Unfinishing

Since July, adjusting the whiteness of the white. Some paintings never seem to be finished. 


Others appear when I'm cleaning my palette, late in the  afternoon, when the light is fading and I think I'm done for the day.


Looking at them again the following day, I may want to change them but I don't know how.
They remain in a state of deliberate unfinishment, which is a preposterous word but 'incompletion' is entirely unsatisfactory.

Part of the Embankment series and the 100th to come out of the box, by the way.

Playing Again

Because the last few canvases are replete with significance, I've ordered 10 more. Now I won't know which painting will be the last one.

And I can play again:

An improvisation on the instrument I used to play.

Lucca 2

Hansa Yellow and Carbon Black for the sky; Hansa Yellow, Quinacridone Magenta and Phthalo Blue for the buildings. It's telling me that it will be finished before I want it to be.

Lucca 1

Two canvases, positively loaded with moulding paste, pumice gel and three acrylic colours. The idea is to work from this sketch:

I love the double viewpoint.

Monumental buildings and shadowy streets,

where you can almost smell the centuries.

Pavane

A small exercise in grief.

Embankment Series

I called in at Tate Modern for a pee and Tate Britain for coffee and cake, but didn't look at a single painting.

I expect it shows.

Anywhere or Nowhere

An antidote to the big sky painting of Tuesday, 14 September.

But I found myself gazing at an acre of dirt with nowhere to go, so I added the road.

Roads like clouds, enable us to dream.

Mellow Fruitfulness Part 2

The real struggle doesn't take place on the canvas...

It's knowing what you want that requires so much effort.

Countdown

The last box of 10 canvases: opened today.

Famous Last Words

I spent a morning looking at it and decided I just couldn't live with those colours.

"Unless you say goodbye to the things you love and unless you travel to completely unknown destinations you can merely expect a slow wearing-away of yourself and an eventual extinction."

GEORGE DUBUFFET

Mellow Fruitfulness

Quince 1: Insouciant Hansa Yellow, Carbon Black and a little Titanium White. But it has nothing of the subject's weighty, muscularity.

Quince 2: An attempt to do things properly. But the underpainting is too wet and Carbon Black infests my colours. When I attempt to resolve the shape I lose my way. The end result is merely safe.

Quince 3: I seem intent on boring myself.

This feels a bit more like painting.