Blog
BLANK NO MORE
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On that first day, the endless possibilities, the journey just begun. Now, each day is a new day, streaked with pink and blue and filled with promise - I access and bow to the child within. Bliss Baby is a visual reminder to treat each day as a gift – golden, golden indeed!
bliss |blɪs|
noun [ mass noun ]
perfect happiness; great joy: she gave a sigh of bliss.
a state of spiritual blessedness, typically that reached after death. the bliss of heaven.
bliss
noun
it was sheer bliss to be there: joy, pleasure, delight, happiness, gladness, ecstasy, elation, rapture, euphoria, heaven, paradise, seventh heaven, cloud nine, Eden, Utopia, Arcadia; halcyon days; informal the top of the world. ANTONYMS misery.
MY FIRST STRETCHED CANVAS
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Getting a professional-level framed canvas with stretcher bars typically takes a lot of measuring and a bit of guesswork. It is a very delicate process and you have to have an eye for perfection but I found it to be quite straightforward and completed my first one!
It is now sitting smugly on my studio wall with 5 coats of Liquitex heavy body, light blue permanent acrylic waiting to be transformed.
It's so fine and yet so terrible to stand in front of a blank canvas. — Paul Cezanne
Now what? I shall either attack it with acrylic and oilstick and see what emerges or give it some consideration and produce something on it from sketches or a specific idea. I think I’ll go for the preconceived idea over the expressionistic assault!
One's mind, stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Let’s see if I can expand beyond 40 x 40cm!
Nourishment for my mind
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I love this quote - A mind of the caliber of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows. — George Bernard Shaw
More nourishment for my mind . . .
ART
Giuseppe Penone: A Tree in the Wood – Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, Wakefield
The Hepworth Wakefield
The EY Exhibition Van Gogh and Britain – Tate Britain, London (despite it being overcrowded. Why do they ram so many people in these exhibitions?)
Aboudia, Anges Déchus – Jack Bell Gallery, Masons Yard, London
Tracey Emin, A Fortnight of Tears – White Cube Bermondsey, London
Utopias, Syn Festival, Summerhall Edinburgh
BOOKS
The Train Was On Time – Heinrich Böll
Trying Not to Try: The Ancient Art of Effortlessness and the Surprising Power of Spontaneity – Edward Slingerland
Unmade Up: Recollections of a Friendship with David Bowie – Edward Bell
MUSIC
I have been listening to Jimi Hendrix quite a lot recently, especially Electric Ladyland. Voodoo Child (Slight Return) is like De Kooning in sound; like Ruth’s Zowie, Door To The River and Spike’s Folly II for the ears!
Are You Experienced – Jimi Hendrix
Axis: Bold as Love – Jimi Hendrix
Hydrogen Jukebox – Philip Glass / Allen Ginsberg
From Her To Eternity – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Les Revenants – Mogwai
Chill Out – KLF
The Planets – Gustav Holst (in anticipation of the RSNO concert in June at Usher Hall, Edinburgh)
Hunky Dory – David Bowie
The Sidewinder – Lee Morgan
FILM/TV
Das Boot – Andreas Prochaska
Night On Earth – Jim Jarmusch
The Station Agent – Tom McCarthy
Taxi Driver – Martin Charles Scorsese
Green Book – Peter Farrelly
Stalker – Andrei Tarkovsky
Maborosi & Shoplifters – Hirokazu Kore-eda
LIKES
Regent Canal, London
Word on the Water, King’s Cross, London
Berenjak 27 Romilly Street Soho, London
Researching my next trip to Liverpool