Backups, Frame Photography, Gravestone Code

A routine busy day of monthly backups, then photography and weighing and measuring 5 paintings in frames. I have a scan or photograph of (just about) each painting I've made, but I also ideally want a photo of the work in its frame, plus all measurements and weights. I have much of these data and tend to take it when I need to exhibit a painting, so did a bit of this today, photographing 'Penalties', 'Punishment Of The Sun', 'The Lady With The Unicorn' (from 2006, which has been on my wall for 20 years but not on the website), the first Claire Luce portrait, and 'Home Life'.

I also updated my will and developed a new code which I'd like to put on my gravestone to tax any future cemeterians. The code is simple to decode, even mentally, when you know how the code works, but fiendishly difficult when you don't. I've not encountered a code quite like it, so I thought setting a puzzle would be fun. The message will indicate the location of a treasure, and I already have in mind what this will be and approximately where. Hopefully it will be a few decades before this is required.

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.

The Impossible Hopes Of Sisyphus Tracing, Aspirations of Brilliance

Frame completed yesterday. The painting is now framed, but ideally I need a (very large) backing board for the frame. I can't afford it.

Today, a full day tracing the large Sisyphus painting. This is close to the largest painting I can manage without upgrading certain pieces of equipment. Over 1200mm, I'd need a larger drawing board, and spend more on the Polydraw film, as it's width is 1016mm (of course, this can be the shortest side, but that is a bit wasteful, in this case I used a shorter 841mm roll, but there's not much left on that). So, 1010mm is a reasonable maximum for longest side. 'The Impossible Hopes Of Sisyphus' is 1097x740 visible, the canvas is 1117x760.

For these works on Top Gun canvas I trace with the Polydraw and use oil paint, pencil won't stick to the waxy canvas. I used a new technique today, applying the paint with palette knife which was far faster than the subby brush along each line. It still took several hours to trace, but not as long as some works. I recall 'The Art Of Painting' taking many hours spread over 3 days to trace. This is of comparable complexity and took about 4 hours.

I feel artless and uncreative. My instincts and cries are all for music. It's a tragedy that the things I could make are being lost; this feeling last night inspired me to work on the painting today. It's a tragedy that the things I am making are being lost or unseen or unheard or ignored.

I feel I could do better, that everything is weaker than it could be. Every time I finish a painting, a piece or music, a piece of writing, it seems far worse than planned, far worse that I feel I am capable of doing. It instantly becomes a failure, yet that shame of failure generates an inspirational energy. The anxiety of the failure induces an aspiration to make the artwork again, or make something new, something similar, something better, and trying to do it as well as I'd planned, as well as I know that I can; and yet everything I complete generates the same feeling, that it's good or bad, but never as good as planned, and I'm again filled with the shame and knowledge that I can do far better.

Today I'm tortured by that feeling constantly. That everything is a failure and yet simultaneously know that I'm capable of much more, much better, if only I could somehow prove it.

Two days ago I watched a film called The Killings At Outpost Zeta by Robert Emenegger, a man who is perhaps the Ed Wood of the 1980s. Actually, from what I've seen, his films are worse than Ed Wood's. 'Zeta' is a cheap copy of Alien that is so immensely bad that it borders on hilarious, though it's usually more boring than scary. By chance I've also seen Beyond the Universe, which is perhaps the worst film I've ever seen, yet so bad I just had to keep watching. In that film, the Earth is running out of oxygen. The government plan on sedating everyone to save oxygen, but the 'world's best scientist' decides to overrule their plan and build a giant laser-gun-like weapon to beam a message beyond the universe to 'God', to ask him for advice (that's right, asking God for advice was his entire plan). I mention these films because no matter how bad I feel that my art is or has ever been, it is still at its worst far better than either of these films.

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.

Impossible Hopes Of Sisyphus Begins

Work yesterday and today on 'The Impossible Hopes Of Sisyphus'. This was to be a small painting, a mere 40x30cm or less, as I thought the idea slight, but when working on it started to like the idea and saw more of an epic scale, so it's become one of my largest paintings at 109cm wide.

