Fish sculpture

This was a fish I created while having a picnic at Nash Point in South Wales. It was put together from pieces of driftwood, washed up sections of old rusty metal and lots of stones, pebbles and rocks. Some of the items are quite big and it is about 6' long. Great fun to make and probably now just bits of rubbish along the shoreline once more.

Viola

Viola, is my 1969, bright purple VW Camper, she has served me well for a number of years now but her maintenance is proving too costly. This lino cut is another I found in my long lost folder of other things I hadn't looked at in a while and although the print is perhaps not quite up to scratch I do like the image.

I enjoy lino cutting, it's very relaxing, like peeling mushrooms or picking your toenails. Unless you are really good, you always end up with a playful, simplistic image, which for me is a change from the more tight arsed things I tend to produce.

Santes Dwynwen Day

25th January is St Dwynwen's Day in Wales, she is the patron saint of lovers. So in a romantic gesture to my wife I made a heart shaped sculpture from stones and pebbles on our patio. It measures about 4 foot square. Who said romance is dead hey.

Phoenix

A Pheonix logo I painted a couple of years ago for a company I worked for. Came across it again while looking through some old files on the computer, just like opening up an old chest of drawers to find some old sketch pads.

Dhanat Plewtianyingthawee

I was intrigued to see a recent abstract going for $2000 on an internet site so I took a closer look. The artist Dhanat Plewtianyingthawee, from Thailand, had made another successful sale.

I am sure his mum is proud as punch with Dhanat's latest productions. As proud as the mother of any 6 year old would be. Normally kids abstract daubings are consigned to the fridge until they disintegrate or fall off into the cats litter tray. Somehow these, although no different from any other 6 year olds scribbles, warrant the full attentions of the art world. I ask you who is conning who here. Should we chastise the gallery owners and dealers for peddling this little boys work as some form of high culture or the chinless wonders and visually illiterate, idiots that purchase these colourful experiments in mark making.

I am off now to throw watercolour paint at wet paper and use my creative talents to knock 40 years off my birth certificate. See you in the Sacchi Gallery soon.

Bone Dry River Bed

Well despite a couple of days rain, its going to take a couple more to get the river Aggia flowing again. At the moment it still looks like a really badly constructed road full of rocks and boulders and dust. But I am sure it won't be long before we have to use the stepping stones to cross it once more.

Colour Me Bad

I have a lifetimes experience of getting the colours wrong, my trouble is tonal opposites, where the colours that have the same intensity clash. This leads to confusion over orange/yellow green, pink/grey, purple/dark blue and the more common red/green. Now this doesn't bother me when I am painting, but it does upset me when shopping. Once again I bought something due to a confusion over a companies colour coding and skimmed milk tastes foul.

Its not like I am asking people to change their lifestyle, become vegetarian, adopt another religion or questioning their sexual preferences but as colour confusion is a constant and recognised problem, why don't companies simply adopt a combination which is easy to detect by the visually challenged.

For most of you these eight colours will be obvious but to the rare few who only see four it can be a problem, especially when you go shopping. Painting strangely enough never really posed that much of a problem, I know where the colours are on my pallette and have a good idea about how to mix and match. Once you have painted a scene who is going to know whether the house was red or green or if the car was purple or blue.

Cats can be funny and I have always marvelled at green ginger tomcats and felt that the group "Deep Purple" should be called Dark Blue but it doesn't have the same ring does it. At least when everyone else is moaning about "those ominous dark grey clouds" I see a gorgeous pink sky. Always see the positive I guess.