rain starts play

Unable to complete the paving project in the garden due to rain, (and with an air of "well i was going to get on with some painting anyway") i've been getting on with some painting.

21t August. The questioning ear, like a raised eyebrow. Painting still mainly blue, leaning against the sideboard.

29th August

 

5th September

Parts of this painting are working out ok but i need to keep stepping back to think hard about how to homogenize. Having said in a previous post that i am no longer going to waste time berating myself for continually making orbs and circles in my paintings, i now have a distinct feeling that i am ready to leave them for while; perhaps even, to use an F-word, make some figurative work.

8th September

This poor canvas has been in a barely begun state for months. Yesterday i made a mixture of plaster-filler and p.v.a and troweled it on with my biggest palette knife. I thought today i would be able to sand it, but.....

...imagine my joy when on close examination, i discovered lots of cracking! This is one of my favourite things. It's still damp in the thicker layers. When it's dry, i shall drench it in p.v.a in the most cracked areas to prevent it from falling off. I think this canvas will stay very white-ish. I have another white picture, on board, which i would like to work on but at present it is blocking the fireplace in my bedroom. We don't send kittens up chimneys anymore in this country, whether they want to go up or not.

 
Lino News is good - have enjoyed gouging away at the Inner Ear in the evenings, in front of the telly for the last couple of weeks and am ready to print! I hope the ink hasn't dried up in the tube...

progress in progress

Here are the 5 bears and their dear heads awaiting stuffing! Deliverance is at hand, i shall be ordering another 5 kilos of Heavy Poly Stuffing early next week. Those of a nervous disposition, look away briefly....

 

 (It's ok to look again now.) I have also made a serious start on diversification strategy@bearbovis and have made a sort of a cat, pictured here with the very small knitted cat that i made earlier this year, hybridized from a Jack Russell body (from Muir and Osborne's Best in Show) and the head, ears and tail which i cobbled together myself. [i should note that Muir and Osborne have made a new pattern book, this time of cats!]

The lodger thinks i've made a horse-rabbit. He has a point. This is the second pattern for a realistic-ish animal i have made and the same initial mistakes have occurred (re. the polar bear-camel). It's because i start from examining diagrams of the skeleton - the hips and shoulders are where they should be but this doesn't translate well for stuffed toys. I have an altered set of parts tacked up and waiting by the sewing machine.
  Many thanks in anticipation to my friend Sally who procured some cat noses for me from Fred Aldous HQ in Manchester last week!)
  Next: a German Shepherd Dog, an elephant and a badger for my Californian friend.

  Some small progress on the lino-cut:

 

I wish i'd made proper plans for the background cutting-patterns. As it is, now i've started, i'll just have to wing it and carry on making the usual, typical lino-cutting shapes. Must remember to remember in time, next time! There are so many other kinds of marks that can be made.

I shall finish with a few kitten-update photos!

two kittens are indeed, better than one.

Queenie allowed me to sit underneath her yesterday evening.

songs from the stage and screen with Boris Pocket.

stuck in the Birch tree having a thoughtful wash.