"The Girl who loved Prose"

Wanted to share with you all my latest "painting".. well it’s painted on computer actually for a specific purpose.
As much as I love the smell of turps and the mess of gooey paint, I also spend time doing digital mock ups and reinterpretations of my real world work when I can find the time. I produced a drawing tutorial for the Australasian website of Wacom (makers of digital drawing tablets) some time ago (http://www.wacom-asia.com/community/procorner/walkthrough/index.php ) and was contacted by them yesterday and invited to submit a painting for an upcoming book. The book will be titled "The Art of Making Marks" and produced by IDN Magazine who as many of you would know are an international design magazine.

The deadline was pretty tight (2 days) so I dusted off my trusty Intuos 3 tablet, picked up my pen and set to work overnight. I finished up at 2:30 am but am quite pleased with the result. It’s so weird how some image editing and painting programs really do feel like I’m pushing and dragging paint around.. a normal painting like this in traditional media (oils) could take me a few weeks to complete! However, six hours straight left me pretty tired by the end of it  but it was nice to play around in a painting arena I haven’t visited for a while.

A lot of people have difficulty accepting computer generated work as real art but it doesn’t bother me. I love my jars of smelly turps, soiled rags, pots of brushes, broken charcoal, oil sticks, pastels and large primed canvas. I also love that solitary buzz of a late night in the studio with good music, red wine for company and a half finished painting on the go. But this was something different and with a finished result just as satisfying for me.

So, I introduce to you "The Girl who loved Prose", a fiery red haired Irish woman with a passion for the literary arts and like her caffeine girl friends, an ambiguous stare.

I’ll leave it just as it is and post the high res version off to Japan shortly.

You just don’t mess with Irish girls..

“Suspended Infatuation” Oil on Canvas

A rare self portrait.
Sometimes paintings just develop on the canvas and this is one of them. What I can say is that there is a hint of circus in this piece which probably points to my upbringing as a very young child.

The painting is certainly not unlike another painting of mine called “Literature and Levitation” in that it is also documenting or paying homage to the artists who have inspired me in so many ways throughout my life. There is also some sort of straight jacket which seems to be untied.. possibly a metaphor for being set free by art?

Perhaps.