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Tangier House, 1990 (Fine point marker and felt pen in A5 sketchbook)
On a whim, and as a result of an offer from my Union, I decided to spend a week in Morocco early in 1990.. This drawing, the only one in the sketchbook although there are others on loose paper,was done from the window of our hotel looking across the street.
By 1990 I'd started to do a painting course with the Open College of the Arts and in the seasonal break we'd been tasked with doing a painting for the next session. I made this painting from my sketch, backed up with photographs:
Tangier 1990 (Acrylic on board, 24 x 36 ins)
This was the biggest painting I'd done so far and I was quite pleased with it, so I was hoping for a bit of praise when I took it to the next OCA tutorial. The tutor looked briefly at it then, without a word, passed quickly on to a her favourite pupil and spent the night extolling the value of his work. That was the beginning of my realisation that simply occupying the position of tutor does not make you a good one.
Underpass (Oil on canvas, 36 x 72 ins)
I know I've been letting my blog slide a bit, but there are mitigating circumstances. The cold I spoke of last time dragged on and dragged on and even now I'm feeling a few lingering effects. More importantly, the problem I wrote about quite a while ago, the ocular hypertension in my left eye, continues to plague me and has now entered the stage of being classed as open angle glaucoma. There has been some damage to my vision and I'm learning to come to terms with that.
But I'm resilient and there are ideas buzzing around in my head that must eventually come out onto paper or canvas. I hope you'll stick around for the journey.
"Ceci n'est pas une pipe"
On the flight back from Croatia I picked up a cold which has plagued me for the last three weeks. As a result I haven't felt up to posting anything here. Yesterday, however, I got round to looking at my photographs from the trip and picked out this example of Belgian Surrealism found on the island of Lokrum within spitting distance of Dubrovnik.
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