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I’ve finished this summer’s set of paintings and you can see them in their own album here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/154767664@N06/albums/72157701714244351

They are five collections of brightly coloured and processed foods, and the maraschino cherry in the martini glass is the closest thing to fruit or vegetables in the whole series. The pink things in Primo are a kind of Japanese fishcake called Kamaboko (or sometimes Naruto, like the anime).

Five pictures in this set – bright, colourful foods on a neutral ground, pronkstillevens via Wayne Thiebaud. About six weeks, so far, of blocking in and building up layers of colour and shadow; knifework and brushes to create texture and depth in the greys. Trying to keep the handling quite loose but the edges clean, and luckily the ever-present temptation to overwork will just run into sheer lack of time. There are probably only about two decent weeks of working time left, before the dark and the cold make it impractical. And uncomfortable.
At some point I need to assemble them all and check the overall effect; I don’t want them to match exactly but there needs to be enough commonality to hang them together and not have an obvious black sheep.
Of course, I don’t have anywhere to hang them. They have no point or purpose other than I like to do a series now and then, because there are different constraints and opportunities to working in paintings in isolation.
Once they are done, it will be time to pack up the paints and bring them in; go back to sketching and photolibraries and books, start planning for the Spring. I always hope for a spell of hibernation, especially in January, but so far I haven’t managed it.

Time, time, time, see what’s become of me…
Just like that, I notice that Summer has gone, even if the sun still shines. Soon it will be too dark and cold to work, and I have maybe three or four weeks to finish seven pictures, for no other reason than how much it will annoy me to look at them piled around half-done.
So I will be off and get on with that, and come back to this later – although I am also toying with the idea of doing some monotypes…

Five nights in a tent gives you, if nothing else, a renewed appreciation of indoor plumbing.
Doing art stuff at Towersey festival was a tremendous way to spend the holiday weekend, even if the weather (mixed, to put it politely) made things hard work at times.  Rain and wind and paint don’t mix all that well… The stall holders in the Arts and Crafts tent were great, friendly and helpful, and polite enough not to draw attention to my shambling amateurishness.
I took the paintings I’ve just started work on, and a box of art supplies, and in the mornings I painted, in the afternoons I put out the materials and tried to entice the festival goers to have a go themselves. Not everyone was interested (plenty of enthusiastic kids, not many adults), but between them they produced a display board full of work, in all sorts of styles and mediums. In the evenings I ate junk food and went down to the concert tent to watch the bands.
On Monday we packed up our -mercifully dry – tent and went home to sleep it all off and eat some salad. A busy end to the summer holidays.

Just be grateful that painting is a visual medium.
Time is getting tight again, just back from holiday and now I have to prep paintings, displays, gear and a reluctant family to spend six nights in a tent in England over the August Bank Holiday. True to form, I’ve done the painting work first – four hours of preparing, arranging and photographing an odd collection of foods,  which together were so revolting I felt sick for hours afterwards.
The stand-out winner was some instant Mac’n’cheese that was orange, slimy and smelt like death in a teenager’s sleeping bag. Visually perfect, just what I wanted, although it stank the house out until I bundled it up in paper and stuffed it into the outside bin. But I got it all done, the canvases are all prepped ready to go, now I can get on with finding the tent and the chairs – and it could have been worse. At least I didn’t have to eat it.