Three years ago I wondered where the hell my life was going and what I was going to do with it. Uncomfortably settling in to the latter part of my 30’s came as a bit of a shock as I had no ‘career’ to speak of. Thing is, I’ve never been fussed on doing jobs that my heart isn’t in. I struggle with them. On the one level they serve the purpose of earning money but on another, deeper level, they’re just soulless. But, it’s up to me to find that something that puts some fire in my belly which, usually, is something creative. Having creative ideas though is one thing but bringing them to fruition is another altogether. My problem lies, I think, with wanting too much too soon and it’s only relatively recently the penny has dropped as to what the saying ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ really means! As  Lao Tzu said, “The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.” How many times have I heard that before?

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised there are two kinds of knowledge: one is what I’ll call ‘logical knowledge’ and the other is what I’ll call ‘experiential knowledge’. Take death as an example. In my life, when I was young, I knew that one day I was going to die. But that was so far (hopefully) in the future that it didn’t concern me at all and there was relatively little death around me other than budgie’s, dog’s or relative’s that I hardly ever saw. As upsetting as losing a pet was (I’ll never forget losing Guiness when I was 15, our wonderful and very dearly loved Bernese Mountain Dog – I think I cried for a week after that one), human death was never close. Until, that is, when you get older. It’s inevitable. And then it sinks in and you know, not just in your head (logical knowledge) but you know it in your bones (experiential knowledge). Well, a similar thing can be said of the sayings I’ve quoted above. Now I understand. How could I have been so stupid? Of course a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. I know that. But I’ve realised I’ve only known it logically. To know it experientially is to actually take that first step.

So, back to three years ago and what I was going to do with my life (career wise, anyways). I decided to run with the only thing I thought I was half-decent at and that was drawing and painting. I knew I had a passion for these things and had ideas I wanted to express but I really had to get (and more importantly desired to get) better. So, I joined a beginners art class (I wanted to learn from the bottom) and, after that year’s course was over, I’d just see where I was and what the next step would be. It was then I heard about a two year course that was pretty much a pre-degree foundation course. I joined that and well, that’s finished now and has been for about a month (if you’ve been a recent visitor here you may recall I had chosen to do an oil painting of a wolf for my final project and is the main reason for this post). The result is pretty much a straight copy of the original photo and I did it over a four week period. I had hoped to have longer but it didn’t work out that way. I think I would have done a better job, particularly on the wolf, given extra time but I was still pleased with the result. I’ve gained a bit more confidence from doing it and now have in my possession the largest canvas I’ve ever had and can’t wait to get started (thanks must go to Steve Reeves who knocked up the canvas for me in the few days before college closed for summer).

I’ve also learned more about glazes from this last project which are so handy – saves having to repaint all that you’ve done already.

Well, here she is, the size of it being 50 x 24 inches, a very similar size to the Waterhouse painting I did last year of A Naiad.

I mentioned in the previously mentioned post that I’d started the same picture in oils but on hardboard. I’ve put it in below for what it’s worth. I don’t think I’ll ever return to it.

And here is the original photo by Jim Dutcher that I used which, unfortunately, hasn’t scanned very well. Not sure if there are any copyright issues with me using this for my college work and if anyone out there knows these things then let me know.

And while I’m at it, here’s a rather wonderful image by the same photographer.

OK, that’s it. Sorry about the philosophical discourse. Probably didn’t make any sense anyway!

Oh, and before I forget, a big ‘thank you’ to Dave, Chrissie, Pat, Suse and kids for coming along to the end-of-year exhibition. Twas lovely to have you all there :)

I’m outta here,

Jimbob

PS. If your wondering at all what my next step is after finishing college, I’m wondering that too ;)

Finally, finally, I’ve updated my artwork page. After a week-and-a-half of intense head scratching, exasperation and near nervous breakdown, I’ve got it sorted, complete with comments enabled (so you can throw all that mud at me from a distance without ever having to leave your email address!).

