Tuesday, October 14, 2003

I Wanna Paint!

I'm bursting with new ideas, I've been out on a couple of lunches just to get away from the PC and made some small ideas thumbnails in my sketchbook and I like what's been coming out.

I'm still playing with the shadow men idea I sort of adopted and I've been playing with things they do, their universe and moving away from straight narrative to dreamy, absurd ideas and a more dynamic / distorted / graphic method of composition. I have enjoyed creating my own internal narratives for the pictures and loose physics, history, personae, etc.

Even at this very early, crude and unrefined stage I can see the potential and more importantly, they are making me smile. That's part of the driving force. Doing work I find fun. A simple premise I've denied myself for years, and boy does it feel good to rediscover it.

I'm still being true to the ideas and themes in my work which drive me - childhood memories, barely seen jeopardy, monumental landscapes, unreality bought to live and theatrical / dramatic lighting. I can see these painting being done in a style reminiscent of my last night shadows painting, loose with lots of colour and drama.

Anyway - I wanted to share some of the images. Please remember these are the first mad scrawlings, not in anyway meant to be good, they are me quickly jotting out my ideas - they come so much more easily when I enjoy doing them!

The writing in each of the following ones comes from the starting point of: "Shadow Men..."

"...taunt the moon for its poor performance at Twister?."

"...bully the small"

"...enjoy climbing the peach clouds at sunset."

"...chase each other through the long grass on Wiseman's Bridge."

"...walk the dog in the cubist cemetery."

"...like being scary shadows."

And this one I worked up a bit more, shortly after the arrival of Elis and its obviously had an inspirational effect on me... Shadow Man and Son...

Bizarrely, I was turfing out my old comics the other week for sale on Ebay, and I chanced in one called Revolver - and found a one page story by a Shaky Kane called Pinhead Nation - I wonder if that had buried it self deep in my subconscious to inform the work I started with Pinhead the Shadowman? I will post it one day so you can decide. I know I had completely forgotten about it - as it has been in a cupboard for 13 years.

There is little original to be done in the world these days!

Posted by Dio Bach at 19:30

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