happy enough with the results to promote or share them.

This fills me with energy and optimism. I know I can do so much better now, so am as eager as ever to improve the many older works, the long process of re-recording. Some albums which have already been re-recorded once, like Burn Of God, could also sound much better today - though I must hope and assume that I'll feel the same in 5 years about today's albums (assuming my life circumstances are broadly the same, which is in doubt).

Painting holds less appeal for me because my improvements in painting, though there is certainly some, is not as powerful as the improvements I've been making in music, singing and mixing. It can be harder to find challenges, to see the taller mountain when we reach the peak of each smaller one. The tallest of mountains in all things should be our goal, and once attained, taller mountains must be located. This challenge is my principle fire.

Art Photography, RBSA Summer Show

Today, photographed 'The Empty House' and 'Can There Be A Refuge From The Terror?'. The process takes a few hours, setting up my lighting rig, the photography flat-bed, tripods, 15mm tubes for the camera rig etc. Glad to get it over with. Heard that I've not got a painting into the RBSA Summer Show. 900 works submitted, 200 selected, so it's not easy to be selected on a purely statistical basis. I used to enter the RBSA regularly. Of my last attempts, 2 in 2019 and 2 in 2018, nothing was selected. Prior to that, my last entry was in 2014 at which I was selected and 'commended', and before that I tended to always have something selected. I suspect that there are more artists now, and that the choice of entries each time is more random than any other factor - those who are selected now are just as likely to not be selected next time.

I'm disappointed by this, but not hugely so as the work to reframe Descartes and the cost of the trip is considerable. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect is that 'Self Inspection At Theresienstadt' is, I think, a brilliant work that is as relevant now as ever, relevant and important on many levels, and yet it's been rejected from three different competitions. It's also an excellent painting on a technical level.

Daisy Underpainting Complete

Second day of underpainting the daisy painting. I've started to like to add elements whole painting, beyond the plan. In this case The pièce de résistance was adding a glimpse of van Gogh's 'Wheat Field With Crows' (with a hint of a face) at the base. This is actually in mars violet, red not purple.

It made me think of a maxim: Paint every painting as though it were your last!

I didn't enjoy painting today, it was a chore. I listened to Queen's The Game and A Kind Of Magic as I painted, a slight contrast to yesterday's 1st and 3rd Brahms' Symphonies. The grass greens match Wyeth's well, all with Harding Naples (Titanium Antinomy Chromium Oxide - the top has cracked, a mark of this generally shoddy quality brand; this colour is excellent however, certainly better than Winsor and Newton's version - if only Blockx made it!), black, white, and a hint of chromium oxide via the lovely Blockx Lamoriniere Green, which is certainly more beautiful than any other chromium oxide I've found.

After painting, dashed to Tesco and back at a speed of about 5 miles per hour, which Google commends as a good run for a beginner (I walked). Then photographing some pages of my father's stamp collection.

Daisy Underpainting Day 1

First day of underpainting 'The Earthly Concerns Of A Telepathic Daisy'. The day started with two small disasters; the vertical for the day/night division was accidentally missing from the underpainting, and the Polymorph head for my resting (maul-like) stick snapped as if brittle - this the first time that Polymorph has ever broken, it's really a super-plastic. These small mistakes were bypassed.

This is my first big canvas work in years, since 'Revelation' in 2017, and before that 'The Cusp of Love and Hatred' in 2015. I'm out of practice with larger works, but there's little difference in technique when working larger. The brushes are scaled up; I don't have too many large brushes. Today's size 12 hog from 'Art Discount' worked well. I find that bigger brushes can be too long, and thus too floppy. Ideally the hairs would be a thicker and stiffer too, just like a small brush scaled up, but this is not the case.

