Inner critic,

negative spirit,

be quiet!

You're a pest,

and I have bested you.

I see you for what you are;

an attention-seeking, jealous, spiteful sprite.

I will listen to my well-wishers,

who bless me with kisses

and hugs and warmth.

Boo,

Shoo,

Off with you now.

On the first day of Christmas...

This is a snuggly creature I've made for my nephew Tom. He doesn't read my blog, so I'm safe showing it here. My son slept with it last night, and my daughter will have it tonight. Then it'll get wrapped up safely, with air holes of course so it doesn't suffocate, ready for Christmas morning.
My son has christened it 'Harry'. Amazing what you can do with an old t-shirt and other various bits of fabric and yarn.

When the glue dries I will mute and darken the background and map in the rest of my body and hair.

Making progress

This is going well. I switched to cool colours, a grey-lilac, a lemon yellow and an ice blue, and stopped trying to paint my nose, looking instead at shapes of colour and tone. As always, that method worked better than trying to paint my nose. I'm not worried about my left cheek at the moment as I think I want to work on the background next, and my neck and shoulders, before I faff on correcting jawlines etc. Maybe collage for the background? I may make a collage on a separate sheet then cut out my 'bust' and lay it over. That would stop the background laying heavy over the head. Suggestions please anyone?

Previous stages

I have found my earlier posts - looks like I started this in July 2008. I think I used a soft water-soluble pencil to start with. I got into a rut with it, so I scribbled over the part I didn't like. Then I started again in the corner with acrylics, thinking it would make an interesting mixed-media project. But, again, I ran out of steam. So I covered the bottom left corner with a scrap of brown paper (not shown) and left it for a while. That's where I picked it up yesterday, working in soft pastels. I'm off to do a bit more work on the pastel work now, and I'll let you know how I get on.

If in doubt....

Self Portraits are my default position. I have lost count of how many I've done just since I started this blog, let alone in my lifetime, but if you click on the 'self portrait' label at the bottom of this post it'll give you some idea.
This is a piece I started over a year ago, and yesterday I worked on the bottom-left corner in soft pastels. I only used a golden yellow, a greenish blue (peacock almost), a dark pinky-red and a creamy white.
It's still wrong - the nose it too wide, and just wrong with the shading of the bulge looking like a second set of nostrils, and the chin ends too low down. But I like the open mouth, the expression it adds.
I want to keep the top-right as pencil and not work over it, but I'm not dure how to move from colour back into black and white. Conte crayon would work, but that's a 'safe' medium for me. Oooh, maybe collage. But I need to correct the pastel area before I'll feel happy to move on.

Artists & Illustrators Magazine

Last month an article of mine was published in A&I. It's a magazine that my dad subscribed to some years ago, and he got me a subscription as a birthday gift a couple of years ago, which I've continued ever since.
A&I magazine is full of works by all kinds of working artists, and hobbying artists, and budding artists. I used to have it in my head that the only artists around were Rolf Harris, Maggi Hambling, Tracey Emin, Damien Hurst and Lucian Freud.
But here's where some of them are featured, and they're a pretty human bunch.

Bones and buttocks

Just looking at images of these forms brings back such strong memories of my making them. Some artists talk about being lost in the moment of making, an altered state of consciousness. I have painted and drawn, and looked at the piece when I was finished wondering if I had actually made it - meaning I have no memory of being there, that I was so lost in the making that I'd forgotten myself. Making these pieces was somehow different - I felt a heightened sense of being there, being totally there and totally consumed by my actions and feelings. This may be getting too arty-farty for some of you. But I am interested in the action of making, the need I feel to make, the itch I have when I'm not making, the sometimes all-consuming sensations while I am making.

These images again are different views of one piece, about 4" tall. These sizes are guesstimates.

Torso

These are all views of one form. As I was making these objects I was handling them in my hands, as opposed to carving them sat at a table. I was aware all the time of how they looked and felt from all angles. They evolved, as I'd form a curve I liked, then move the clay round until another interconnecting shape felt right, that 'worked'.
I've never created something out of nothing before, I always paint or draw, from life, or from other images. But I love these little figures that have come out of my imagination. In fact, while making them it was more like I was making them from memory. This is about 6" tall.

The Venus of Roker

Only this wasn't made in Roker, it was made at my sister's studio in Poynton. It was intended to be a 'Venus' though, in as much as I was playing around with making small forms in clay, loosely based on male and female body parts; bellys, belly-buttons, breasts, bottoms, curves in the lower back, necks and shoulders. This is one of about a dozen I made over three days, roughly 7" tall and, as yet, is unfired.
I'm visiting Melanie again soon, and I hope I'll be able to get them all fired, and think about what finished surface this should have.