another quickie, with last years work

well I have a few minutes before I get to go out on my bike to climb mountains in the cold.
(It's zero degrees out there right now, with a forecast maximum of 7) (degrees celcius, that is. for the americans out there, ºF equals ºC multiplied by 9/5 plus 32, and get rid of your president, before it's too late. although I have a dreadful feeling it already is. don't be going down to the superbowl today)



the above is a small experimental work that could spawn a whole series if I could just find the time. this following work and the next couple are pencil on paper and to answer detlef's question from the other day all my pencil works are at life size, so this is enlarged on your screens while the others are about their actual size. (on my screen 17" at 1280 * 1024 res)



while the watercolour that I posted last week is 24 by 30 cm or 9.5 by 12 inches. so those circles are pretty small. the first work in todays post has also come through at about real size.



these smaller pencil drawings are just a few days work each. I find I can do about one square inch of drawing a day, when it's all averaged out.
that's why I don't try any big works for now, apart from the fact that I don't have the space to do it in, literally



and, greatly enlarged, here is the first ball painting. this is a scrap of paper about 2 inches square, or 5cm's square.



I should have learn't my lesson from the time it took me to do this and never tried the 10,820 blue balls over scarlet
(I'm going to repost from an earlier post because I love it so muuch)
(sorry to any who have already seen this before)


three months, it took. with time off for good behavior.
or really with a couple of weeks where I had to work on other things because it was getting a form of carpal tunnel syndrome.
that's three months where I was working 10 to 12 hours a day.
there is ten thousand eight hundred and twenty blue balls there.


each has seven steps to complete it and the background is painted between the balls, as one of the last steps.
well before the shadows anyway.


the whole thing is watercolour on gesso, and as you can see there is a lot of cracking and crazing, a thing which I think adds to it's charm.


I just hope that it doesn't mean that at some point the paint will just fall off.
I hope it is in some museum by then.
(which contradicts what I think will happen, but we can all dream ¿no?
I should point out that the whole painting is 27 X 22 cms or 11 X 9 inches so it's fairly concentrated painters energy there.
I did fear that I wouldn't finish it a few times.
(right near the start too, when I realised that I should have left the space, that represents the reflected highlight of each ball. I had to draw the paint back off the surface of the gesso with the tip of a paintbrush putting the tiniest little drops of water on each one and then drawing that water and paint up with the brush and then cleaning the brush on kitchen paper and with water and then repeat. etc. ad infinitum)


anyhow an experience it was.
got me a mention in the review of a competition exhibition in an arts newspaper here in madrid (el punto de las artes) where the reviewer, who remained nameless, even after I rang to ask who it was, lumped it in with a couple of other works in the 'also worth a mention' part of the review.
after getting my name badly wrong, as did the organisers in the catalog and on the wall tags, he said that my work represented a new and interesting discourse.
so I was pretty pleased with that,(one has to take what one can get, otherwise known as beggers can't be choosers) and of course I think it does.
my little doggy mate has posted as well.
anyhow got to go

love to the illustration friday crew.
I don't deserve your visits, but rest assured I have been looking over your blogs without commenting.
teri is really posting some great drawings. the whiskey cowboy is such a ripper teri.
I will come back to you all, but for now I'm going to miss my group if I don't leave here in a few minutes.
love and peace.