As an added section to the artwork page, I’ve included some of John Waterhouse’s seldom seen work, primarily sketches and studies. As I’ve mentioned on the page itself, I’ve got loads of his pictures hanging about in the grim and grimy corners of my computer and, as I finished college recently, I thought I’d dig them out, dust them down and put them all together in a much happier and cleaner world that will hopefully orbit cyberspace for a long time to come :)

The one thing I haven’t been able to do is add CAPTCHA (those weird little boxes that have barely decipherable numbers and letters in them  that you have to enter just to prove you’re human) to the comment form. So, if I end up receiving a ton of spam, I may have to change things around a bit which may end up compromising the look of the page.

Well, here’s the new page. Hope someone likes something on there :)

I’m outta here,

Jimbob

Just thought I’d mention a wee bit about my day in Oxford. Firstly, the road directions and layout around that place are shite!

Now that gem of info is out of the way (and after wandering for an hour or so looking for a decent place to park for the day, preferably for free, which I found) I can say a smidgen more about Oxford itself, which ain’t a great deal ‘cos I, unusually, got myself a blister on my foot which kind of curtailed my wanderings. That said, there’s some wonderful architecture around the city and the universities with their old sandstone structures and weathered gargoyles brought to it a sense of history, which I always love about a place. Unfortunately, most places of interest had a cost to enter which meanly prodded a stick at my Scottish side so, I ended up in the only places that cost nowt: churches. But I love old churches anyway as, as well as their history, they’re great places to rest and get out of the crowds of the main city streets.

The only place I really wanted to go was the Ashmolean Museum which, according to johnwilliamwaterhouse.com houses a study by John Waterhouse for his 1896 painting Hylas and the Nymphs. But guess what? It was closed. I was looking forward to that as well. I walked past the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art (the John Ruskin who had much to do with the Pre-Raphaelites back in the mid-1800’s) and thought I’d have a nosey around there but guess what? It was closed to visitor’s that day. The moral of all this, I now realise, is don’t go to Oxford on a Monday!

The Waterhouse study I never got to see. Beautiful it is too. Maybe next time!

So, to the main reason I went; Piano Magic and Brendan Perry. Piano Magic arrived just before they were due on ‘cos of a car crash on the motorway so, no soundcheck. That didn’t seem to affect them though and they were great for the all too short a time they were on (about half-an-hour, I think). They didn’t do any of the songs I’d hoped for but I still recognized most of them and the few they did off their last album Ovations were enough to keep me smiling. I hope to catch them when they headline a gig which, I believe, are few and far between (or usually in London or abroad).

A few photo’s of Piano Magic live at the O2 in Oxford.

Next up was Brendan Perry, one-time singer/songwriter from Dead Can Dance. I didn’t know what to expect really from Perry as I hadn’t heard his new album Ark (except a little from his MySpace site). I certainly didn’t expect anything from his Dead Can Dance days for some reason but he treated us to a few and they were belters as well: two of my faves in fact, which I’ve stuck in below :)

I played A Passage in Time a good few times on the way down to Oxford so I was sooooooo pleased when he did it and seeing the way he played the guitar bit which he plays a few times (which first kicks in at 2.47) was an absolute pleasure. I’ve always wondered how that sound was achieved as I’ve heard it on a few songs (I always think of water cascading over rocks when I hear it) and now I’m convinced it’s done by just using a delay pedal. Still a great song after all these years and it’s off of their self-titled debut album from 1984.

From their 1993 album Into the Labyrinth, The Carnival Is Over reminded me straight away when I first heard it of Joy Division’s Decades. If that wasn’t enough to get me thinking that maybe Dead Can Dance were Joy Division fans then hearing Perry sing “The procession moves on, the shouting is over” removed all doubts; that line is taken from JD’s song The Eternal, the song that appears before Decades on their album Closer. But, being such a big Joy Division fan, it ain’t no bad thing. I love this song, anyway.

Brendan Perry at the O2 live in Oxford

The photo’s I’ve put in here are from my mobile so the quality isn’t great, but at least I got to the front so there are no silhouetted heads in the way :)

Perry also did a Piano Magic song (he’s a big fan of theirs) that he sang on from their last album, so that was good too. All in all, a great gig and driving back home in the wee hours of the morning in the teeming rain with Dead Can Dance, Killing Joke and New Order rattling my ears from the CD player only added to a great night. I was very tempted to go see Perry again in Manchester a few nights later (no Piano Magic support, though) but I was bit skint. Highly recommended stuff.

