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!

 

 



Monday Artday: Ancient Civilisation

The Fossilized Dog

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    Two old friends, Paul and Simon, had lived together for about eleven years.

    They lived together, bachelors, not by choice, but by bad habit and bad luck.

    They'd been best school friends, then best men at each other's weddings. They'd been the best shoulder to cry on when each was divorced, and at least one of them expected to be the best mourner at the other's funeral.... eventually.

   Their home town was Petite Aux Paris, in the American Quartier of Haute Provence, just north of St Remy. It was a small American Enclave of about fifty expats who, drawn together just after the war, had purchased an entire Bastide town as a butress against the overwhelming Gallic presence of their adopted country.

  About a mile from Paul and Simon's house was a bunch of Roman Ruins, mainly a giant cemetry, dated 125 AD. For twenty years the local société historique Française had uncovered it bit by bit, stone by stone, tomb by tomb, aquaduct by aquaduct.

   Neither of the men remembered who started it, but every year on Simon's birthday, the first of August, they'd take their dog Rusty down to the cemetry, jump the 2000 year old reconstructed stone fence, sit outside the deserted cemetry keeper's cottage and drink a flagon de Beauveau Nouveau Rouge Eclat de Lune till one or both of them keeled over and lay sprawled flat on the flagstones.

   But one year Rusty didn't come back.

  That year both of the men had overdosed a touch on too much Red moonshine and, unusually, they'd both collapsed together, one atop of the other, Simon in his pretend medieval soldier's outfit, Paul in the tuxedo he'd rented just for the occasion.

  By the time they'd regained conciousness it was dark and the full moon was in high swing. Embaressingly, Paul had vomited on his silk shirt, and Simon had twisted his ankle where the chain mail had caught on his leather under pants.

 But neither of them noticed Rusty till they decided it was time to go. They were halfway to the fence and Rusty still hadn't moved. Simon called him first, then Paul, then both men together. Their voices echoed back from the empty tombs.

   But Rusty didn't move, didn't whimper, didn't howl, didn't blink.

   It wasn't till they moved closer did they see the dull grey sheen on Rusty's coat.

  Sometime in the two hours that the men had been moonshined unconscious, Rusty had turned somehow to solid, grey granite - the same grey granite of the tombstones that surrounded them.

PS Later on that night they picked Rusty up carefully, cradling him in their arms lest he should break, and with their hearts in their pockets, went in search of the town's only all night vet.

PPs Pardon my non existtant French.