Due to the scale, I've used an involved and time consuming process of scaling up the 4cm idea sketch to a 1/3rd mock-up, then scaling that up using lots of A4 tracing sheets to the final drawing size, actually on the verso of the Lyceum Centenary painting from 2011.

There are numerous figures, each a different time snapshot of eternity. The visual themes are the boulders and scythes, for death and time (Kronos). The painting is ultimately about stoicism and the Sisyphean existentialism, the emotion melancholic, grave, accepting the eternity of work.

Frame Photography, Live Music Admin

Started by photographing the newly framed paintings, plus singing practice. This took all morning. Then work on the Morecambe performance. I had hoped to rehearse, but 3 or 4 pieces haven't been performed live so I don't have the sheet music or know which instruments to use. Until now, I've recorded instrumentation and settings for each song we perform in the script, the set-list, for the show, but it's been a year since our last show, and I didn't, by chance, note those settings then, perhaps because they were relatively trivial and all on the MODX (no multiple keyboards).

Still, this was a wake-up call. It makes much more sense to store live performance information with each album, not with each performance event. We performed some tracks live many times, Janus Never Blinks, for example, and often used different instruments per performance, the P105 piano and a tubular bell first, and sometimes the little RefaceDX, but now the MODX almost exclusively; but what if we need to perform it again and need to see how we did it last time? It's a matter of looking through countless scripts of previous shows, and finding the best one for the equipment we'll be using this time. This takes far longer than finding the album. So I've made new 'live' text files for each album and will list there how we perform each track.

This though will take days of work, because it means going through 100 shows or so, every performance to get this exact data. I'll also update the MODX program names. All Fall in Green instruments begin 'FIG' but I have custom instruments used on recordings that it's best I keep too, and sometimes different ones for live (these may have splits or layers, or samples). I think I'll name my live instruments 'MAS' too.

Lots of admin, but it should speed things up for future live shows.

AI in Artificial Intelligence Discovering Perfect Pornography

Underpainting complete for 'Artificial Intelligence Discovering Perfect Pornography'. This painting follows a few weeks of my first experiments with AI to see if it can help with painting creation.

AI, at time of writing, is remarkably rubbish for any creative task, and I suspect it always will be because it aspires to produce an average. This might be good news for competitive and brilliant artists because so much art by rubbish artists (pretty flower painters! quirky landscape painters!) are this, and AI might out-compete them. Still, perhaps this can't be ignored, as the aesthetically ignorant majority like this sort of thing. Art elitism aside I'm concerned with utility and good art, being creative and expressing my unique personality and world, this is the goal of all artists rather than mere craftspeople, us composers rather than mere performers. AI is really powerful and it can have use as an artistic assistant.

I experimented with AI here partly because the painting is about AI, so I thought I'd share a walk though of the process. Here's the idea sketch from around 2014. It was then named 'Alchemist Discovering Perfect Pornography':

I thought the idea was amusing, but, as I've said elsewhere, it seemed to resonate today with the joke of AI 'becoming human'. My paintings always begin with such idea sketches; small, unconsciously sketched ideas which often jump into my head complete with title. These are notes of the image in my head at the time, so often come (in my head) complete with colours and textures. These sketches serve as a mnemonic of that vision. They're more than a seed, but a record of a finished idea which I can revisit when needed.

In the sketch, which I know from that memory but others perhaps can't see, the top 1/3rd of the image is bone, the wiggly blobs on the right are teeth, and the shield-hole above is a skull's nose. Below is a dawn sky over a rocky landscape. The flesh-like rock-like 'monolith' man emerges from it and gazes with fascination at the flower, a human egg, the 'discovery'. The arch in the sky is a reflection of the skull's nose, like a window in the sky, which had (at one point) a sun peeping inside. A falling tooth makes the window something of a mouth of a startled face. At one point (in 2014 when drawing it), I dripped pendulous tears from this window, but erased them.

