Twisted Torso, oil, 18 x 24 cm

Comfort (oil, 60 x 70 cm) Stage 6: Completed

Comfort (digitally worked detail)

I was walking round Dusseldorf this afternoon thinking about my latest painting, feeling that it is not good as good as it could be when I had a brainwave...I have to leave the original photo behind me now and work on the painting in its own right. Because I'm not at home, I can't work on the original painting, but what I have done is experiment on a digital version on my computer. The example above is just a detail, but it should be enough for you to judge the results for yourself.

Comfort (oil, 60 x 70 cm) Stage 1: The Underpainting

At 60 x 70 cm, this is the biggest work I've ever attempted, and I'm really enjoying it. I've started with an underpainting in verdaccio and, once it's dry, will add the flesh tones by means of transparent glazes. This is the technique used by the old masters.

Sold for £465: The Little Girl with Flowers in her Hair

This morning I bade farewell to the Little Girl with Flowers in her Hair (oil, 40 x 60 cm), who was sent on approval to a London buyer at a price of £465.

Neil and Aodan sheltering under a boulder

An eye, digital paint

This is a detail copied from a painting by Bouguereau.

Seated woman, acrylic, 20 x 30 cm

Martin, Sarah and Bill at Glen Clova (Acryllic, 50 x 40 cm)

I painted this picture as a present for Sarah's Bat Mitzvah.

Aodan on Cape Cod

I did this painting from a photo I took on holiday last year. Aodan was feeling pretty miserable on the day the photo was taken, due to a severe case of sunburn.

I'm pretty pleased with the painting on the whole. It's the biggest I've ever attempted, and I managed to loosen my brush strokes considerably to cover the huge white surface. What I'm still not satisfied with, though, is the fabric of Aodan's teeshirt. I think I've still got some learning to do there.

Laughing Woman (acrylic, 30 x 40 cm)

This painting is modeled on one by the American artist John Currin. I started it about nine months ago, but halted work because I couldn't get the hair right. Today I had another go and got to as near to completion as I will every get it. I am pleased with the solidity and roundness of the head and with the ambiguity of the expression: is it agony or ecstasy?

Aodan on North Berwick beach

Earlier in the summer, we drove to North Berwick with Aodan and his grandparents. This photo was taken on the beach. It's actually Aodan's reflection on wet sand, flipped 180 degrees. I like the way the feet are in focus, while the head is indistinct, as if lost in swirling clouds. The pose is very casual, but the low camera angle makes him seem to tower like a giant. I also like the three distinct bands of white, blue and grey.

Last night we held a party in Regency style dress

I've just finished a book called "Duchess" by Amanda Foreman about Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, an English aristocrat who lived a very active life in politics and fashion at the end of the eighteenth century. I enjoyed the book so much that when we were asked to host a fund-raising event in support of the rugby club, we decided to invite people to come in Regency style dress. Everyone who came made a magnificent effort, and made a ghostly presence in the surroundings of our Georgian flat.

Aodan by a Spanish river

Man bathing, digital paint

I'm fascinated by how people choose to represent themselves on the internet. The photo you see on the left is taken from someone's personal profile on a networking site...but I don't believe for a moment that it is a photo of the owner.  I made the copy on the right using digital paint. In the past when making digital paintings, I have started out from a physical pencil sketch which I have then scanned and coloured in. In this case, though, I worked directly with digital paint on digital canvas.

The method I used is a painstaking process of using the pipette to sample colours from the original photo, then using those same colours to paint a copy. This one took me about two days to produce. I'm pleased with the hyperrealistic result, both with the flesh tones and the reflections on the water. But is it art? Have I put enough of my own artistic skill into reproducing this image to be able to call it my own? Or have I just chosen a slow and laborious way to make a copy of something that my computer can do in an instant? And do I risk getting sued by the owner of the photo, whoever that may be? 

