So long, and thanks...

The Painted Arc has moved to a new home.

Like other bloggers, I was patient when I had to jump through proverbial hoops after Google started messing around with my old-style Blogger account with which I was very happy. I had already bit my lip at the news that Google was giving information to the Chinese government about pro-democracy activists (and wrongly, kept silent) but now that the senior members of the board have failed to act on shareholder protests, I've decided to do the responsible thing and move my blog.

In case the link above doesn't work, you can catch up with me at: thepillow.wordpress.com

For more on Google in China from TimesOnline: How long can the Great Firewall of China last?

Unexploded Album

Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Yanqui U.X.O.

This is one of those albums that you chance across just a few times in your life that leave you with a new appreciation for the skills of all musicians, in this case, a nine-piece outfit called Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

The band kindly request that you buy their album direct from their label: Constellation Records

The band are/ were - they have been on an indefinite hiatus since 2003 owing in part to commitments to other musical projects - politically-aware anarchists who, on the reverse of this album show how the major record labels are part-owned, or part-own via shares, the world's major weapons manufacturers. I hadn't realised this when I bought my copy from Amazon and will take more care in the future about who and where I buy from. Think I'm making this up? Check this out... did you know that AOL Time Warner, the same company of which a certain former US General is a key shareholder, owned stock in Hughes Electronic Corporation which having merged with Raytheon became Raytheon Industries producing such civilian town-market-busting delights as the Tomahawk Cruise Missile? Still listening comfortably?

Yanqui U.X.O. was released on 4 November 2002 in Europe. You can hear mp3 samples on the band's own website: this is your new home

I could tell you that the music has no ego-heavy vocalist, that there are two sets of drums and two basses, three guitarists, a cellist and violinist but you would still have no idea about what this music is but if you imagine trying to write not with one partner but eight, I think you can appreciate that - creatively at least - this is democracy in action.

remembering friends

“they have left us behind but shafts of light still grace this corner of the millpond”, 39” x 31”, Acrylic on canvas

The result of a ‘christening’ of a brand new Pro-Arte size 10 filbert brush. Why bother with anything else?

Thanks to A Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band for the title.

Monument

33” x 33”, January 2007, Acrylic on canvas

I saw myself disappearing
and it was good
for I was still there...

from The House of Insight, a poem by Kenneth White

News from samedaybooks

From the home page of samedaybooks:

"We are desperately sad to announce the tragic death of Alan Clifford, co-founder and Managing Director of Methvens / samedaybooks.co.uk, in a road accident on Wednesday 27th December 2006.

Alan was a wonderful colleague with a deep love of books and bookshops, and will be greatly missed by all in the Company and all those who knew him in the trade."

I have worked for Alan for eight years and indeed, it was on his encouragement that I found the confidence to display some of my artwork in the Worthing shop. When I asked him what his favourite pieces were - of those he had seen on this blog - he replied, "Oh, nothing offensive but then again... any that would cause enough outrage to get us in the press." Always contrary.

Showing my art work in the Worthing shop was to be the first time I've ever shown my art work publicly. Though I am not family or even a peer, I felt moved to write my own piece for Alan because he was exactly the sort of boss everyone hopes to have when they start a new job and because in more formal obituaries that will be read by interested peers in the book trade, I doubt that his staff will have a voice.

When talking among colleagues at work about Alan today, we were able to joke that at least he'll finally have one good article that mentions the company in 'The Bookseller' magazine. Even now, we can laugh because that is what we remember most of Alan: his great humour. We also remember that there was a particular way that Alan would p-a-u-s-e, lean back in his chair and pinching the bridge of his nose, try not to say the very first thing that had come to mind.

If there are many ways to say 'You're so wrong, you're not even right...' then one of his more memorable quotes - at least for those of us at Methvens - was: 'You're a retailer, not a librarian!' Alan taught us all that the only way of seeing a bookshop was as a customer. He also taught us the original dance steps for moving your booty to Status Quo.

I'm willing to bet that Alan was also the only Managing Director of a UK company to have been quite literally shoveling sh*t when a vital call from The City has come through for him on his mobile. One thing that marked Alan out as different from all other bosses was that he'd not only lead from the front but be in the trenches with his 'troops'. Working for Methvens is not like working for other companies: it is fun and has had more in common with a chaotic day out at the family picnic with too many firecrackers, water pistols, flour bombs and not enough responsible adults.

The last time I saw Alan was in the staffroom at the Worthing branch. He had been passing by when he saw that I was playing darts. He came in and laughing, said: 'I just don't want to know what Health & Safety are going to make of that!' For many of his colleagues, that was Alan in essence: he never had time for the rules or the 'accepted way' of doing things but simply let his staff get on with the job of selling books. That's why Methvens - or samedaybooks, as you might know us - is still around when two larger rivals have gone the way of shark bait.

Though I knew Alan better than many of my own relatives, I would never claim to have known him not as family or friend or even boss. For me, he was just Alan, as he was to many of us in the book trade.

Today, I rediscovered a quote I found quoted in Richard Holloway's 'Looking in the Distance', and these words seemed the most fitting for what we feel at Methvens. The quote comes from a writer called Miguel De Unamuno:

"Man is perishing. That may be; and if it is nothingness that awaits us let us so act that it will be an unjust fate."

