Nine Eleven, Smile To Fall Vocals

25 years ago today I was working on the font designs in Imagine for my epic game concept, 'The Heart of Aorkhan'. My father called me downstairs to the news of the World Trade Center attacks. The shape of those letters on the gridded background and specific colours will always remind me of 9/11. The only game of mine that had been published then was 'Burnout' on Amiga, a flop for the world, but a triumph for me. 'Blade' then 'Arcangel' existed, both failures. It was 2002, after the year-long trawl of trying to make Aorkhan that I decided to quit and make some small games, and publish and sell them myself. That marked the first time I'd ever sold games or got anything back from them after 10 years of making games in isolation and complete failure. As well as starting to sell my games, I set up Bytten, the game review website, and IndieSFX, my sound effects library. 2002 was my great year of transformation, rebirth.

In 2001 I'd not painted a thing. My music software Noise Station was in its infancy. My prior music attempts used keyboards, first an Ensoniq ESQ-1 I'd bought from the music shop on the corner of West Street, Crewe, long since gone. I recorded a few tunes to cassette, driven by MIDI and OctaMED software. After the ESQ-1 I bought a (new at the time) Yamaha SY-85. I used the SY-85 to record the music for Arcangel, and the first version of the album later named Synaesthesia. This was perhaps 2000 or 2001. After this I decided I needed better control, so I programmed 'Noise Station', and produced The Incredible Journey and the first Spiral Staircase album using it. Perhaps, though, again 2002 was the start of my longer music journey as this was the year I started to program Noise Station 2, later named 'Prometheus', the software I've updated 191 times since to use for all of my music today.

For me, everything has changed since September 2001. The fast majority of my life seems to have existed after then, but a few things have stayed the same, such as my friend Andrew Williams. The late 90s, 1997 or 1998 perhaps, marked my crisis year, the year the Amiga died and when I was forced to buy a PC, buy books on C++ programming and DirectX5, and start again, learn from scratch. I had less than £200 to my name, no friends, no job, no future. I decided to kill myself and made full preparations, but at the last moment reasoned that I may as well wait until the money ran out completely first, which was perhaps 2 weeks away. I extricated myself from Income Support, the government benefit, and vowed not to touch a government benefit again. By some magic, I started to gain some income, drop by drop. I can remind myself that every dark year can be a restart. I can only hope that the next 25 years will be as bright as the last 25.

I spent most of yesterday on the Women And Wives single, recording the vocals for the 'Smile to Fall' B-side, then mixing and finalising that song. The singing and mixing was easier than expected, perhaps I'm better at mixing this style of songs today. I also transcribed the music to sheet. All that's left now is the cover art. I won't need booklets or CD artwork as this will be a stream-only release.

After two busy days I'm tired and slow today. Listening to a Radio 4 programme about 9/11 where survivors recall that day has made me reminisce. Time is precious and life is short.

All The Broken Hearted Complete

A night of worries, about the sudden crisis in my father's heath, the care costs and perhaps losing our home. His health is better today, perhaps he over exerted himself yesterday.

Of dreams, I recall a few things. At one point David Lawton was painting a miniature, showing me his process. Wearing magnifying glasses he used a single pubic hair for the finest of details, but seemed embarrassed at using a pubic hair, recommending only 'a single hair' and hiding away the one he used. I also dreamt that shares in a diamond mine which I owned shot up by £20,000, though this only enough to nearly break-even after years of being deep in the red. The feeling was one of neutrality, not joy of making money, not sad at losing; a shrugging of shoulders. Perhaps this is an indicator that worries can be baseless, that all will be, or can be, well.

I painted today but it was a chore and horrible. The first session was so very dark and rainy, and my mood low and anxious. I had to put the light on just to see, and at 10:30 had to run to the shops for house shopping as my mother is now too strained and too busy looking after my father for such things. I did so, one mile there and back in 30 minutes, and the sun appeared as I returned for the next session which was much better. The feathers were difficult enough without the darkness and anxiety.

Things, the light, my mood, gradually got better while painting and the result was adequate, thus the Heartbreak Trilogy is complete. Where to show it? Will it be seen at all, by anyone? I must at least prepare for it, so I must aim to make three frames.

