About bonesthewebmaster

Artist, secular humanist. Contemporary oil paintings referencing renaissance methods. Style is allegoric/political, I take commissions for portraits.

Four triptychs

The most recently completed is titled ‘The Crucifixion of Justice’, the central painting has the same title and the two other paintings are ‘Masters of Misogyny’ and ‘Hope’.

The Crucifixion of Justice

The central painting of this triptych.

The first two images here are of the newly stretched canvas, the paintings are on 150cm x 130 cm supports, stretched, sized and primed here, the grounds are RSG followed by a ‘distemper’ from an old recipe. I may paint the third in the series ‘Hope’ on a different, modern ground, sized with P.V.A. and primer from Gamblyn or Winsor and Newton.

I’ve had the ideas for this painting for some time and finally found a way to put it into my agenda for 2019. I’ll be painting it in good summer light and in the warmth of a large room that faces South. Yes Northern light is preferred but I can’t arrange for that in this house. I have curtains!

The subject is justice once again and particularly the brutal injustices reigned down upon women by religion. Non of these injustices have ever been apologised for, the main perpetrators, the Catholic Church, has never made a humble apology to womankind for the deliberately perverted sexual and physical torture of them throughout history.

The Pope should get down on his bony knees in St. Peter’s Square and beg forgiveness of women but instead as with all the abuses of humanity by the Catholic Church the, shitty little coward remains silent.

 

Here’s the progress I’ve made by late July, I don’t have a wolf and a horse at hand to pose for me, so I’ve used photos to arrive in the place where I want to be. Quite a way to go but I’ve made good progress, next is probably a complete ‘oil out’ with a chalk and sun thickened flax oil painting and grinding medium, that I prepare here according to a recipe of the amazing Louis Velasquez. At the same time I’ll soften and blend edges into the gloom of night and heighten the ‘luminous golden effect’ I want to get into the clouds.

So a long gap in posting on this painting 2019 was a terrible year for me with continued illness and a long stay in hospital, I’ve tried to continue painting but most of my artistic endeavour has been limited to thinking and drawing. One sketch that I plan to take further into paint is this one of an eagle’s claw squeezing the fist of a man. It’s intended to make the viewer think about what happens when you mistreat the natural world with contempt and the injustice seen everyday in man’s horrific mistreatment of a our wild genetic cousins.

So we’re here in late March 2020 and I’ve already spent another period in hospital with a serious leg infection, I’ve just finished after a year ‘The Crucifixion of Justice’, of course a painting is never finished, just abandoned and I’m pretty happy with the outcome, yes I can see things I could have done better but again I’ve learnt much from painting my second large work. I’ll be completing the third painting in this triptych – called ‘Hope’ – as soon as I can, I’ve as usual prepared the canvas myself, here it is, the under-drawing is next and will be seen in a new post for ‘Hope’

For now here is a lousy photo of the finished ‘Crucifixion of Justice’, I’ll post a better one at some point. I wish everyone good health in this time of a global pandemic. I wish that all countries had good, intelligent governance but unfortunately Trump is proving himself to be utterly stupid and really like a ship without a rudder. Speaking of which I intend to revisit, ‘Ship of Fools’ when I can see it in my minds eye. Bonne santé à tous.

One final technical point I want to make about this painting, something that annoyed me a lot! The background colour of this painting and its evil twin ‘Masters of Misogyny’ is ‘Vanydyke Brown’. Now I can mix this old favourite from Burnt Umber and Ultramarine, I just wanted to see if it was possible to simplify the process on such a large painting. Thus I bought V.B. by Michael Harding a manufacturer that I trust, based on using other paints by him such as Venetian Red and Prussian Blue. I knew right from the start by the way that the paint handles on the brush that there was something different going on here, I was right. Throughout the painting process, each time that I used it, it left a white haze at the edge of the coat. This was the last thing that I wanted on a dark surface.
What wasn’t mentioned in the literature about the is paint, neither from M.H. or the supplier Jackson art in the U.K. is that the paint contains wax. Thanks for that M.H., wax is not a surprise I want in my paint, I don’t use solvents in my paint which might have mitigated the effect of the wax and so it was just unwelcome. To me wax is a medium to be added by the artist to the paint, not by the manufacturer without mentioning it. One further flaw of this paint is that it dries super quickly to a matte finish quite like any other, a quick oil out on that part of the painting will save the day though. I suspect it contains a high level of driers
For the future, I’m going be so much more careful when using a paint I haven’t tried before. I paint with a limited palette so the paints I use are tried and tested. Frankly the unknown inclusion of wax in this paint caused me a lot of problems, which I have now hopefully fixed. The response I received from M.H. was unsatisfactory, to the extent that I ceased communicating with him, as life is too short to talk to people, who think that the only person in the world using glair in their paint was myself! There are thousands. I have pigments here, I’m going to make a lot of sun thickened linseed oil this summer and experiment with making my own paints.
I’ll be addressing my favourite paints soon in a post dedicated to that, ironically one of my favourites is made by M.H. so no negativity in his direction, just objectivity when required.


Masters of Misogyny

I’m painting a triptych with the central theme of justice. ‘Master of Misogyny’ isn’t the central painting of the triptych but it is the first that I am painting.

It’s another allegorical painting, the largest canvas that I have made, 150cm x 130 cm. When you look at the crucified figure, imagine the suffering and exactly what did she do to deserve such horrific cruelty? Look at the faces of the assembled group at the base of the cross, their familiar ugly mugs are immediately associated with misogyny. The presence of the Pope rubber stamps my attack on the oppression of women by the Catholic Church. This is a church that can and has changed its dogma but it’s very clear that further change is urgently needed, if the religious indoctrination and financial exploitation of the world’s poor (particularly women and children) is to be ended.