The thrill of it all

Memory

One had a lovely face,
And two or three had charm,
But charm and face were in vain
Because the mountain grass
Cannot but keep the form
Where the mountain hare has lain.

“In rapture, she found her greatest pleasure in the thrill of anticipation”, 40” x 30”, Acrylic on canvas

Her Praise

She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I have gone about the house, gone up and down
As a man does who has published a new book,
Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown,
And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook
Until her praise should be the uppermost theme,
A woman spoke of some new tale she had read,
A man confusedly in a half dream
As though some other name ran in his head.
She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I will talk no more of books or the long war
But walk by the dry thorn until I have found
Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there
Manage the talk until her name come round.
If there be rags enough he will know her name
And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days,
Though she had young men’s praise and old men’s blame,
Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.

Text of both poems by WB Yeats from the selection by Seamus Heaney, published by Faber (2000).

From the Bestiary

“The knife hand was singing”, 24” x 24”, Acrylic on canvas

Another painting from the series I’ve been working on (see previous post), painted on 20th August this year. As it seems like a good idea and because I like the poem, here’s another by my old duffer ‘Bill’, or, WB Yeats:

The Magi

Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

Again, the text comes from the Faber selection chosen by Seamus Heaney (2000).

The Second Coming?

“what rough beast”, 33” x 33”, Acrylic on canvas

This is another painting, completed on 14th August, from the series I've been working on for some time now. It is based on imagery from one of my favourite poems:

“The Second Coming”, WB Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The text of the poem is from the Faber edition of poems selected by Seamus Heaney (2000).


I think that most people who read the poem get themselves in entangled in the imagery that could come straight out of The Book of Revelations of St John of the Cross or from a horror story by HP Lovecraft but they are missing the content. 'Shadows of the indignant birds...', surely, these are vultures or some sort of carrion eating bird, disgruntled because there is no death. For me, the poem is about signs and portents, awaiting a struggle that does not come because in the Christian canon it is expected that Jesus' return will be a glorious thing full of rapture and wonder and the fear of sinners but what could be more disappointing than some sort of rough beast that lacks delicacy and grace? A clumsy baby that needs it's mother's arms to hold it upright. How disappointing for the priests that they would have to change a nappy! And so... a quieter image recalling the 'Madonna and child' pictures of the Renaissance, an image that shows the darkness of the world around a mother and her baby.

Magic, again

“In, Into”, 36” x 36”, Acrylic on Canvas

Busy, busy, busy... and not just with work. In my spare time, I've been collecting ideas and slowly working toward a more personal style but also aiming for something that connects with other people.

I found myself talking with another artist today about approaches to working. My acquaintance sketches everything in detail and moves from one developing picture to another, cribbing ideas that can be used elsewhere, slowly developing ideas that are refined through many sketches. I work by visualising what it is that I want to produce and over a period of months I will let that initial visualisation morph as I pick up even more ideas. Sometimes, the emerging image will be totally different to the one that I initially imagined, on rarer occasions, I return to the original image. Everything is consciously done subconsciously even for figurative or landscape images. The final part of the process is visualising exactly how I am going to produce the picture right down to the angle of a brushstroke.

The jpg doesn't quite do justice to the painting which has an almost pearlescent effect, changing according to the light and in my opinion, looking better in low light when all the colours leap out and forge a greater sense of depth. For a ‘red’ picture, this painting has a lot of pthalo blue, umbers and siennas in the mix.

the idea of a line

It’s been a while since I last updated this blog but on browsing the internet, I found the following article which brought to mind something I have in the past tried to explain: how do I draw?

The article is by Jonathan Jones, the Guardian newspaper’s art critic in which he describes after years spent dissecting the works of the great artists, how and why he decided to put his money where his mouth was - and learn to draw. While the notion of someone being an art critic yet being unable to draw is somewhat confounding, I think he should be respected for trying.

Why, after all, is drawing - or any any art - still so relevant to the world in an age of photography? Jonathan Jones realises that: “Picasso has taught me something about the way we experience the world. All the time, we deny life’s complexity in order to get on with things. A drawing can at least acknowledge this by acknowledging its partiality of viewpoint.” A photograph is a record of what was seen but a drawing, a painting, a sculpture can be so much more about what was felt. Art is about decisions and choices: what is to be included in the representation and what is to be abandoned that we might make sense of things?

A while back, I realised that a perfectly analogy for this might be for you to imagine looking into a stream of clear-running water on a spring day. Barefoot, you stand upon polished pebbles: now pick out the one pebble that best captures the way the coolness of the water, the light upon its surface or the feeling of ‘aliveness’ from being stood there in that exact moment makes you feel. Choosing which would be the one stone to capture all these feelings is just as difficult as choosing which is the ‘right’ line to add to the paper. It is not so easy as it looks.

Jonathan Jones’ article in full:

It's not as easy as it looks

And as if by magic...

“Bernhard’s World No.2”, 36” x 36”, Acrylic on canvas

...appeared. That’s 2 out of 4 in the planned series. It felt really good to paint this one and feelings are the key to this picture (as they were with the first one too) as opposed to any reasoned statement about the world, human affairs and blah blah blah.

Still, I did start in my usual way with a black canvas and then with a white chalk pencil, ‘carved up’ the canvas into sectors, marking out key compositional elements. To say that the picture then ‘painted itself’ simply wouldn’t be true: as with any other painting, most of the work is done before a single dab of paint touches the canvas.