See ya,

Jimbob

Being a fan of Dead Can Dance, an Australian band formed in 1981 and consisting mainly of Lisa Gerrard (who did the musical score for the Gladiator) and Brendan Perry, I thought I’d have a nosey and see if they were doing any gigs nowadays (they disbanded in 1998 but did do a world tour in 2005). The answer, in short, was no, but Brendan Perry has just released a solo album and is touring the country at present. He is playing Manchester (a lot closer to home) but when I found out that Piano Magic were supporting him in Oxford, there was only one place I was going :)

I discovered Piano Magic last year and some of their stuff is just wonderful. It’s funny really, but they remind me of the happy days in the late 80’s early 90’s before they were ever even around! Piano Magic is mainly just one guy (I think) called Glen Johnson who gets in guest musicians ranging from Simon Raymonde from The Cocteau Twins to Alan Sparhawk from Low to…er…Brendan Perry from Dead Can Dance. This last collaboration resulted in Piano Magic’s last album called Ovations which is a fine album indeed. It has Piano Magic’s own experimental/Factory brand of sounds mixed with Dead Can Dance’s medieval leanings. The wonderful dulcimer figures here and there, particularly on The March of the Atheists (no prizes for what that song is about).

And so to my favourite part, here’s a few tracks from some of the above mentioned musical people. As I don’t know much of what Perry’s solo album is like, I’ve put in a Dead Can Dance tune.

This Dead Can Dance song is sung by Lisa Gerrard from their The Serpent’s Egg album and, coupled with this video, makes for kind of sad and beautiful listening.

This is one of my fave Piano Magic songs from their album Writer’s Without Homes (it’s actually just over 4 mins long and not the 6 it says on the YouTube vid). Singing it is one Vashti Bunyan who (described as a lost 60’s/70’s folk heroine) hadn’t recorded anything for 33 years until she did this. As I think the lyrics have that poetical beauty about them, I just had to put them in here:

The night settles down on the water
The feathers of sun gather
The trees wave their way to the morning
The birds think about what they’ll sing
I have dreams in which you’re a nightmare
I have dreams in which you’re unfair
But angels still dance in your garden and flowers still grow in your hair

My tears leave a skull on the pillow
My tooth leaves my blood on the sheet
My heart sways the way of the willow
My heart sways the way of the wheat
But you are the queen of the lowlands
You have the crown of the lost
I found you broke up like a shipwreck
I found you broke up on the rocks

The horses come in from the cliff tops, their shadows upsetting the sea
The waves swim their way to the bottom and stay there until they’re forgotten
And you know about birds when they’re dying
How they know that they’re going to die
How they hide in the heart of the forest and sleep until death chances by
You know that
You know that

From the above mentioned album Ovations.

Here’s to Oxford :)

See ya,

Jimbob

The late evening rain is pattering gently outside in the empty street, the pavements splashed here and there with a sheen of amber from firefly streetlamps. It’s wistful and lonely and beautiful as well. I think of songs, romantic in different ways: one filled with a yearning for a love far away and the other longing for an Elysium only glimpsed by the imagination. I think of a girl murdered ‘because she was a woman’ and the terrible loneliness of her death, discarded in an alleyway at the time of night when foxes and thieves are kings in the orange-dimmed streets. The memory haunts me still.

A boy and a girl pass below my window and I wonder at their lives. I wonder what secrets their hearts keep, what shadows from their past may lengthen and darken future days. Maybe they are in love and their hearts are lit-up, too bright for any shadows to hold. If so, long may it continue. Who knows?

I’m writing in the near-dark now. The rain has stopped and the breeze stirs the bushes outside. The headlights of a car pass by and a plane roars distantly in the sky above. The world moves on and so must I. I shall pick up my guitar and sing a song of a love far away.

See ya,

Jimbob

Years ago, with a little instruction from my favourite wildlife artist Clare Shaughnessy, I began an oil painting of a wolf taken from a photograph in a book about these wonderful creatures. The wolf stands at a river’s edge, looking almost apologetic as it looks away from the camera, a scattering of autumn leaves breaking up it’s dim reflection in the water before it. I thought it was a beautiful image and decided to have ago.

