The Class Album’s now available as a Deluxe Edition CD and art bundle, which I’ll probably write about more in my next post. This evening’s currently being spent starting twelve new oil paintings that’ll be part of my default Edgeworth Johnstone series, so my head's not in the right frame of mind to be talking about music. There’s loads of flooding in Thailand too, where I’ve recently bought my girlfriend Aon, a motorbike. Hopefully it won’t be floating down the road like the hundreds of others I’ve seen on YouTube today.
Pattaya and Bangkok are virtually underwater, but where we are up in Isaan hasn’t been so bad, but there’s still a lot more rain to come. At least all weekend. I’m due to fly out in a couple of months, when hopefully the rainy season will have ended. Usually it will all be done and recovered by late November and heading into high season, but this year’s seeing exceptional weather. Better to focus on paintings. It’s all about making abstract shapes and lines today, rubbing them down, then leaving them to dry for a week or so before starting the next layer. It’s usually only then that things start getting figurative and somewhat enjoyable. I don’t enjoy this part of the painting process at all. I’m half way through the twelve and only writing this now because I need a break. Here’s a finished painting currently drying on my toilet:
Five 30 x 24 inch canvases were finished yesterday, so went to the shop this morning and bought ten more blanks. Found a couple more lying around the house that weren’t damaged from our ceiling plaster falling in last week. My online shops will be getting filled with this size, all done in oil. It’ll take a while for them to be dry and available and each blank costs £10 each. This is going to be quite an investment getting my shops up to the next target of 300 listings each. If only people were as keen on the paintings I do on cardboard I’d be saving hundreds of pounds every month, and quite a bit on shipping. Storage would also be a lot easier, but no, canvas is what’s most in demand. I’ll try some cardboard of a similar size at a lower price. If the cardboard ones start selling, life will become a lot cheaper and easier. The photos below show how I’m having to store them now, since the storage room ceiling collapsed. Perched on the toilet, in front of the sink. It’s all feeling more and more like now’s the time to be heading off to Thailand. Working in such a restricted studio space, in oil is going to be tough. Acrylic would be a lot easier as it dries quicker, but something’s telling me to stick with oil.
A lady on the bus today got into an argument with a man who objected to her pitbull jumping all over him. No muzzle, it had a lead but she didn’t seem to realise that you're supposed to hold the other end. The bus was boiling hot, there were kids everywhere. The bus driver stopped the bus because the dog was getting out of control. The lady threatened to set her dog on the man arguing with her because he was loudly accusing her of being a prostitute. She replied by saying that he was ugly, and that his mother was also a prostitute. This was all happening on the top deck, the dog by now was on the bottom deck throwing a child’s toy around and shaking it like they do to break their prey's neck. I was sure as soon as it spotted my canvases, it would tear them to shreds but the lady pressed the emergency button and they both jumped off.
