baked in a pie... er, box

The birds are all in...done, cooked.
I wish I could see this image from the outside... as a person who stumbles upon it without having made or thought about it.
I have contacted artist's representatives and over a long time have done so many times... and never had anyone show interest.
Is it too far off the main road...that well travelled path which feeds popular culture the pre-digested pulp they so desire. Fast food of the mind and soul, the crippling addiction to mediocrity.
OKay...what's next?
Lady Sandra took the yacht out to get the mail. Have I mentioned how much rain we have been getting? I do believe I have seen a submarine at the local airport.
Hoarknockle is getting moldy...either that, or he is wearing a green velvet suit.

tin bird too?

this image is begging for some kind of explanation...I think. I shall abstain from stating the obvious.
As the rains continue... or has it ceased? (it has!)
Farmers were exchanging their tractors for submarines.
I have continued my exploration of this flying creature in my picture as his kin tug fat earthworms from my sodden lawn. I think I was first drawn to draw them after seeing a pelican covered in iridescent black BP spilled Gulf oil. The poor bird so entirely coated in blackness was a powerful graphic image... unsettling and inky wet. Maybe it reminds me of Mickey Mouse's foe from many years ago...The Blot! (yes...a very long time ago)
This picture is possibly a rather surreal collection of ideas... but then I do wish to avoid the obvious and easily digested literal "smack you in the face with a baseball bat" kind of concept. Or so I hope.

tin bird

Legerdemain ... trickery!
Yes... its not a real bird. Hoarknockle was aghast!
The story of the grackles continues with this rusty impostor pretending to be a bird.
After the rain the handcrafted tin cutout just had to rust...even digitally.
At least the cool weather and moisture is good for the wines in my cellar.
Red wine is a fine antidote to the damp chill.

boxing

It keeps going. The rain confines me to my studio rather than getting outside and riding with the hounds on my bicycle.
Lady Sandra has been driving indoors lest her car gets rained upon.
The grackles are behaving in their boxes.

baked in a pie...

well...in this case put in boxes, not pies.
I have laid the base of boxes in this digital drawing and am adding the birds. Its part discovery process as I look at the birds on my lawn and see how they move and act, then try and find something about them that is interesting and use in each bird in its box.
Its like carrying memories of events of experiences or people in your mind, there often seems to be some illogical memory hidden amongst the categories of things... and I often wonder how this particular memory may have become lodged in a specific group of dissimilar recollections.
This is progress thus far. No birds were injured during the making of this image. Hoarknockle was subjected to repeated tea-making.
This image still has a way to go yet. I'm curious as to where it will go. Fingers crossed.

early birds

The rain had blackbirds hunting earthworms trying to escape the soggy soil and brought the proverb, "Early bird gets the worm", to mind. Followed quickly by "opening a can of worms".
The blackbirds have quite an ominous stalking stride and their graphic yellow eyes with black centers give them a very evil look as they poke around the lawn in search of worms. Like some avian opera without singing. Equally incomprehensible story line.
Possibly the best word to explain the feeling is ominous.
Either that or I would have to say they remind me of Hoarknockle skulking around the corridors with a hangover.
These are all going into boxes I have drawn. Lots of textural patina and atmospheric marks.
Lady Sandra has been baking peasant bread. There is a certain irony in this. The house smells delicious. I need to investigate.

