Evermore

I had a busy day yesterday in Nottingham where I dropped off a painting for exhibition at The Crocus Gallery for an exhibition that opens there on the 3rd of Feb.

In the meantime I've been song writing, or trying. It seems difficult to add interest and complexity. If I change the chorus I feel I must change the verse to match, which seems to limit the contrast. However, the last thing I did last night was write some lyrics and those remain unchanged and satisfactory. The song itself is an attempt at something like one of my favourite Queen songs, Nevermore from Queen II, perhaps their best album.

Evermore

The tree is standing, though it's dead,
the leaves have fallen all around its feet.
A carpet golden, cold and pure.
A beauty left for all upon the floor.

The door to Rhye is closed today.
The door to Rhye is closed for evermore.
For evermore.
The key is lost and thrown away.
The lock is weeping rust upon the door,
for evermore.

A crow looks on to rainy skies,
the branches waving dark before the night.
The last of sunlight clear and pure,
a ray of silver shines upon the floor.

The door to Rhye is closed today.
The door to Rhye is closed for evermore.
For evermore.
The key is lost and thrown away.
> The lock is weeping rust upon the door,
for evermore.

A feather falls as evening calls,
and flowers nod their tired heads.
A cold wind breathes upon the bark.
The tree is standing though it's dead.

Creativity

I've just finished reading 59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman. It's about how we can improve our lives in under a minute using psychology, and all based on actual experiments.

There are lots of chapters but following a post on Katharine's blog about imagination I thought I'd type up a brief summary of some of comments on creativity.

First and most powerfully, it's no surprise to dreamers that the unconscious is the root of creativity. Experiments in creative thinking and puzzle solving have shown that distracting your conscious mind with mathematics or intense word puzzles for 15-20 minutes causes solutions or new ideas to spontaneously appear from your unconscious mind. Distraction of the conscious mind is more effective than relaxation.

One head is better than many. Experiments have shown that groups produce less creative ideas in quantity and quality than individuals. This is for a variety of social factors. If you must work in a group, it's been shown that more creative ideas appear if you change the members around rather than stick to your friends.

Having a plant in the room has been show to increase the generation of original ideas. Pictures or even videos of nature don't exhibit the effect. The colour green has been shown to relax the mind and increase the chance of creative ideas too, whereas red has the opposite effect. Stick with green decor, or go for a walk in the park.

Creativity is rebellion. Seeing the world through the eyes of a rebel encourages creative ideas. In one experiment people were asked to list the attributes of a punk rocker, and another group those of an engineer, then they were all asked to come up with ideas. The punk group came up with more original ideas.

The Mathematics of Nazimova

Right. Yesterday I painted the colour study for the portrait I'm working on, The Mathematics of Nazimova. Here it is:

I've made this beauty look a little over 70 without a wrinkle in sight! But ho, the point of this pic is to set the colours used in the underpainting. I had to choose a background similar to the flesh because in the old photo her face blends into the background. To solve this, I added a landscape but turned it upside down so that the sky is at the bottom. That fitted things quite well because, if you remember, there's an onion there that is a hot air balloon.

The colours are naples yellow (that is chromium titanium oxide, not the "genuine" lead based one) and white, fading to mars violet and black. Cobalt turquoise for the blues. The greens are cobalt and naples, or cobalt and nickel titanate yellow. Those two yellows are my favourites. I sometimes use others, but I could and often do paint just about everything with the two titanium based yellows.

I began on the face of the final painting today. I expect it'll take three days for this stage and the same to glaze.

I'm working very efficiently at the moment because I've discovered that the value is the process. The secret of success is to try, and to work hard, and don't attach any emotional significance to results. Make a plan, and have the discipline to stick to it. The more work you put in, the more you'll get back. That's it.

Between Sanity and Madness Gotten Finer

I had a day of rest on Sunday, and have been working on game music today.

This evening, songs for fun! I've managed to write four "Facebook" songs so far. "Incomplete Version of the Writer" has been penned on paper but only one verse and chorus. For that I simply made it up, with the words and music coming at once. When I found a piano I noted down the melody and it's really rather pleasant. Sounds a bit like a hymn, "Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace".

For today's, "Between Sanity and Madness Gotten Finer" I listened to some David Bowie tracks, from Hunky Dory. It was a tough song to write because the only prerequisite is the title... and it makes little sense! However a vision jumped into my head about a steward on the Titanic explaining to the ship's psychiatrist that he's had a premonition about the sinking. Once I had that, I pictured the start scene, a brown Edwardian morning as he sets out for work. After that it was easy. The music isn't as inventive as Life on Mars (itself, a semi-copy of My Way) but is rather good... even if the chorus is a little too close for comfort to "Incomplete Version of the Writer"! Here are the full lyrics...

Between Sanity and Madness Gotten Finer

He doesn't want to go to work today.
The rain is falling everywhere the sky is grey.
The factory is blowing at the growing day
but he doesn't want to go away.

He doesn't want to leave his loving wife.
He doesn't want to shut the door and ride his bike.
He had a special message in his sleep last night.
He had a secret message from God.

It said stay away from the ship today.
It said stay away from the ship...
you'll die on the liner.
You'll be left behind and never find her.
There's ice and saline sadness
between sanity and madness gotten finer.

