Coventry Art Societies Exhibition (CASE 2026)

 Today was the selection day for this exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry. I managed to get the first three of the Fallen from Olympus series accepted (Numbers I, II and III). Several of the Rugby Artists and Makers were helping out. It's always worth doing this to get an insight into how the judging process works. And as a helper, you get to do a lot of walking, from the "entries" pile to the judges and thence to the "in" or the "reject" pile. And over, and over, and over again.

The Show will run from February 20th until April 19th. So plenty of chance to check it out. 

Rugby Artists and Makers Exhibition - Pick Up Six

 Hanging today and running from 3rd Feb - 16 Feb. Decided to give Girl with Cat a public view for the first time. See how it goes. The exhibition looks good on "paper" - here's the Flipbook Catalogue.

 Quick Postscript 3rd Feb - Looks good in peron, too. Probably my favorite RA&M exhibition to date.

Your Country Needs You (Amelia)

 

Whenever I have an idea for a print, there is always a wee small voice telling me more-or-less insistently that I shouldn’t do it. But I always persevere and plug on until I’ve got something. It’s nice to get some real, physical artwork of Amelia done. In these days of AI, I relish doing something with my clumsy human hands.

I don't usually venture into such an overtly politial arena as this, but I think it's a message for everyone, especially young men. I feel at least partly responsible for the moral cess-pit that this country has become, but I'm too old now to do much about it. Apart from this. It's young men who will carry the burden of rebuilding the place into somewhere they can stand tall. And win their own real-life Amelia.

It's currently a print on nice paper, but I might do a card version in just purple and black. That's the idea, anyhoo. 

Green Room, Pink Man

 

 Another print that started out as one of August's life drawings. The original drawing was done quickly with brush and ink after I had worked the pose to death over the previous hour or so. It was like I had internalised the essence of the picture and could now splurge it on to the paper. I kept fairly close to the drawing for the print, except for the plant which is now far more luxuriant than the sorry specimen suffering in a school art-room. I also wanted to print it in green and blue, and jokingly call it "Green Man". But that didn't work. So pink and green. Meat and veg, as it were. The yellow stripe refers to the suboptimal lighting in the room, with the summer sun shining over the model's shoulder, and the rather poor yellow light in the room.  But it also, I think, helps to balance the picture somewhat.

I arrived at Green Room, Pink Man as a basic descriptive title (which I find often works), but I feel it also has an implication of "The Green Room" as a somewhat debauched space and that "Pink Man" is an assertion worth making in these identitarian days.

BLAST 1a

 A non-Christmas version of BLAST 1 this time. The mask worked better than the BLAST 2a card. People may or may noy be interested in these. I don't know. I've alrady got drawings of a sax player and a conga player, and as I don't have time for anything of any size, I may have a BLAST 3 by the end of the year.

A second commissioned piece

 A bit of a long story, this one, A local councillor found out that he has a rare cancer without a good prognosis, so he decided he wished to give an award at the Rugby Open each year to work that showed care for the environment. He wanted a hand-made trophy that could be given each year to the winner. We steered him towards local woodcarver Tom Jennings, who designed and carved a trophy out of ash.

The trophy was awarded at the start of the Open, last Friday. The councillor felt that there should be something each winner could keep, unlike the trophy which is returned each year. So last weekend he asked me to make a print based on Tom's original drawing. Hence this. I felt a woodcut would be most appropriate, especially as I had a piece of shina ply to hand.

It must be a good five years since I last did a commission. That kind of space between commissions is probably about right. 

Rugby Open 2025

 Just hearrd that I got two pieces in Rugby Open 2025. They are: Paradise Lost and Lette Matrimoniale. Luke 23:34 didn't get selected, but I'm not surprised. Its cruder than the other two and I put it in to f*** with the judges heads. In my grand plan, it was another chance fot Dejeneur sur l'Herbe to grace the Salon des Refuses again.

The exhibition runs from 29th November 2025 until 7th February 2026.