It’s a pity that Islam too can’t update the Qur’an, it could if the clerics weren’t afraid of diluting their power base of fear but I can’t see it happening in my life time or for a long time after I’m gone. Islam is represented in the painting by Ayatollah Khomeini, the deceased ex-leader of Iran and by the current Saudi Prince and ruler Mohammed Bin Salaman, by my judgement both women haters, their oppressive records speak for themselves.

From the distant past Louis Quatorze, on the right of the standing group, shares the European misogynistic plaudits along with Henry the 8th, both prolific womanisers with little care for their concubines feelings it would seem, at a distance it could be argued that it was how things were back then, their awful treatment of women as play things and political bargaining tools is legendary, their place in my painting is thus more than justified.

Trump, what a cretinous individual, not an intelligent man and as President seemingly willing, to stick his foot in his mouth at every opportunity. Another man whose treatment of women is demeaning and may prove to be part of his coming downfall.

So this image is the start of the painting back in September 2017, it’s mounted on the easel I had made especially to complete this painting

progress so far in early September 2018 looks like this.

progress 27.9.18

detail 27.9.18

Coming towards the end game 13.12.18

Almost finished, just a few final details and la finition.

I’ve been looking at Caravaggio’s paintings for quite some time now and had little realised how much I had absorbed of his technique and how easily I could apply his technique to my political and societal philosophies.
Incidentally I can highly recommend a great large format book by Sebastian Schülze, entitled ‘Caravaggio_The Complete Works’, it is a truly excellent tome with loads of good quality images, especially useful to the student or aficionado of the Master.
I like to use high contrast in my paintings. As my style has developed I find high contrast enables my ideas to work more effectively and chiaroscuro is particularly useful for achieving this.

I hope to finish this painting early in the New Year.

So here to all intents and purposes is the finished painting as of 26.1.19. All that remains to be done is to refinish the background vandyke brown colour and blend it into the cross and the Pope’s figure where necessary. Finally I’ll brush on retouch varnish and when thoroughly dry, a further final varnish.

It’s been a rewarding journey painting this, both from the perspective of learning how to paint such a large painting and simultaneously seeing how the news unfolded over the two years since I planned this, long before Mohammed Bin Salman killed the journalist Khashoggi and while more abuse of children in the care of the Catholic Church continued and whilst Trump unflinchingly expressed his misogyny, racism and general bigotry. These ‘leaders’ are the moral scum of humanity and if their gods exist, I hope their parasitic preying on their fellow man, has been duly noted. Halle fuckin’ lujah – Amen!

A final few detail photos

 

Best photo 31.3.2019


Hope

 

At this point in a painting I have Hope – in that I have the skill to realise my imaginings and doodles that I’ve made.

‘Hope’ though is the somewhat ironic title I’ve chosen for the third and final painting in the triptych called ‘The Crucifixion of Justice’. It graphically shows some of the awful abuse, often sexual abuse, of women through the ages, particularly by the powerful Catholic Church, still a vile ‘solution’ to our wonderings about the transcendent and our concerns about our origins and our nature.

At this point I don’t have a lot more to say about the injustices of ages gone, so here without further ado is the first stage in this painting.

So the next stage is the under drawing 8.1.2020

22.03.2020 here I am, the under drawing that I made on a white ground I abandoned for various reasons, one was that I was quite ill when I tried to do this and made several errors in position and proportion. So now I repainted the background in my own mix of Vandyke Brown from Ultramarine and Burnt Umber and the under drawing will be in white chalk. Here we are.

Some progress on the grisaille, I’m really enjoying painting this, so far it is relatively simple. The challenge comes with shadows, I usually paint transparent shadows. It’s challenging to paint mists, thus creating an ambiance on a pitch black night. There is little colour in the painting but where colour is used it appears to be especially vibrant when contrasted with the blackness that is its background, I’m thinking of the priest’s garments where he is painted almost as a ‘trompe de l’oeil’.

Almost finished but I’m not happy wit the foreground, in truth this painting has been beset by technical problems, mostly with under-bound tube paint and humid air which lasted well into June this year. For the black background I used Old Holland ‘scheveningen black’, this is an intense rich black but my tube caused me all sorts of problems, as it dried I realised that it was under-bound and was constantly drying at different rates over the large canvas. I would be painting on what I believed to be dry paint only to realise that the grey or white I was using was picking up the black background so polluting its intensity and causing me to repaint large areas with limited success. I’ve been chasing my tail for ages with this painting but I may have finally caught it, you live and learn!

I should add that I make sun thickened flax oil here, I use no solvents in my paint only oil, chalk and sometimes glair. I rely on the fast drying oil to get fast results and the black that I used sucked in so much oil, that the rapid drying effect that I rely on was marginalised.

This the first painting in which I’ve used a modern primer, for this painting Winsor and Newton ‘oil primer’ was substituted for a home made primer using oil, water, egg and titanium white pigment. The ingredients make a wonderful primer but it is massively messy and time consuming. In this painting I believe that I used rabbit skin glue as the size for the last time, for although I like what it does to the tension of  the canvas, its hygroscopic properties worried me. So the next large scale canvas that I use will be prepared with contemporary materials, Gamblin P.V.A. glue as the size and the W&N paint as the primer.

A day or two later and I’m working on the foreground, adding more mist to the mist at the same time, (different brush obviously……..)

So August 30 and I’ve oiled this monster out, the umbers, blacks and whites suck up the oil in the paint and render it raisin like, all dried up and shrunken. So for a few days the fresh surface will allow me to complete this, add more mist and foreground and then blacken areas of the sky polluted by errors I made when I picked up white on my ‘black’ brush.


Spring Offensive

The second realisation in oils of a series of paintings inspired by the poetry of Wilfred Owen. ‘Spring Offensive’ describes the awful moments of waiting for battle and then the horror of the blood sacrifice, as a regiment of young British soldiers of the 1st. world war, charged at their enemy. This painting is a triptych within a triptych and it tested my patience to assemble the panels and then glue and screw the hinges to them. So…….