For one reason or another, it took me years to carry on with it and it was only last year I picked it up again, but I was getting increasingly pissed off with the material I was painting on (hardboard). It’s texture was way too rough and I longed for the smoother surface of proper canvas. So, it got left again.

Now I’m in amidst my last project for the Art & Design course I’m doing, I’ve decided to try again, but this time on a larger scale and with canvas. Below, I’ve put up here a few of the sketches I’ve done for it. I’ve tried a few different ideas and it’s even edged into Wolf Brother territory.

Even though the original photo is set in the autumn, this is more like spring or summer. I had meant to do it more ‘autumny’ but I….erm….forgot. I love the reds and yellows and browns of autumn leaves against a blue sky. One of nature’s little wonders.

The colours here are more in line with the photo and I even remembered to add some leaves in the water (the only time I did!). I tried a more landscape picture than portrait but, although I liked the skecth, it missed having the reflection.

A night-time one which didn’t do much for me. It just would have been good to have a glowing eye as wolves do in the moonlight :)

Originally, I wanted to do a painting along the lines of John Waterhouse but then I’d probably need a model and props and all that kind of stuff; it’d take too long. Having not long read the above mentioned Wolf Brother, I did think of adding in Renn, a red-haired girl the kind of which Waterhouse would have been drawn to. But again, time dictated otherwise.

One thing that had crossed my mind (even my tutor mentioned it) and fit in with Wolf Brother was adding a few ravens, after Rip and Rek who become a part of Renn and Torak’s life. In the above sketch, I added one raven, thinking maybe two would be too much. I think the final painting will be more like this sketch than any of the others but I’m not sure if the raven in it draws the eye too much because of it’s blackness, as does the fallen tree (behind the wolf) and it’s reflection.

I did do a sketch with Renn, Rip, Rek and Wolf in it but I wasn’t happy with it (so you won’t be seeing it on here ;)).

Anyway, I’m sure the painting will all come together at some point.

See ya,

Jimbob

I like to keep my hand upon my chest
Should love happenchance pass at my door
There then would the wolf in the breast
Leap out and lope and chase with paw

Should love then sing and take to flight
Would I then change my fur for feathers
And so on gaining giddy height
Loose the world and all it’s tethers

Would love then be an evening star
In heaven the brightest of all?
Well, then I’d be as the angels are
And never let you fall

What if then you hid yourself away
In the deep and dark of space?
Then Time I’d be and father the day
That lasted forever for your embrace

Could love then burn and be no more?
Then hear howl my painful breast
And should love again pass at my door
I’ll keep my hand upon my chest

Sorry about that (I’ll try and stop writing dodgy poems), but I wrote this in the last few days and thought I’d stick it up. I woke up one afternoon (after a siesta – something I very rarely do ;)) and the first line popped into my head; then I thought of a Cocteau Twins song called Wolf in the Breast which rhymed well (and being a big fan of wolves, I couldn’t leave it out). It then kind of seemed natural to call the poem the same. The term ‘Wolf in the Breast’, I found, has the following meaning as mentioned in an 1811 dictionary:

An extraordinary mode of imposition, sometimes practiced in the country by strolling women, who have the knack of counterfeiting extreme pain, pretending to have a small animal called a wolf in their breasts, which is continually gnawing them.

I couldn’t do this post without putting up the afore mentioned Cocteau Twins song from one of my favourite albums Heaven or Las Vegas. 20 years on and still I play it often, especially at Christmas ‘cos that’s around the time I bought it in 1990. Aural Turkish Delight I’ve heard the Cocteau’s described as and I’ll happily go with that :)

I wanted to put Frou Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires on here but……..ah what the hell! It’s my blog after all :)

Before I put the whole album up, I’m outta here,

Jimbo

Those were the days of grace
She somebody’s child, somebody’s daughter
Would it be it again that I could see your face
When danced my heart like sun on the water

I slept in the heart of the forest
The sun-dappled shade for a bed
And there I dreamed I was the one you loved best
The crown of such I wore on my head

Sorrow, your brow never creased
Never a cheek had I touched more fair
The rose of your heart and the briar of mine
Entwined like the flowers in the braid of your hair

You know how I tremble when close bring her feet
You’ve felt it too I’m sure
When ripe is the heart as swelled summer wheat
In hope this love would forever endure

You know the pain too, I guess
When on waking in creeps the cold
A dream, a memory, paling in sweetness
Breathless about me the shadows enfold

This is the poem I wrote the other week (and finished today) when I found those other two that I put up instead. Sheesh! I put myself through the mill sometimes writing these things. Good therapy I suppose :)

See ya,

Jimbob

The last project I did in college was to design a poster of pretty much anything I liked, so I worked on three different ideas. I did one based on the new Moomins film, one for an imaginary Enya album and one that’s more of an anti-army poster.