Another difference is the amount of paint, judging this can be difficult, and the larger amount of mess. A good degree of the skill of oil painting is learning to stay clean and keep things neat; this is harder when working with more paint. Finally, the surface is different. I love working with all surfaces. This 'Top Gun' canvas has great tooth, but is not at all absorbent; both good attributes. I tend to have to put more paint on than most surfaces, the canvas pits seem to require filling, so much more paint is used, but the result looks better and is easier to blend and modify; an overall more resilient result.

In progress, 82x82cm.

Humdrum Jobs, Spotify Streams

Packed works for exhibitions over the weekend. Today, an eye test and taking stock of works in progress. Scanned two more finished works, with two more to photograph this week in preparation for future competitions. I feel exhausted often, but perhaps this is due to lack of charging into a big project; I relish challenges and tight deadlines. There is much to do this year in programming and music, but the paintings in progress need to dry a little between layers. There is always more to do if I seek it, but choosing which is the best use of my limited time is never easy.

I noted today that The Myth Of Sisyphus has had a few Spotify streams, my first of 40 or more albums to have any. This is probably because I've promoted this album a bit on social media. I've never tried this before, even now it's very time consuming. I'll continue with future releases. In actuality the boost to my listenership is a very gradual climb over years rather than a rapid and recent one. At this rate it would still take centuries for me to have a hit, yet there is a quantum-leap factor here; energy builds up in silence then leaps up rapidly. As Fall in Green we've also had a few listens too, particularly the recent album.

Kafka: The Even Sadder Half Of His Double Face Underpainting

Today, underpainted 'Kafka: The Even Sadder Half Of His Double Face'. Took from 09:00 to 20:00, but it felt good to complete in one day. The painting is rather segmented into shaded sections, a slightly cubist. This, plus the earthy greens and browns certainly give the painting a look of something from the 1910s; all good.

Dr Who's Robot, God Being Killed Frame Refurbishment

Watched the Dr Who episode 'Robot' last night. I can't remember ever seeing it (I remember seeing a few Fourth Doctor episodes as a child). While watching I remembered an ancient memory of going to a Dr Who exhibition in Blackpool as a child, seeing the robot in real life, and a grey Dalek with black spots.

Awake most of the night. During fragments of sleep I became the Fourth Doctor. In my dreams I'm often Doctor Who, and when so, I am usually Tom Baker's incarnation. I dreamt of lying in my bed as him, my room in the same arrangement but decorated differently, lined with crude red bricks like a bunker or cellar, the bed made from simple planks. I found this disturbing and I woke twice like this before sleeping  and becoming the Third Doctor. This time the room was the same orientation, but with different decoration, more baroque and fitting to Jon Pertwee's incarnation.

I slept an hour, perhaps two all night, so was too tired to paint today. I had hoped to paint the Daisy painting. Instead I painted a colour study for the Kafka painting, and painted the edges of the Assassinated Strawberry (so, this canvas board can now be hung on the wall directly). Then repainted the original gold frame for the first (and probably only ever) God Being Killed print, which I aim to exhibit in Cotebrook Village Hall on the 6th and 7th June. It will be for sale for £300.

Don't Talk Framing, Art Prizes

The days has flown. Started with software updates, then framed 'Don't Talk To Me About Love'. Photographed the framed work and the underdrawing to the Franz Kafka portrait, then prepared the panel for that and traced it over. Then printed two smaller copies of the underdrawing: one primed on a panel for a painted study, one on paper for a pencil study. So much work, and for what but hope... hope of what? To create something better than before. I can certainly paint better than before. I was reminded of this today while refreshing 'Sun Set Free' from 2014 in preparation of its showing in Bickerton this year. 12 years ago, yet seems so recent; I'm definitely a better painter now. What use is this skill?

This year I may enter 15 competitions and open exhibitions, more than ever I think. These then are an incentive to paint. Even I were to win them all I'd not make much money, even top prizes in art are small. The prizes have not increased since I started painting in 2007/8/9. Painting prices too are around the same, and many open exhibitions award no prizes. When I started most did; and commendations, most had some awards of merit. This still happens, but it's a relative rarity now.