‘Halted against the shade of a last hill,
They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease
And, finding comfortable chests and knees
Carelessly slept.
                               But many there stood still
To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,
Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.
Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled
By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge,
For though the summer oozed into their veins
Like the injected drug for their bones’ pains,
Sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass,
Fearfully flashed the sky’s mysterious glass.
Hour after hour they ponder the warm field—
And the far valley behind, where the buttercups
Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up,
Where even the little brambles would not yield,
But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands;
They breathe like trees unstirred.
Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word
At which each body and its soul begird
And tighten them for battle. No alarms
Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste—
Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced
The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done.
O larger shone that smile against the sun,—
Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.
So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together
Over an open stretch of herb and heather
Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned
With fury against them; and soft sudden cups
Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes
Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.
Of them who running on that last high place
Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up
On the hot blast and fury of hell’s upsurge,
Or plunged and fell away past this world’s verge,
Some say God caught them even before they fell.
But what say such as from existence’ brink
Ventured but drave too swift to sink.
The few who rushed in the body to enter hell,
And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames
With superhuman inhumanities,
Long-famous glories, immemorial shames—
And crawling slowly back, have by degrees
Regained cool peaceful air in wonder—
Why speak they not of comrades that went under?’

Reading the poem as a 12 year old for the first time made a deep, lasting impression on me, perhaps because I’m English and realising that if I had been born into a different time, it could have been me. The words are leaden, I find nothing uplifting in them, they are a stark warning to those who might love life.

Those young men were conned into believing that they were serving their country, in fact they were disposable, their deaths serving only to settle disputes between the corrupt monarchies and politicians of the day, (nothing much has changed).

This painting is my second triptych, this time on hinged wooden support panels, onto which I glued, aluminium painting panels, the outer panels are hinged to fully close, so two paintings in all, the closed front panels showing a seated Wilfred Owen, in his Captain’s uniform. The abbreviated letters of the title of the poem painted in blood red and asking a question ‘SO?’, what now, what have you done, why the vile carnage? The panels once opened, reveal the poem to the right and left and in between them, the central panel with its scene of battle and the hands (my hands) open to receive the fallen, remembering and immortalising their sacrifice – for us. These images are photoshop ‘sketches’ and are used as my guide to realise the idea finally in oils.
So to technical matters –  here’s the aluminium panel fixed to its marine ply support panel,  I was excited to paint on this material, it is a relatively new thing for these panels be commercially available and affordable. I believe that this material maybe the future of panel painting, it is easy to work with and once prepared the painting surface is super smooth. I’m going to prime with two coats of lead white, with a touch of chalk and sun thickened linseed oil, this will provide a little tooth and aid drying, very important for the first few layers. The panels are available from here

8.11.17 –  I’ve been making steady, calm progress on this triptych, realising Wilfred Owen’s seated portrait in oil from the poor photos that exist of him is proving difficult, however I think that I’ve managed to get his expression and the rest is now falling into place. Some work to do on the shadows and values generally. I’m considering ‘sepia toning’ the finished item with a thin glaze of burnt umber to mimic a period photo. If so  I’d do the same for the inner central painting

The central panel is going to take a lot of work to bring to completion, once I’m happy with the achromatic grisaille (under painting in grey values) I’ll start to add transparent red paint to the heart, the hands and the poppies. Colours will include Venetian red, vermilion, cadmium red, alazarin crimson, burnt sienna burnt, and raw umber, vandyke brown, yellow ochre, ivory black and of course my favourite paint, lead white. Anyway here’s progress as of 9.11.17.

The following photo shows the extra pieces needed to realise the triptych’s support, the hinges, the beading that surrounds and protects the panel’s edges and of course the poem ‘Spring Offensive’ printed on canvas, at a local printers and glued to the marine ply panels using rabbit skin glue.

 

Some further progress 14.12.17 on the grisaille for the centre panel before I add the first transparent reds to the heart, the poppies and the hands.

Progress as of 10.2.18, the two outer panels are looking more like the finished thing as I add further transparent coats of paint, invent a few new details and refine established ones.

progress on the centre panel, 12.2.18 All day I’ve been adding to the hands, velaturas of Venice red, lead white, antimony, yellow ochre and a few complimentary colours. My new Nikon camera is helping represent the paintings much better.

Further progress on the centre panel, 28.2.18 I’ve added some veins to the heart and continued to glaze the hands, I’ll add more details to them next and I’ve integrated the heart more into the background with some soft cloud detail on the left of the heart. I’m also thinking of ideas for my final painting in this Wilfred Owen trilogy, I want more red, ghostly figures, the canal at Ors and perhaps his gravestone. I intend to visit that place one day, if you read the story of the battle and imagine that you have been commanded to cross the canal under heavy fire, you realise the madness and the ‘badness’ of war in an instant and also the ‘pity’ which Wilfred Owen was so keen to express.

Almost simultaneously I’ve been steadily adding details to the two outer panels, the red of the poems initials, painted in cadmium red with a little burnt sienna. The the fine coats of translucent cad’ red are faintly illuminated from the rear painted in white, then light pink. Details like this are the difference between a good painting and one that really ‘pops’.
The background scene further envelops Wilfred Owen as he sits there in his rather tatty uniform. I’m painting him from old photos, found in books and on the internet, none of which are in a good state of repair, so some invention is called for and of course, artistic licence.
After the whole is complete I’m considering an overall glaze of burnt umber to give a sepia effect, the sort found in old photos.

The painting finished and the beads attached.

I’m very excited by how this all looks now, below is a photo of the opened inner panels mounted on the wall. I’m very happy with how the text printed, the material is a contemporary canvas material that was stuck to the wooden panels with R.S.G.


