Naked woman in an armchair

 Another naked woman postcard. This time from an elevated standpoint. This one was a great opportunity to use the black outline of the chair to make a stark contrast with her body, and make as little use of outline as possible. In the original drawing, she had bare feet, but I thought if I gave her socks, I could use that contrast even more. Also, it neatly avoids the Artist Problem of feet. I guess this gives a slight vibe of Vallotton, which is nice…

She has something of a coiled spring to her. As if she wants to get out of the chair and put some clothes on. That’s something that came out accidentally in the cutting and printing. Something I quite like.

Sofia

 This one sprang out of a kind of challenge. Matt Pooley was at the Alex and did one of his strange vegetable people on a piece of fabric. He suggested we could all add something and make it into a communal piece of work. I felt his character looked a bit uncomfortable so I thought I'd add something for him to be uncomfortable about. Hence this rather sensuous woman. To make him blush.

She's a bit stolen from Nolde's Mann und junges Mädchen. I felt she needed that really graphic woodcut look. I hand coloured the rose for the postcard versions. Less bother than making another block.

Bethany said she looked like Sophia Loren. Hence the name.

Rubber woman

 I needed to get back to doing some postcards. They allow me to work with smallish offcuts and just mess around with various motifs and ideas, and not worry too much about the final result.

This one is based on one of the women from Matisse's Joie de Vivre. Matisse has a way of playing fast and loose with anatomy - making it subservient to the design.

I don't think my design is entirely successful, but I really like the feet. And we all know feet are a big Artist Problem. I think I might give this one another try at some point. Maybe something even more stylised.

Flight to Egypt

 This year's Christmas card/Jahresblatt had a very slow and difficult gestation.And it only really took form in the process of making it. Some bits didn't work at all so I had to cut some out and insert a new piece. Anyway. I kinda got there.

I quite like that it has something of Gustav Heinrich Wolff about it - in the almost sculptural quality of the figures. Subject wise, I suppose it's more subtle than "Herod the king in his raving," which was a contender. But its about the slaughter of the innocents, nonetheless, It says Dark Times are here, but there is hope. At least this child gets away.

Anyway. In my own irreligious way, I'm beginning to see Christianity as our only hope of redemption. The moral core that can allow us to escape tyranny and the collapse of civilisation.

Fish head

 

Sometimes life gives you something to draw. Other times, Morrisons does.They had a bargain offer on a whole salmon that had been ready filleted. So what elso do you do with the head, but draw it.

Then of course make a print of it. I needed to do something black-and-white, and this seemed ideal. I like how it came out. Eric Gaskell came by this afternoon while I was working on it. He commented on my tendency to bring death into my work. Which of course I have done here. I've also been thinking of some drawings by Diether Kressel I've seen of fish heads. His look more... philosophical about it, whereas mine seems much more tortured. Somehow channeling some of Otto Dix' war pictures.

Nothing beside remains

There are a couple of things that feed into this. The first is Tal R again. There’s a video of him talking about his series of Copenhagen paintings. In it he says in any city, any town, there are places that haven’t been tidied away by history. Places that no longer have any purpose, any meaning. They are the realm of the dead. They are the places where we feel the dead walk among us.

The second thing is Landscape. I’ve not really done any landscape. I’ve always felt I’d do landscapes when the Nazis take over. A bit like Otto Dix. Maybe they have taken over now. But I wanted to take landscape and put it in an extreme portrait format. Kind of Marine tipped on its end. And abstracted somewhat. So I’ve got room to get out if I want.

What we have here is the gable end of the Alex. The remains of the house next door left after it was demolished for redevelopment. The lamp that I think lit an advertising hoarding that was there for a while. The gated access to the dead space at the side of the car park next door. The world of dead people.

I wanted to call this, “Only dead people understand” but my wife didn’t like it. In the end I decided on the line from Shelley’s Ozymandias. Conveys some of the same things I think. I’ll put the poem here to save you having to look it up.

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

PS Image is cropped somewhat top and especially bottom cuz I can't fit it in the scanner. I'll work on getting a better image anon,

PPS Here it is

Rugby Open update

 

 It's truly a monster show. They whittled down the 500+ entries to 245. Both my works are on the big pink wall that greets you when you come in. You can see one in the photo, at the top next to the words. I'm really happy with the Art Gallery going for the Salon approach amd getting as much as possible in. It gives the whole thing a rather joyous vibe I think.

I guess this means I have to go for the hat-trick now and enter the forthcoming Coventry Open. You can also see work by my "rivals" in the photo: Lu Wenjuan (top of the left hand column) and Val Hunt (middle of the right). The 3 of us have 4 works each in the Leamington and Rugby Opens. Let's see how we get on in the Coventry.