August 2008

Jonathan Jones writing in the Guardian (’A painting is worth a thousand moving images‘) stirs up a hornets nest of comments by asserting that the still image (painting and photography etc) is inherently better than video art. He feels that there’s too much video art in galleries and that too often it recycles the ideas and images that are better server by the film and TV industry.

As an artist I find one of the greatest pleasures is working directly with pigments on the physical medium of the canvas, an option that is denied to the video artist. By extension, one of the things I enjoy most about viewing art is the sight of the physical surface of the canvas - perhaps ridged and pitted with paint, brushstrokes and finger prints. And perhaps that’s why video art doesn’t work for me - it’s too far removed from real life.

"Grasmere" Landscape Painting Commission

I’ve been lucky enought to pick up some commissions for paintings recently. So far they have all been landscape commissions (as opposed to portrait commission which are my other favourites). Some artists are notoriously reluctant to agree to commissions, sometimes for quite snobbish reasons (not wanting to pollute the purity of their art). On the contrary, I find commissions to be a welcome relief from the ‘what shall I do today’ question. A commission gives focus, purpose and usually a time limit to the day - all useful drivers for a wooly headed artist!

Watching the TV after School

Here’s a page from one of my sketchbooks. Its so difficult to get catch children sitting still. Sometime you have to catch them during one the rare times of day when they are (relatively) still and quiet.

My sketchbooks are full of very quick and usually unfinished sketches like this. I do feel very jealous of people whose sketchbooks are full of mini-masterpeices on each page. I never seem to have the time to complete my sketches and as a result my sketchbooks are full of half-finished drawings and unidentifiable squiggles.

Seth Godin has a great blog entry called I Need to Build a House, What Kind of Hammer Should I Buy?

I guess many artists are guilty of over-emphasising the importance of the equipment they use. It reminds me that you only need three primary colours plus white, some basic brushes and a length of cheap hardboard to paint a masterpiece.

We focus on the technology of creativity (the pigments, binders, supports, brush types and yes, blogging) and on the techniques (scrumbling, anatomy, cross-hatching, glazing, perspective etc) until it becomes an excuse not to create.