Remembering Wilfred Owen

Remembering Wilfred Owen

The poetry of Wilfred Owen has gradually established itself as some of the most important in all of English Literature, not without good reason. The subject matter, the horrors of the 1st. World War, the draft of hundreds of thousands of largely ignorant but patriotic young men, the blood sacrifice for country and his ultimate rejection of this idea as a ‘noble’ cause. His poetry can be hard hitting stuff, read ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ or ‘Spring Offensive’ and you are right there, falling off the end of the world, your blood caught by the open buttercups that grew on the field of battle. Wilfred Owen said, ‘My subject is war and the pity of war’, I have no love of war but I do feel great empathy with all those young men who were needlessly slaughtered, I also realise that but for the accident of my birth, I could have been there!
I’ve known this poetry for ever and it has stayed with me, I had to paint how it makes me feel. ‘Remembering Wilfred Owen’ was the first in the series.


The End

I’ve finally made a decision on which poem of Wilfred Owen’s to use as the inspiration for my third and last painting based on his poetry. ‘The End’ which is partially chiselled into his grave stone, will provide the combination of closeness that I feel towards him, (something that I want to make manifest) and also again realise the transcendent quality of the central panel of the Spring Offensive Triptych.
I came to this decision after reading an excellent article on the wilfredowen.org.uk website.

I was ill whilst painting ‘The End’ and really didn’t have the energy to chronicle the painting of it but here is the finished painting.


The Last Judgement of Pope Francis

I’ve been spending time locked away in my studio against the cold of the French winter. I’ve had my plans for 2016’s painting projects drawn up for some time, surprise additions excepted, so I’ve been making copies of Great Master paintings, small, mostly done on A4 sized canvas from a book. I’ve been fairly happy with progress so now it is time to turn to ‘The Last Judgement of Pope Francis’. At 54″x32″ it is, in terms of size, the most ambitious painting I’ve yet attempted, I bought the stretcher bars and then stretched cotton canvas onto them, sizing with RSG and priming with a white RSG based primer, I made here. Old school but worth it for the peace of mind it gives. I achieve a snare drum tight painting surface, which I like and know that my painting should survive with care for at least a few centuries, unless someone destroys it for its ‘heretical’ qualities………lol. I’ll post progress, if I remember, it is not a complex painting but needs careful treatment of the light and the nude’s skin tones.

THIS PAINTING – is essentially about the oppression of women by the Catholic Church. For centuries women have had to endure physical and psychological torture at the hands of old, male, bald headed virgins and when they weren’t oppressing women they were abusing young boys, (and they still are!) It is the only way, that they could and – even now – can express their sexuality. They live in a mental prison of their own making.

The subject of the painting is the hypocrisy of religion, the Pope is presented with a moral dilemma, the viewer should make up their own solution to the problem.

Arriving at the gates of heaven, Pope Francis faces a challenge to enter. St. Peter explains that all his life, the Pope has been passing judgement on his fellow man, particularly on the right of a woman to manage her own body. Where is it written that mostly old, men can pass judgement on the reproductive rights of young women? Who can make the case that men can do this?

To have a chance of entry to heaven, Pope Francis must re-consider his position on women out of wedlock, having sex and their need to prevent unwanted pregnancies and disease by using condoms. He’s confused, he isn’t told which decision that he makes, will guarantee him entry to heaven.
Having to decide will seriously compromise the teachings of the Catholic Church on sex and hence his core beliefs.

So the Pope’s moral conundrum is thus, he must ask himself, ‘do I go back to earth and re-think this whole anti-condom issue and the rights of women to manage their own bodies, or do I go against my whole life’s preaching, stick to my core beliefs and risk being judged unfavourably? If I don’t receive a judgment in my favour, I will surely be damned to hell!

Look at the mental prison this dogma has created, how horrible, to live your life in so much fear, that you have to abuse the bringers and bearers of life – young women!

For those morally outraged or so challenged that they feel the need to commit barbaric acts of violence, I don’t care! Rage all you want, for too long the Catholic church has preached and butchered those who regard its sick fantasies of an afterlife based on ‘original sin’ as the teachings of children for children. For too long it has continued to exploit the minimal wages of the poor to retain power and maintain its splendid gold filled and jewel bedecked temples in Rome. So don’t be offended if a voice of protest sticks its head out of your arse now and again and lets you know that your shit stinks!

Progress so far, a blank canvas!

Last Judgement

Some progress July_under painting
underpainting_1

Further progress, early August
underpainting_2

 8.9.16 _ This is, as I thought proving to be  a great challenge, I’m aided though by a return to painting completely with C.S.O. oil and its wonderful range of benefits, not least of which is the simplicity of preparation and the use of good old eggs, truly a wonder of nature.  Painting at a high level requires great skill and concentration and can’t be rushed without spoiling the end result, many great paintings have taken months even years to complete, yet some academics who don’t and in fact can’t paint, think that they know how this was all done centuries ago and more to the point how quickly it was done. Good luck with that, know-it-alls!
Progress on the door mantle and the scene unfolding there, white steps and fire pits to be added.

progress_left exit

Sketch for the left rear exit to hell. 13.9.16 – didn’t make the final cut.

underpainting_4

So footnote – 2.9.16 the State of California has revised the statute of limitations period for rape and sexual crimes, extending it to have the same time limit (none) as murder. In opposition to this is the Catholic Church, it doesn’t need me to explain why that would be, it beggars belief how a cult that supports the hiding of criminal acts by its priests can still retain any credibility. Religion like witchcraft is based in superstition and ancient unscientific beliefs, I guess if you are gullible enough to buy into magic, you’ll support pretty much anything.

So, the journey continues, painting geometrically straight lines on top of textured oil paint is tricky, I used low tack masking tape as my solution to the problem. A lot of work bu the result is worth it.

underpainting_4

as you may agree, clearly I have to paint in the horizontal rails on the gates and then finish the shading details and add the crosses but it’s coming together.

underpainting_4

it’s great when a painting begins to ‘pop’ as I say. All the elements start to work in a ‘realistic’ way and you can laugh at comments made by people along the way who can’t even draw. For instance one mouthy fool remarked that the centre vertical of the right hand wall (in the under drawing) wasn’t straight. I told her that it didn’t matter as it was just a guide. Fair enough she couldn’t see what I could in my mind’s eye but a stupid thing to say never the less.

underpainting_4

9.1.17 Just a note on technique, as I’ve previously stated I don’t use heat bodied oils Used in the renaissance, I think that perhaps had artists had better access to sun-thickened flax oil, they would have chosen this oil. It has even better drying properties than walnut or other heat bodied oils and is clearly archival. There is little evidence for the use of resins in paintings by Van Eyck for instance, so I won’t comment further on that, except to say, those promoting the idea that Van Eyck, Vermeer etc. used resins are usually trying to sell you something.

