The first image is one of a series of small canvases that I am currently working on. The second is a happy accident. As I put my camera away after a long walk, an effect worthy of photoshop was made with a little camera shake and a slow exposure.
A real mix of materials here - zinc oxide powder, ink, emulsion and a little soot, with the help of a hair dryer and some sgrafitto. I'm quite excited by the slow emergence of crosses, barely visible, unconsciously made, though I have been deliberating lately on the most simple but loaded of marks...
A cautionary note perhaps; never delete images from your camera until you've uploaded them and have lived with them for a while...It's also that time of year again - the highly controversial Turner Prize - and the winner is... five-year-old Terisha Reeve! She 'uses the medium of watercolour to create a passionate, broad-brushstroke, post-modern interpretation of the 21st Century phenomena of celebrity'! No, not THE Turner Prize we have all come to love and loathe in equal measure, but the alternative Anthea Turner Prize in which very young artists compete to produce the best portrait of B-list celebrity Anthea Turner. Proud mum Pam Reeve, said of her daughter's achievement: I'm not sure she knows who Anthea Turner is. I told her she's a journalist. She loves art. Ah, bless!Another alternative arts award, the Turnip Prize, has been awarded to an empty birds' nest and a flu remedy, created by 69-year-old Mr 'Osenthroat' from Somerset. He described his contemporary work, 'Birds Flew' as 'feathery and titanic'. A great play on words and fabulously ironic since the real Turner Prize winner is a Mr. Simon Starling (an appropriately geeky name for a research-based artist). Feathers are sure to fly in artistic circles when the real competition involves an old shed/boat/shed and a bicycle, and it's a thumbs up to the cackling red necks - I'm talking turkeys, of course!