6th January 2015

I have two new paintings up in my artwork section.  One, entitled ‘Red Riding Blanks’, is a narrative mash-up. It features ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ as a blank from ‘World’s End’.  It’s meant to be tongue and cheek in terms of content and was another practice painting.  I wanted to play around with light and experiment with even thinner acrylic washes.  I used cold pressed, 150lb water-colour paper and in the end it was too rough and too flimsy.  I think the final painting is okay and fun but it feels and looks quite different to my other work. Not sure if that is a good thing or not…The second painting, entitled ‘Puff’, is inspired by my novel (Blood and Water) and one of my old films (Heart Thief).  I’m happiest with this piece (see thumbnail) as I finally achieved the texture I was after.  Lots of thin acrylic washes on hot press (smooth finish) 300 lb water-colour paper. I love the smooth transitions between dark and light and the soft edges in this piece.  I think this is the happiest I’ve been with one of my paintings as I finally produced the effect I was after.  I found the heavy weight paper much easier to work with and I prefer the smooth hot-press finish. It didn’t suck up the water as quickly as cold press and allowed me to work with the paint a bit longer. I would still like to experiment more with content but I’m happy with my technique on this.