Woman and Child

18.75 x 27 cms, pastel, gouache and acrylic on board, 1998 finished in 2007

Well, Dai, you might not like this one - it started off as one of my old mad paintings and has been finished now as one of my current mad paintings. I had to finish it.

It's about A4 (will measure it) on board, and it doesn't have the half inch margin round the edge because I started it about 9 years ago before I received your instructions. (What a sensible thing to do - why hadn't I thought of doing it before...)

I'd already painted in the two heads and a bottom part that didn't work, then I left it. I didn't want to change the position of the two heads so that gave me some problems trying to balance the painting. It was started off in pastel and gouache and finished in acrylic.

re the HW paintings - In the esnips folder I've named both the paintings and the drawings to make them easier to refer to. I've also added comments (including for this one) as Chuma asked. He said it would make it easier for him to write poems for them.

I didn't really like adding comments since most of them just appeared and I made sense of them after I saw them, or during the process, but it was never - here is my plan, I'll draw a picture to illustrate x.

This has all taken much longer than I thought it would - the adding names and comments, I mean. I'm going to go and draw now and will come back to watch the demos on utube that you found for me later on. I found a large book by Barrington Black called something like Fundametals of Drawing reduced from £15 to 5! It's got a lot of the 'how to draw everything' in it, but my copy of that is small and hard to see, so this is glorious. I'm going to start at the beginning and try to stick to at least one exercise from it per day.

I try to do at least one of your exercises per day, too, in addition to thinking about the latest piece of wisdom you've sent me. In fact, your teaching opens my eyes wider each day - and my mind...

That's it for now. Hope you're living it up in Abergavenny. Greetings to you all.

HW Long ago

This is an old picture - interesting to me from the point of view of search for HW.

Hidden Woman 11

Hello Dai - you've seen this already in the esnips HW folder. It's acrylic on A4 done mainly with a palette knife (but not according to your instructions - can't manage that yet, am still trying).

It started off as a sketch where the rock formations of the land seemed like figures lying there. It seemed that there was a Hidden Woman among them. I suppose this led on from HW appearing out of the ground in Gledhow Valley Woods. The rock formation also looked like a raft from one angle, but then big mountains and stuff from another. It doesn't look much like the description of its becoming but that's how it turned out. I like the colours.

Story of HW in G. Valley Woods

Hello, Dai - at last I've got back to the comp to send the message to explain how Hidden Woman in Gledhow Valley Woods came about.

I started off with the photograph above. It's of a place where I regularly walk the dog and I liked the shape of the 3 trees (there's water to the left at the front). I also liked the colours although I don't usually try to copy colours - I like to use my own.

I started drawing from it with polychromos (see above below photo) and thought

a) don't like the polychromos, how annoying that I started off with these,

b) aha, there's the egg man - he's nice (the eyes were orginally bushes),

c) I don't like the yellow path.

Did like something about it though, so thought I'd paint it in acrylics and see what happened.

Thought, too, about the colours and actually thought I'd stop choosing my own and have a go at painting it with grey, magenta and green (with some red), like in the photo.

Tried to put this plan into practice and ended up with the most garish picture I've ever drawn (ironic that this result came from a starting point of trying to be 'realistic'.....). The biggest pleasure, however, came when the egg man changed into Hidden Woman - it seemed she was a

force rising up from the earth, all pink and powerful. The eyes, once again, were originally bushes. She seemed tarty with curling lips, but fun - I liked her - she made me laugh.

Your comments on this HW in GVWoods pic are just wonderful. I'm learning so much from you. I'm going to have another go at painting this soon, taking into account your comments about colours. (By the way, it was even more garish before I changed the path to grey - the path was red before and you needed sunglasses to be able to even look at it!) Just wanted to explain how it got to be as it was - thanks again, Dai, for your oh so helpful comments.

Hidden Woman (10) in Gledhow Valley Woods

acrylic on canvas 25 x 35.3 cms

Hello Dai - here she is! Turned up unexpectedly but very definitely.

A problem I have though is that I painted this on a box canvas and I don't know what to do with the sides. Do I have to paint them? With a continuation of the painting, or plain? I don't like the box shape, wish I'd have done it on plain paper or canvas. Never mind, I'm sure there'll be a way of dealing with this.

I've now got 2 online Hidden Woman folders (the actual pictures are either in folders or on the walls) . One for drawings with 9 in it so far, and one for pictures with 11 in it so far. I know I won't use all these, but it's helpful for now to put them all in the folders. I also took down Pumpkin, Hidden Woman and Blue woman from the painters site because all these 3 belonged in the HW folder.

How's the exhibition going? I wish I were there.

Oh dear - I just think I've finished something, then find out I haven't. You might notice that this is now different from the first one I posted, but I'm not sure it's better. Might be worse. Will have to look at it longer. Might change it back to what I had before....

Have now reposted the original and am working on the pic to take it backwards.... it will never be the same of course..... so backwards might be forwards, too. Here's hoping.

Hidden Woman 1D

I've been looking through old pictures and found quite a few that belong to a Hidden Woman series. The problem is though that many of these old pics are on flimsy paper. I like this one. Do you? (charcoal on 36 x 27 cm paper - not flimsy)

Confession - lol!

Hello Dai - I've just been looking through folders and sketch books - actually looking for 2 Heads 1. I found it, but what I also found was the doodle I posted, and discovered.... whoops.... I'd actually painted it the way up that you thought it should be.... Isn't that amazing - I found the date in pencil at the bottom - 29/10/06 so that settled which way up I'd doodled.

Hope everything's going well, no need to reply. I've spent the evening mainly messing about daubing paint on paper with the palette knife. What pleasure, so nice to touch afterwards, too - the daubs of paint, I mean, not the knife.

Must go now, it's Paul's 50th tomorrow and we're celebrating at the weekend, too, so cooking starts here....

Potternewton Park

Hello Dai - this is a drawing I did when I couldn't sleep (0n A5 with a b pencil). It's where I walk the dog every day in the park opposite the house, a park full of hills and hollows, great sweeping curves- did it from a photo I took last month. It's scrappy and I'm not putting into practice all the new teaching I've just got from you, but I will. Something about it I like though so I may do it again. It reminds me a bit of a picture I painted years ago that I gave to Itsuki.

re progress generally - Hidden Woman turned up in the Gledhow Valley Woods picture. This one is frivolous, made me laugh - will post it soon. Am busy playing with colours and palette knife, am also about to go back to the stairs picture which has started to call for attention. One thing that makes me reluctant to post straight after I've finished something (unless it's a drawing or doodle) is experience that tells me that I can't see it so soon. I can only see it after a while, so maybe I won't post the HW in GVW yet. What do you think?

Well, Dai, less than a week to Hanging Day, and only a week till you open. I'm counting the days with you - probably more than you, because you're experienced but for me it's a thrill. What do you do? Do you walk around incognito to listen to what people are saying? Or is that impossible for you in Cardiff? - you're probably so well known you would need a disguise...