caught in trap

The child portraits have been delivered. The parents like it. Nothing like painting a child portrait to bring out the utterly defenseless, insecure artist in erm...uh...Hoarknockle...yes..thats it...Hoarknockle! He was just so worried about the children looking perfectly as they should... I had to give him the afternoon off.
The idea of seeing children's faces on milk cartons is something distinctly unnerving. The thought that each photo is actually a person who is missing. Its so pathetic and desperate... the kind of situation one never believes yourself will ever have to face. It brings all kinds of horrors to mind. Lots of "what if?" questions.
When you read of dreadful persons keeping others captive in a dungeon or a cage... always makes me wonder about who might be in a situation like that right at this moment... one day we may see the story in a paper and try to recall what you were doing at that moment...and how horrid it must have been for the victim while we continued obliviously with our lives.
Milk cartons are so democratic. The lowest common denominator which we all seem to have in our homes. The milk carton is a symbol of the common place and the ordinary.
What if the concept was changed and what if...?
The longer I worked on this, the more creepy and disconcerting the wire cages around the corks became. The twisted, torqued wire suddenly had a whole new voice.
No wonder I had to give Hoarknockle the day off.
Now I'll have to go and mow the lawn myself. I often don't think things through so well.

slimmed down

Throw out the clutter; I dont know what I was thinking. Was looking at the image for a while and decided to simplify it. Lower calories. Maybe it was the sound of "Biggest Loser" in the background. I think Hoarknockle was watching, he has a thing for tubbies.

dream dream

After some hard hatching, the image is developing some depth and then I may do some more.
Painter has so many little aspects one finds over time... well, I do. I keep finding things I didnt know were there and they make work easier. There certainly is something about developing an image and seeing it grow...you plunge into it and lose yourself at times.
Thankfully Hoarknockle has me attached to a safety harness and can pull me back if I go in too deep.
Its snowing today...light fluffy like meringue....hmmmmmm meringue.
Time for tea?

fading jangle

....and as the jingle jangle of the shopping mall music fades mercifully...
I'm here again, at my warm computer, a cooled teacup at my elbow. Hoarknockle is almost fully recovered from the abrasions sustained during the festive hurly burly.
Lady Sandra bought me a delightful Picasso, although I was hoping for a swath of Monet's Waterlilies. The only thing that prevented it was finding a large enough wall for it to hang on and her Ladyship was not going to allow me to move her collection of rare and unique snow shovels. Thus for now, the Waterlilies remain in Paris.
My wrestling contest with designer chairs continues.
So far so good. I may have to get into it with some more ink and pen and really give it some wellie. Not sure if anyone will comprehend the subtle humour of an ejector seat. Nonetheless.
Cross hatchings and more hatchings. Next is the completion of the tin chickiola. Both of these images have to be done by wednesday.

marcel duchamp in barcelona

Christmas was wonderful. Lady Sandra gave me an old pair of gutta percha waders which belonged to Winston Churchill. Cigar burns all over it. They smell like only old rubber objects can.Toasted it with Taittinger.
What happens when a genuine Barcelona chair daydreams? What would it dream of?
For now I have the chair done and the dream/thought bubble. The shape and design of the bubble should be recognisable to disciples of Dada as the shape found in Duchamp's "Bride stripped bare.." It has a beautiful colonic sausage irregularity which I found hard to resist.
The premise for this image is the preciousness of interior design objects and how they have become icons of taste and elegant living. As beautiful as they may be and as often as I have coveted these things, just so I have my doubts about their credibility due to overexposure and gaining de riguer status as emblems of success. No matter.
Thus we see a Barcelona chair sitting happily in a well appointed space, daydreaming of other objects much as a teenager would do. It makes me wonder what kind or erotic thoughts a chair would have and which images would be erotic to a chair. Obviously this kind of thinking is couched in ironic reference to well known symbols and their meaning.
I dont want to give away the punchlines to this image too soon.. and will show it as it goes along.
Its fun.

weather outside is frightful...

