I dug out the plaster of paris and came up with this form:

I had already made a few smaller things in wood filler, which I subsequently painted black. All these small forms start to interact.

Perhaps this is leading somewhere. Certainly its stimulating my imagination.

So I find myself wanting to make more images, this time on paper:

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I have been continuing to work over the last four months, but this blog has lapsed. Rather than trying to fill the gaps, I'm going to start back with what I'm doing currently. This is what interests me enough to want to write about it.

In painting, I am trying to work with simple forms, which lets me experiment with their articulation in space. This has always been central to my work.

I have also started putting some serious figures into new work.

I've mostly skirted around the edge of figuration in the past. Perhaps this is about to change.

I'm also going back to some sculptural work, using various media to build forms. This will feed back into the painting.

These small paintings on canvas are all in an indeterminate state, ie. possibly unfinished.

They seem to be moving in quite different directions. But I am enjoying the variety. When the time comes to focus more on one kind of painting, then I might start working larger again.

And the painting that was frustrating me in the last post now looks like this:

This one has been frustrating me recently. Its something to do with the way the forms get locked in and I feel quite constrained with the painting:

So I started working over it rather radically. Now its a mess, but I'm not unhappy with that. Its much easier to work in this environment, where nothing is even suggesting forms at the moment.

Back to this one, which is progressing steadily:

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I've wondered whether I should stop maintaining this blog, since I am still unsure of its purpose. But when I look back to earlier posts, it helps me to understand what I was concerned about at the time I wrote them.

Yes, I keep a personal painting diary, but the flavour of it is always a bit different from these public posts. I can't exactly explain how, but to me it feels generally more concise - which I imagine arises out of the subtle difference that I will put this out on the internet, whether anyone reads it or not.

Its a little bit like the difference between paintings that I've put in exhibitions (the public face of my art) and all the others that never get seen by anyone else. The odd thing is that these posts show exactly those works, which don't get out into the public. And since I don't have an intention (at present) to show work in exhibitions again, this becomes the central focus of my work. Or at least its documentation and at least some exposure to external scrutiny.

Connecting back to the last post from 2019, I started back on that lightly worked ink drawing using charcoal (which had been my initial intent). So it currently looks like this:

I've also started some new small paintings on canvas, using oils:

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