Prometheus

I NEED A TITLE - CAN YOU SUGGEST ONE? Doing the painting is the easiest part, but giving a title is taxing on the imagination. This one has got me stumped, so if you have a suggestion Please let me know. This paint was done with oil bars (W&N), Gold leaf and a sheet taken from my sketch book. But I now have a title thanks to an old friend Terrence. He suggested "Prometheus" For those that need to know why: Classical Mythology .A Titan, the father of Deucalion and brother of Atlas and Epimetheus, who taught humankind various arts and was sometimes said to have shaped humans out of clay and endowed them with the spark of life. For having stolen fire from Olympus and given it to humankind in defiance of Zeus, he was chained to a rock where an eagle daily tore at his liver, until he was finally released by Hercules.

Day Dreaming

This was one of those paintings that took months to finish. It morphed from one style into another each time it dried. Originally it was a oil painting, then it changed into a drawing with winsor and newtons oil bars, then eventually gold and silver leafed.

Waiting again

This painting was done with the permission of the photographer, and what makes it so interesting(Well, at least to me) is the way in which he took it. He explained that the subject is placed in a dark room with one strong spot light, the camera is set with an aperture time that is very long and placed on a tripod. Once the camera has been engaged, the spot light is moved slowly down the subject, timed in such a way the when the aperture shuts, the spot light has had time to reveal the complete scene. Those of you that studied photography obviously will know more about this process than I do. This impressed me so much that I asked permission to paint a copy and he gave it. Unfortunately I have lost his contact and do not remember his name.

The Reading

This was the very first gold leaf painting I did, currently named "The Reading". Named that because it looked like she was reclining against a cushion reading a book, but how many woman read in the nude? I have been thinking about renaming the painting "Eve" as it was the first of my gold leaf creations. Any Thoughts??

Birdie

Annui some times produces the best results, no targets to be met like deadlines and or expectations. Especially others expectations. Doodling, for me almost always gives good results. Personal expectations are very limiting to creativity, and I think just the unpressurized passing of pleasant time, the mind desultorily moving from one thought to another, music in the background, a drink and most of all being alone with ones own thoughts result s in better art. This was drawn with water colour and then coloured in the coloured pencils.

Silver Butt

Do not even ask me whose butt that is!! I have been asked that question a lot, and to date nobody has got an answer from me. The background was done with gold leaf and the body with silver leaf. The painting being 100 * 81cm.

Gold and Silver Leaf Faces

These 2 little canvases were done for the very first exhibition I took part in. Needless to say I do not have these paintings anymore, which I regret. One of the faces was done in gold leaf and the back ground in silver leaf. The other picture was done the the other way, ie. silver face and gold background.

Budda Statue

Time show the old paintings. This was done in 1997, and was purely an artist exercise, so it was not for sale. It is a copy of some unknown artist that blew my socks off. It was artists like this that fueled my passion for art. Thanks to the original artist.

Brandy Glass and Mobile Phone

Sitting in a coffee shop late one afternoon, satisfied that the days work was done, enjoying a brandy and sketching on a scrap piece of paper with a ball point pen. With some people, they have their memory jilted by the sound of music or even the smell of food, but with me, it is the visual objects that make me remember things. This image was found today and reminded me of that afternoon in the coffee shop, at least 3 years ago. The recollection of that day was so strong that it might as well have just happened.

Indian ink Fontes

On one of my morning walks I took along with me some Indian ink, dip pen and a pad of drawing paper. Went to the source of the river Liz, and saw this crazy old fig tree. It had not started to get the spring leaves and it looked ghostly silhouetted against the background vegetation. Temptation gave way to action and the pen was dipped into the ink and dragged over the page. And so flew a couple of hours.