Wild

 

 

Holly came from Miami, Florida
Hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A.
Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her legs and then he was a she
She says, "Hey, babe
Take a walk on the wild side"
She said, "Hey, honey
Take a walk on the wild side"

Walk On The Wild Side

Lou Reed, 1972

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember those "halcyon" days of our youth?

 

No, me neither.

 

 

 

 

 

The first time I heard the word 'Halcyon", was the same day that I heard the word "Luddite".

They came from the mouth of the same man, a friend of a friend.

  

I was a naive 29 year old. He was a worldly man with too much money and a world weariness that hung around him like the smell of a freshly boiled onion. We were on our friend's boat out on the harbour, drinking almost French Champagne and watching  the world go by.

 

Our mutual friend was newly very rich and enjoying his wealth by acquiring paintings, toys - (Sports Cars, Ocean Cruisers etc)  - and houses over looking the water. Even with all that, he was a "good bloke" - and very generous. We met when we were studying English Lit together.

 

 

 

 

 

Of course I had to ask what both words meant - and I've never forgotten what a Luddite was - because as I grow older, I feel like I am becoming one.

 

But Halcyon? I never quite grasped the meaning. 

 

So let me google it.

 

 

Ah, here it is. Halcyon:

 

A fabled bird, identified with the kingfisher, that was supposed to have had the power to calm the wind and the waves while it nested on the sea during the winter solstice.
 

Well I never knew that.

 

So the Halcyon days of our youth translates as: "those particular days of our youth that we used a fabled bird to calm the waves so we could nest on the sea."

 



And by some dogmatic coincidence, that is exactly what my illustration is about......

 

 

 

 

 

 

Verdaccio
 

Do you know the word Verdaccio?

 

Well, it's something the old master's used to use occasionally (not the word but the technique). It's where you paint a green monotone under painting - a dead painting) then glaze over it with translucent colours. The idea is that the green under painting glows through the warmer layers and gives that nice harmonious glow that suggests depth in human flesh.

 

I've been invited to a show with "Nightmares" as the theme - so I've been working up this painting.
for a few weeks. It's 90 by 120 cms on linen.

And in  that time I've spent a lot of time looking at anatomy drawings as well as Greek statues. It's all very interesting what they were doing a few thousand years ago. I've also been looking at Da Vinci's working methods and his sketches. How smart was he, eh? What a mind....

In verdaccio  you are supposed to paint two tones lighter than the finished painting is meant to be.
So I still have a lot of work :)

The big advantage is that, in taking out the colour parameters, you just need to be making tonal decisions for the underpainting stage. It's a learning curve -  but not very steep. I'm also changing the characters as I go, slimming them down, changing hand positions etc.
 

Above and below are pics of  it as a work in progress in situ in the studio. If you look very closely you may recognise some of the characters.... :)

PS: Whoever invented the saxophone obviously thought no one in their right mind would ever try to paint one.

 

 

 

 

And finally, below, a self portrait (the big guy, not the rat).

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking. Hope you are well!

 

 



The 1876 Christmas Day ‘O'Shannessy’s Wake Speech’: Cultivate or Perish.

“Cultivate or perish!”

      With those resounding words Abe Leprachaun, clay pipe clenched firmly between his teeth, began his famous 1876 Christmas Day ‘O'Shannessy’s Wake Speech’.
      The rest, as we all know, is history.
      But what most of us don't know is, that two weeks later, on the 16th March, in a totally unrelated incident, the infamous Great Irish Potato Chip Plague began in a small fish and chip shop in the South of France.
      Spread quickly by word of mouth, the Great Irish Potato Chip Plague (THGICP) effected all the nations of the world, ravaging fish and chip shops from Argentina to Alaska, from Tobruk to Tasmania, from Uzbekistan to Kyrgyzstan.
     An unmitigated disaster, not only did THGICP callously shrivel potato chips into small black soggy things, it increased their calories by 15 percent.
     Result?
     Millions of fat bottomed potato chip addicts waddling the streets of Cairo, London and Paris, searching hopelessly for some way to hide their newly aquired "assets".
     Over the next ten years many cures were tried - among them the ‘bum girdle’, the ‘cross dresser’ and the “mooch cradle” .
     All failed.
    Then, in January 1877, a hitherto unknown doctor named Dr Iva Turnipass appeared. And with him, an extraordinary invention, an invention that would, not only shave millions of tons of cellulite from bottoms all over the world, but also result in a miraculous cure for facial cracks, ugliness , chin hair, love handles, intumescence, loftiness, magniloquence, meretriciousness, orotundity, ostentation - and unsightly ‘snow-flake’ dandruff.
    This invention, of course, was known as (cont: page 87)

 
 

Authors' Note:

Is it safe  to stick out my nose out yet? :)

Of course, being a night loving Marsupial, I read the Illustration Friday prompt as "Cultivated" not 'Cultivate'. And so my little St. Patrick's Day Leprechaun chaps are highly cultivated in appearence, with their fancy pipes, flash clothes - and really silly beards.

And thankyou to all those visitors, old and new, who commented on my last two posts. I'm looking forward to visiting your blogs in the next few days.

As an aside, I noticed that both Shirley and Amalia are donating their amazing work or parts thereof to help the victims of the Japanese Tsunami. So please check out their sites if y ou get a chance.

You might also like to check this piece by The Labrat, who is a great artist but very slack.

Thank you very much for looking at this.