44th painting

My friend Tom looking into the distance of Newcastle University grounds. This image was part of the group of images which I took to set up my 'crowd' scenes for the main paintings for my degree show.
It's reminded me to go and take a photograph of everyone so that over the summer I can make a painting each day of a different student in my year. It's going to be hard saying goodbye to everyone as the course comes to an end, luckily about 8 students are going to be staying in Newcastle after the course finishes.

43rd Painting

An election candidate who came second. Finally the 2010 general election has been sorted and we have a coalition. Conservative David Cameron and Lib Dem Nick Clegg are going to work together!
Two weeks to our degree show so hope our band of 45 4th year students manage to coalesce and put on a really good exhibition. We're also working towards taking the show to London, negotiations going on as I write this.
My own work is slowly reaching a point of completion. A solid week of painting should bring it all together. The work is still turning towards a 'realistic' technique as opposed to being freer and looser but maybe that is something I have to accept for the time being.

42nd Painting

The new tv arts programme 'Modern Masters' is introduced by Alastair Sooke and this painting is a 30 minute rendition painted the right way up mainly because I forgot to invert it. It's a very good hour long 4 part programme featuring Warhol, Matisse, Picasso and Dali. My only criticism is 4 programmes aren't enough, there's a lot more out there who could be classed as masters.
Our graduate show is less than 3 weeks away and I would like my quick paintings to number 50 by then so that I can chose 10 to be part of my exhibition work. I do feel that the quick paintings are having an affect on my main work, mainly to do with decision making and confidence. I'm very pleased this is an exercise I've embarked on.

41st Painting

I haven't done the beautiful Eva Green any favours in this painted-upside-down entry. The photographic image I used was from the Independent Traveller and she looked stunning with the blue and the red adding loads of interest. Actors appear to spend their lives struggling to stay in work/stay slim/stay beautiful...
Although each painting is taking a bit longer than I would like I'm still completing them in about 30 minutes. Each painting is roughly 29cms x 42cms, although there's nothing too rough about those measurements!
A fellow student Alice, has just given me an article about Avigdor Arikha a Romanian-born Israeli figurative painter who also paints quickly although his deadline is one day, EASY! Unfortunately he has just died at the age of 81 otherwise it would have been good to talk to him about his working practices.

40th Painting

This seemed an apt image to paint today, election day, and poor old Gordon Brown looks in need of all the support he can get.
This very elongated head looks troubled and heavy, it might take more than his hand to ease his furrowed brow.
Doing lots of painting upside down and really concentrating on angles within the piece and proportions. All the images are 2/3 i.e. the width is two thirds of the height so I'm able to get a chance to to plot where an arm comes in or how much room the head takes up in relation to the whole painting. Bit of maths involved initially to get the photographic image cut to a 2 to 3 ratio but then its relatively plain sailing.

39th Painting

I found the image for this painting very touching. He's called Rafael and he's had a 30-hour face transplant operation. His own face was being very badly affected by tumours. The painting shows him hugging his mum after leaving hospital. A very brave man.