He's walking down the avenue towards the shop.
He staring at the pavement and he will not stop.
He tells himself to concentrate on what to do.
He's got to get a message to Sue.

He'll say stay away from the ship today.
He'll say stay away from the ship because
you'll die on the liner.
You'll be left behind and never find her.
There's ice and saline sadness
between sanity and madness gotten finer.

He knew that it was coming but he couldn't hide.
He knew the iron bell was ringing deep inside.
He knew the shrinking harbour was his last look home
but he could let her die alone

so he went to work on the ship that day.
So he went to work on the ship...
and died in the water.
He had stayed behind to save his daughter
and the arms of the frozen ocean
gave him peace like a magic potion.
She lived, and became a mother
and she told her children that her dad loved her,
that in the wake of the sinking liner
she had left a piece of them behind her.

Portrait Preparation Work

A busy day today. I had decided to complete the composition on the portraits. There are two, each with the same face but both different. One will be a landscape, and so I spent the first hour or so researching landscape views using Google Earth and selecting a few, then adding the most appropriate to the composition in Photoshop to finalise the digital mockup.

Then onto the second picture; The Mathematics of Nazimova. The portrait itself was rather empty so I had the idea of adding a ribbon to it with the number pi scribbled on it. Then, I thought that the ribbon was a trail, pulled by a bee. Upon drawing this though I found myself doodling and draw a snaking vine, one wrapped around another with onions along it's side (yes! onions!) and one flew off to become a hot air balloon onion.

I decided to trust my unconscious and go with it. I grabbed a cute little onion, and a budding branch from the garden and took some reference photos then sketched in a bit of both. The result is undoubtedly something about maturity or flying the nest or separation of some sort, even perhaps yes! the separation of cold mathematical logic from warm nature.

Once the mockups were done I traced the drawing and scanned it so that I could easily make a duplicate. One was overdrawn as the landscape and the original overdrawn with the mathematical elements. Both suffered from one compositional limitation; that the face and background touching it needed to be the same tone and similar colour, because much of the outline in the old photo blends into the background invisibly. Trying to draw a line where there is none would be a mistake. That limitation led to innovation; the "sky" of the mathematical picture will be a desert floor, the background being an inverted landscape, and the face of the second picture will be a silver-clouded sky.

So, now I have two pictures drawn. The next step is to transfer them to panel, then paint some colour studies to confirm the hues and tonal balances.

Nancy Reagan Fell Down and Broke Her Hair

I've been drawing today, for a huge painting about childlessness. Hopefully I can complete it in time for the Chester Open on April the 1st.

I'm being very productive at the moment and have been song writing too. There's a game on Facebook at the moment where people make up fictitious music albums using the Wikipedia Random Article link for the band name, a random quote website for the album title, and a random Flickr pic for the cover. I've been intercepting these made by my friends and intend to write songs for them.

My album was "Gary Dubin - between sanity and madness gotten finer". Don's was "Vile - Depend not on Fortune" - definitely heavy rock for that one! Andrew's was "Chiurutul de Mijloc River - Nancy Reagan fell down and broke her hair". That last one was the first song I've written... here are the lyrics:

Mickey Mouse has lost his teeth.
Nobody has seen Popeye anywhere.
They say Sinbad's now the enemy.
Betty Davis doesn't care.
Vincent Price is laughing loud
while a broken band plays over there.
Nancy Reagan fell down and broke her hair.

Robert Webb has lost his dog,
while Armando plays the flute.
There's a snake escaped in Argos.
Alan Sugar's got a new suit.
The moon has made a sad face
while a broken band plays over there.
Nancy Reagan fell down and broke her hair.

(solo)

The Lone Ranger's turned to stone.
Uncle Ben's hand has turned to dust.
All the cows on strike have just gone home
'cos there's no one left to trust.
Francis Bacon's making pies
while a broken band plays out of tune.
Nancy Reagan's got to her feet,
picked up her hair,
and left the room.

Nazimova Portrait

I've been drawing a portrait today, of silent film star Nazimova. There are two things I like about painting silent film stars. Firstly, the images are out of copyright, and secondly they have an unusual property in that the rich black eye makeup that was in fashion at the time conceals the expression, often giving the paintings the emotional reflective quality that the Mona Lisa possesses; the face reflects how you the observer is feeling and changes from day to day.

I've painted a few of these "normal" portraits in the past but this is the first in two years because these don't display much creativity. I aim to paint two variations anyway, one more imaginative than the other, like I did with Anna Q. Nilsson last time.

There are a few key things I do when drawing. First I never (and have never!) traced or gridded. Tracing is boring and unskilled and gridding often makes drawing more difficult because it's too easy to see the drawing as little squares. For artists that regularly grid I recommend drawing twice, once with, once without and seeing for themselves which is better.

Gridding is useful for getting the scale and placement of things right though, and for complex compositions with lots of elements the exact size and placement of each object is important. It's all too easy to make an object a tiny bit too large or too small which will upset the whole look of the picture. To fix this I often draw a crosshair, circle with cross through as a guide. You can see this feintly in the picture. A plain circle will do just as well, and easy to scale up or down.

I also cut and prepared the panel for this today. Tick tick!

Criticism Question

Today posed an interesting question: is it better to like your work but have others criticise it, or is it better to dislike your work but have others praise it?

Today I experienced both in two different incidents.