I’ve used for some years amber varnish and similar heat bodied mediums and I think that they are a technical ‘dead end’. When compared to the wonderful qualities of cold pressed sun-dried flax oil, (which has been cleansed of mucilage), they hold no advantages for me. Sun thickened flax oil when mixed with chalk makes a wonderful painting/grinding medium and when added to paint makes for a superior paint film. This can only be known to a painter rather than an academic, or a non-painter who spends his days trying to prove the ‘secrets of the old masters’. Amber mixed into a paint pile works as a very nice painting medium, don’t add it to whites as they will yellow, not because of a chemical reaction but because amber varnish is tinted towards orange/brown. Use it most effectively in transparent shadow glazes but don’t use it as a finishing varnish as I previously mentioned it yellows white, your clouds, surf etc. I think amber varnish is most effectively used on small paintings, where tinting of whites is not an issue.

A way to go yet but this is the progress on 26.1.17

progress 261117

And some more progress 31.1.17

progress 261117

So as I continue to work up this painting to its finished state, I’ve completed the left and right gates.

left gate

right gate

 

Elsewhere the American Republican Party are continuing to prove that they are a regressive, xenophobic cabal of corrupt white Evangelists. And let’s understand what is meant by corruption here, politically corrupt in the sense that they will sell their souls to the highest bidder (donor, they say) morally corrupt in that they are to a man, hypocrites of the first order. One classic example being their treatment of women.

Whilst claiming that Muslim men in every way treat women appallingly, specifically when it comes to making decisions about their own lives, here, this week the G.O.P. met at the White House with the orange President, to decide how the new health care bill would impact women – specifically. This room filled with balding middle aged bigots and more elderly grave dodgers pronounced on the reproductive rights of young women with not a young woman in sight. In fact the two women in the room were there to serve sandwiches and beverages.

My painting is specifically about the Catholic church’s relationship with women but it could just as easily be about the Islamic faith, the G.O.P. or any other misogynistic sect or organisation. You would never know from such sects and political groups, that women are man’s equal and man’s partners in the journey that is life. Why as a man am I so concerned about women’s rights? Well if we were to use those rights and the treatment of women in general as a barometer of how healthy a society is, then we can see that as a species, we have a long way to go. In other words (and in some countries more than others) there is room for improvement. Furthermore I have empathy and I care about my fellow man/women.

Update from last night’s session 26.3.17, I painted the first coat on the nude figure, Just lead white, yellow ochre and Venetian red, with the orange skin tone resulting from mixing the red and yellow, toned down in chroma with cerulean blue.

premier couch

16.4.17 I’m pretty happy with the nude, perhaps I could make the skin tones a little more ‘contrasty’, I’ll live with it for a few days and see how I feel, meanwhile I’ll be adding finishing touches all over the canvas.

more velaturas

plus velaturas

It’s the eighteenth of December 2018 and I have decided to add two more panels to the painting, thus it will be a triptych, I’ll paint the two doors, to hell and paradise on 48″ x 32″ canvas. The sketch (above) for the door to hell has now become this, I’ll start the preparatory work in the New Year.


The Last Judgment of Pope Francis -Triptych -‘Hell’ Panel

So at last I have the ideas and the health (touch wood) to complete the left and right panels of ‘The Last Judgment of Pope Frances. One is ‘Paradise’ the other is ‘Hell’. I’ve started with Hell as I’m missing a model to pose for me at present but I live in hope. Anyway as a taster here is an under-drawing and an under-painting.

Progress late June 2019

So, this 2020 and I’ve finally returned home from hospital in Niort and I’m looking forward to getting back into my painting routine. I haven’t been able to keep on top of the jobs at hand and this painting seems to have gone a little away from me as regards the finish. Some areas are a little matt, which is common in oil painting but not so common for my paintings. I’ll keep using retouching varnish to even things out and hopefully it will be ready to set aside and dry properly for six months or so.


Paradis – from ‘the Last Judgement of Pope Francis’.

So May 3rd 2020 and we are learning to live with Covid-19 the virus that has the potential to massively deplete the population of the blue planet. Fortunately in France and in most other 1st. world countries we are taking precautions such as the wearing of masks in public to mitigate its awful potential. As I write this, France’s death toll is approaching 30,000, the future is changed for ever but as an artist this is an experience that I can draw on to nourish my creative core.

One effect of Covid-19 directly on my life is that I’m isolated, quite alone really, I see a nurse once a day to change my dressings but apart from delivery drivers and the odd sighting of and brief conversation with my neighbour, life is barren in terms of human interaction. I watch the French news in the kitchen when I prepare food and I was amused this morning to see drive through confessions for Catholics. I don’t jest, outside the Church, the priests have set up tents with one of those ‘peep-hole’ latticed confessional doors, separating the priest from the sinner, who remains seated and masked in their car, prepared to tremulously splutter out the awful sinning of their past days. I found this to be hilarious, the sight of this was just cretinous and pitiful, really, humans can be smart about some things and then entirely stupid and gullible about others. You need to be really gullible I think – to have religious faith. It is based in the fear of death instilled in ‘the tremulous faithful’ by the Church, often from birth and with lasting psychological damage, fear of hell for instance, the reluctance to accept their own mortality.