Back to Painting, All The Broken Hearted

Gamer night last night. I've been lacklustre and distracted in August regarding painting compared to July, for a few reasons. The weather has turned duller and cooler, and I've had a few performance dates; the Macca Night, and rehearsals for Morecambe. Plus, I felt that the painting season was coming to an end, a grass-is-greener gaze towards music, but perhaps also a tiredness and general lack of drive for painting after many constant months of it.

Seeing my friends reminded me of how important art and painting is. I found myself in the night hours comparing my life with that of artists past at my age, Vermeer and van Gogh; Rembrandt and Beethoven. Life is short. Their lives a struggle in various ways, as is mine, yet art has a great power over time, over death. I suddenly became enthused with painting again, and decided to work on the paintings in progress today, starting with 'All The Broken Hearted', so for a rare time began a glazing day with enthusiasm.

The colours were simple, mostly burnt sienna and ultramarine grey-blues and browns, with yellow ochre light (a superlative colour by Winsor and Newton which I've used in almost every painting), and a few minor others like reds and greens for small areas.

My father's illness is difficult to manage and he fell twice today. Mum talked about care concerns, selling the house and other terrors, but these worries are I think excessive for now. An assessment of his needs is due.

Telepathic Day 2, Rehearsals

A second half day of glazing the Telepathic Daisy painting yesterday, then treated the oak Blood of Winter frame for woodworm. There's no indication of woodworm apart from a few ancient holes, this is a preventative measure for the hardwood frame after advice from Zoe from the Oil Art Advisory.

Today, a second Fall in Green rehearsal for the Morecambe Poetry Festival set, and for the Paul McCartney night tonight. I decided at the last minute to have 'Live and Let Die' in reserve, so quickly looked and played/sang that through. I noted that in this and 'Women and Wives', the song ended with the first verse and chorus repeated, and Hey Jude too for the most part (the coda replacing the chorus repeat).

I'm also helping a lot with my father's name change. Everyone calls him Damien, buth this is his middle name and he's decided to make to removal of his unused first name official as he got really annoyed at its use during his recent hospital visit. This is causing me and my mother lots of work and stress for what we consider to be a trivial matter. Not a huge job, but lots of little jobs that take up and break up each day over several weeks.

Telepathic Daisy Glazing

A slow and difficult day. Glazed the sky part of the Telepathic Daisy painting but made many clumsy mistakes in my room including dropping the ultramarine, causing it to eject a line on the carpet like the result of a lunar meteor strike! This stain is now a permanent mess. I didn't at any point feel like painting, my energies here are slowing off, but I must and will continue until the season ends.

I mixed up some test wood stain but the ethanol I bought for the purpose didn't at all dissolve the oil paint I'd planned for this! I need bottles to test different solvents. I'd fully expected the paint to dissolve easily and quickly. I regret buying the ethanol at all. I should have bought either isopropynol (which I've used often and know to work well as, for example, a Laropal A81 solvent), or methylated spirits. I expected the denatured ethanol to be meths, but it's not.

Made a new sound for some of the Fall in Green tracks, how I love my MODX! 'We Used To Store Sunlight' has strings on the lower part for the left hand backing, with a wind-chime for the lowest note for occasional accents. There's a triangle-wave arpeggio on the upper octave which matches the one in the recording, and a melodic lead of a flute for the right hand. A press of the AF1 switch and the flute switches off and a piano appears for the second half of the song. If I light AF2, I get a second piano an octave higher for the initial piano appearance. It's a full orchestra at my fingertips!

Rehearsed for the Paul McCartney night and made some financial moves. A frustrating day that felt terrible at all times, yet I can see that there are positives. Nobody knows, in the long term, whether a day is good or bad. Things done today may be crucial to success in ways that only hindsight can determine.

Trips and Outfits

Three busy away days complete! Yesterday, collected a new lot of wood for framing - my next job is to make a frame for 'Punishment Of The Sun'. Then, a trip to the Good Vibrations event in the library followed by an overdue visit to the Oil Art Advisory. I took along the recently completed Kafka portrait and it was immediately hung on the wall. I wore more interesting clothes for the day and feel I should do this more. Couture fashion has always been part of art and is an important part of every artist as well as every art movement. My outfit, I think, improved Good Vibrations, made it feel like more of a special performance by all.

I'd like a head mould for my head so I can make custom hats...

Most of today was tidying and completing admin work for the past three days, plus an update to my framing software Frameculator, adding various preset sizes of wood, as I now often use two specific sizes.