Truth In Art

There are things that are true that feel true, there are things that are true which don't feel true, and there are things that aren't true that feel true. The most compelling art portrays that which is untrue but which feels true, but such art is transient and superficial. It is the true things that are the most powerful, and perhaps the things which don't feel true the most so.

Art Motivations, Kafka Drawn

A slow day. Perhaps I'm painting too many works. Works are useful for entering into open competitions, exhibitions to showcase my work, to promote myself as an artist and my art on sale elsewhere. There are only so many competitions, however. I can paint works for sale directly, although I have many existing brilliant works that can stock an art shop. It's also good to be painting for self-improvement, skill improvement, and to embody being a painter. To have works on exhibition and for sale, yet be working on music or books may send a wrong message, and time, skills, the sunlight is limited. I can't paint in winter, the iron is hot for striking. This is a rare year where my painting is getting attention and support. I should make the most of this.

I've never need 'inspiration', to wait for an idea. If I need an idea I have 100 to hand, so this isn't a factor. I could paint forever, for as long as I have health, food, shelter, and art supplies.

At times I feel that I've created a lot, many games, many books, many music albums, many paintings, and yet, so far, nothing has yet been successful. Nothing popular, profitable. Some things are more popular than others, this is true, but nothing that is a 'hit', yet. Perhaps my work isn't promoted enough. I am naturally solitary, not a promoter. I know that I've made some good works, things I'm proud of, and things I dislike or know that I can do better. Critics or others can like or dislike anything. The judges in competitions are wrong to not show the works that I love and know are brilliant. As a judge myself once or twice, I know how haphazard this process is.

I remind myself that many great artists of the past faced the same problem. Almost every artist considered great long after their lifetime, Vermeer, William Blake, Van Gogh, countless many, were ignored in their lifetime and revered years later. Lack of success can be, with this hindsight, a sign of success - because it's happened so often to so many brilliant artists.

Small jobs done today. First, listening to the radio about Otto Dix, one of my favourite painters. His works lack accurate perspective, a cubist-like look of different surfaces, one which shows what's important to make the point and nothing more. A rare disunity of perspective. Excellent colouration. I re-absorbed some of his paintings.

The small canvas offcut I tried to stretch the other day was today glued to a 6mm piece of MDF which by coincidence was exactly the right size, making a large panel of about 61x86cm, an ideal size for an epic centrepiece of a wall. This is glued using PVA, section by small section, unrolling with glue applied. Trying to stick it in one instant would create air bubbles, and the glue dries too quickly for this anyway. All good.

I had hoped to paint another layer on 'Love And Fragility', but I think it's too soon since the last layer, so went for a fast walk instead. After that, marked the paper and drew out most of the Franz Kafka portrait.

Earthly Concerns Of A Telepathic Daisy Oil Tracing

Today, toned the large canvas for 'The Earthly Concerns Of A Telepathic Daisy' with a fine wash of acrylic colour, my imprimatura. Then transferred over the basic drawing.

For this plastic canvas, and other surfaces which resist tracing like acrylic plastic or metal panels, I use oil paint and Polydraw polyester drafting film. For the first stage of any tracing I'd normally use a 0.5mm Uni Pin pen, but for this I used a normal automatic pencil because I wanted to be able to erase the lines. Then, flip the sheet and paint over the lines with a mix of raw umber and titanium white without any zinc. The paint is scrubbed very thinly, as thinly as can be painted. Then the sheet is flipped again and taped to the canvas, and a fine-tipped embossing scribe (like a sharp point with a tiny pin-head-ball tip) is used to trace over the lines. The result is a perfect transfer of the drawing in oil. I have used this technique in a painting itself, as it's a great way to 'paint' ultra-thin lines. It's more difficult when the target surface is full of wet paint, of course.

The drawing above is 80x80cm. Of course, once transferred the drawing will take a few days to dry, so I can't paint immediately (unless I want to include those outlines; I could theoretically trace over different colours for different parts of the painting, or even shade parts).