As someone who accepts our current understanding of evolution, I think that religious believers, would be less afraid of death if they stopped believing in magic and if they stopped imagining an afterlife, when there is zero evidence for one and just dipped their fearful toes in the the lake of knowledge about the human condition, that science presents. They perhaps might discover a reliable source of knowledge to help them navigate life, without fear and without guilt. Amen!.

And so my thoughts on the lunacy of religious belief lead to the triptych, ‘The Last Judgement of Pope Francis’, The first painting ‘Saint Peter (the keeper of the keys to the kingdom) was followed by ‘L’Enfer’ and now I am arriving at the end of painting the triptych with ‘Paradis’ but the humidity in the air is slowing things down a little at the moment as the glazes I want to add are not drying fast enough, also I’m improvising somewhat with the details. But here’s a few pics of the paintings progress.

Once again today, 11.5.2020 brought back to earth by ill health, another awful leg infection, leads to much discomfort, fatigue and just general lack of enthusiasm for anything including painting. Hope the antibiotics kick in soon, the weather is pretty bad but at least I no longer live in Britain under the grip of the Tories and living among a suicidal populace that has neither the education, nor the intelligence to behave like adults and find a way through Covid-19! In France folks are trying to go back to work but I fear that it may be too soon.

Meanwhile, will I ever finish this painting? I like the shadows below and the treatment of the walls and arches but there isn’t enough drama……..so, look to the bottom photo.

So nearly finished – below, just some refinement of the mist to do and then a coat of ‘touch up’ varnish. Things have dramatically changed as the mist and shadows have arrived, ok I’ve lost some nice details that took ages to paint but the drama is everything for me. If there is not a real visual ‘hit’ to the painting, what’s the point?


Réflexions on Bartok’s 1st. Piano Sonata

Alors, this is the first triptych that I painted in my early days of oil painting – May 2013. Oil on 3 canvas supports – I love the idea of the painting, the source in a composer’s head becoming reality. On reflection the coloured painting is a little naive but I was still under the influence of surrealism at the time, not at all now, I think. The three paintings are mounted on a black board.

As the title suggests I was thinking of Bartok’s Piano Sonata. A short, wonderful and massively energetic, explosive work, (almost ran out of adjectives). My current favourite performance is a live one by Lang Lang.

 

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Réflexions on Bartok’s 1st. Piano Sonata

Alors, this is the first triptych that I painted in my early days of oil painting – May 2013. Oil on 3 canvas supports – I love the idea of the painting, the source in a composer’s head becoming reality. On reflection the coloured painting is a little naive but I was still under the influence of surrealism at the time, not at all now, I think. The three paintings are mounted on a black board.

As the title suggests I was thinking of Bartok’s Piano Sonata. A short, wonderful and massively energetic, explosive work, (almost ran out of adjectives). My current favourite performance is a live one by Lang Lang.

 

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Does Covid-19 disprove God?

Briefly, why would a loving god inflict such a virus on its creation? It isn’t the first time such a virus has waged war against humankind, The bubonic plague (the ‘black death’, the plague, la peste) is still active today and in Europe, for over two centuries it killed approximately 30,000,000 people.

I find it incomprehensible that a loving god would unleash such viruses on its flock, what is this god doing? Is it conducting experiments on human populations? The virus doesn’t give a damn about who it infects, or where, it isn’t conscious, it just exists as a massively destructive and unguided killer. Unguided by a god.

It makes no sense for a god to treat its creation in this way, it isn’t a question of ‘god moves in mysterious ways’, unless your opt out, from seeing that which is staring you in the face. That is supernatural belief, we have zero evidence for the supernatural. God’s creation is looking more unproven than ever at the moment as Covid-19 wreaks havoc amongst humankind; belief in a creator god is increasingly untenable.

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Paradis – from ‘the Last Judgement of Pope Francis’.

So May 3rd 2020 and we are learning to live with Covid-19 the virus that has the potential to massively deplete the population of the blue planet. Fortunately in France and in most other 1st. world countries we are taking precautions such as the wearing of masks in public to mitigate its awful potential. As I write this, France’s death toll is approaching 30,000, the future is changed for ever but as an artist this is an experience that I can draw on to nourish my creative core.

One effect of Covid-19 directly on my life is that I’m isolated, quite alone really, I see a nurse once a day to change my dressings but apart from delivery drivers and the odd sighting of and brief conversation with my neighbour, life is barren in terms of human interaction. I watch the French news in the kitchen when I prepare food and I was amused this morning to see drive through confessions for Catholics. I don’t jest, outside the Church, the priests have set up tents with one of those ‘peep-hole’ latticed confessional doors, separating the priest from the sinner, who remains seated and masked in their car, prepared to tremulously splutter out the awful sinning of their past days. I found this to be hilarious, the sight of this was just cretinous and pitiful, really, humans can be smart about some things and then entirely stupid and gullible about others. You need to be really gullible I think – to have religious faith. It is based in the fear of death instilled in ‘the tremulous faithful’ by the Church, often from birth and with lasting psychological damage, fear of hell for instance, the reluctance to accept their own mortality.

As someone who accepts our current understanding of evolution, I think that religious believers, would be less afraid of death if they stopped believing in magic and if they stopped imagining an afterlife, when there is zero evidence for one and just dipped their fearful toes in the the lake of knowledge about the human condition, that science presents. They perhaps might discover a reliable source of knowledge to help them navigate life, without fear and without guilt. Amen!.

And so my thoughts on the lunacy of religious belief lead to the triptych, ‘The Last Judgement of Pope Francis’, The first painting ‘Saint Peter (the keeper of the keys to the kingdom) was followed by ‘L’Enfer’ and now I am arriving at the end of painting the triptych with ‘Paradis’ but the humidity in the air is slowing things down a little at the moment as the glazes I want to add are not drying fast enough, also I’m improvising somewhat with the details. But here’s a few pics of the paintings progress.

