Oil on Board
24" x 24"
Ł750

04.01.2008

Watched 'Die Hard with a Vengeance' last night. Bad move. Didn't finish till well after midnight and today I'm a zombie.

I'm not with it - haven't got my new cap of Clint Eastwood power or my i-pod so I'm at the mercy of any old tom, dick or conversationalist that walks past. Like this one for instance:

"Nice painting." so far so good
"Great how you artists get that perspective thing." Still okay
"I'm on my way to the police station to get thrown out." A little unexpected
"I've been to the police stations in ..." (he rattles off some names of towns roundabouts, Bradford, Trowbridge and the like) " ... and they're all closed." Okay, so ...
"Can't believe it, closed police stations, but open prisons." Uh huh
"And what about those gypsies." !
"The police don't do anything." Heh - not sure where this is going
"They sit there with piles of stolen stuff and the police don't do anything." Starting to get a bit worried now
"We need more armed police." A little more concerned (visions of John McClaine (that'll be Bruce Willis in Die Hard) piling in to a field of gypsies, machine guns blaring and caravans exploding, briefly pops into my head - yippeekiyay **@!!!?**s)
"Yeah well. I'll leave you to it." Phew
"Nice painting." Thanks

Here's another one:

"Colours are so vivid in the wet." Good intro
"It's the moisture in the air." That'll be the rain then
"I painted Italy in the rain once." Okay, still with him
"One of them upside down." No, he's lost me.

Talking of the rain - today's rain is great for painting. It's sort of mizzling so it's hardly rain at all, but it's pretty constant so the ground stays slick and reflective, there's little wind and it's gloomy enough so everyone's got their lights on. Yep - great day for a rainy painting. Only problem is that this picture is too far gone to turn it into a rainy day scene, so I just stick with finishing off the twiddly bits - like the traffic lights and such.

Now, if that car is there and that light is red, and that pedestrian crossing must be red because those people are standing still, then that light must be red and that filter could be green, but then that would mean that that light would be green and there would be cars coming from that direction. But if I paint that light red and that one green then why haven't I got a car coming across there and would that pedestrian crossing be green or would it be red? I confuse myself and end up with a realistic enough looking but probably impossible combination which uses hardly any of the massive tube of electric green paint I've bought along specially.

Still, that will do. Overall, not unhappy with the results although, once again I got bogged down a bit in the detail, but at least the unfinished border means it's only limited to the central section.

And there you go too - blog number 100. Not long till the years up - got to get back on track and finish what I started. I'm happy with the big paintings now - time to take them back to town. Yippeekiyay nice people.