Last night at the Life Drawing class our model brought along her dog, Nuba, so I took time out from looking out for the various artist's interests to draw her.In this pose Nuba is obediantly playing "dead dog" and is laying beside her Mistress who is sitting on the podium with her arm around Nuba.If you can't see our model's arm around the dog it's because you have no imagination at all or maybe because I didn't draw it. You choose.
Bridie sings the blues
I've noticed that I usually write on this blog when I'm feeling upbeat or I've been mulling over something and start to write about it and get to feel upbeat as the writing flows along in it's own way and it all ends up sounding great ( Great!!!! ).
But it's not all great and I read my posts and think I am a phoney or at least not telling the whole story.
Yesterday was nice weather and a girlfriend drove me and my diesel 4 wheel drive to Cambridge to pick up paintings from the R18 exhibition which ended on Sunday.
There was good and bad news: none of the paintings sold-bad I suppose. My paintings had higher prices than all the others-not bad or good, maybe just interesting. The lady that owns the gallery got a crush on one of the paintings and wanted to keep it on display there-good, yes.
And this painting, called "the cradling of femininity" (you can see it on the R18 post further down this page) is displayed in a prime spot in the gallery, it's own area with lights and everything that says check this out here is a painting worthy of your attention.....
Great.
I've had emotional entanglements with two different girlfriends very recently and that and everything else happening in the art scene has worn me out and I feel flat as.
Not the sort of flat that can be relieved by a few drinks, my normal out of the blues, 'cause now I realize that I've lost my driver's licence through drinking and driving and maybe I have a drinking problem.....
Is it possible that I am less than perfect? How can that be in a perfect universe of which I am part? And what a crushing blow to my vanity.... lot's of times other people have made attacks on my fragile self esteem but for my own good self to make an attack on my fragile self esteem by coming up with the nasty, insidious suggestion that I may have a drinking problem is the worst, buddy, the worst. Life fuckin sucks sometimes...
So there you go, balance is restored to this blog in that living the life of an artist is not all beer and skittles and what goes up must come down and moderation in all things and honest self evaluation and that other boring shit when all I want to do is soar....
Roll on the next natural high and painting inspiration, for today is just the opposite.
The studio before
How do you paint two seven metre murals in a six metre studio? Start with buying the canvas and plonking it in there. So far so good.
The studio after
Then make a seven and a half metre drawing board that curves around the corner. This was the plan for Saturday last but didn't happen till today, Tuesday.
Tomorrow is for priming two seven metre pieces of canvas and getting on with the design work while waiting for primer to dry.
Have you heard the expression bout as much fun as watching paint dry?
Well watching and waiting for paint to dry is a reality of my life. Fabulous eh?
I just noticed that this post was headed by the date: Monday.
Well friends here in New Zealand the sun shines first and it is, for myself and my fellow kiwis, actually Tuesday. Night. 7. 20 pm.
That's an interesting thing about playing with computers: different time zones and different species of the English language and all the other languages too. Small world.
So if any of you good people living to the East or the West want a sneak preview on what, for instance, the coming Wednesday is feeling like before it arrives at your place well just gimme a tinkle about 4 hours from now and I'll duck outside and check it out for ya.
Be no sweat, always happy to help a mate out of a tight spot....
Marley has a music shop in Waihi, recently moved to a larger premises right on Waihi's main street, amongst the best cafe's and so on. Great location.
I like Marley's music shop. It's a great place to just be in and he has such a range of anything you may want in the music line. I am learning Spanish and have bought several CD's of Latin American music from him ( I am interested in travelling to Mecico and Chile)
Marley's new shop is in an old building with a very high stud. Above all the CD and album racks hang all the instruments, guitars of all kinds and violins banjos ukeleles etc. and above that is high bare wall running down both sides of the shop to the back.
I saw, and talked Marley into agreeing to buy, two canvases seven metres by twelve hundred covered with a rythmic montage of paintings of New Zealand musicians, all the paintings taken from my sketches of Muso's playing in pubs and cafes, of which I have many. Many.
The canvases will be simply stapled to the walls up there, one each side of the shop, and perhaps the edges covered with light wooden battens, not so much to frame them but to hide the edges and staples.
Now that I have finished and delivered my doll museum commission (see earlier post) Marley's mural is the current job.
It is Saturday morning and today I start this job, beginning with this written record of proceedings.
On Thursday Sandra came by to pick me up for company on her drive to Tauranga to Tanjis art shop and I rolled out my canvas stash and saw I had seven and a half metres so we called into Harvey's furnishing at Tauranga after we had spent up large at Tanjis and I bought another seven metres of canvas, sufficient now to do Marley's mural.
My next trick is to alter the studio to accommodate a seven metre painting on the wall. That will be today's first job after a shower and brekkie etc. Yes I am sitting here unwashed at the computer having a pre breakfast breakfast of coffee and cigarettes and Amy Winehouse live in Berlin is on the stereo. I'm happy....
The cradling of femininity
Who could resist an exhibition with that title? Not this kid thats for sure.
I got word of this from my artist pal Berys (great name eh? Welsh, boyo..) by email a few weeks ago. Berys is a mover and a shaker and got her clever fingers in many pies to do with the Waihi art scene and further afield and I guess she made the connection between Life drawing (naked people) and R18 themes and thought I might like to know about this up coming event.
Fair enough I guess, I'm just happy to have people think of me now and again.
So the R18 art exhibition is put on by the Empire art gallery in Cambridge, out in the Waikato, not far from the river city of Hamilton where I was recently going every Thursday with my friend Barbie to an etching class.
Not a big deal to swing by Cambridge on the way home from etching one Thursday and check it out.
No sooner said than done!
I decided that I would exhibit 3 paintings in this exhibition, at $10 entry fee apiece and 30% commission on sales. Fine with me.
The only problem was to find some works that fit the label, i.e. adult content.
I did the best I could but all the time thinking exposure, and maybe the R18 label would attract well heeled art lovers to the exhibition who might not otherwise attend.
Junkie logic I know but what the hell eh?
The image above is one exhibited at this exhibition, which opens next Saturday and runs for 2 weeks. No explanation needed there I reckon.
The other two paintings exhibited are on this blog, one is a blue portrait of a woman titled Sarah's Quilt that accompanies an earlier article and the other is a painting of two women posing on a settee titled two models that graces the bottom of this page.
I hope they find loving homes these three babies of mine and I could do with some money as the auld overdraft is reaching epic proportions.
Nobody's got enough money right? and I will never bore you with my financial situation, I don't really care about money but it's there in all our lives like housework and the weather...
Not going to the opening, too far away and there is always alcohol involved in these openings.
I will keep you posted as to how this exhibition goes.
Walking the dogs along the riverbank I saw two horses on the other bank, walked home for a sketch book and came back to find this critter in the same pose that attracted my attention and did a few fast drawings. The horse knew we were there. Wasn't too good at keeping still.
This is my favourite horse; Chase. A Clydesdale thoroughbred cross. Stroppy and naughty like a teenager. He would make a great hunter but for me he is a model, or will be when he gets his Winter cover off. I don't ride but I like horses for their mythical beast quality, the atavistic living metaphor. I don't know what they are a metaphor for (meta44) but they touch a chord in me.