After the transfer is done, I wipe the paint off the Polydraw and erase the pencil lines, as this material is expensive and tough enough to be reused. The lines remain visible, embossed. The sheet is very slightly distorted, and it's also impossible to wipe the paint perfectly away, so this used sheet is not perfect, but this beautiful material can at least be reused once or twice.

Gloves, Benatar, Canvas

A stressful and dramatic yesterday due to family issues. In a strange analogue of the drama, my mother accidentally took my brand new £120 designer German black leather gloves (a Christmas gift only recently cashed in) to a charity shop after she found them apparently discarded on the table. I still don't understand why she would do such a thing. I'd only worn them once! It's so rare for me to find any gloves that fit. These were a one-off, irriplacable.

In work, completed the second Pat Benatar panel underpainting, then attended the Hopes & Beams Literature Open Mic. Today stretched the large canvas for the Daisy painting, and did many other little jobs including listing paintings by frame, attending to my phone contact, updating my will, recycling a pile of ancient phones.

There was a 66x92cm offcut of canvas after the Daisy segment was cut, so I decided to try and stretch this on a 60x86cm stretcher. Not easy, I really need it to be at least 10cm bigger not 6cm. After an hour of work, the result is so-nearly acceptable, yet not quite. Too wrinkled, too imperfect. Such a shame, as I may never stretch a smaller canvas, so using this large offcut will be difficult. I'll have to dismantle the whole thing.

Now exhausted physically and emotionally. Next job, to tone the surface for the Daisy painting and transfer the drawing.

Canvas Preparations, Pat Benanatar Banana Underpainting

Yesterday evening I cut a section of canvas and assembled the stretcher bars for the Daisy painting. I bought 10M of canvas in 2011 for £165.54, and another 10M (knowing how great this 'Top Gun' material is) in 2015 for £200.28. Now the same canvas costs £300. Top Gun is 100% polyester and is wonderful for painting, far superior to cotton or linen.

One downside to Top Gun is that it can't easily be drawn on, so I use oil paint on tracing paper to transfer the drawing, except that I don't now use actual tracing paper for large paintings like this because it wrinkles like crazy, it is very hygroscopic, and those wrinkles distort a large image more and more. I use polyester drafting film, which does the same job without wrinkling, and is so strong its unrippable (it would probably make a good painting surface itself). It is 4 or 5 times the (already expensive) cost of tracing paper; 10M of polyester drafting film was £69 when I bought it in 2012, now it's £190. This time I hope to re-use it. It should be easy to wipe down after use, but of course, I could only re-use it comfortably if it is for a painting of the same size. Making paintings all an identical size would be far cheaper and efficient, but much less artful. Each idea seems to demand a certain size and shape.

I haven't stretched the canvas, but it is cut and waiting. After that, a sleepless night, probably due to the first sweet thing I ate last evening after my dental operation. It mead me realise how not eating deserts is perhaps always the best option for health.

A steady day today, underpainted the first of the two little panels now known as the Pat Benanatar series, this 'Beware of the Banana Surprise':

An odd painting in many ways, and it looks even odder now. I rarely paint with violets as there are no opaque ones. Here I used cobalt blue and manganese violet, which are semi-transparent, but opaque enough in grey. The face isn't trying to be realistic but stylistic, cartoon-like. The figure had a few problems, partly because it was realistically proportioned. Sometimes, false proportions look better on little figures, fatter arms, stockier build; but also the pose was too simple, too stable, so I modified it into a startled run. The whole painting looks strange to me, even though it matches the plan. Of course, all of the colours can be changed at whim when glazing.

Another £85 of oil paints arrived today, 7 tubes. I have enough paints for many years now, unless I start to paint larger or in impasto. Tomorrow, I'll probably underpaint the other painting of this pair, 'Sisyphus Rolling A Coconut Dangerously Towards To The Critical Mass Of Pat Benatar'.