My goal when realising a painting is to stick to this idea. Sometimes I want to keep the exact shape, and sometimes the shapes are notes for me to find an image (like a rough sketch of a figure that I'd need to locate in an exact pose; I prefer photo-realism, not illustration or cartoon figures). The key goal is to match the feeling. In recent years (well, um ten or so) I've started to blow up the tiny idea sketch (4cm) to full size using tracing paper to closely match the idea's outlines. This is step 1. Then I'll tidy up any rough areas, re-draw and fix up things to look more realistic if needed, like the teeth and skull parts here. I wanted to keep the exact look and shape of the figure here, his expression and pose is vital.

After that, the painting sketch in final size looked like this:

At this point I'd normally locate source materials for the different parts, some skulls, a landscape, a sky. I can invent those things from my mind, like Bob Ross did all of the time, but if I did this my 'happy little' paintings would all look the same and would be based on my same collection of mental images; this would stagnate my art.

One thing I can do is make a lighting model, often from plasticine, and most useful when there are objects which can cast shadows or have complex lighting. I've used computer models before, but they look worse AND take a lot longer than a plasticine model. This, I thought, is an ideal job for AI. It could also help with those textures, saving me trawling free image sites, or the need to photograph real world objects (like myself for the figure, I don't have many skulls hanging around).

I sent the outline drawing to Gemini and described the scene and its textures. To help it, I sent it two images of the texture of bone from my personal image library of texture references. The result wasn't too bad...

...but obviously flawed. The best bit is that bone texture because I gave it some bones, and it placed them well. It didn't get the skull part right, but there's enough there for me to use. Why it added a second head and a second 'flower' I don't know, it absolutely would not stick to my lines. I decided that this didn't matter so much, I'm not using this image for anything except approximate shading.

I wanted things more lit from the 'flower', so I asked it for a sunrise, and to remove the second head and second flower.

Better, more useful (it added a weird hand!). This will do, it's on par with a model lighting guide, with the bonus of more realistic textures and colours. The sky isn't what I had in mind, it's too dark, too cloudy, but I decided to ignore that. It'll never be perfect but I don't want it to be too refined in case it interferes with everything I add as I paint. In this case the actual mistakes and lack of quality help, they leave spaces for me to fill.

The arch window is missing... this was intentional. I decided that, rather than the 'sun of discovery' there, I'd add a couple about to kiss; a robot and a beautiful woman, thus re-inforcing the theme of the painting, so that anyone who had no clue about the title would understand it. I found an appropriate pose from a silent film, and took some images of the robot in Metropolis. These I fed to Gemini and asked it to create the couple.

This worked brilliantly. When supplied with material it's brilliant at extrapolation and transformation, it can change lighting and poses in ways far beyond 2D image editing. Here's the underpainted window:

And the finished underpainting as a whole:

You can see how much of the guide it was or wasn't in the end. It was certainly useful; I've used the bits I wanted, not what I didn't.

I wouldn't consider this an AI artwork at all, but it is AI assisted, particularly the kissing couple. Without the AI I'd use the silent film couple (as I did earlier this year in 'Love And Fragility In The Age Of Perfection') and make the male robotic, but I think this painting is better for that robot. When painting the rest I was constantly aware of not wanting to use the AI imagery, aware that this may dilute my vision, yet some of its suggestions, like the placement of the shadow on the 'wire' were great; this is the sort of thing I'd look to a guide for.

I'd never use AI for writing because no-one could convey what I want to say better than me - that's just obvious. There's no 'better' or 'worse' or 'right' or 'wrong' in that, the best is how we actually write; our personality. This is why I love performing without a script and love improvising on piano; everything we say or do is what our unconscious intended and this is correct, the 'wrong notes' are correct as far as our unconscious creative mind is concerned, correct in an unknown but true way. I've no desire at all to use AI to create music because I love making music with my own tools and I absolutely hate the sound of modern pop (and the idea of pitch correction and the awful sound of auto-tuned vocals!). I've not done any experiments here, maybe it could create a unique sound effect (a Boeing 747 crashing into a junk yard of bedsprings?) or sample that might be useful, or for cleaning up audio, like The Beatles did with 'Now and Then'.