Once again today, 11.5.2020 brought back to earth by ill health, another awful leg infection, leads to much discomfort, fatigue and just general lack of enthusiasm for anything including painting. Hope the antibiotics kick in soon, the weather is pretty bad but at least I no longer live in Britain under the grip of the Tories and living among a suicidal populace that has neither the education, nor the intelligence to behave like adults and find a way through Covid-19! In France folks are trying to go back to work but I fear that it may be too soon.

Meanwhile, will I ever finish this painting? I like the shadows below and the treatment of the walls and arches but there isn’t enough drama……..so, look to the bottom photo.

So nearly finished – below, just some refinement of the mist to do and then a coat of ‘touch up’ varnish. Things have dramatically changed as the mist and shadows have arrived, ok I’ve lost some nice details that took ages to paint but the drama is everything for me. If there is not a real visual ‘hit’ to the painting, what’s the point?

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Rape is wrong, it’s violence against another.

So a Canadian energy company and its hopefully – ex-employee, general manager, Doug Sparrow – depict the rape of Great Thunberg, a young women and climate activist who has done a great deal of good in drawing attention to the impending catastrophe facing the planet. A catastrophe brought on by our previously necessary reliance on fossil fuels.
That reliance is passing, the sooner the better and the depiction of anyone being raped for the crime of standing up to polluters is despicable and cretinous.
It is particularly abhorrent when the victim of this treatment is so young and the Canadian Mounted Police claim the law hasn’t been broken enough to warrant a charge. Let’s see how long that is the case, when politicians get involved and senior police official’s jobs are on the line. From my perspective I would say for a man to think up this idea, he is a misogynist, psychologically sick and probably a sex pest. I hope he doesn’t have children of whatever sex, he needs some prison time and re-education in the ways of the modern world.

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Hope

 

At this point in a painting I have Hope – in that I have the skill to realise my imaginings and doodles that I’ve made.

‘Hope’ though is the somewhat ironic title I’ve chosen for the third and final painting in the triptych called ‘The Crucifixion of Justice’. It graphically shows some of the awful abuse, often sexual abuse, of women through the ages, particularly by the powerful Catholic Church, still a vile ‘solution’ to our wonderings about the transcendent and our concerns about our origins and our nature.

Suffering – clearly pinpointed in this painting, is a particularly unpalatable aspect of Catholicism and Christianity and so I’ve thought up a simple syllogism that should concentrate the minds of apologists.

Suffering is evil, god creates suffering, therefore god is evil.

I don’t have a lot more to say about the injustices of ages gone, so here without further ado is the first stage in this painting.

So the next stage is the under drawing 8.1.2020

22.03.2020 here I am, the under drawing that I made on a white ground I abandoned for various reasons, one was that I was quite ill when I tried to do this and made several errors in position and proportion. So now I repainted the background in my own mix of Vandyke Brown from Ultramarine and Burnt Umber and the under drawing will be in white chalk. Here we are.

Some progress on the grisaille, I’m really enjoying painting this, so far it is relatively simple. The challenge comes with shadows, I usually paint transparent shadows. It’s challenging to paint mists, thus creating an ambiance on a pitch black night. There is little colour in the painting but where colour is used it appears to be especially vibrant when contrasted with the blackness that is its background, I’m thinking of the priest’s garments where he is painted almost as a ‘trompe de l’oeil’.

Almost finished but I’m not happy wit the foreground, in truth this painting has been beset by technical problems, mostly with under-bound tube paint and humid air which lasted well into June this year. For the black background I used Old Holland ‘scheveningen black’, this is an intense rich black but my tube caused me all sorts of problems, as it dried I realised that it was under-bound and was constantly drying at different rates over the large canvas. I would be painting on what I believed to be dry paint only to realise that the grey or white I was using was picking up the black background so polluting its intensity and causing me to repaint large areas with limited success. I’ve been chasing my tail for ages with this painting but I may have finally caught it, you live and learn!

I should add that I make sun thickened flax oil here, I use no solvents in my paint only oil, chalk and sometimes glair. I rely on the fast drying oil to get fast results and the black that I used sucked in so much oil, that the rapid drying effect that I rely on was marginalised.

This the first painting in which I’ve used a modern primer, for this painting Winsor and Newton ‘oil primer’ was substituted for a home made primer using oil, water, egg and titanium white pigment. The ingredients make a wonderful primer but it is massively messy and time consuming. In this painting I believe that I used rabbit skin glue as the size for the last time, for although I like what it does to the tension of  the canvas, its hygroscopic properties worried me. So the next large scale canvas that I use will be prepared with contemporary materials, Gamblin P.V.A. glue as the size and the W&N paint as the primer.

A day or two later and I’m working on the foreground, adding more mist to the mist at the same time, (different brush obviously……..)

So August 30 and I’ve oiled this monster out, the umbers, blacks and whites suck up the oil in the paint and render it raisin like, all dried up and shrunken. So for a few days the fresh surface will allow me to complete this, add more mist and foreground and then blacken areas of the sky polluted by errors I made when I picked up white on my ‘black’ brush.

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The Crucifixion of Justice

The central painting of this triptych.

The first two images here are of the newly stretched canvas, the paintings are on 150cm x 130 cm supports, stretched, sized and primed here, the grounds are RSG followed by a ‘distemper’ from an old recipe. I may paint the third in the series ‘Hope’ on a different, modern ground, sized with P.V.A. and primer from Gamblyn or Winsor and Newton.

I’ve had the ideas for this painting for some time and finally found a way to put it into my agenda for 2019. I’ll be painting it in good summer light and in the warmth of a large room that faces South. Yes Northern light is preferred but I can’t arrange for that in this house. I have curtains!

The subject is justice once again and particularly the brutal injustices reigned down upon women by religion. Non of these injustices have ever been apologised for, the main perpetrators, the Catholic Church, has never made a humble apology to womankind for the deliberately perverted sexual and physical torture of them throughout history.

The Pope should get down on his bony knees in St. Peter’s Square and beg forgiveness of women but instead as with all the abuses of humanity by the Catholic Church the, shitty little coward remains silent.

