Competitions

A busy few days, and weeks! A few Monday's ago I helped host a poetry night at the local community centre and our guest poet Jim Bennett was brilliant, not only as a poet (he was clearly way above us!) but as an inspiration and as entertainer. He even got us singing along to one of the poems! He was clearly a true artist, he wrote his first poem aged 8 and he's been a poet all his life, but despite his years of experience and many achievements he was really down to earth and still passionate about language and society.

The night was a busy rush for me. My singer friend Tor and his manager Honey came along so I met them in person for the first time. They came back here and listened to tune after tune while I bamboozled them with offers and begs to record more songs with me. They said yes.

That excitement aside I've been painting stalwartly for the most part. I've also entered and been turned down for the Stockport Open. I was commenting that competitions can boil down to the judges taste. Trying to second guess judges though can be a nightmare. I was disappointed last year when one of my best paintings, at least a good one, I thought, was turned down, so this year I entered paintings that were different but both of those were turned down too, and the judges were different anyway! That said though, the two I entered were perfectly fine. We can but try.

In other news I've been ordered to take down two paintings from my Crewe Hall exhibition on the grounds of nudity. This annoyed me somewhat. For a start it could easily cost me £50-£100 to hire a van to take them when the only reason for me to remove them is that they don't like them, and they've been there for a month and I at least supplied a price list with titles etc. months in advance. My works aren't like Lucien Freuds or Francis Bacons, but Crewe Hall isn't an art gallery either. This happens in many venues with my work and now I must ensure that I check in advance. About 25% of my paintings are unshowable to the public, apparently. I expect this is entirely a matter of fashion and that if I were as famous as Lucien Freud, Crewe Hall would happily show them and not bat an eyelid.

These events have made me think.

My plan was to paint for competitions. Now I think I might as well paint for my own whims, the reasoning being that trying to please a judge is like a cat chasing its tail or that uncatchable fox being chased by the immortal hound. Stand still and you have more chance of the fox jumping into your proverbial arms. Yet, whims are limitless. Why paint every day for every month forever? Is that a question to ask every artist?

Well we'll all live until we get old and then die. We can do anything in between. Anything we want. The ultimate reason I enter competitions is as a goal, a point in time that motivates action, the fun and the challenge of the creation process against imaginary opponents. Mentally, the prize is filling in the entry form because that announces the end of the process, and victory.

On that note I've just entered this into the Threadneedle Prize. As a London competition, they should notice the reference to the B.P. Portrait Award last year.

Update

No bongs.

I've been painting for a few days. The tiger is drying in it's first layer. Today I'm on day two of Triumph of the Mechanauts. Here's a sneak preview...

I'm painting better than ever and feeling right at home. The new work schedule is working much better; with 30 minute breaks instead of 20. Exercise and diet are so important for these long sessions. Of all breakfasts, porridge with dried fruit and soya milk must surely be the most healthy. I'm surer than ever that sugar accelerates ageing and at best causes ups and downs in both mood and activity. Coffee with caffeine is, I think, as good as exercise and some research I've read indicates it increases heart health and has similar mood enhancing effects as exercise. I must stay fit and young so that when success arrives I can be fit enough to enjoy it. Of course, by then I'll be addicted to my current lifestyle, whatever that is, but perhaps not. One thing I avoid is routine. It is routine that traps the brain into relaxation and laziness. One thing that struck me, an obvious fact, is that young people like new music and old people like the same old music they've always listened to. The music taste is reflecting brain physiology. Old music is old paths. New music is new paths. Limiting your taste in music, or in people, or in anything will degrade your brain. Limitation of tastes is a sign of decay, but exploring new tastes is a way to avoid it. Listening to new music, and trying new things, even and especially things you "dislike" will keep your brain young and flexible, just as moving in a new way keeps your joints flexible. Fighting likes, fighting comfort, fighting lazy established routine is the key to longevity. Bless the recalcitrant for they will inherit the Earth.

Must avoid obtuse rambles.

I've been tweeting on Twitter quite a lot recently. My account is https://twitter.com/#!/marksheeky if you're on there. It's good for some things. I'm sure Nietzsche would have liked it. I'm unsure of the best things to say as yet. Despite the public nature of each tweet it somehow feels more intimate than Facebook. The psychology of this is a mystery.

I'll continue painting all week.

I've got a few events lined up and I now think it's a good idea to have two live events each month. The next one is the poetry night on the 23rd. The singer Tor James Faulkner might come to that from Glasgow. I hope so. We've never met and it would be good to do more work with him. I'd like to record more songs, perhaps under a band name so that I can use a mix of performers without confusion over the credits.