Sheets of horizontal snow, driven by a vigorous wind and numbing chill. I hold a mug of restorative tincture of sugar cane in an attempt to banish the dismal picture....and by Horace, it really works!
The jingle of merry festive bells can be heard over the unrelenting howl of the blizzard and I can see from the calendar that it is the season to be jolly although nary a sign of global warming to be welcomed.
I have been hammering at the tin picture and have been bumbling my way to a new version with more clutter and accessories.
I feel like a jolly old man giving gifts to this vacuous spring loaded girl. Boing! I wonder what she would really want if she could tell me? I have to guess and have come up with a few different heads that might be helpful in her quest for attention.
Have the sketch more or less sorted out and now to ink and then colour it up prettily.
The tractor is rumbling through the snowdrifts as it clears pathways and roads that Lady S and I may take our late afternoon sleigh ride through the estate, fortified with cognac and good cheer.
Jingle jingle.....

tinny revisited

The snow looks like a storm of polka dots or a flurry of halftone spots, badly arranged. Once they hit the ground, they lose their individuality and become a beautifully smooth homogenous blanket that hides the unsightly drab of bare trees and brown foliage. Footprints are healed and like sand in a desert, the breeze sculpts soft undulating curves... poetic.
Hoarknockle has been looking after me, adding restorative extract to my tea.
I have decided to revisit the tin girl and bring more to her and her situation. She seemed too alone and without any motivation. She has been haunting me for a while (ghosts of Christmas passed out?) and I had to come back and see if I could help to complete her. Sketch added to the original and more to follow.
I was wondering about this girl...
I think she is typical of a species of girl named after foreign hotels. Lacking in nothing except for insides and mind. How desperate must this not be? How utterly lonely and empty. What do wind-up toys dream of? Can tin girls remove their underwear?
Who winds them up when they are run down?

The polka dots are intensifying, there is a winter storm warning out. I smell mutton stew from the kitchen.
Here comes Hoarknockle with some more restorative extract.

chick chick wind up

It went right to the line. Thank goodness for email submission. (although I have no idea how a pile of pressed tin plate fits through those little wires!)

Gisela Stolzfotse has left the building. (Although truth be told I still have her identical twin sister with me)

Hoarknockle had to apply warm poultices to my aching back as I slaved away. Regular infusions of cognac helped too.

I am riveting the aeroplane together next. After all the experience with tin toys, I think the aeroplane will be much easier. Its only tin riveted together...I think. Different paint job.

Lady S arrived back at the manor with a new Lamborghini Murcielago. I have no idea what she did with the Enzo. Hoarknockle is currently looking into that....after he gets me tea.

Large thinkings

Imagine if you will, an old collection of jars and containers in a museum, collected by a pre Victorian adventurer who ventured into the distant wilds with his butterfly net and optimistic nature. Imagine that he collected a number of specimens, labeled the jars and they now stand in a storage room, almost forgotten , their contents sealed inside by his own hand many years previously.

The collection is made up of these items.

1. A jar of dark murky brown liquid which has coagulated.

2. A large jar with a number of frogs squashed together in preservative.

3. A narrow bottle containing many fat engorged ticks.

4. A panel with dozens of flies pinned to it.

5. A notebook with sketches showing ungulates in various stages of disease and dying.

6. A series of medical drawings of suppurating sores.

7. A jar containing what looks like preserved hailstones.

8. A panel with a number of locusts pinned to it.

9. A jar containing an unnamed black substance.

10. A large jar containing a fetus of what seems to be a male human.

What would we deduce from this?

If we had nothing to lead us, what would it tell us?

I wonder how many jars of specimens are sitting in some museum storage with things we have no idea of? How many mysteries are there in old bottles?

Humans have collected many things and so many collections have been forgotten or never fully investigated. They were collected to advance knowledge and yet now they have been forgotten, their contents unknown, their stories lost to us. The very purpose they were supposed to serve now negated.

I shall be doing a series of drawings to illustrate this idea. Particularly the collection of 10 I found in the cellar below the east wing when I was looking for some Chateau Lafitte I knew I had seen there previously. I always send Hoarknockle down to do these things, but he had gone to bed with a head cold and I wanted to inspect the cellars myself.

Curious what one can find in old cellars. There are some rusty manacles hanging from chains I want Lady Sandra to try on one evening. I shall have to lure her down there on some clever pretext.

