I continued working out the composition in Photoshop, creating an elevation of the wall with the furniture in place so that I can see how the figures are going to work in relationship to the environment. I’m looking forward to continuing with the work when my students are here and can get involved. Last night [...]
We had an exciting time hanging the giant canvas onto the wall. This painting of the virtues is by far the most ambitious project I’ve considered, and I’m really looking forward to getting started on it. I have yet to draw a developed sketch of it, but it seemed sensible to get the canvas on [...]
Wow! After a day of clearing the studio out, yesterday the contractor got busy and threw up the framing for the wall in a day, even sheet-rocking one side all the way to the roof. Today they returned and added some plywood then sheet-rock to the other side; by this evening the majority of the [...]
I’ve finished the brown layer of the skulls, which means that everything should start moving a bit faster now. I’m very pleased to see how much the painting has opened out, with the skulls streaming out off the sides of the canvas. I’m also very happy with the skeleton’s legs, which I extended so that [...]
I’m on the home stretch of the skulls now, with only the top of the left side to do, and they’re going pretty smoothly. I got into the studio early today so I could watch the world cup game between England and Slovenia, only to be tortured by terrible streaming that kept breaking up the [...]
The skulls on the right side are complete (in the first layer) so tomorrow morning I’m planning to move over to the left side and see how far I can get, then I plan to watch the world cup game between England and Algeria at lunchtime. There’s a certain amount of endurance required to continue painting this [...]
Jetlag has made me feel blurry and I’ve avoided the studio in favour of more adrenaline oriented activities so I can throw this tiredness off as soon as possible. I’ve also got to pay attention to some important administrative work for the art department at the university, so I need to divide my time carefully [...]
I feel extremely fortunate to have seen as much Neolithic art as I have. Here on Anglesey there are some excellent examples of rock art still within its context, dating from four thousand years before the current era. It’s incredible that it’s still here to be seen. First four pictures are at or around Barclodiad [...]
Photos from the Trefignath burial mound near Holyhead, on Anglesey, showing two of the chambers. In the third shot you can see a band of quartz crystals that were on the back wall of the largest of the three chambers. The building was raised in about 3750 BC, then sealed by about 2250 BC, so [...]
I still love this stuff as much as ever. Anglesey, North Wales. This was the last stronghold of the druids before they were annihilated by Agricola, who slaughtered them and overthrew the sacred groves. There’s not a single stone circle left on Anglesey, just fragments. From the Roman propagandist Tacitus: “… [Suetonius Paulinus] prepared accordingly [...]