Now I'll listen to some Radio 1.

Let It Be

This is my attempt at the monkification of a whip-bearing man for my Flagellation of Christ, one of the three paintings I'm working on. The other one had problems. The oil paint that I "traced" it with was partly washed away by the imprimatura. I must either wait longer next time (I will!) or rub more gently (I will! - although to rub harder gives better smoother results). This sad wearing away of my new friend, my first big painting of 2012 is an setback among many other recent triumphs, including the successful launch of my long exhibition at Crewe Hall. The mother of a talented your singer spoke to me. I'd like the singer to sing some of my songs but she's young yet and has many options before her and will need much guidance from her parents and wise friends.

But now time is ended!

Bong!

The clock has struck!

Bong!

The winter has melted!

Bong!

The sun is here!

Bong!

The time for worries is done. The time for preparation is over. Time has beaten us!

Bong!

The clock is racing and the moon is running. The sun is dead and the night is born!

Bong!

No time for more music videos even though some are needed!

Bong!

No time to sell on etsy for the first time!

Bong!

No time to post a painting to the Abbeywood Estate sale!

Bong!

No time to tell you about the charity auction in Bristol where my works are to star, with the support of Gillian Anderson, Stephen Fry and the Lord Mayor! No time to tell you about my first radio interview last Tuesday!

Bong!

Time is out and time it set to begin for now, yes, now is the time to draw back that great velvet curtain that leads to summer. Tomorrow I will enter my hermitude. I will shut off the universe, alone with my limnetic lover! It is time, dear friends, to paint.

Let the bells peel in joy!

Paint and Robots

I'm doing lots of things at the moment. I've decided to focus on competitions and events and I'm working on three paintings at the moment, a leaping tiger (theme "moving"), a flagellation of Christ (for a competition about religion) and a giant chromium man embracing a giant chromium skeleton (for a competition about the future). The last one is the largest and most complex, and probably the most visually impressive too. All of the shiny little bones were difficult to outline but I got there in the end, and the underdrawing looks good already. I'll be doing that on canvas for a change, "Top Gun" polyester, which doesn't require priming but does resist drawing/pencil marks so I'll be outlining in oil paint.

Next month I'll be attending two events; the launch of a new three-month exhibition at Crewe Hall. The opening night next Wednesday is free to attend and you are welcome to come along if you are nearby. Find full details on the Art Up Close Website. The second event is an open mic. poetry night, Poetry Blast, on the 23rd of April. I'll be reading something from 365 Universes there.

And later in the year there are plans for a Steampunk event. Actually more of a mini-festival, organised by Carol at The Cubby Hole (their blog is here). It's a bit hush-hush at the moment but several people are now working on art for it and I'm hoping to make a sculpture and a watercolour painting for it. Here's a look at the bits of steam-train robot I want to make.

I'm really just making it up as I go along, gluing this to that here and there. I'll plan more when needed. I'm painting a watercolour because there are lots of watercolour competitions these days, so I thought I'd paint something I could enter into one of those in future.

All of these events made me think of the comparison with art and sport. I wonder if professional artists could work like professional sports people? Being paid prize money that falls not just to a "top three" but down the ranks. Is that how sports competitions work? If so it might make for a good way of funding art, and would require a standardised set of rules of entry for competitions, so that prize money, fairly divided, had a more even spread. It might create a circuit of artists, like golfers or snooker players, that compete regularly in art events.

Finally I'll end with some mentions. I met with a photographer and printer last Wednesday morning called Terry Davies who has a professional attitude and creates good quality giclee prints. I may use his services in future. On the same day my art group had a watercolour tutorial from Paul Brotherton, a nice friendly teacher with a good knowledge of art techniques. That day was fraught as I was telephoned the day before to make me feel bad for not being able to attend the tutorial in the morning and then told that I was not permitted to go in the afternoon - we each need a space to work, but hardly "permission" (some of the attitudes at that club drive more than me mad)! In the end the afternoon was great, and my picture benefitted from splurging darkness and improvising as I went! I think it's fair to say that everyone learned something from Paul and it was nice to see people who had never touched watercolour have a go.

Painting vs. Writing

I'm concentrating more on writing now, my new fad. In art I'll focus only on paintings for competitions or specific exhibitions. Sadly, it means that many of my artistic ideas will not be painted, but I can do those later when I'm rich enough to rest and endulge in flights of artistic fancy.