It’s all in the mind you see...

The first painting of the new year...

...was done in a bit of a rush (technical term, ‘alla prima’ which does not, as you might imagine mean ‘all in one go’ but instead ‘bloomin’ heck’).

Anyway, it’s my day off work today and as busy as things have been this month, I was determined to squeeze in some painting at some time this month so I thought, ‘Why not?’... 5 hours later, I have me some pre-stretched canvas 36” x 36” with some paint on it. I might touch it up a bit later and put it on sale.

Oh, this is the first time that I’ve been reasonably successful at painting a ‘chap’, so I reckon I might crack open a tinnie to celebrate.

Ideas for a title should be submitted via the comments tab below.

We zijn niet te versmaden

I have an amazing winter coat that must be twenty years old. It dates from the time that I was in the Air Training Corps - between those difficult years of 16 and 17 when I was still thinking of joining the Royal Air Force. As the old army kit that we were supposed to wear for ‘field craft’ was never the right size, the cadets would swap kit whenever someone had a better size. The old kit was whatever we could find in the Army & Navy stores. I swapped a regular field jacket for this amazing piece of kit. A Norwegian friend at university told me that it was a bit of kit issued to the Norwegian forces (folk are - or were - conscripted at 18 and had to return for more training and exercises throughout their lives up to 55, I think) which perhaps explains the exceptional quality. The coat is stuffed with down feathers and has a fur-lined (I know, I know but the animal was dead already...) hood. It can easily cope with cold northern winds of a winter Scotland.

However, in a moment of madness at university, I daubed a ‘Straight Edge’ motto on the back. Ostensibly, it was a celebration of the DIY ethic that underlies all good contemporary ‘garage’ punk (and we’re talking bands like Fugazi, Black Flag and the like and most definitely not MTV-style snot-lite Green Day, The Strokes et al. The motto: “Fuck Art Let’s Slam” made sense then but 14 years later is just a little embarrassing.

Being the sort of person who aspires to see opportunities in the negative things encountered in life, I decided to paint over the old motto and enhance the colours of the original image.

The snarling face/ sun pattern is based on an ancient Macedonian shield pattern. The Macedonians, under Alexander, gave the Persians a kicking that still affects Middle East politics to this day (in terms of it being an East vs. West thing) but at the time, there was a massive exchange of ideas and philosophy. On India’s western shores, for instance, there is a community of Jewish people who still practice the beliefs of their forebears who arrived with Alexander’s army more than two thousand years ago. The West discovered Buddhism - and Hinduism - for the first time (The Beatles, or rather George Harrison, were not the first) and also, crucially for modern mathematics and physics, the concept of zero. The arch, as deployed in stone bridges etc., was also brought back from Persia. In the interests of political stability in the newly conquered realm, Alexander also forced his officers to marry local women and settle in what was then a very foreign place. There was no ‘exit strategy’.

The motto itself is Dutch and is courtesy of Toon Tellegen’s stories about V.Swchrwm. Kristine and I began translating some of Tellegen’s stories over the New Year but one of my favourite’s remains the story of how the little boy, V.Swchrwm (don’t worry, the name makes no more sense in Dutch either) is spurned. The story, for me, is about turning something negative into a positive. As heartening as the message was, we wrote to Toon Tellegen to ask if we could translate his work and try and get it published in English and almost as an after-thought, Kristine changed V.Swchrwm’s words into the motto:

We will not be spurned.

No pen, no pencil, no paint...

...no brushes, no canvas, no paper, nothing but some time on my hands.

I haven't updated the blog in a while as I've been away over the New Year, spending some time with Kristine on Holy Isle (you can see more about the island by clicking here).

All kinds of gubbins gets washed up on the beaches ringing Holy Isle as it sits just off the Ayrshire coast. Along with the remains of three urchin shells (eaten by sea otters), cormorant skull, sheep skeleton, myriad other shells and natural stuff was this road sign.

With a camera in my pocket, I had a chance for some fun with the unspoilt Scottish landscape...

As for what I did with all the other stuff, well... I made a sort of memorial, if you will, for the poor wee beasties that get forgotten but which are an inseperable part of the island's beauty. After I left, Kristine hung that in the old cemetary that is still there on the island but I expect that the next storm will break it apart and send the bits and pieces back to where it came from.

I had a great time. Holy Isle is well worth a visit if you haven't been yet.

Sometimes...

...a painting just doesn’t work at all.

Quite a few of my paintings have several paintings under them. It’s quite an amusing thought that maybe one day, some academic with too much funding and curiosity may take an X-Ray to the paintings to discover what lies beneath them. (I know, me and my friend Ego...) When a painting doesn’t work, I’ll continue working on it in the hope that just a little something may make that all important difference and sometimes I’ll just stop and without a moment of hesitation, simply cover the lot with black primer.

I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I did - or didn’t do - that the painting did not turn out as planned.

I’m not even going to bother naming this one.

Recommended

I was asked what I used as source material for my paintings. Rather than write out by hand those books I have used (and can remember using), I thought I could add the details to the blog and add to it as I get one of those ‘Oh yeah, I remember now...’ moments. By some considerable distance, the best photographic reference for the human body (once you are familiar with the anatomy of muscle groups), is the one shown above: Howard Schatz' Nude Body Nude.

