Inspiration.

Yesterday morning, i took full advantage of The Tate St. Ives offer of residents free admission in March. I went along to check out the latest exhibition there, which even my son has seen already! I'm a bit behind with things at the moment, but wanted to check out the work of Dexter Dalwood. His paintings deal with celebrity, historical events and figures either painted or in the shape of some perfectly formed collages.

I'm familiar with this British artists work, but i'd never seen any in the flesh. They were very powerful large canvases, full of energy and colour depicting various moments in history, portraits of creative people, and images of celebrity houses! The first image here is of The Bay Of Pigs, and the one above is of Sharon Tate's Living room. Other paintings represented The Death of David Kelly, Kurt Cobain's Greenhouse, Sid and Nancy's Chelsea Hotel Room, portraits of William Burroughs, Jeff Buckley and Ian Curtis and the Queen's, Bill Gates and Michael Jackson's bedrooms! A very inspirational show all round.

I've just found out that Dan Clowes is set to release a brand new graphic novel called Wilson. Clowes is best known for his cult graphic novel Ghost World, and is a screenwriter and illustrator for The New Yorker. Wilson is about an opinionated, divorced middle-aged loner who loves his dog and quite possibly no one else. After repeated attempts to engage with life he invariably falls back into his own pessimistic hell. Looking forward to this one!

Along the same lines is the Art of Jaime Hernandez book that came out recently, one that i've still yet to get but is at the top of my list. Hernandez is best known for his Love & Rockets comics, and this is a hard back book that documents stuff that has never seen before! File all of the above in inspirational artists!

Half Price Painting Sale!

I've been trying to sort my studio recently, and trying to clear it out into some fit state to work in. Now you can call it a Spring Clean, but i'm now selling some of my old paintings off at half price to make some space! I've got a gallery of the available paintings up on my Facebook Fan Page, so feel free to have a look. I've sold a few already, and there's a few more that people are interested in. One of them may be winging it's way to Canada, which will probably cost more to send than it will to buy the painting! Once the studio is clear of clutter, i'm just gonna make some more paintings and make more of a mess!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=401185&id=100202500231

Chip Off The Old Block!

My 9 year old son, Jack has been involved in a little art project of his own recently. He's spent the last 8 weeks on an Artist Experience course run by the Penzance Pirates Rugby Club's Learning Zone. He was chosen to be part of this project that allowed school children to see what it would be like to experience the life of an artist! From going to galleries, coming up with ideas, life drawing, sending work to be framed and even self promotion, they spent 1 day a week for 8 weeks on the project!

Today, the 8 week project culminated in the Artist Experience Exhibition in St. Ives at the Crypt Gallery. This must have been a wonderful experience for all were involved, i wish i could have done something like this at school! Big respect to John Watson from the Learning Zone, who organised the project with the participating schools and who taught the children too. What a fantastic project, and what a group of talented kids!

Getting Married In New York!

Not me! I'm not getting married! I did this piece of work for my friends Sue and Phil from Derby, who are getting married in New York in May! Lucky buggers really, but i can't make it to the ceremony so i did them this for their wedding invitation. They're having a party back in Derby in June, so i'm going to that. I used to go to Uni there, and used to live with Sue who was on my Fine Art degree too! Really enjoyed doing this, and a bit of a departure for me too. Made with spray paint, acrylic paint and Posca pen on A3 paper.

Roof Painting In West Penwith!

Went out to a location in West Penwith today with my mate Jason Sincock. He's doing a job on a house there which involves putting on a new roof. The existing roof has a painting of a Yin & Yang symbol, which apparently caused massive uproar from the locals when it was originally painted about 20 years ago!

Now the woman who owns the building would like it repainted once the new roof has been put on. So we went out there today to size up the job, unfortunately i didn't get to meet the woman who owns the house. Hopefully i'll get to speak to here next week and see if she'll be up for a few little tweaks to the design here and there!

Whatever happens, i just hope that we get the weather in the next 2 weeks so that the roof can be completed, and i can get up there and paint. Hopefully i won't get too distracted by the wonderful view out towards Lands End from the top of the house! Check it out in the photo above, what an amazing day it was today to go out and take photos! Let's hope we don't kick up as much fuss as the last time she had the roof painted!