About the oil

  Writing the script for my 2nd symposium caused me to mention the significance that the oil medium has for me. The image above shows a very special oil source obtained about 30 years ago. It is cold pressed linseed oil as supplied by Zecchi of Florence – Zecchi being the artists’ materials shop right […]

Pictopoiesis and Pragmatism

Painting in progress:   There are certain facts about oil painting which make it tricky to handle at the beginning. When I began painting in earnest, I found it difficult to handle oil paint, actually I did not like it. I had only ever used water paints before. But I persisted with the oil painting. […]

Exploring origins

Header image: Omphalos – finding new visual form for Nicholas Gulig’s poem ( links are shown in bold) Thinking about what Whitman means when he writes at the end of section 2 of Song of Myself, …you shall possess the origin of all poems…, I see we already possess it, that origin, it is still there, hidden in […]

This latest shape comes into being

I have just created a new level of the painting. It has taken 3 days to create and I would like to review it with practopoiesis in mind. All based on lines*, the refinement of this new passage of paint ended only when after three days the paint had stiffened (through its oxidation) to make further […]

Gesture

The second of Paul Coldwell’s lectures, at the very beginning reminds me to talk again about gesture, which has to do with the body and is closely associated with painting and its directness. Vitruvian Man – the proportions of the human body according to Leonardo da Vinci I have already written about the circular gesture, […]

Circular

Above, the whole painting as it is now – I think about halfway along, perhaps more. I see it as being now fully a body, I see it as cultivated to a point where, if it were a biological entity, it could sustain the combined life-support functions normally carried out by separate organs such as […]

To do is to make, is to be

I feel that things are beginning to confirm themselves, clarifying the direction of my project – I am beginning to structure the proposal and shall write it up in a post soon. Jonathan’s Methodology lecture has helped in clarifying some matters that had been going around without anchor, in my mind for a long time, years […]

Animate

In the studio: Painting progressing, I wanted to capture each and every passage of paint so far – which I have done in terms of the animation above. Experience tells me that the painting is about a quarter of the way through but I can’t be certain. Lighting conditions vary greatly from day to day […]