Highs and Lows

Wednesday 24/06/09

Had a meeting booked in for Thursday so swapped Thursday for Wednesday. Meeting got cancelled, but forecast for Wednesday is sunny so I don't swap them back. It all makes perfect sense. So here I am on a Wednesday starting the commission I mentioned a week or so back.

Good things about the spot I am standing on:

1. I have my back to the Abbey and I'm by some railings so no one can stand or walk behind me.
2. There's a BT van next to me so it makes it even harder for people to come and peer at what I'm doing. (Obviously some do and when a large tour party walks past, there is no escaping them.)
3. I'm in the shade of the abbey.
4. It's a great view - I like it!

Bad things about the spot I am standing on:

1. The tour bus parks in front of me.
2. Another tour bus parks in front of me.
3. Another tour bus ....

Still, it's not a surprise as I knew they would, I just didn't realise it would be this annoying.

On the way back to the studios I see someone with some really green shoes. I don't know why they strike me, but she must really like them as they don't go with anything else she's wearing. Dangerous colour, green.

And also there's a man with a really hairy neck. He's topless so I know he hasn't got a hairy back (or head), but the neck - wow. Of course it could be a tattoo - who knows? Who cares?

Thursday 25/06/09

Friday 26/06/09

Woohoo - my painting has been accepted for the prestigious Threadneedle Prize! Yippety Yay! I am so chuffed that I go and treat myself to painting more of the Upper Bristol Road (actually started last Friday, but it needs a bit of tweaking and it's too early to start drinking).

Ha ha - I fiff - Hee hee - I faff and then I give up as it really didn't take much to finish the painting and I'm too up to concentrate.

Walking back I read the following advert at the local car showroom:

'Once There

Gone There Gone'

It takes me a moment to decipher the spelling error - Ha ha! Hee hee! It makes me laugh.

I get back to the studios and check my emails for the confirmation of acceptance. What? It's still not there. I better just call and check.

My side of the conversation:

"Hello

Can I speak to someone about the Threadneedle Prize?

Just calling to check if I got in or not

Yes. Thanks

Ben Hughes

What's that?

I didn't get in?

But what about my registration number listed on the website as accepted?

What?

That's a different registration number? A different number that you haven't told me about and I couldn't possibly know?

How, what, why ...

ok ...

Yeah, thanks ... "

So there you have it - shafted by a bizarre admin system. Inevitably, I am not so chipper now.

P.S. The line drawing was done after discovering my error ...

*!@%*ed

Monday 01/06/09

Damn, but it's hot & I didn't prep very well, so I can feel my shins burning. I'm painting Prior Park College again, but half term is over and there's now a steady flow of school kids going past, most of whom want to look at the painting. Luckily I've worn my street cool all yellow outfit marking me out as a hip old bloke(?!). Most of the comments are positive (about the painting, not my mustard shorts).

'Dude!' exclaims one girl. Not sure if she's talking to me, about me or commenting on the painting - apparently the word needs no further elaboration in teen speak. 'Er... that's a good thing", luckily for me someone explains as I don't speak teen.

Tuesday 02/06/09

Still hot, still burning, but this time I've worn long trousers (see - not so stupid - hey? hey?). [The project is still semi secret, so once again you're stuck with my ugly mug. Doing these self portrait sketches makes me realise that I look as *!@%*ed as I feel. Two weekends of open studios, lack of sleep and trying to get these commissions done on top of the office job is taking its toll. Maybe if I cut my beard I will regain my youthful good looks ... That's a pen lid in my mouth by the way.]

Friday 05/06/09

Aargh! Stripes! I can't take any more stripes. Goddamn them, goddamn them all to hell ...

Stripe blind I stagger down the Upper Bristol Road to finish the small painting of the boarded up corner shop. The sign says Monmouth Place Hotel, but I don't know if this refers to the building next door. Either way, it's seen better days.

No one says anything. They just look at me as if I'm a loon. One old boy walks past and stops next to me, looking incredulous. I turn to him and smile (as you do), but he just stands there looking from me to the painting and back again, still with that baffled look on his face. He's going to say something. Is he going to say something? He doesn't say anything. Eventually he walks on.

Kelly walks by from work on her way home, but I'm starting to flag (still *!@%*ed and the stripes took their own toll) and I don't make good conversation. She walks on and I finish up the painting.

[The haircut doesn't help, I still look like *!@%*]

Rambling Again

14/05/09 Thursday

15/05/09 Friday

You take your inspiration where you can find it (said he sagely) and this morning I stumbled across www.everycupofteaieverhad.co.uk (when I say 'stumbled across', it's the website of the new administrator at the studios and I keyed the web address in because she gave it to me, so 'stumble' is a rubbishy description). Check it out - it's treading a fine line between genius and insanity, but, synchronicitously, finding it coincides with my own attempts to diarise and document with scrawly line and I realise the enormity of what has gone before. I don't want to draw the same thing everyday for ever, but an element of prescription and habit helps to drive me forward. So ...

I document the walk to the studios again.

It's wet. The hole in my squelchy boots is at the expense of any grip and I slip on the steps at the bottom of the footpath. So I draw them. (..?!)

I passed this van at the top of the hill, probably a plumber's because there were two long copper pipes on the pavement. I don't draw them, but the image sticks in my memory and I try to recall it half way into town.

I stop on the steep bit of Holloway to draw the pavement. A bicyclist skids dangerously as he tries his brakes while racing down the road.

The new bus station. Nothing to say.

I buy some stationery and now I've got too many bags and they're heavy and I don't want to draw any more, I just want to get to the studio.

It's a dismal day and I lose myself to the madness that is the background of my current studio painting. [It fits the theme of repetition and lunacy so I include the work in progress here even though it's not the usual out and about on the streets of Bath thing.]

Lunch time and I get given a piece of coffee and walnut cake. It was a general offer for the last piece, but something in the look on my face must have given away the strength of my desire and no one else lays claim to it. Mmm coffee and walnut cake - it makes the day. 

Later, and driven by the need to put something on the blog, I head out to paint. It's still grey, but that's okay as it gives me an excuse to paint the Upper Bristol Road again. Look there's the Bath Tour bus stopping and letting some passengers off - proof indeed (as if proof were needed) that the UBR is an appealing thoroughfare - a tourist attraction in its own right. I wonder what the on board commentary says about it.

There's rain in the air as I set off, but of course I haven't got any wet weather gear (because I walked to work and I'm an idiot). A boarded up cornershop grabs my attention and I set up by the still decaying site of the old JCR. The greens along the street on the left are quite bright and vivid, but I play it down because it's very distracting and green is a dangerous colour. That Bucks Fizz song is going through my head because the radio was going on about the Eurovision Song Contest tomorrow night - how annoying. Don't sing out loud, don't sing out loud, don't sing out loud.

The rain that has been threatening since I started, materialises in the form of drizzle, the kind of drizzle that drenches. I keep going until the paint stops sticking to the board. It's a start and I like it, so I'm not disappointed with the shortness of the session and I head back to the studio.

It's raining on the way home and I'm late so I don't do any drawing.

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.