Dorling Kindersley (now part of the not-funny joke that is Penguin Books) have also produced a good book by the artist Sarah Simblet. The photographs in that case are by John Davis, most famous perhaps for photographing the Australian Olympic team of Sydney 2000 in the nude. This is your best bet as the second-hand copies of Howard Schatz’ books are worth hundreds of pounds (or dollars). No wonder. And, no, you can’t have my copy.

As I work during the daylight hours as a bookseller, I also get asked for recommendations on good books to read for fun. I could go on and on about the great stuff I’ve read over the years; after all, it’s one reason why I still take home naff-all pay. Alongside art, books are a real passion. So, if you’re after something good to read, then look to the menu bar on the right. I’ve tried to choose a real mix of books including literary, crime, short story collections, stories for children/ young adults and a couple of horror novels. The best way to approach any of the books - as with life - is with an open mind. With this in mind, I haven’t listed the categories the books would usually be filed under in a shop or library.

Here’s how the selection works:

The absolute numero uno rule I gave myself when composing this list was that I had to have read the book myself. If something you are looking for is not on the list, it is for one of three reasons: I haven’t read it; I’ve forgotten I’ve read it and thought it was good (easy to do as some weeks, I can go through five or more novels in a week), or; I thought the book was rubbish.

All authors are listed alphabetically by surname.

Where an author appears more than once, assume they’re good. If you can’t find any of the listed books in a shop, then take something else.

Where an author apppears more than once, it may be that I’m recommending a whole series to you. You won’t know until you pick up the books.

There are no links to Amazon. Firstly, that’s cheating: if you had a link, you could read reviews and what the book is about and, second, the point of this is that you’ll got to a shop and have a look around. Maybe, you’ll surprise yourself.

As a concession to those readers who can’t abide made-up stories, I’ve put a note next to those books that are non-fiction but come on, do you really think that any ‘autobiography’ is being entirely honest?

Unlike other literary snobs (yes, I am one), I’ve included some science fiction. If your idea of sci-fi is tight-fitting spandex and fiction that holds women in contempt, then I’m sorry, you’ve lost any argument you could have put to me. The science fiction chosen includes strong female characters, strong stories and as with any great classic story, great ‘moral mazes’. A novel without at least one moral dilemna is no novel at all for how else do characters - and real people in real life - grow? The technology takes a back-seat in favour of the story, so don’t worry if you couldn't hack physics at school.

No poetry. While an individual poem may be the outstanding work of literature of it’s time .eg. WB Yeats' poem, The Second Coming. It is absurd to believe that any human can be consistently great across a whole book of poems (that aren’t posthumously collected and are more a reflection of the editor’s own choice).

No movie tie-ins. A film is one medium; a book quite another.

Nothing derivative, contrived or just plain rubbish, therefore, very little in the way of contemporary British fiction.

The list will be added to. Beneath the selection is another list of those books I am currently reading. They may make it onto the list; they may not: an unbelievable number of books I have read have been ruined by a rushed or contrived ending. Nul points for a ruined experience. The entire book has to be good or it doesn’t get onto the list. I am a Very Fussy Reader.

PS. This is going to sound ungrateful but if ever it crosses your mind to present a book to me as gift, please don’t. I have run out of ways to hide my embarrassment at being given something I’ve rubbished at work. If I haven’t discovered a book in ten years of bookselling that I’m going to like then I have been doing something wrong: either I have read the book or I have bought it and it’s on the pile of books to be read or, it hasn’t been published yet.

PPS. Think about it: would you give a spare tyre to a guy who drove buses for a living?

True Adventures

True Adventures, 40” x 30”, December 2005, Acrylic on canvas

from Kenneth White’s poem, Walking the Coast

who has not observed it
the primal movement
the play of wind on water
the undulation
the glassy membrane
lifted
excited
and energised
by insisting air
the curving
the deliberate inflection
the flurry of whiteness
the bright cast of spray
the long falling rush
and the hundredfold ripple


The above quotation is from the book, ‘The Bird Path: Selected Longer Poems’.

Kenneth White is relatively unknown in Britain but has been awarded some of France’s most prestigious literary prizes, including the Prix Medicis Etranger (1983) and the French Academy’s Grand Prix du Rayonnement (1985) for the entire body of his work.

Kenneth White writes in English - not French. His work is now out-of-print in the UK (and US) but is still available in translation in German, Greek, Spanish, Bulgarian, Dutch and so on and so on.

First public showing!

Sometimes, the best news is The Best simply because it is so unexpected and so it was yesterday. I’ve been offered a considerable amount of space to display my paintings. If you live in - or near - West Sussex then have a mosey on down to Worthing for the day (it’s that rather nice town you’re planning on retiring to, just down the coast from Brighton) and check out Methvens Booksellers on South Street. From sometime next week, hopefully, you’ll be able to see my paintings.

A big thank you to the MD, Alan Clifford, for the offer...

...going back to the internet gallery, the re-coded and revised version of the website is now up and running including a nifty stat counter. All of which has been done in the space of this morning. Even the web standard tags and meta names - all individually referring to the content - at the top of each page have been re-coded this morning. Phew! I had a freak the day before yesterday when I saw my website attemting to load on a creaking old PC running Windows Explorer 5.5... words failed me at the time.