 

Here’s the progress I’ve made by late July, I don’t have a wolf and a horse at hand to pose for me, so I’ve used photos to arrive in the place where I want to be. Quite a way to go but I’ve made good progress, next is probably a complete ‘oil out’ with a chalk and sun thickened flax oil painting and grinding medium, that I prepare here according to a recipe of the amazing Louis Velasquez. At the same time I’ll soften and blend edges into the gloom of night and heighten the ‘luminous golden effect’ I want to get into the clouds.

So a long gap in posting on this painting 2019 was a terrible year for me with continued illness and a long stay in hospital, I’ve tried to continue painting but most of my artistic endeavour has been limited to thinking and drawing. One sketch that I plan to take further into paint is this one of an eagle’s claw squeezing the fist of a man. It’s intended to make the viewer think about what happens when you mistreat the natural world with contempt and the injustice seen everyday in man’s horrific mistreatment of a our wild genetic cousins.

So we’re here in late March 2020 and I’ve already spent another period in hospital with a serious leg infection, I’ve just finished after a year ‘The Crucifixion of Justice’, of course a painting is never finished, just abandoned and I’m pretty happy with the outcome, yes I can see things I could have done better but again I’ve learnt much from painting my second large work. I’ll be completing the third painting in this triptych – called ‘Hope’ – as soon as I can, I’ve as usual prepared the canvas myself, here it is, the under-drawing is next and will be seen in a new post for ‘Hope’

For now here is a lousy photo of the finished ‘Crucifixion of Justice’, I’ll post a better one at some point. I wish everyone good health in this time of a global pandemic. I wish that all countries had good, intelligent governance but unfortunately Trump is proving himself to be utterly stupid and really like a ship without a rudder. Speaking of which I intend to revisit, ‘Ship of Fools’ when I can see it in my minds eye. Bonne santé à tous.

One final technical point I want to make about this painting, something that annoyed me a lot! The background colour of this painting and its evil twin ‘Masters of Misogyny’ is ‘Vanydyke Brown’. Now I can mix this old favourite from Burnt Umber and Ultramarine, I just wanted to see if it was possible to simplify the process on such a large painting. Thus I bought V.B. by Michael Harding a manufacturer that I trust, based on using other paints by him such as Venetian Red and Prussian Blue. I knew right from the start by the way that the paint handles on the brush that there was something different going on here, I was right. Throughout the painting process, each time that I used it, it left a white haze at the edge of the coat. This was the last thing that I wanted on a dark surface.
What wasn’t mentioned in the literature about the is paint, neither from M.H. or the supplier Jackson art in the U.K. is that the paint contains wax. Thanks for that M.H., wax is not a surprise I want in my paint, I don’t use solvents in my paint which might have mitigated the effect of the wax and so it was just unwelcome. To me wax is a medium to be added by the artist to the paint, not by the manufacturer without mentioning it. One further flaw of this paint is that it dries super quickly to a matte finish quite like any other, a quick oil out on that part of the painting will save the day though. I suspect it contains a high level of driers
For the future, I’m going be so much more careful when using a paint I haven’t tried before. I paint with a limited palette so the paints I use are tried and tested. Frankly the unknown inclusion of wax in this paint caused me a lot of problems, which I have now hopefully fixed. The response I received from M.H. was unsatisfactory, to the extent that I ceased communicating with him, as life is too short to talk to people, who think that the only person in the world using glair in their paint was myself! There are thousands. I have pigments here, I’m going to make a lot of sun thickened linseed oil this summer and experiment with making my own paints.
I’ll be addressing my favourite paints soon in a post dedicated to that, ironically one of my favourites is made by M.H. so no negativity in his direction, just objectivity when required.

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The Last Judgment of Pope Francis -Triptych -‘Hell’ Panel

So at last I have the ideas and the health (touch wood) to complete the left and right panels of ‘The Last Judgment of Pope Frances. One is ‘Paradise’ the other is ‘Hell’. I’ve started with Hell as I’m missing a model to pose for me at present but I live in hope. Anyway as a taster here is an under-drawing and an under-painting.

Progress late June 2019

So, this 2020 and I’ve finally returned home from hospital in Niort and I’m looking forward to getting back into my painting routine. I haven’t been able to keep on top of the jobs at hand and this painting seems to have gone a little away from me as regards the finish. Some areas are a little matt, which is common in oil painting but not so common for my paintings. I’ll keep using retouching varnish to even things out and hopefully it will be ready to set aside and dry properly for six months or so.

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The censure of Ilhan Omar

The world needs the voice of people like Ilhan Omar, it needs her to speak out everyday against the genocidal Israeli government and its supporters in the West, including the silent acquiescence of European countries. Those who support Israel’s self proclaimed right to oppress Palestine and kill its people on a daily basis are parties to injustice, violation of basic human rights, murder and genocide.

For those who acknowledge injustice when they see it, for those who recognise the abandonment of human rights when they see it, this argument has nothing to do with anti-Semitism and has everything to do with fascism, hatred and rule by despots who believe their imaginary friend will bring about their salvation as they bathe in the blood of their neighbours.

The generally cowardly Corrupt Corporate Democrats wanted initially, to directly censure Ilhan Omar but then under public pressure and pressure from within their own party, decided to water down their initial outrage at Ilhan Omar and instead offer up a weak censure of all things bigoted and oppressive.

So what was achieved here? Absolutely nothing, the Corrupt Corporate Democrats showed themselves once again to be not only a party capable of making massive misjudgments of public opinion, but also one that doesn’t care about what is truly just and moral. Instead it would prefer to continue supporting the American government’s unscrupulous policy of bailing out the vile Israeli government. One that on a daily basis practices genocide.

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A.O.C.

A.O.C. has seized the moment and there is no way to put her genie back in the bottle. Get used to it American corporate Dem’s and your media backers. Get used to it Fox because when she is old enough, she is your next President and I can’t wait for an intelligent women with great social policies, to transform America into the progressive country we all hope it could be.

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