When painting I remained constantly aware of the threat of dilution of the concept by its 'personality'. Perhaps my plasticine lighting guide can also dilute the freedom and impact of that idea sketch. These creative problems are even worse for a film director who has so many competing forces which battle his or her vision. It's a key goal of an artist to weigh up each creative choice and target that intial core vision, that 'orb' of image and emotion which sparked the idea. Perhaps we never succeed, but we can at least be aware of potential pitfalls as we walk that tightrope to our vision, the final artwork.

Drying Racks Changes, AIDPP Underpainting

An unplanned slow start to today, I'd hoped to charge into painting but felt tired and listless. Instead I found myself making some new drying rack parts, as the new painting, 'Artificial Intelligence Discovering Perfect Pornography', needed a drying space and I'd run out of racks. This is partly because I'm painting larger this year, I had enough smaller racks. Here is my rack design. I made them in 2009 or 2010:

I have 4 of the small 8-hole middle parts, but too many, as I tend to paint large now, and small panels are easy to rest somewhere. So, I cut a 7-hole and 8-hole section up to create a new 10-hole piece, which is much more useful. This means I have the spare end pieces. I could do with a very long one, and I thought that I could use some spare wood to make a telescopic mid-section which would make it fairly easy to store yet allow a very long length if needed.

My biggest hole-section is 18 holes, 88cm, and that's now in use under the Telepathic Daisy painting. I've never needed larger than this. I used to have 2x 18-hole pieces, but one was bent so always wobbled, so I recycled it this year. Perhaps though, it might be useful to have one that can be as large as I'll ever need... not much bigger than 88cm I think... but one never knows. So I'll make plans for an extendable middle-part.

I felt so hungry at 11:30 that I ate lunch then. I can't remember ever doing this before, it might be the first day in 30 or 40 years that I've eaten early when at home (I may be forced to adjust if I'm out). I did this specifically to give me time after eating to paint, so I did so and painted part of the AI painting.

Them And Us Framing, YouTube Updates, Art Writing

Framed 'Them And Us' yesterday, and updated my Artist's Statement.

Today, edited all 300 or so videos on my Music Channel to permit comments, and updated the tags for consistency. Then entered the RBSA Prize Exhibition, I'll need to frame 'Punishment of the Sun' if required. Later wrote a essay on Surrealism and Magic Realism, and related works of fantasy. For me, there's no difference. I'd like to write more essays on art, and ideally video these.

It's the last of a few hot days. I hope it remains sunny as tomorrow I'd like to paint again. My instincts are calling for music again, new work, more unified with my painting and new philosophy on 2026. The new is always so much more appealing than the now.

Bickerton Collection, Art Photography

A very full and busy day. Started with some computer admin, then quickly off to Bickerton to collect my work from the exhibition. I sold 'The Time For Love Has Nearly Flown', one of my favourite 2007 paintings which I exhibited in the Lyceum Theatre at my first exhibition, and clearly remember showing at The Cubby Hole at my first 'Surrealist Art Exhibition' there in 2010. It was even exhibited in the RBSA in Birmingham later that year, and many times since. It was reframed a few years ago, and I think this Bickerton showing was the first in its new frame. This is my first Bickerton sale since 2021, but all sales since 2020 (and Covid) have been scant as I've barely exhibited. My focus since 2019... until this year... has been music.

Then, lots of art photography with the new rig I've built this summer. It was a lot easier, but still hard work. The job involves assembling the lights, the flatbed, the towers, the steel tracks, the camera and it's shoe, taking the photos section by section, digital stitching (by hand at the moment, I need software for this ideally), then taking everything apart and re-packing away. Everything is in small parts for storage, so it normally takes a day for a session. Today's work was complete by 19:00, but I still have some filing to do.

The photography was done for the sake of 'Punishment of the Sun', so here is the finished painting. The face is good enough but suffers a little due to the heavy texture of the canvas. I'm not really used to fine details on works of this scale.