My next challenge, I have decided, will be to produce some original digital paintings that are not based on photographs. I think I'll still sample real skin tones from real photographs, but use them to produce original images, not copies.

Female nude, red pencil, 230 x 150 mm

A few years ago I went to an exhibition of drawings by Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, several of them executed in red chalk. I liked the colour, because it is reminiscent of flesh tones. 

I have now made some similar drawings myself, but have done so in red pencil because I thought it would give me much sharper lines. This drawing is based on a painting by the contemporary American artist John Currin. His painting in turn seems inspired by some Renaissance nudes I have seen, though from a period that predates the anatomical accuracy achieved by Michelangelo and Da Vinci, 

The red pencil gives a curious effect. Rather than natural skin tone, the red seems to suggest flickering lamp light. After I had scanned this copy of the drawing, I added a charcoal background, which was inspired by the backgrounds of early medieval icons, and yet seems to suggest darkness and secrecy. For me the result has associations of witchcraft and arcane rituals at eighteenth-century hellfire clubs.

John Currin, by the way, has taken over from Lucian Freud as my artist of the moment. He is classed as "American grotesque" and makes paintings of the female figure, but always in a slightly distorted way, sometimes idealised, other times exaggerated to ridiculous proportions. The women he paints end up with pencil-slim waists, or unnaturally large breasts and long slender hands. Few women would surely ever aspire to really look like that, and few men would fail to feel intimidated if they met a woman of those proportions in real life.

Some people claim that Currin's paintings are pornographic. But I think he's actually making a parody of pornography...it's the lustful men who he seeks to make look ridiculous, not the fantasy women in the pictures. Some of his paintings are even tricks on the eye. He knows how to attract men's attention with a large bust or a slim waist, but once he has caught us, his paintings turn out to be nothing more than a can of worms...he paints what at first sight appears to be a beautiful woman. It is only on closer inspection that we see she is leaning heavily on a stick and is actually a cripple. He paints a sylph-like figure, but the longer we look at her, with her grey hair and her blue veined hands, the more years we give her. Even the woman portrayed above: is she sensuously caressing her hair, or is she standing pugilistically with her hands up ready to sock us on the nose?

Alan's nephew in colour

Once I had completed the sketch of Alan's nephew I scanned it and coloured it in with digital paint. The funny thing is, this lad looks just like Alan.

Alan's nephew

I've been meaning to do a sketch of Alan's new nephew Lewis for quite a while now, and thought yesterday I should really round to it before the poor lad is completely grown up and shaving. This sketch will go towards the portfolio that I present when I apply for art school.

Fieldview Hotel, Portree, Skye

In the week before Easter we drove from Edinburgh to Skye. We stayed in a country hotel which hadn't been decorated for about a hundred years. It looked lovely.

Caledonian Thebans v. Newcastle Ravens

On Saturday Newcastle Ravens came up to Edinburgh to play us at home.  They're a nice bunch of lads, and they'd made the effort to come up and see us, so we let them win again. I'm on the left in the front row of the scrum.

Kaspar and my Dad

My Dad and Angela came to stay in Edinburgh last weekend. They both seemed to enjoy themselves. My Dad turned out to be a dab hand at pool. Think he may be better than me in fact, and I certainly learned a few tricks off him. Angela played the piano for the first time in forty years, and she's definitely better than me.  I took this photo on my iPhone and re-worked it in Photoshop.

Am impressive performance...marred only by the fact that he got disqualified

Alan put on an impressive performance at the cross-country trials. Marred only by the fact that his horse went the wrong way and got him disqualified. At least I got some good pictures.

Duns Castle

Last weekend we drove out of Edinburgh on a bright and blustery Sunday morning to watch our friend Alan compete in a cross-country riding competition at Duns Castle in the Scottish Borders. 

Art production continues unaffected

Due to the credit crunch, work is very slow at the moment, so I've been spending my time doing art. Here's an example. It's a charcoal drawing on a large scale...60 x 85 cm.