paintings prints and stuff

I've been playing with digital variations on the paintings in the series so far. I find this often gives me ideas on ways forward in paint. The paintings won't be the same as the digital images but serve as ways of thinking ideas through and providing a new starting point. With the abstracted paintings I have no definite idea of the finished result - it's a matter of putting down marks and aiming to create a feeling/mood/colour vibration/sense of movement etc Once the first marks are down then others relate to them - constant changes are made, colours and areas can change dramatically and the works take much longer to evolve than an observational study. With a painting from direct observation so many things are 'given'. With an abstract there are so many decisions to make on the wing. I think it's like the difference between classical music and jazz. Layers may be almost totally covered, leaving just scratches and fragments flickering through overpainting of sh...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone I won't have time to paint again until the New Year I'm planning to go to the London Art Show in Islington at the end of January. It's usually a great show with a real mix of work from the Chapman brothers (uuuuggggh!) to Beryl Cook (mmmm .... fun ..... but..... ) with lots of good contemporary stuff from all over the country. It's really interesting to see up and coming artists as well as the more established.

sorry Lindsay - I just accidentally deleted your post instead of a spam one - thanks for the nice comments and sorry I deleted you! Tiredness? fried brain cells?

As I've been too busy with end of term/Christmas/family to do any painting, I thought I'd add this digital image I used for my Christmas cards. It was created from a doodle in sketchbook, scanned and manipulated in Photoshop. The original was in charcoal pencil, watercolour and pastel pencil. I was in Ikea earlier - oh those hideous 'paintings' printed onto canvas that they sell so cheaply. If only people would buy original art instead :(. I went with a half Swedish friend who was gleefully stocking up on Sil with Dill in the food hall on the way out. I spent more than I should have - no Sil with Dill though :)