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Showing posts from December, 2015

Milk Bottle and Eggs

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I am at at last old enough to have painted objects that are now considered nostalgic antiques, painted without a trace of irony or kitsch! This was one of the first paintings I painted soon after I immigrated to New Zealand with my family in 1974. Milk was delivered in glass bottles and cost 4 cents a bottle! This was also the first painting I had exhibited at a public art gallery at New Plymouths Govett Brewster Art Gallery. I thought I had hit the big time! Ha ha! This was a time when the art world in NZ was very different to how it is today. Although my painting is today much better and more sophisticated, I now wouldn't stand a cat in hell's chance of getting a painting in the Govett Brewster's hallowed halls. This was one of those exercises in tone I was conducting at the time. White objects on a white background. The yellowing you can see on the left side is the result of the painting being kept in the dark for many years. I simply follow Rubens advice to h

Caput Mortuum

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This is a couple of progress shots of my latest painting: Caput Mortuum.  It is the name of another of my favourite pigments. It's basicly a dark red/purple oxide.  Caput Mortuum translates as Death's Head. From Wikipedia: "In alchemy, caput mortuum (alternately called nigredo ) signified a useless substance left over from a chemical operation such as sublimation and the epitome of decline and decay; alchemists represented this residue with a stylized human skull, a literal death's head." Well, in my bleak moments of despair, that pretty much sums up how I feel about myself. Also, I have been thinking about our mortality as I get older and begin to face the inevitable.  I am also now considering the mortality of the human race. Humanity seems to be hell bent on self destruction and the geo-political (latest buzzword), situation is the gravest it has been in all the relatively brief time humans have walked on two legs. I have never considered myself

Self Portrait 1985 2015

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 I've recently been looking at some early work to see how the paint is holding up. In most cases it is holding it's own better than the images... This was a self portrait painted some thirty years ago. I have always used white lead wherever possible in my painting, knowing that it's unique physical properties, as well as being highly desirable from a painterly point of view, imbue it with a rugged permanence.  As you can see from the close up, the paint has not cracked or flaked at all.  It is a pity that white lead is getting very difficult to obtain because of mamby-pamby toxicity concerns. the irony is that now I have to grind my own from the dry pigment and it is in this form that it is most toxic. I simply wear a mask. Anyway, this image seemed to also be holding it's own, but there were some areas that didn't work, especially the background. So I repainted it and also tightened up some other areas here and there. It is interesting looking back on ho
I wanted to record some of the guitars I have made. Kind of like the Little Red Hen.  This particular guitar is my favourite of the nylon strung classicals, with a very thin spruce top and indian rosewood back and sides. I also wanted to get back into playing after a long hiatus. Starting out very simple with a Sor exercise - the musical equivalent of Run Spot Run... I decided not to try and compete with the birds. They are really much better at it than me.