Writing is like painting in many ways. The first draft is like the underpainting, but it's made linearly instead of all in one go, like a painting that starts in one corner and creeps towards to other. Some painters have a rough underpainting that marks out the blobs of light and shade, and writers like that would quickly write a first draft, then spend a lot of work on subsequent drafts, redrafting many times, like those painters who add lots of layers to model and refine. Some painters plan the whole picture first. Some just start, adjusting as they go. The same is true of writers, although it seems relatively rare for writers to plan the story in advance, many just writing and making parts up as they go.

I write like I paint, first with a rough plan that sets out what happens in each chapter. I do this largely unconsciously, exactly like my idea sketches for paintings, so that the mood can be instantly captured. Then I write the first draft, with lots of detail and largely like the final book, again like my detailed underpaintings. Then glazing, a next and (hopefully) final draft, which contains few new elements, adds colour, more unusual words that fit and enhance the story. As in an underpainting, the first draft contains a simpler vocabulary.

The two media are amazingly similar. One big difference though is expression of emotion. In a book the mood can change and sway with each chapter, but a painting really conveys one feeling. Paintings can contain many emotions, each part with a different mood, (Dali's The Great Masturbator was the first time I noticed this, the eroticism of the woman's face, the fear of the grasshopper on the big face, the anxiety of the ants) but paintings like that demand more attention, and have less instant visual impact, they are less accesible. Simiarly though, a book works best when it as a whole has one mood. Nineteen Eighty Four has a feeling of oppression conflicting freedom throughout. Perhaps one overall mood, with subtle variations in different parts is the key to a good artwork in any medium. If I were to illustrate the story I'm writing it would demand and benefit most from one single painting for the whole story, I think.

In my story so far George has caused a stir and is about to try to escape from Heaven with his 1950's teenage rebel father, pursued by angelic guards. I'm writing the odd bit at night while spending the day planning paintings.

Paperback Arrived

The first copies of the paperback edition of my book have arrived and I'm really pleased with the quality! This is probably the thickest book in my collection and on good quality white paper, not the yellow flaky stuff that many paperbacks are printed with.

The official "book registration" process is just about done. It's not difficult, not compared to the vast and bewildering complexity of registering music. First I applied for ten ISBN codes from Nielsen, the registrar for U.K. ISBN's. They entered details of the first book into their international book database. Then, got an EAN code made from the ISBN (modern ISBN codes are the same as EAN codes, so that was easy, I found some free software called Presilo to generate the barcode image), and I printed the book with the barcode on the back according to specifications on the BIC website. For the paperback edition a new ISBN is needed so I assigned a new one, and have applied to access the Nielsen database, so that I can type the publication details in myself. Next stop was to print one copy of each book to send to the British Library, which is a legal obligation.

That's about it. The website, www.pentangel.co.uk was the final step. Soon I'll add the books to that so that people can order from it. Today I read about something called an Onix Availability Status Code, which each publisher uses to specify if a book is available, in print, on order, etc. My books will be available only from me directly because the printing costs are so high that I have no hope of selling at a wholesale price to a retailer.

The hardback will cost £100 and is limited to 100 signed and numbered copies. The softback will cost £10.99. I estimate the postage costs will be £5.99 or so. I'll have to look into that. A few copies of each edition have been pre-ordered by friends already, which was an unexpected excitement.

This, and reading "Flowers for Algernon" has inspired me and I'm 11,000 words into my novella/novel/story "The Many Beautiful Worlds of Death". It's a philosophical work of literature, but told as a fantastical adventure story. At the start George, the hero, finds that he has six weeks to live and vows to use the trans-dimensional gateway he built in his basement to visit different people and places to find a cure. In chapter 5 he visited the wisest man in the world. I'm on chapter 6 at the moment and George has entered heaven, a "perfect" society.

I'm writing late at night, between 10pm and midnight and that works best for me. I expect it'll be complete before October. I aim to find an agent for this one rather than publish it myself.

Book Arrived

Yay my first copy of 365 Universes arrived today and it looks excellent, better than I'd expected. It's a pity the software is awful, and their ability to accept or treat feedback (bug reports) because Blurb do lots of the "everything else" very well.

It's the first book from Pentangel Books, which I've set up to publish it, and will be available in two formats initially; a £100 limited edition full colour hardback, and a monochrome paperback for £10.

The book contains over 200 illustrations, over 100 small watercolour paintings, with other even smaller watercolours on plain paper. Over the weekend I added a new Watercolours section to my website which shows all of them, including a few older ones from previous years. It's been a productive 2012 so far.