Backups, Platform, McCartney Songs, The Impossible Hopes Of Sisyphus

Backups yesterday, then the final proposal for an exhibition in Crewe's PLATFORM gallery. A slow day today, lacking in focus and still somewhat tired. Why? Am I still recovering physically from the Punishment of the Sun?

I've put my name down for the next John Lindley tribute night, Paul McCartney this time. I never like performing well known songs, seems boring and pointless to me. I prefer writing something new, but I searched through a few of his solo albums and picked one new to me called 'Women and Wives'; middle of the road lyrics but a great dark feeling, echoes of 'House of the Rising Sun'. It would sound much better on piano, needs percussion really, but I'll have just my weedy Microkorg and its 4-note polyphony. My first instinct was to play 'Temporary Secretary', let down by the fact that it's perhaps McCartney's worst song and one of the worst songs by anyone. A plus side is that I could improve it!

Of next paintings, I want to paint 'The Impossible Hopes Of Sisyphus' in large format, larger than I normally paint. I think it would help to draw out a small version first, so have marked the paper for a 1:3 scale version.

Punishment Of The Sun Complete

Day 4 of glazing, the 8th day of work on this painting overall. I slept reasonably well, but awoke practically exhausted and demoralised as is typical at the start of a glazing day. I began at 09:00 as usual, initially struggling due to the rain-soaked darkness and an eyestrain headache. I took an early break at 10:15 and employed many enthusing techniques; exercise, coffee, tea, and re-evaluation of the work from every angle, then got to work to much better effect finalising the drapery, and in the afternoon adding a few final touches. As usual I've documented the work and parts of which I'm happy with, unhappy with, notes for future improvement etc. The work is unusual in a few ways: my first to use AI for most of the source reference material, and my first of canvas self-adhered to MDF.

Tired, tired, tired now! I feel like sleeping for a few days; but rest will be brief, there is much work to do in this short and limited life. The great rock of art awaits its joyous roll.

Punishment Of The Sun Glazing

Two solid days of painting, both completing at about 19:30. Another day of drapery remains.

Have applied for the Castle Park Life Portrait Painting event. I'm not much of a live portrait painter, but if I manage to be there I'd make it something of a spectacle.

Human-Like AI, Punishment Of The Sun Glazing

The first day of glazing 'Punishment Of The Sun' today. A long and tedious day painting the sky, tree, parts of an intensely detailed sandy floor. Perhaps I need to add more interest in these details, but for now, the art is this detail; in emulation of Cabanel - this was a goal of this painting.

Spent the last two days working on a new painting: 'Artificial Intelligence Discovering Perfect Pornography'. An idea from perhaps 10 years ago originally named 'Alchemist Discovering Perfect Pornography', I modified it to give it a new resonant meaning.

My interest in AI led me to the concept of a intelligence singularity and of greater-than-human intelligence. I became aware that to possess actual human intelligence, an AI would need to know about many things: what hunger feels like, and what different foods feel like, toilet intimacies, possess a sexuality (to accurately emulate a human it would need a gender too; male and female intelligence and behaviours are different), have moods and emotional desires, and a host of other biological behaviours and knowledge that would be utterly without utility to industry - yet these would be vital to an intelligence that must 'be human'. This led me to this painting, an amusing comment on this, a painting with a satirical mood. I drew it out over the weekend and prepared some models and studies.

I can start work after 'Punishment Of The Sun'. I'm glazing this unsually early after underpainting with the aim of entering the RBSA Prize Exhibition. The hot weather means that the underpainting is dry enough.

Crushed Are The Meek Glazing, Photographic Judgement

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.

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.

Them And Us Glazing

Glazed the small painting 'Them And Us' today, one of my most 'Iron Maiden' of paintings!

It's a sad painting, a painting of oppression, submission, and death. What is there, in the end for the afeared, but that cathedral doorway of nothing. AI may communicate in words or images, but it can't communicate in emotions; this is for the artist to command.