Mush as in Bush

Should be a short blog today - I make some notes after each painting session and I've gone and lost them. It's only a couple of days ago as I write this, but already everything's blurry - it's a brain thing - mine's all mush (mush rhyming with bush, rather than mush rhyming with lush). I'm worse with names - they just don't stick.

Still here we go ...

12/03/09

Drizzly. Nice, wet, slick streets - I fancy Queen Street with all its cobbles & I figure I'll have another go with canvas.

When I reach the street and the shelter of Trim Bridge it's crowded with smokers so I take my time setting up, hoping their break will finish before I have to start painting. It works, but I misjudge the drizzle totally - it's so light that being under the bridge doesn't make any difference and by the time I realise my mistake the canvas is soaking wet. The brush slides across the canvas - it's a total disaster. I've got nothing to dry the surface with so I wait until no one's looking and then sneak back to the studio.

P.m. and I try again. The day is still grey, but it's dried up. I forget to Twit - no great loss there as I set up on Upper Bristol Road.

I was in a gallery the other day and the manager was saying about landscapes (mine in particular) only selling if the buyer has a personal association with the specific location. This annoyed me as I obviously want people to buy my paintings purely on the basis of them being fantastic rather than the slightly more random fact that they used to live in the street or something. Maybe I'm too late - maybe I've gone too far down the road of picture postcard paintings to turn back. Can I make a stand now ... ?

With all these artistic angst questions flitting through my head I decide to once again sacrifice all hope of selling by setting up in UBR and the beautiful building at the junction of Charlotte St. and Monmouth Place. I start these things thinking it's going to be great, but then I get side tracked by detail and representationalism (it is a word, honest). By the time I get to the end I'm left thinking, "Was that it? Is that what inspired me?" Maybe I'm just playing safe as to start messing about with colour and texture and all is a bit scary.

Still, I do quite like the painting.

13/03/09

Twit, twit, twit - why oh why?

I finish off the Marlborough Buildings painting. Still not sure what to write so I sort of scribble some words on it that neither you or I will be able to read and I (in a few days time) won't remember (told you - mushy - as in bushy - brain). A couple come up to me and we chat a bit and then she announces that we've met before at the gallery in town and I do remember her face and her husbands (still okay with faces, so maybe it's just jelly like and only half way mushy), but she makes a crack about putting her house in the painting for her to want to buy it and I'm back to yesterday's issue. I sold a painting once to a couple  - a big one of Ronda in Spain - and they'd never been there, but they bought it anyway and then they took a trip to see the place. That's the way it ought to be (whine, whine, whine)

On to River Street (Twit). I set up outside the place I used to live. It's cold, cold and getting colder, despite the weather forecast. (bad) Luckily I've forgotten my gloves and the problems with the composition and the angles all mean that I fail to finish. It's a bizarre feeling as I know I've painted this view before, but I can't for the life of me picture the actual painting. It's another sure sign that I'm on the road to Mushville. I never forget a painting. Never. Until now. Or maybe, it too, went so tragically wrong that I have blotted it out of my mind - locked all recollection away in a deep dark mushy cellar, never to be let out. Never. Until now. Short flashbacks will inevitably plague me from now on, my dreams will be full of puzzle like fragments set in Eastern Europe and the next time someone taps me on the shoulder I will snap them in two like a twig! These hands - these killing machines - these ...

Short blog ... hmmm.