I've also just completed my first oil painting of the year, Prometheus As A Turkey Being Eaten By A Peacock. A trip to an up-market high-street gallery over the weekend was an inspiration. Although the "art" was as dead as ever emotionally (it's what people like, I'm learning that, deadness) I was impressed by the quality of the presentation, to the extent that I've already secretly decided to make my frames larger in future.

I'm also toying with reproduction options, prints I mean, not children. My current system is imperfect but I've got problems... What if a print costs more to make than an original? Can a reproduction cost more than an original? Should a reproduction cost the same price as any other? What if some frames are more expensive? Should reproductions be limited then? By how much?

Most of the time I simply want a cheaper alternative, so I'm toying with the idea of keeping my current reproductions series as just that, then having a second series of well framed expensive giclees. Commercial art publishers have an odd way of working to me, but they all seem to work the same way; selling prints with editions of 400 or 500 for £400 or £500.

That musing can wait.

My main task of the month is to assemble props and put together the Love Symphony Performance. Initially this was, and still is, due to be set at the Axis Arts Centre, the MMU campus. Five students were there at the original contact, then two at the second (the first "real") meeting. Not enough really, and in between other friends and friends of friends were drafted in to help, but not students, and no students mean no free facilities at the MMU because they understandably need this to be a useful educational experience. Now, some students couldn't make it for different reasons, so I'm hoping that more will come on board now that we have a script. If not, then I'll move venue and buy, beg or borrow my some equipment. That will make things harder and more expensive, but it will mean we could do more than one show in more than one place with more ease.

The script has been pencilled in and consists of lighting, fan, scent, explosion, balloon, smoke, video and other effects. I've ordered willow and tissue paper to make the large stage props, and bought silvery white cloth for use as a general backdrop.

I have two exhibitions to plan this month, and three oil paintings to begin. My novel is approaching 4000 words and at the end of the first chapter. All is in hand.

Game Art

Today was the release day of my PC game, Flatspace IIk. It's a simple game set in space where players begin with a small ship then have the freedom to fly about, trade cargo, explore, chase criminals or become them. Freedom is the important word for the gameplay.

The game is an update to Flatspace II. I'd got a little tired with the current sales system of the old game and for a variety of reasons, something new that had the best of what had come before, with more and cheaper, was the best option. When the project gained momentum I knew that tweaking the look would be important. This one has a definite red/copper look to it. The first game was very blue and green. Orange and green made up the second game, and the enemies in that one were the orange component. For Flatspace IIk, I settled on red pretty quickly and began to like it more and more.

One key feature of the new game is the ability to create or modify the items in the game universe. It's a complex game and you can buy or sell products of different sorts (like "Minerals" or "Fruit/Vegetables"). Players can now make their own categories. In fact along with the freedom of play, freedom to create has been in the back of my mind for years, since before the second game.

I think it's fair to say that the game has a "cult following". This tends to mean than a small number of people like it a lot, rather than lots of people broadly like it. Had the games been a commercial success I might probably have not become an artist. Now there's a thought.

Some of my best work is in computer code form but ironically only a computer can really appreciate it. Programming can be like trying to please someone who is really sensitive to the slightest mistake. It's excellent training for those who seek perfection, but it's hard to read and hard to display. One flaw of anything to do with computers is that most people have no idea how easy or difficult something is, and not even the best expert can really know by only seeing end results. One nice thing about painting or any developed skill like stone carving, is that the effort becomes more obvious, and so does the satisfaction.

As an artist who used to develop games do I think games are an art form? Well, they have many creative aspects, but the ability for self-expression is often constrained by the need to make the game enjoyable. For most art, perhaps all art, self expression is the key component. Even something vast and complex that involves hundreds of people like the film "Avatar" expresses a feeling and perspective of mostly one person, James Cameron, but in games I don't really feel that. It's because once the visuals and music is taken care of, the other aspects of a game are necessarily constrained by gameplay.

I've no plans to go back to game development and Flatspace IIk might be my last game, but who can say. The nice thing about the future is that anything can happen. I expect that one day, when I'm a rich artist relaxing in my palatial new museum-mansion, a big fat publisher with glittering gold rings will offer me a zillion pounds to develop a new and fantastic sequel to Flatspace, and when it happens I'll ask them where they were in the 1990's. And then say yes.

Flatspace IIk costs $16 US and if you have a Windows you can give it a try by downloading it here.