The Moomins poster I only worked on up to a point, time dictating that I had to move onto the next one. So, it isn’t great. Just an idea that didn’t bear the fruit that it would have done if I’d had the time. I had to make one poster as the final piece and this, needless to say, wasn’t it.

The film, as you can see, is called Moomins and the Comet Chase and is released this year (though I’m not sure of the month – I made August up). If you don’t know, The Moomins are a family of trolls in a series of children’s books written by Swedish-Finn author and illustrator Tove Jansson.

Moomins and the Comet Chase is a ‘fuzzy-felt’ animation, though in my poster I’ve gone for the look of the Japanese-Finnish animation series from the early 90’s which I’ve a real affection for. As a nice little surprise the film has some music in it from Bjork, she formerly of Icelandic band The Sugarcubes (an acquired taste, but I like ‘em) and I think that kind of fits perfectly :)

Next up, I did a poster for an Enya album which doesn’t exist except in my head. I used some leaves in the design of it so I gave it the title The City of Falling Leaves after a poem (if you can call it that) I wrote and frequents some dark and shadowy corner of this website.

I did this in Photoshop and I was really quite pleased with it in the end. Maybe I’d do the odd thing differently but, on the whole, I can’t complain.

Lastly, I did a sort of anti-army poster. I get a bit riled up when I see recruitment adverts for the forces. I saw one years ago for the Royal Marines (which you can watch here) where it asks ‘What’s your limit?’ as a young hopeful is put through his paces. That’s all well and good in the training side of things but what about in a war zone? What are the limits there and who decides them? Those in command or the soldiers themselves who, being trained to kill, may well shoot first and questions later (and then shoot anyway)? How far will someone go before they say ‘no’?

Another similar advert I saw recently was for the Royal Navy where the sound bite was ‘Life Without Limits’. It reminded me of Michael Stipe from R.E.M. re-iterating cynically the US Army’s slogan ‘Be all that you can be, in the Army’ before the band played Orange Crush (a reference to the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War) during their Green tour in 1988. God help us all if unquestioningly serving the governments of the world in spurious wars is the height of human achievement. These kinds of adverts are aimed at naive young people who don’t question beyond what they read in The Sun or what they see and hear on biased news and radio (the role of parents has to come in here and give them the other side of things). I was appalled to see an advert a year or two ago where soldiers sent out little spy planes from their desert hide-outs using X-Box 360 controllers!! (or something very similar if not the real thing). Nice one; get the gaming generation (kids, mostly, many hooked on war games as well) to think that war is a game. Dispense justice from so far away and in such a way that the conscience need never be pricked. The poster below may seem a bit extreme but, innocent men, women and children are killed all the time and doing it from far away doesn’t change the fact.

This poster is a bit of a mix between a few of the adverts I mentioned above.

This was my final piece poster. I’ve gone for a bit of a Banksy look to it (probably because of it’s underground slant) and, again, I did it in Photoshop. Of them all, I prefer the Enya one because it takes me to a place I’d much rather be – though I wouldn’t mind a visit to Moominvalley ;)

Well, before I get shot for opening my mouth, I’m outta here,

Jimbo

As April is a matter of days away, it seems a good time to finally do this post. I was going to put it up awhile ago but…..well, I’ll say why at the end.

April Come She Will is a song by Simon & Garfunkel, released on their Sounds of Silence album in 1966. I’d first heard it on a ‘best of’ type album of theirs and it took awhile for me to really notice it, like so many of the songs I love the most. A lot of the more immediate songs, the catchier ones (by any band), tend to lose their power time, Mrs Robinson being a case in point. Still a great song though! But April Come She Will struck a deeper chord and I can’t imagine that it will ever lose it’s fragile beauty.