To everything, there is a time and place. That is as diplomatic as I can be now but what the flarty are Microsoft thinking? Even the current version of Explorer is far from Standards compliant. So, to repeat: if you wish to see my website as it was designed to look, then use Firefox. Blah blah blah...

...I hear a chorus at the back from the fraternity of Steve Jobs’ girlfriends. No, Macs cost a lot of money and that’s just for the lawyers in the ‘Nano’ debacle. But hey! It looks nice. Designer scratches? Lovely.

Inspiration

It's not always about what you intend, it's about what you let happen...

This is an ‘old’ shot taken on my last holiday to the Isle of Arran. My mum and me (I know, grammatically, I should write ‘I but it sounds too posh) had been in conversation as we walked around the grounds of Brodick Castle. We came around the corner of a low terrace of bungalows and chanced upon a flight (if that's the right word) of butterflies settled upon these unknown flowers. In the time it took me to set up my camera, most of the butterflies caught the August breeze and flitted away. Only one remained behind to give me what remains one of my favourite photographs ever.

I get asked where I find inspiration for the things I paint. Find is exactly the right word as I don’t ever go looking for ideas. On those occasions I have actively sought out the ‘right’ picture, the painting has never worked. I try to find that one single moment when a special some-thing shows itself for the briefest instant. The trick, if there is one, is to turn this into a habit: give space to everything and everyone and you will find those special moments.

It was on this holiday that I also found someone special. Her name is Kristine.

Nick Cave (alla prima)

Nick Cave (alla prima), 40“ x 50”, sometime 2003, Acrylic on canvas

This is an ‘old’ painting that seems to have been kicking around forever.

If memory serves, this picture was painted sometime in summer of 2003 and was based on a composite of 3 or 4 photographs. At the time, I was not yet painting in the chiaroscuro style, hence the lighter background. The apparent ‘lightness’ of the painting exists for another reason: there’s only one coat of paint over most of the canvas and so the white ground or ‘primer’ shows through really clear.

The painting is quite large but believe it or not, was relatively quick to paint... all of 6 hours. Most of my attention was focused on getting the face - and the lighting of the face - exactly as I wanted it. I was inspired, I guess. It was a monster session of coffee, cigarettes (I was smoking then but no longer) and repeated listenings of the album, Nocturama. Only later did I learn that creating a picture all-in-one-go like that is called alla prima. I haven’t done anything like it since and this picture stills hangs pride-of-place at work. It’s a sort of cultural-intelligence test: some visitors, perhaps because I work in a ‘bookish’ environment, think that the portrait depicts Martin Amis. Most visitors, however, do guess correctly and so this picture passes what I think is the true test of a portrait (at least for beginners) .ie. does it look like the person you were trying to paint?

PicturesandStories.co.uk ver2.0 is now live!

There have been a few ‘tweaks’ made to the original version of the site: gone are the photographs; gone are the massive picture files; gone too are the fictional characters who populated the site.

When designing the site and writing the code, I hadn’'t realized that so many people still used so-called ‘dial-up’ connections and neither had I appreciated just how often BT phonelines (in the UK) inexplicably slow d o w n... so that even a ‘dial-up’ connection can seem whizzy compared to broadband. Anyway, if you want a larger version of a picture file, you can ask me directly: the e-mail is listed on the homepage where - I hope - it’s easiest to find. However, what you won’t find is some nifty CGI-program that allows you to click on a link and e-mail me that way: until Spam is canned, SpamBots will have to look elsewhere for addresses to harvest.

Hopefully, even folks using the most primitive Microsoft browsers (what am I saying? All Microsoft product is primitive) should be able to view the site in crystal clarity. Of course, Firefox is best of all but y’all knew that already being Bloggeratti, right?

Pictures and Stories was coded in simple HTML and CSS2. The graphics were processed using ULead PhotoImpact 6.0. For those of you thinking of creating your own page, might I recommend using Terrapin software to upload your site? No, I haven’t been paid to give a recommendation (the full version cost me £19.95) but it made the whole process of getting a website up on the internet so painless (after I'd learned how to code HTML), I thought it deserved a free “plug” (Terrapin FTP actually checks your site for “bugs”. I’m down to 4 for the whole site, so I must be doing something right).

Souvenirs of Spring

Sometimes nothing can compare to a very simple pencil-and-paper sketch. This is the wasabi, the pickled ginger between courses of the painter's world. It is always good, no matter what you do in life, to go back to where you began. It is a 'cleansing of the palette' for whatever comes next.

I've been listening to - and enjoying - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's Howl.

Poppy Bight, 36" x 36", October 2005, Acrylic on canvas, £600

A return to landscape painting but using a square canvas. The difficulty here is not in the process of painting or the perspective but composition. A single subject or abstract image can fill a square canvas without too much thought and yet remain quite dynamic. A landscape has many elements competing for the viewer's gaze.

I interrupted the cool tones of the background with some windblown poppy petals in 'cooled' red tones. I was mindful of the angle of the brushstrokes and their relative length, ignoring the urge to blend the colours more carefully or introduce more detail. This is me painting 'happy' with big blobs of colour and lots of abandon.

Papa Won't Leave You, Henry, November 2005, 16" x 20", Oil pastel on paper, £100

Sometimes it's just plain fun to grab some crayons and really go for it. This is a horse but not as you might have seen them before (see below). Energy and the depiction of life were key to the exercise here as I try to 'push the envelope' on my skills. I have found that trying to approach a familiar subject in a new way can dramatically improve my understanding of techniques I already use and in a painterly sense, how the colours work together.