Trips

Trip to Macclesfield yesterday to have my father's First Day Covers valued. Today, a coach trip to Gloucester. We met Kev Milsom, a long time writer for Ink Pantry.

Impossible Hopes Of Sisyphus Composition

A rubbish day of nothingness yesterday but I did manage to add social-media link 'previews' to my websites. My father arrived back from hospital. My mother is adjusting to becoming a full time carer.

Today, a full day's work on the Sisyphus painting, refining the outlines and adding more. The 1/3rd scale drawing was really useful for working things out. Another little job was woodwork, expanding two of my drying rack arms to permit much larger paintings, so another aid to painting large. I like this scale.

The next three days will be hectic with trips, so no free time until Thursday, which is set for lightning storms. I expect I'll need that day to rest.

Live Music Settings Day 2, Solar Eclipse

A full and good day. Completed the admin of the 5 Fall in Green albums, noting live settings for each track. Then printed and practiced the new music for the Morecambe show, and developed a few new instruments. Then got to work on my albums, which also took a while. I remember performing quite a few We Robot tracks, and some A Drive Through The Town, and Secret Electric Sorcery! All in all, quite a few tracks needed noting, and I designed a few new MODX sounds for future live events (if there ever are any).

I made a crude eclipse viewer box for tonight's 90% eclipse. The results were rather poor, but I managed to glimpse the sun. The best shot was pointing my camera directly at it with minimum lighting settings (1/4000sec, F25, ISO100).

Websites still being set up. The new cornutopia.net, my first test site, is live!

Failures and Victories, The Blood Of Winter and Kafka Frames

An awful day of drab failure yesterday. I'd hoped to use my router table to cut new channels in wood for the 'Punishment Of The Sun' frame, but at first my mother didn't want to help; no work on Sunday is her motto. The cutting was better than the disastrous first attempt, but still a failure, the wood rose up and was chewed. The machine was noisy and messy. The results would perhaps be improved with work and more modifications. I like making my own things, I like 'reinventing wheels', but my mother insisted that I stop, that she would pay for custom-cut wood from a local timber yard.

I updated my frame calculator software, but most of the day was wasted, a day of plans abandoned. There were also food problems. My breakfast was uncooked due to some sort of microwave failure, and the other meals failed too, in odd ways. In the evening, problems with my father's illness kept us awake and I barely slept. He spent the night in hospital.

Yet, today was a transformation. I ordered the wood and it was cheaper than I expected. We visited my father, who seemed to be doing ok. Perhaps this incident will lead to a revised care plan for him. I returned home to frame 'The Blood Of Winter', and the Kafka painting, both worked well. The hosting issues about my websites and domains seem to be resolving after nearly a week of waiting. I bought train tickets for the Stockport art collection, a mere £2.50 per trip, less than a bus ride. I ordered some Ethyl Alcohol to make wood stain, and this too was a bargain price (I expect the price of these chemicals will go up due to the issues around the Strait of Hormuz). And I worked out the dates and possible entries for several open competitions. A good day.

Deborah has been wonderful, too.

Rest Day, Prometheus v3.90

A rest day after too many exhausting days, again awoke tired and full of aches. Did some singing practice. Manged to hit D5 without much trouble, this note was unreachable in years past, yet my general performances were not good, perhaps I need to practice more, or perhaps I'm still recovering from last Wednesday's Dancing Queen!

Went out in the lovely sunshine and bought a few things to cook later. Updated Prometheus to v3.90, making yet more use of the FX text box to dispose of multiple menu options (eg. Frames Per Second, Tuning, Split/Merge Tracks; these had lots of menu options, now a small number of common values with a 'Set to FX' option to make a smaller menu with even more flexibility).

In the evening, played keyboard to a CD as practice, a joyous jam. I dream of doing this with other people. Monthly backups tomorrow.

Good Vibes, Kay Sage

A nice day at Good Vibes today. I was pleased with my playing for a change, though I over did it with the singing of 'Dancing Queen' (I don't like Abba at the best of times, this song pushes the limit of too high to sing as well as being completely rubbish). Nice to spend lots of time with Mike as he kindly drove me to Bickerton and the art drop-off. I feel like I owe him much more in return. He's a wonderful friend to me and so many people, and a great person by every metric.