When Paul Simon visited England back in the early 60’s, taking in the blossoming folk scene with the likes of Martin Carthy and Davey Graham et al. he stayed with a friend in Swindon (I think this friend later became his girlfriend Kathy, after whom Kathy’s Song was written – another gem) who read him a children’s nursery rhyme about the life cycle of the Cuckoo. I think this is the original rhyme:

The Cuckoo comes in April
She sings her song in May
In June she changes her tune
In July she prepares to fly
In August go she must

Simon took the rhyme, added September at the end, and inserted his own lines between each of the existing lines (which he re-arranged a bit). He also changed the focus of the song from that about the Cuckoo and corresponded it to the changing seasons of romantic love, and maybe even more specifically to the changing seasons of the female heart. From tender beginnings in Spring where her heart is ripe and swelled with love, through the Summer where it has changed it’s song and flown through to Autumn where her heart has grown cold and love is nothing more than a memory. Here’s the song, the lyrics to which I’ve added below. Pure poetry:

April, come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay
Resting in my arms again

June, she’ll change her tune
In restless walks she’ll prowl the night
July, she will fly
And give no warning to her flight

August, die she must
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold
September, I’ll remember
A love once new has now grown old

I think it’s such a beautiful song and I used it recently on a project in college, the same bookmaking project in which I did the Waterhouse Tree that I covered in a previous post. One of my ideas for that project was to take a number of songs on a nature theme and do a collage for each one and throw them together as a little book. I had only time to do one and that was April Come She Will.

One of the images I used in it was William Henry Gore’s Listed. I did a pencil sketch of it on this page back in about 1990. Here’s the original:

I found Listed in a book of poetry called Images of Love that I was reading at the time and fell in love with it (hence the sketch). The whole book itself (which stands by my bedside even as I write these words) is wonderfully scented and whenever I catch it’s fragrance it stirs in me a kind of sweet melancholy as I remember those happier days 20 years ago when I didn’t have a care in the world. Where did they all go?

Anyway, I thought the painting was just a rather wonderful romantic painting of two Victorian lovers embracing on a balmy summer’s eve as the sun sets. Well, I was slightly right. I found this info about it at gardenofpraise.com

“‘Listed” was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1885, and was painted in the low-lying meadows of the Kennet Valley, just below Newbury, the artist’s native place. The subject tells its own story, though perhaps it is not quite so evident to-day as when it was first shown, as the custom, then prevalent, of wearing ribbons in the cap on enlistment, has fallen into disuse,

“For a soldier I ‘listed, to grow great in fame.
And be shot at for sixpence a day.”

The man, brave in his trappings of glory, is parting from the woman, whose thought, doubtless, is of the danger of his calling. So well is the pathos of the idea expressed that, soon after it was painted, the late Stacy Marks, R.A., who was a member of the Council of the Royal Academy, confessed that the picture affected him to tears. To have earned such a tribute from a distinguished critic who was himself a painter, is an achievement of which few artists can boast, and of which any painter, however popular, might well be proud.

From the book “Famous Paintings” printed in 1913.

Well, here’s my project thingy. Make of it what you will:

The clock images, incidentally, are from Prague’s marvelous astronomical clock in it’s capital square. I must pay a visit!

OK, now I’ll tell you why I’ve only just gotten around to putting this up.  A few posts back I put up my cover of Watermark. To do that, I first had to get myself a video capture card for the computer (I mistakenly gave away the one I had on Freecycle. Doh!!). That bought, I recorded the video and stuck it up on YouTube. All well and good. But, about the same time as recording Watermark, I recorded myself doing April Come She Will on acoustic guitar and when I came to capture it on the computer, it wouldn’t work. I’ve had it to the computer shop and it isn’t working for them either. Oh well, I was going to put it in this post but, the world will have to wait. That said, my courage may fail me yet ;) Singing is not my strong point. If there is one thing I wish I had been blessed with, it’s a good singing voice! I have to wonder why I was chosen for the school choir once upon-a-time!?

Soooooo………….as April is almost upon us and I have no capture card, I thought I’d do this post now. Which you are at the end of :)

I’m outta here,

Jimbob