30 July 09
A white truck
Famous last words. The truck was not resolved. As soon as I started ‘finishing’ it, the front bumper was wrong but, thanks to Google Images, I found a better, stronger one, which involved repainting a whole section. The truck is yellow and I have enormous difficulty in creating a dark yellow. It was so tempting to go round the joins with rust rather than find a sufficiently strong shadow, but I press on and it’s beginning to work.
The neighbour’s screws for the Heysen piece got abandoned and I found some bolts instead. It’s years since I tried to tighten up a dome-headed slotted screw into rock-hard redgum and in the end I had to give up, having redrilled it so many times I had to jam half a matchstick into the hole to give the thread anything to bite on. Last night Ken and I wrapped the chicken wire and baler twine round the rusted steel dropper but, having put it up on the wall, abandoned the idea. It looked like ‘art’, not a bit of old fencing. Fortunately I was able to simply slide the wire and baler twine off the dropper, hung it on the wall on its own and thought, gosh. It’s beautifully dense, chaotic and complicated. I will hang it from something.
24 July 09
A pony that will be used one day
The truck is resolved. The horizon in the background got changed a few times, but now it’s just a matter of finishing it. I was going to write, ‘painting’ it, but you probably don’t know that, during the resolution stage, the colours and shapes are continually altered until it all fits together and the areas are more or less as they will be at the end. Big brush strokes, colouring-in. Then it’s a matter of getting down into the texture and detail, which is where decisions are made about the sort of mark I need to make to create, say, rust or shine and that’s a lot more about painting than the first stage.
A canvas I’d ordered made up (I generally stretch and prime them myself) arrived during the week – 140 x 180 cm – for the next painting, which will be a further investigation of crushed cars, already reserved.
The Heysen Prize piece didn’t progress a lot further, though I’ve worked out how to put it all together and scrounged some old screws from a neighbour who has a shedful of good things. Still 2 weeks to the closing date for entries – if it was a painting I’d have had to have started it long ago.
Flattened Galvo was sold and is going to a good home in Melbourne.
13 July 09
A pile of old tyres
Some very good days on the truck, which is shiny as a change from rust and desolation and is even quite cheerful and welcoming, though not for long. There will be dark corners.
The Melbourne Lanes got left until I need a break from the truck.
As a day off from painting either of them I got going on the Heysen Prize piece today, which also started off well, such fun sorting out an ancient steel dropper and some rusted chicken wire in the pouring rain. This piece needs black baling twine, and had died for a long time while I tried to find some on a roadside (it’s all blue or pink now, so it doesn’t get lost in the mud, eaten, and end up wrapped round an intestine). So I bought some, the minimum quantity, 3,000 metres. The packing says it’s Premium Quality. The stolen sign and the rock chippings will definitely also be part of this piece.
05 July 09
The road to Palmer
Several days of good solid work on the underpainting for the truck and the Melbourne Lanes. Lots of yellow. But it’s so cold that the paint simply won’t dry, even with the hotbox, which is currently going day and night.
A friend reminded me of the non-acquisitive Heysen Landscape Prize, which also accepts non-painted wall hung creations, and is local (Hahndorf), making freight a simple drive in the country. Closing date for entries is 10 August, and there’s a huge temptation to drop my brushes and get going with the angle grinder again. Maybe with the sign I stole up in the Flinders Ranges and the bucketful of rock chippings that also found their way home from a carpark. Assemblages are such fun.
02 July 09
Crane Truck found in a yard at Woodside
I’m back to work with a vengeance now, having agreed to do a major show at Dickerson Gallery, probably in November 2010, all large paintings, but possibly with some assemblages as well, if they either refer to the objects used in the paintings or otherwise make a coherent statement. I will also produce a large work to be shown there in March/April 2010, I’m aiming at entering the Woolahra Small Sculpture Prize in early August 2009 and the Whyalla Prize in late August 2009 (one of the few prizes that accepts wall hung assemblages).
So, work has begun on a truck painting, not for the show but which is already reserved, and a Melbourne Lanes painting for the show. Bits of assemblage are scattered everywhere plus the most magnificent roadsign that Ken found blown off its post, with holes ripped through it and so good I want to just hang it straight onto the lounge wall. A superb gift!
Yesterday we drove up to the Flinders Ranges and bought a holiday house at Blinman, so scenic influences will gradually change everything again. Fabulous blues and purples, and harder, stronger shapes.