Vigil, 24" x 24", June 2005, Not for sale

A period of waiting, watching. Anticipation and hope are signal feelings here but also melancholy and despair. The horse is depicted without even the cast of a highlight in it's gaze to represent an inward gaze: meditation and prayer. Faith.

The horse is depicted with a 'dressed' mane: it is dressed in its finest as it waits. The horse could be a descendent of of those depicted in Greco-Roman sculpture. It could also be in a certain stable on a certain evening. Standing in darkness, the mute animal knows there is always hope.

The Silence of death, 40" x 50", October 2004, Acrylic on canvas, Not for sale

The moment when you cross the last threshold: the ticking of the clock sounding like the stamping of heavy hooves, the distant snorting of a mighty beast, running toward you, now rearing before the hooves stamp down one last time. In painting this picture, I wished to summon in the viewer's mind the portrait, Napolean Bonaparte Crossing the Alps by the Great Saint Bernard Pass - 1800 by Jacques-Louis David (click here to see it) and idealized proportions of the unreal horse.

In David's painting, Bonaparte is off to conquer another country. More death. It's a war and in the words of a famous person, 'stuff happens'. It does.

As with all the other paintings that (will) form part of the planned series, there is no detail in this picture apart from the subject. Death induces feelings of claustrophobia: there is no room at the moment for anything else.

Communion, 36" x 36", December 2004, Acrylic on canvas, Not for sale

Of all the paintings I've created, this is the one about which I am most proud and the one which I'm sure will attract the most opprobrium.

Christians are used to thinking of bread and wine as Flesh and Blood and between the many branches of the Christian tradition there are many ways of understanding the receiving of - or participation in - the Act of Communion. Some believe that wine and bread are only symbols; others believe that the wine and bread are translated into blood and flesh; while yet others believe that the wine and bread physically become that part of God which was given at The Last Supper.

In this painting, I am attempting to depict the feeling of what it is like to partake in the Act of Communion. Communion is first and foremast a spiritual act in which we are called upon to acknowledge our part in our wider humanity, our relationship to God and to our community and in which we examine our purpose for being as we remember. It is a moment for awakening to a dream of something greater than ourselves. There is the moment of hesitation when we surrender notions of self.

Blood is also symbolic of love and of sacrifice. The skin of the depicted woman is deliberately shifted toward a death-like tone (as in Lazarene below which has tones suggesting the return to life) to suggest complete acceptance, the abandoning of everything known. Key to the Act of Communion is the sense in which we give to others, to God and to life itself. Even if we are repulsed by the sight of blood - especially our own - our fascination of blood and the life it perpetuates continues through many aspects of our lives. Many religions have regulations on how we must treat blood. Where there are regulations, we observe that the restrictions most severely affect women and their bodies attempting an impossible divide between those who nature has given the power to produce life and the signs of vitality. Beyond any religious reference in this painting, a woman is at the moment of reconcilition between herself and her own body.

This painting (and Lazarene) are the paintings which depict the interior life of the spiritual person: dreams, meditation, contemplation and the sensuality of actually living.

Lazarene, 36" x 36", June 2005, Acrylic on Canvas, Not for sale

The greatest miracle Jesus performed was the raising of Lazarus. It is a story which has always fascinated me, being so full of potency and the power that exists in the giving of life itself. To raise someone from the dead is an extraordinary revelation of divine attributes and which would likely have sealed Jesus' fate in the eyes of the priests. There is nothing we fear more than death not even pain as it is a threshold we must cross absolutely alone.

I am fascinated by the talents of Renaissance painters of whom there is no one comparable today. One painter stands out in front of all others, even over da Vinci, in the depiction of the Christian story and that must be Caravaggio. Click here to see how Caravaggio depicts the raising of Lazarus.

Centuries before the invention of the box camera, there were human beings able to depict the range of Human experience from the most base and vulgar to the most glorious depiction of The Divine. It takes more than an unmade bed or a pickled cow and calf to be an 'artist'. Being able to hold a paintbrush and a pencil are a good start. We are nothing if we do not lift our heads to look at the stars and the profane Caravaggio, an artist who drank prodigiously, fought and brawled - even murdered - knew more of the Sacred than a clutch of of conmen who stand as pygmies among the giants of the Renaissance.

In painting Lazarene, I was not looking for the public miracle but that quiet moment when the born again ask themselves if it can be true, if it truly can be more than a dream. The 'Lazarene' is naked because we are naked before God and before the person we truly are. Nothing is hidden.

God Moving Over The Face of the Water - Holy Island, 36" x 36", January 2005, Acrylic on canvas, £3,500

Sometimes, inspiration comes unexpectedly. A sudden shift of the tide reflecting light in a different way that reveals something of the world around us, an unplanned journey that leads to new friends, a revelation of one's place in life and the world and the immensity of that which we know and love as our home.

There are some experiences that defy explanation and sometimes we have to go beyond mere words.

Bernhard's World No.1, 36" x 36", February 2005, Acrylic on canvas, £1,000

I love looking at images of our Earth taken from satellites. So, ice breaking up on a warming sea or dust patterns on a window. The beauty of painting something like this is the way my own perceptions of what is being seen are changed each time a small change is made while at the same time, trying to imagine how other people will perceive the final painting.

