Pencil, gouache, charcoal and pastel on paper

18^th Jan, Mon

Yesterday was a fantastic day. Painted nearly all day and came away feeling optimistic.  Today on the other hand has been a disaster.  I got to the college feeling fine, happy and exhilarated from cycling there on my new bike (kindly donated to me by Anna).  Then I began to sink into doubt and panic thoughts like “what is the point of it all” and “it would all amount to nothing”.  Quite normal feelings really.  Then it started to pour with very heavy rain.  I needed to go home for lunch so I cycled back to Harry’s.  Oh dear, I should have walked – I got soaked to the skin.  Cycling through deep wide puddles makes you very wet indeed.  When I finally did get home I removed all of my wet clothes and dove into bed with a film and a cup of tea.  It’s now 4.15 and I want to go back to college, but it’s so bloody wet out there and you can’t take a bath to warm up again, not even a hot shower.  Solar powered hot water doesn’t get very hot on a rainy day.  It doesn’t even get very hot on a sunny day.  At least I have Midnight the cat to keep me company, he’s at my side within a strokes reach; round like a short spiral, a black Danish pastry of cat.

22^nd Jan, Friday

Well I managed to recover from my panic and got back to work.  The sun shone, and the desire to continue returned.  It has rained more but that hasn’t deterred me.  Over the last few days I have been studying objects further to fill my memory banks with information about form and tone.

Filippo Lippi, part of a double portrait, early 1440’s

Ive also taken an image by Filippo Lippi and played with it.  I asked myself how it would look if I drew the face with pencil in a careful manner (I know it doesn’t much look like her) and allowed myself to be free to manipulate the rest of the image without losing it’s figurative basis. It was difficult at first but soon it became a game that was compulsive.  The results aren’t necessarily that great but it seems an exercise that is worth pushing around for a while.  Perhaps I could try drawing other parts of the image carefully instead of the face and see what the consequence of that would be? What if just the face was abstracted?

Let the games begin.