Hoarknockle has alerted me to the fact that my eggs benedict with some hollandaise sauce and a smidgen of caviar, awaits me in the solarium.

the whole deal

Here is the whole thing.

Its 20 by 20 inches (about 50 by 50cm) in reality.

Does it work? Does it do what its supposed to do? What does it mean? Aaaah yes the joys of second guessing it after its done. Its like having a bee trapped against a window trying to get out. Buzzing in the back of my head constantly.

Thankfully it is friday and the weekend is soon to arrive. (I have the weekend flown to my estate by large helicopter to ensure that it gets here on time)

Whats next? Well, a design for a cycling jersey.

I hear Hoarknockle coming down the corridor with a fragrant Sancerre Neveu 2007, chilled to perfection, accompanied by a small wedge of Brie. He bought it from the cellars in the Loire Valley on his way back from Berlin. That and a few cases of Montrachet and other delicate things.

One has to do what one can to survive out here in the country.

Cheers!

Redone

I whipped Hoarknockle severely for allowing the earlier picture to go out. It wasn't good enough. Next time he will be more attentive.

This is the revised version. I prefer it. Looks like Lizard Man.

And now...... the image, the whole thing is done!

Hoarknockle is opening the champagne.

I think its time to take the Lagonda out for an afternoon drive to revive me.

Maybe take a few weeks off to visit the islands.

wrinkly

Almost done.

One more to go.

When does one stop working an image? Such an arbitrary point.

The completed one at top may be a little overworked... may have to go at it again with an eraser and loosen it up a little. It started out so well. Got too enthusiastic and carried away.

Back to the drawing table...

Whirr sharpen pencil...

Gink! Gink! dipping pen in ink...

Scratch of nib on paper...

Scrape scrape and scribble

Just a soundtrack really. I work with a plastic tipped stylus on a Wacom surface.

The sounds I make as I draw are a lot more interesting than the real ones.

I can also get Hoarknockle down here to supply sound effects...like the sound of ice cubes in a gin and tonic. Or tea being poured into bone china cups. Or that groan he makes when I have him piggy back me up the stairs.

old eyes

The dilemma presents itself daily....

"Excuse me sir, may I take your photo?"

"Well now young feller, why would you want a picture of an ugly old geezer like me?"

"You have an incredibly fascinating face full of character and stories"

"Does that mean I'm ugly and wrinkled and you want to 'collect' my face for your reference material?"

"Erm....uh....YES!"

How does one accost someone in the street or in the supermarket and ask them to be allowed to photograph them? How does one do it without offending? Some people are just so amazingly gnarled and carunculated that they beg to be photographed. Weather and time have etched their faces with hard won stories and maps of places and laughter and hardship.

How does one walk up to them and ask if you can take their picture?

The village I live in is small. I drive the only black Rolls Royce with a chauffeur and I tend to stand out because I wear a powdered wig, brocade coat and lace neckerchief, evidently a person of fine breeding. Do I need to wear ordinary clothes maybe?

I am at wits end. Last week I was chased around the village square by an angry mob brandishing pitchforks and flaming torches. They do not understand the necessity of a nude model for my art.

I shudder to think what they will do if I were to ask for their photograph, chosen from hundreds because of their delightful ugliness.

You would think that in this day and age the awkward puritanical urges will have been muted. NO!...have not it seems.

I despair. I really do.

Savages!

Yet the question remains, : How does one ask ugly people permission to snap their picture? (and occasionally in the nude too)

Please forward suggestions to.....

gritty and old

I needed some texture to liven up the images I'm making. This is my own eye after a night of profound en committed revelry. After liberal application of liquid nitrogen I managed to iron out the worst of the wrinkles. I wonder what I could do to revitalise the liver?

These eyes are all part of a final piece, a collection of 20 eyes... or rather 19 and one Fl-eye.

I am hoping to enter the piece for an art competition. Only 3 more eyes to go.

cheers!