Abstract images only look easy to create... hence, the price tag.

Old gods, new storm, 40" x 32", January 2005, Acrylic on Canvas, £1,200

There are many stone circles remaining in Scotland and this is just as true on the Isle of Arran. Whether these circles ever formed a function beyond places of worship or functioned as primitive astral calendars is beside the point, I think, for what is unmistakable is that people used the power of abstract thinking to leave a long-standing mark upon the landscape that is unobtrusive and yet mighty impressive. The truly remarkable feature of these monuments is that more advanced cultures can't truly decipher the purpose that was intended by their forebears.

Autumn Beech Grove, 50" x 40", January 2005, Acrylic on canvas, £1,600

I used to live in Berkshire and my favourite place for 'walking in the green' was near (the right royal rubbish tip known as) Windsor. Burnham Beeches is an ancient woodland owned solely by the City of London Corporation. Long may these nice capitalist gentleman types continue to tell developers where they may sweetly kiss to no avail. Nature on a vast estate and virtually untouched just outside of the concrete-and-traffic-fume quagmire that is London... incredible. in the south-east of England, only Arundel comes even close to this.

I feel that the best time to see the splendour of Burnham is on a sunny day in autumn when the leaves have begun to fall and have furnished a rich carpet across the ground. Any time is good though.

Cir Mhor, 40" x 30", February 2005, Acrylic on canvas, £400

It took seven photographs to create this panaromic scene of the mountains surrounding Glen Rosa on the Isle of Arran in Scotland. It was a hot summer day. The midges were biting. The streams were in full spate and more like rivers because of the previous day's bad weather but it is still one of my favourite walks. As we approached the foot of these mountains, so great ranks of clouds like stampeding horses assaulted the mountain tops and from where we were standing, they appeared to climb even higher riding on invisible thermals.

This view can be seen on the approach to Goatfell, the largest mountain on the island. The views from the top are spectacular and well-worth scrambling over the eroded footpaths.

T'Ang Dynasty Poem, 40" x 32", January 2005, Acrylic on canvas, £800

Painted immediately before A bend in the winter river, this painting is based on a photograph I took on a long walk but this time on the Isle of Arran. Inspired by my mum's dog, Holly, who can't keep her nose out of anything but will run on ahead to make safe the way while zipping back to herd us all together, I got to thinking about those dark paths down which we walk as we live our lives. Sometimes, there are parts of our journey that we choose to take, other times, we feel we have no choice. What matters is the courage we show in the face of adversity and what we are prepared to do or even to see in others. Years ago, I found a poem by an anonymous T'Ang Dynasty courtier that sums up those feelings of isolation and yearning perfectly:

The autumn leaves are falling like rain.
My neighbours they are all barabarians
And you, you are a thousand miles away
but there are always two cups at my table.

A bend in the winter river, 50" x 40", January 2005, Acrylic on canvas, £1,000

On a winter hillwalk with some university friends, I took the photograph on which this image is based. Frigid wind, rain, slush that froze through to our boots but I got something to remember the companionship and the reminder that at the end of every long walk is a welcoming, warm pub and some really good whisky. I utilized the cheap colour quality of the photograph which came out of the disposable camera (and the fact that I 'lost' the camera and didn't get the pictures developed for three years) to summon the conflict of feelings: the warm evening sun setting on a bitter cold day.

In a summer field, 30" x 62", October 2004, Acrylic on canvas, £2,500

This one's a biggie at five foot tall but it's a picture I keep coming back to both to look at and as a reference for my other landscape paintings. The detail of the brushstrokes adds something to the image overall as the eye looks for the green it expects to see.

All my paintings are created using no more than 7 colours and white (a tone). In a summer field was created with just five colours: Pyrrole Red, Pthalo Blue, Burnt Sienna, Raw Umber and Copper (which is not really a colour but being a metal, acts more like a tone).

There is a line of trees near the beach at Aberdeen, Scotland that seem immensely large when you walk under them and in the impossibly intense summer light, rich green. It was a challenge therefore to describe the scene without a single drop of green while keeping the dramatic feeling that is produced in the presence of these trees.

Physically, this picture is almost door-sized and refuses to be ignored.

A walk in the woods, 30" x 40", March 2005, Acrylic on canvas, £400

Why are landscape paintings usually longer rather than taller? Why the obsessive need for detail that produces feelings of awe and stadning back from the image rather than the feel of 'being there' and walking into the frame?

Two questions: one answer. Some people love this picture, feeling that it works like an abstract picture or enjoying the feeling produced by the 'rhythm' of the tree trunks. Other people don't like the picture at all. Result!

Roses IV, 24" x 30", September 2004, Oil pastel on canvas, £300

This painting began as an experiment (as the more successful paintings usually do, no sketches, just me 'winging it' as I make everything up). Having painted roses before with my usual palette of acrylic paints, I sought to bring a very different quality to the next attempt. I wanted to summon notions of an 'old world' of antiques and family heirlooms, home-made perfumes, velvet nicotine-stained wallpaper, an old clockwork tin train set spread out upon the knitted rug, the clink of the best china cups reserved for guests against silver spoons, subdued sitting rooms and polite conversation on a wet autumn Sunday afternoon with the ladies from church.

we had hoped for more in our dreams of flight, 24" x 30", August 2004, Oil pastel and acrylic on canvas, £400

The moment in our dreams when we know we are dreaming and as though poised upon a fulcrum, we can change everything. Is it the feather of a really large bird or the extremes of perspective? The woman holds the answer. She is dressed in the sort of androgynous trouser suit that became fashionable in the 1920s when the dream of flying with birds awoke from the minds of ambitious inventors. She does not speak but perhaps recognizes an omen.

