fits and starts

Most distressing the lack of blogging.
I'm looking for someone to blame it on. There is a shortlist.
For want of a better reason, I can only say that I was working on two pieces which I had to keep secret. One was for Lady Sandra and the other for my younger son. For special events.
The first one here is of the piece I made for Lady Sandra... its a picture of her parents from long ago.
I painted it on cedar fence boards which had weathered beautifully. They hinge inwards and close with a slide bolt. It looks like a piece of fence or a gate. When you open it, it reveals the painting.
I'll post the work I did for my son in a following blog.
Right now I'm working on a piece for a competition, the logo design continues in the background and I am painting a large portrait of two beautiful children.

digital rarotecha

Not often do I plunge recklessly into work without a good idea of what I want, but this time I have. I havent had the time or the opportunity to try something experimental and for some reason I have found barriers in my head. Artificial lines in the gray matter , barbed wire with "Perigo minas" stenciled crudely onto metal signs hanging forlornly from the rusty strands. And for some odd reason I obeyed my own decree.
What do I know? I know better than to listen to myself. I should have learned it from my sons, they never seem to.
It was a journey of exploration into a well known territory, hoping to find something new.
It was different and familiar at the same time. Rather like cobbling together a being from friends' body parts. (I have just been reading about Mary Shelley and her famous book)
I hope to enter this in a competition.
I have given Hoarknockle orders to keep his fingers crossed.
Right now most of my brain is elsewhere in Belgium with a cyclist racing Omloop van het Waasland...a 194km race at frightening speed. The cyclist is racing for Fuji Test Team from the Cycling Center. He is my son.

quo vadis?

what a pregnant statement...cliched.
Who knows where this might go?...I am making something and will be entering it for a competition... fun being able to recycle one's own work like a collage. Um yes...I guess I'll have to start producing some real new work soon before I wear these older ones out completely!
Ive recently sent off an application for a grant from the arts board...fingers crossed. It would be fun if I got it.
Meanwhile forging ahead and havent really done anything fantastically creatively new. Sad. But such is life...one has to take care of the mundane and the tedious too.
I have been working away at the logo too. Some fine tuning and revisions. Client had some concerns and I have been smithing the designs a bit more and feel they are getting more refined and improved. Polish.
Good to feel like an artist today again.

logo pogo agogo

Couldn't restrain myself from making bad rhyme above.
I am still carving the logo and design thing.
Its a departure from my normal kind of work...but due to the intelligence of my client, she has given me carte blanche to develop, create and grow something unique. A true bespoke design that does not come ready packed from a font machine. It's difficult but vastly more rewarding to do. I can just feel all the little gray cells applauding the exercise they are getting.
Its a wonderful opportunity to wander into less familiar territory and get to play with things I dont often have the chance to do so.
Hoarknockle is managing to keep the generator going (by pedaling the generator, galley slaves are fun to watch!) ... so my electric equipment all works. I do believe the uncouth oaf is getting rid of his expanding girth. Jolly Good!

time hiccups

Time has not been flowing, rather coming in irregular burps. Which is why my blog has not been regular...all due to the time burps.
I hope time-space continuum has been restored.
Its been busy. Packed my eldest off to Belgium to race with the Fuji Test team at the Cyclingcenter.
Also trying to whip Hoarknockle back into shape by making him ride my indoor bicycle trainer every day. He bleats like a baby.
The wind has been blowing on occasion and that means I am out with my younger boy, holding his equipment while he flies about beneath his large kite with skis on his feet. Exhilaration by proxy... or vicarious prairie skiing.

I have been jerking around rather like a ferret on espresso.
Sometimes everything gets in the way. (its my excuse)
At last have returned to being creative... dusted off my favourite ivory tower and taken refuge in it, making squiggly things on paper and the magical screen connected to the electrical socket. My friend in England likes her logo and now its time to turn it into letterheads and all kinds of things.
This most recent thing is a heading to be on her website.
I just need to lash Hoarknockle again...he is pedalling the generator to produce electricity for my machines. Slacker!
And I want lunch and tea.... NOW!