I've been going to a life painting group called The Big Picture at theNottingham Society of Artists every Tuesday for a while now. It's good! I've done a few life drawing classes in the past, which were fun, but there's only so many life drawings one can bother with. At the big picture you get a paining every four weeks rather than four drawings a week. Quality over quantity! Anyway..... They're nudes, which is a pretty classic oil painting subject so there's often not a lot to say, but I do try to do something a bit different with each of them.

Gill in a Womb-like Place

2005
Oil/Alkyd on specimen drawer
in the collection of... some guy who came to the show.

This was a bit of a turning point for me. Before this I had done mostly small detailed figures, from conventional angles, maybe in a slightly disconnected manner (see "Dianne Thinking about Octopusses" or "Roger and the Lion"). This I deliberately chose a tricky angle, zoomed in and tried to be freer with my brush strokes and colour. Concentrating on the figure more also freed me from the need to think of elaborate new background subjects. I am going to start with 3 in this style, and i've only just noticed they are all of Gill, they are all on specimen drawers and they have all sold. In this painting, maybe it shows that I'm on unfamiliar ground (to me it feels a very flawed painting), but I am also quite pleased with it in many ways (hair, shoulder). Also it is the only painting I have sold to a stranger. A guy came to our 2006 exhibition and bought this and one by Jude. I'm told that he has a house full of nudes, and that his kid chose this one. It feels strange (good strange) to me to think of this being out there in the world on a wall in a house full of nudes.

Gill Again

2006
Oil/Alkyd on specimen drawer
in the collection of Alex Marshall.

Not much to say about this one that I have not just said above. It's a progression from that one, and I think a better painting. I swapped this with Alex at work for an Oxfam Unwrapped. She wanted "Gill on Mountainous Terrain" but Sarah had already nabbed that. What else to say... Why are the best ones in this style all of Gill? - Maybe her reclined poses particularly suit the style as you can get these odd, contorted angles. What's a specimen draw? - I don't know if that's the right word for them. They are always throwing out old furniture at the university, and there were this set of old very shallow drawers which reminded me to the kind of thing they might keep fossils in in the basement of the Natural History Museum. They make great paining boards! They are shallow for shelves, but deep for boards, so I have continued the background round onto the sides in all three cases, which makes quite a pleasing object.

Gill on Mountainous Terrain

2006
Oil/Alkyd on specimen drawer
in the collection of Sarah Zadik.

This is the best of the three. ...of my big picture paintings. ...of all my paintings? Sarah bagsied it as soon as I did it. Not a lot to say about it. It's painted over the painting "Bookshelf" below and when you know that then the previous painting suddenly becomes very visible through it. I talked to Gill about Blue Meanies while painting it, so I have painted a blue Meany on the side of the specimen drawer.

Roger and the Lion 2004 (maybe) Oil/Alkyd on hardboard	The Life Studio 2005 (I think) Oil/Alkyd on hardboard
An early big-picture. I painted the figure in the class and then the background from a photo I took on my camera phone later at home. I enjoyed the idea of putting roger somewhere faintly inappropriate. For those that don't know it is the steps of Nottingham Council House (or the Town Hall in Nonnottinghamese). The left lion is a phenomenon! - It is the place you always arrange to meet anyone in town. I have never quite worked out whether it's the left one from the point of view of the waiter or the waitee, but as they are next to each other it doesn't really matter. As this is actually a mirror image of the view south, rather than the view north, I guess I have covered both eventualities. My favourite part of this painting is the view away into the distance. I stayed up this 3AM the night before the 2004 show finishing the background (and watching the Blues Brothers).	Having done paintings with surreal, juxtaposed backgrounds, others with abstract backgrounds and a few with fuzzy suggestions of the true background, I decided that I wanted to paint something as close to the real view I had, with paints and even the edge of the painting itself in the foreground, and the model in the middle ground as only (an important) part of the scene. This is the best representation I have managed of the actual experience of a Tuesday night class. Maybe it's more important to share your experience than to create a fantastical situation. Keepin' it real! The model (Richard) himself is an artist, and was recording the sound of us painting, for a project of his. I have never seen his completed work, but you can see his minidisk recorder under the stool. Greg in the background taking a moment to think what to do next on his painting.

Dianne Thinking about Octopuses 2003 or 4 Oil/Alkyd on hardboard	Dianne Reading 2005 (maybe) Oil/Alkyd and collage on specimen drawer Going to the collection of John Wright (as soon as its finished)
(Octopi, probably, innit, but that sounds rubbish). I think this was my first Big-Picture. I am still happy with it. I was wondering what she was thinking about for eight hours. I'm not sure why octopuses. Originally it was a dead octopus drying on a hook. However people kept thinking it was a penis, so it had to go! Both octopuses pictures are copied from photos. Thank you Google image search. I still vaguely plan to put another octopus in the extreme foreground - bottom right.	This is not the finished picture. I should find a more recent photo. I have done more on the collage-y background stuff. Dianne decided to use the time that she spent modelling, she might as well be reading, and this is good: someone doing something is more interesting than someone not doing anything. I can't remember what she was actually reading, but if I could I'd tell you. I am dyslexic. I don't know if Dianne is (1 in 10 people are, I'm told), but I decided to try to put my experience of reading into the background. you can't really see it at this resolution, but I have taken pieces of text and cut them diagonally and reconnecting them so that the end of each line is grafted onto the beginning of another to simulate my inability to read along a line of text in the correct order. I have then scattered collaged and painted images around and on top of the text to simulate my constant distracting thoughts. I hope this gives a "normal" person something like my experience of failing to take in written information. I guess there's no way of telling how similar it is.

Thinking about the Doorbell

2005 or 6
Oil/Alkyd and doorbell on hardboard

Gill again!
"Thinking about my Doorbell" by the White Stripes had just come out and was on heavy rotation around my mp3 player and brain. She looked like she was thinking about something, so why not a doorbell.
…and this is the doorbell from my house, which conveniently died at just the right time. Everyone at the show wanted to know if it was wired up. No. it wasn't. Would have been better if it was though.

Apple 2004 (I think) Oil/Alkyd on drawer-bottom	Cordoba 2004 (I think) Oil/Alkyd on drawer-bottom	Dreadlocks 2004 (I think) Oil/Alkyd on drawer-bottom
Claire. I vaguely plan to paint a large apple floating in the air. Dunno why.	This fella always likes to do quite melodramatic poses. He did a kind of kneeling/praying pose. So I thought about what he could be praying about. In these days of Christianity and Islam seeming to want to batter the crap out of each other at every opportunity, I thought I would place him in Cordoba Mosque/Cathedral: An amazing building created alternately by Christians and Muslims, which was created over years of conflict, yet resulted in a beautiful fusion. I dunno something like that. Don’t think either would be keen on a naked aging goth praying there though. I haven't really painted the background yet though.	The background was done by wiping all the left over paint off my pallet. I quite like it.

Bookshelf 2006 Oil/Alkyd on specimen drawer	Tattoo Man 2004 or 5 Oil/Alkyd on specimen drawer	Claire Chair 2004 or 5 Oil/Alkyd on hardboard
This is the first big-picture I have actually painted over. I kinda regret it a bit, but it is now "Gill on Mountainous Terrain" (see above) and as bits are still visible, it has made that painting what it is, and that is a much better painting than this one.	This was the direct predecessor of the Gill pictures, and I was already trying to paint less fussily. I don't think it's a great picture. I like the orange wibbles on the side of his stomach, and Phil painting away in the background.	A different Claire. An attempt at a different sketchier style. Not, maybe, a very successful one.