Deb is ill with a rotten virus, flu or Covid, her third period of work sickness in a month, each with something different. Many people asked after her in the library.

Generally I feel tired if not exhausted, unmotivated, weak. Some of this may be the summer allergies inflaming my cells, the effects of coffee which gives me low blood pressure; my resting heart rate typically around 60 and is often lower. Tiredness aside I still feel motivated and full of excitement, ideas, ambition, just seeming to lack the energy to enact them. I must at least glaze the desert woman, and the other paintings awaiting glazes.

My Cass Art Competition entry was rejected, so I've failed to be selected for any art competition so far this year. It's better to try than not. Still frustrated that my work looks much better in real life, yet all judgement now is digital. In the pre-digital era I tended to be selected every time; there's been a huge reversal when my technique now is at least as good and typically better in quality than any time before, and my subjects haven't particularly changed. My best work is always the least successful - must I lower myself by entering boring portraits and other things that idiots paint? No! I must instead continue, strive more, shout louder.

Most of these attempts were on the early works of this year (or earlier years), and this power-year of painting has included some definite transformations and concrete improvements. I read about Kay Sage, she seemed schizoid. She apparently wrote "I have said all that I have to say. There is nothing left for me to do but scream" - this will never be me. For me, a scream is something to say; and that which can be said should be expressed in art. I am at times solitary, but even if I don't get to show my paintings, even if my art remains unseen and packed away, I make it for others.

Onwards.

Chester Lit Prize, Crushed Are The Weak, Palette Knives, WANL

A lovely visit to Chester yesterday for the Literature Prize Awards. Nice to see Chris Driver finish as a runner up, and spoke with script winner Andy Hayward, who I'd previously met at the launch of Go Sprout The Grain in Crewe Library last September.

Slept badly and awoke with stomach pain and a faintingly weak feeling of low blood pressure. It took many hours to feel anything close like back to normal. Despite this weakness, a manic day of work, first completing the underpainting to the large 'Crushed Are The Weak' painting. One of my finer underpaintings, executed in record time. My palette knife broke, new less than 12 months ago:

The previous one lasted 18 years. I'll not buy Winsor and Newton Palette Knives again, and will try an RGM knife next.

Today is also the official release day of the War And Nuclear Love EP, my only new release of 2026, and my 85th release since 1999 (including singles, not including re-releases/remasters/re-recordings). This also too some time. At times today I felt suicidally tired of life, but of course fought on. Now feel exhausted but happy. Next, must walk 2 miles to collect Heaven And Hell by Vangelis, then visit Deborah.

Dizzying Heat, Bunbury, All The Broken Hearted

Too hot to work yesterday, hooter than any day of the heatwave so far here. It's joy is that Deb has been sheltering here, her 33 degree flat swapped for my relative cool of 28.

In the evening, a trip to Bunbury Church to see the art in their Inspire26 exhibition, I have 3 paintings there. I recognised only 3 names in the catalogue. We spoke briefly to Deb's friend and her daughter, the latter of which is exhibiting.

Today is mercifully milder. An early visit to the moribund Auntie L. I felt weak, then found I couldn't stand up for much longer and had to recover on the floor. My heart rate is 50 to 60 and my strange weakness has continued, a result of the heat perhaps.

Some work however, have finalised the sketch for the 4th painting in my current tranche, 'All The Broken Hearted', and photographed the underdrawing (bless my camera that it can pick up these faint pencil lines!):

In the afternoon, made air-dried clay Golems, inspired by Deb's Prague holiday, then a lighting model for the painting. Generally have felt too tired and unfocused to work at an efficient rate.

Good Vibes, Heatwave Continues

Attended Good Vibrations in Congleton Library yesterday. It was very hot, but tolerable and always fun to play there. We skipped the regular post-performance lunch, and came straight back at noon rather than remain for another hour or two, to avoid the heat during the long drive back.

Then, more heat. It's now 26.4 in here. At 21:00 yesterday it was 28, lowering to 25 point something by about 22:30 with the window open wide. Windows open and curtains wide all night, and the indoor temperature dropped to 24.9 at lowest at 04:30. I barely slept, uncomfortably hot and worried about when to close windows and curtains. Closed the windows and curtains at 07:00 or so, at 25 degrees inside, then slept until after 09:00, by which time it was 26, but 24 elsewhere in the house, so perhaps I should have left all open.