First Light, 40" x 32", April 2004

This is another moment of quiet reflection captured in paint. An acolyte on her way to more duties? A nun about to take full vows? The image is about those moments when the wind that's been blowing for weeks past finally stops and the clouds part to reveal that the sun was always shining we just couldn't see it. It's also about those moments when we anticipate the coming excitement and joy of the day. And last but not least, those moments when we know, when there are no doubts and we embrace the feeling of being alive, thanking the universe before we hurry along on our way.

when she sleeps, she is the most beautiful woman in the world, 15" x 9", August 2004, Oil pastel on paper, £250

This is one of my all-time favourite pictures. On completing this picture, I just sat and looked and wondered how... and then I sort of punched the air because I could create this sort of thing. Painting is like that: weeks of getting nowhere and then just past the moment where you wonder you didn't give up days ago, everything just comes together.

The Negotiation, 12" x 14", August 2004, Oil pastel on paper, £250

Based on another Howard Schatz image, I thought that with tongue-in-cheek, I might try to create an image that did more than represent some-thing but instead captured an aspect of human life. Every guy has been there: the unobtainable woman; the got-have-it urge; the post-argument make-up session. Look closely at the image: is she smiling? Or is she wondering why he bought a pink rose instead of the big red ones she likes? Though the rose is held close in her hand, it's also pointing away from her.

The Pillow, 40" x 32", May 2004

This was another important painting for me: it was presented as a wedding gift to a very dear friend I met at university and his intended bride. The image is based on a black-and-white photograph by Howard Schatz.

Hiring models is expensive and lacking an art school education, I also lack the confidence to claim, 'I am an artist'. I simply don't have the cahones to advertize and I think Darling Beloved might have something to say about naked ladies posing for me anyhow. Using photographs as the basis for my learning has been the only way for me to develop my skills.

There are lots of great photographers but to advance my understanding of the process of painting the human body would have taken much longer than the four years I have been l;earning if not impossible without the images Howard Schatz has created. Alive, the human body is constantly in motion and even dead, the processes of life continue down other murkier, more turgid avenues. The skill of capturing a moving body as Howard Schatz can with dancers (see his Waterdance images) and acrobats (his work with Cirque du Soliel) is unmatched for detail So ,Mr Schatz, if you're reading this: Thank you.

Beach scene, Holland, 40" x 30", October 2005

Holland must surely be a paradise for painters. The light is constantly changing. The sky is simply big for there are no dramatic hills, mountains or escarpments to block the view (though architects appear to have taken up the challenge in towns and cities). There is nothing for the eye to lock onto and by which a sense of scale can be appreciated. Pure magic.

However, in wishing to capture the drama that still exists in my memory, I made a mistake. I have been asked to not destroy or otherwise recycle this painting. I haven't and simply because it is on object lesson in why I do not paint on a white background using accepted techniques...

Viva chiaroscuro!

Copper, July 2004, 40" x 32"

This is the painting that, more than any other, I felt marked the point where I became 'an artist'.

I had for some time been trying to discover why Renaissance painters could achieve such luminosity in their paintings when even their modern imitators could not. Imagine that you have to grind up all your pigments yourself and then blend these with controlled amounts of oil. All organic materials vary in the qualities they posess. Think of when you last bought oil from the supermarket: was it cloudy from cold? Thin and sloshy compared to when you bought the 'same' product before? Now try and imagine an artist having to cope with the variance in the raw tools of his trade.

It seemed to me that the reason artists used so many inorganic materials was simply to gain some sort of order and consistency in their work. Some of these pigments were mineral salts, that is, a metal and a halide (like sodium chloride), so why not just use the metals? Mix the metals with mineral based pigments... use an organic material to create variety and shade. It was my Eureka moment.

I have always used acrylics to paint with despite the opinion of certain writers I have read in various 'how to' manuals that the medium simply cannot achieve the same results as oil. True: if you don't know how to use acrylic paint.

Acrylic paint is a truly dynamic medium. It imposes dynamic energy on paintings and there is one very simple reason: it dries fast. On making an error of judgement, the painter will find that acrylic cannot be wiped off a canvas as you can when painting with oil. I never use retarding material to slow the rate of drying. It diminishes the vibrancy of the colour. Another criticism of acrylic is that it behaves like an amateur's painting medium inasmuch as you can always paint over your mistakes. Well, no, you can't because even the thinnest application of acrylic obscures the grain of the canvas making an error-corrected area stand out. This is much like a rock climber using plaster-and-trowel to smooth over the parts of the mountain he finds are beyond his abilities. It's wrong and doesn't make sense. As anyone who has ever attempted to paint in the chiaroscuro method will be aware: what lies beneath the paint will show through to the surface. Don't think so? Then compare the power of light and contrast in Copper to the painting of the beach scene above. Copper was painted on a black canvas, slowing working up from darker shades to white. The landscape scene above was painted on the more usual white-primed canvas.