Venetian Turpentine

Ahh, Venetian Turps, like the nectar of oysters
pungent and ever so slightly viscous in texture
as clear as spring water.

The smell reminds me of the hut in Venice - bella

Venice-Sicily

Inside: Trying to reconstruct a memory - shape the exhibition/idea.
I am surrounded by blank canvases staring back at me. Everything is in my head, Sketches Notes Sketches Notes. Need to hone things down to a few groups otherwise it will seem too fragmented( will it ). is it a record of the journey or something else. The sketches are the journey, exhibition is a sought of outcome of it, a focus. Decisions on the big ones. Feel I'd like to just show small, personal, intimate. Though need to do both - Big Small. Procrastination looms deadline a far way away. Need to get back in the sun and remember.
Outside: a real peach of a day, sat in the sun with Sal at Penberth. Lovely wind from the east. slowly warming.
I'm still looking at the moon.

inside:
to begin
venice - sicily - venice

Outside: Have the possibility of going North in summer 08 to Lapland in the Arctic Circle.
Thinking of the north again.

Inside: Cubase, taking one element out of a conscious thing then making the fragment bigger and trying to randomise it. This came from an old idea from Dorset of Charmouth Beach, revisiting it. Shot some film which will aid the sound and visa versa. I love the idea still having resonance after 20 odd years. I suppose the technology has caught up with it - or more likely I have the means of production.
Meanwhile back to stretching canvasses.

Outside:
Back at Widemouth Bay
Dark Cliffs, their angle
Deep churn of the ocean
light a milky submission
muted, though going towards bright
this edged atlantic
specked walkers
pre season
The surf like avenues
big ocean space here
just going out - there
to there
its rim
its lip

Inside: admin, film music and still sorting out studio. Loads of junk - old frames and crap canvasses- they all get put in the recycle bin. The deluge is finally disappearing and my work slowly starts to show itself again. Quite used to this broken continuity now.
Still in transit, in between things, sifting ideas for the show in Venice. Waiting for something to spark - quite happy with glowing sketches. Keeping an oblique eye on the subject.
First few sketches of film music didn't get much interest. Working with indifference as always. Though I think I am right - which is all I have.
Outside: Sun then slowly into grey as a front comes in. Now its stars.

Inside:
worked on film music
carried on compiling my past 25 years of painting. a sort of stock taking. An audit of ideas.
It is interesting to see old stuff, I'm not worried about looking back as some people seem to be. In fact I like it, I think there is allot of past in my work - continuation into the present and hopefully towards the future. Some of the old work was incomplete, ideas sketched in youth, unfinished and full of a hope, ( some things don't change) frail and unsure. Thought I'd lost that in all the career crap.
Circles.
Paintings, drawings - work - as maps of my life.
Getting studio back into some sort of working state.
Outside: dismal rain

Outside:
noticed Celandine's today
yellow sparks shining back to the sky

inside:
pale blue and pink twilight through the studio window
birds singing
evening star above the tree tops

Inside: thought of this today

looking for an imperfection

and

loop aperture