Either way, too hot to work. Too hot to paint as I need ventilation, and computer work too causes the room to heat up, so is not advisable. Deborah is shielding here in this well-insulated house, her upstairs flat with no insulation is 2 to 6 degrees hotter than here.

We've cancelled our performance at the Ray Davies night in Congleton tonight, as it's due to be even hotter than yesterday, probably over 30 degrees at 18:00 when we're due to leave, and the venue is not insulated or air-conditioned, and is very cramped and full of people. The evening would be an endurance more than joy. Very sad not to attend, I've been rehearsing 'Little Bit Of Emotion' for weeks, but gave Deb a performance of this yesterday. Perhaps I can do the same at the next Good Vibes event.

I'll attempt some smaller jobs today. First, preparations for the Steam Sale, due to start later today. I'll draw out a painting perhaps. Mike sent over a few songs, which are always inspiring, they're always full of his energy and creative spirit. Too tired and hot to want to do anything. It's due to be equally hot tomorrow, a little cooler on Saturday, and the heatwave is due to end on Sunday. How I pity the wildlife, the trees and plants suffering in this heat, the people without shelter, those who work in kitchens, the patients and staff at the local hospital which is notoriously hot in even normal summer weather.

Sisyphus rolls his rock over the desert floor.

June Heatwave 2026

Too hot to paint this week, record-breaking heat today, and forecast to be hotter tomorrow and Thursday. Heat is good for painting, but it has to be cool enough to be able to open the windows.

Drew out the basic outlines for 'All The Broken Hearted' yesterday. This morning, collected paintings from Nantwich Museum. Both had crude overpainting of the mirror plates, which damaged one frame substantially. I needed to do a lot of paint removal and restoration to fix it; solvents, scraping, wood stain, painting; but now it is restored. Have rehearsed my song for the Ray Davies night in Congleton, a rare night of performance on Thursday.

I'd like to do more work but it's too hot for many jobs, lost productivity. Later today, delivery to Bunbury Church.

Art Photography Stands Complete, Ugly Ducklings Become Swans

I built a flatbed guide to align the towers yesterday, and set a 3mm piece of MDF in the centre to accommodate the uneven wood bottom, to make the L-plates the main support.

The towers were laid along the line and the L-plates glued to their sides in exactly the right place. Once the glue had set, after 10-mins, these were drilled and screwed firmly. Today, testing. The existing rivnuts on the bases generally fit, some better than others, but enough that I didn't have to make adjustments, all good. The towers are now very accurate in height and verticality. For towers 1175mm tall, they're so close that any tiny movements due to stepping nearby or touching them is bigger than the difference between them. Without a new room with a flat concrete floor, this is as good as I can get.

Then, setting up and testing the camera alignment. Cheeseplates were again fitted, first using one loose screw as a pivot, the camera set between them on the steel rods. The screw was gradually tightened as the alignment got better, then the tilt checked with a spirit level, and the screw moved to tilt the plate just fractionally. Eventually things were set correctly. The final calibration was on the main camera shoe, the step I'd neglected yesterday. After this, all was set. The cheeseplates were fixed down with hot-melt glue, and when it was set, screwed to lock them in the exact place. A final test of the resolution and alignment:

This gives a resolution of 331.845dpi, to the 1.25mm thick ruler. The resolution will be higher for thicker objects (paintings on 3mm or 6mm board, or 10 to 20mm deep for canvas). This is good. Not too high, as the image files would be too large. I'd aimed for 300dpi plus 10%.

The project has cost me £94.12 in new buys, £146.74 if I include the Smallrig parts (some I had previously bought), and more still if I include the many rivnuts and the few bolts needed. This is double what I'd anticipated, and it's taken 4.5 days, longer than hoped, but this should speed up and simplify my art photography, particularly for larger works. One reason I'd avoided painting larger is that it was hellishly difficult and stressful to photograph them. I'm amazed that the old flimsy tripods ever managed to take an accurate multi-part photo of my paintings. Perhaps they rarely did, it's just that such inaccuracy is tolerable for most people.

So, this improved rig is a necessary step forwards for my art. One of my tenets is that any short-term effort to improve things by 1% is worth it. Spending £100 or £500 to improve your art by 1% is worth it. Over time those 1% values will add up, pushing you beyond those artists who didn't invest in those 1% improvements. The tortoise betters the hare, ugly ducklings become swans drip by tiny drip.

John Deaconitis, All Things Bright And Beautiful Plans

Felt a little lost yesterday and over the weekend, darting from one thing to another in an unconstructive way. This was partly due to the circumstance of needing to visit Cotebrook on three consecutive days, that plus charging into developing 12 paintings at once, and aiming to write bits of my book - scattergun plans.

Last night I listened to my latest music purchase, Queen's The Miracle, an album which was (when it was released) our first CD purchase for our new and amazing CD player when I was 16 years old. Oddly, my memory of this event takes place in our old house in Culland Street, even though we left there in 1985 or so. Anyway, I've had Queen's albums up to The Game for years, but have recently decided to buy the rest as a reward for different milestones. I've bought the Deluxe Version, which comes in rubbishy cardboard packaging which went immediately into the bin; but the music is brilliant, especially the second CD. I didn't like the album much in the 1980s, but now I love it.

Last night I sang along, and have even jammed along on guitar, which is always great fun. At night though, I fell into a despair, and today too.

Today I think this is a new disease: John Deaconitis. I used to think that John, the so-called 'quiet member' of the band, somehow let the band down by leaving Brian and Roger to tirelessly (in every sense) perform and promote Queen since Freddie Mercury's death. Queen are uniquely a band with a fixed canon (we must discount the Queen and Paul Rodgers album); and Brian and Roger have promoted their legacy and performed their past works for longer, now, than the band itself was active.

John wrote 'I Want To Break Free', and I felt this was a not-so-hidden message. I suddenly felt that he was the most emotional member of the band, perhaps the most fragile. I thought of Anthony Phillips, the original guitarist from Genesis who couldn't cope with the pressure of being in a band and quit after one or two gigs. I, with Deaconitis, was hit again with the devastation of Freddie Mercury's death, and suddenly felt unable to continue in art. I thought of the desperate quest for financial security, which is an ever-present trap for art; nobody is secure, the engine of success is to charge forwards aflame. For an artist, art or death must be the only options, and only in death can an artist succeed.

In the morning I wrote a few more words to my oil painting book, then investigated plans for making some new stands for art photography, though these were distractions from my main plans of painting; these unwelcome distractions due to my searching brain. Then, at last, I felt cured and started to work on one of the new painting ideas. One way to limit being overwhelmed is to plan works in group of 4. Here's the original idea:

The painting is as much a mood as anything, perhaps a quest for love or recognition. I expanded this a little, using a dandelion as a visual theme. Now the figure in repose, perhaps like the woman in The Untouchable Strawberry, is a monolith and monument. I changed the title to 'All Things Bright And Beautiful'.

In my mind, it's a funerary monument, yet organic and beset with weeds, a monument to art. It's not so much personal as heroic and romantic. I'll complete the drawing transfer this evening. Tomorrow I aim to paint Kafka. Onwards we charge.

Deserted Party Dream, Cotebrook Collection

I dreamt of a party. It was night, downstairs in a house somewhat like this one. My parents were present, and I think Deborah. I was looking at a picture frame, examining the gold and dusted edge, a finish like the God Being Killed frame from Cotebrook. Derren Brown arrived and wanted to show us a trick. I went upstairs to drop off the frame, my mind focused on my art work. I came down to find the house dark and empty, I was alone. In distress I searched and cried for the others to no avail. I'd never felt so alone.

The dream woke me for many hours, hunger was perhaps a factor as I'd eaten perhaps 1000 calories yesterday due to strange food times. Slept accidentally until late and woke feeling exhausted, a feeling which persisted for most of the day.

I followed Mark Eaton on Instagram, an oil painter and excellent portrait artist whom I met at the Cotebrook opening. Wrote a few hundred words of my painting book, and prepared the frame for the Claire Luce portrait, which I must photograph before Friday. Then, the trip to Cotebrook to collect my paintings. I felt that my work stood out but my works had no response from public votes; this is normal.

Discounting speaking with my darling Deborah, I perhaps speak more words when singing on my albums than I speak to most humans in other ways in a typical year. I've had more social, more isolated times; and recent years have been the latter. I noted that we've had no Fall in Green performances or engagements so far in 2026.

This evening, working on a painting drawing. Only after the meal at 17:30 do I have any energy.

Onwards we roll our heavy rock. Nature's sun welcomes us, a new day of art beckons.

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.