Hinaki

'Hinaki' means eel trap in Marae and I have decided to use the word as the title of my new painting about our son, Leo who is currently living in New Zealand .
An eel trap was one of the first objects I found myself drawing in a museum when we visited, four years ago.
Having made the connection with Ely (which also has eels) I  became interested in the meeting houses, where the structure of the building  represents the  bones of the Marae people.
I have made some drawings of our old beams,( laid on the floor looking up at the ceiling) to represent the UK and am currently making a large sketch of the inside of a meeting house, showing some of it's symbolic patterns. One represents the tears of the Albatross parents, after their children have flown  away.

The Wrong Stretchers

I've just taken my latest painting 'Forget-Me-Nots'  to be framed in readiness for the exhibition at the Babylon Gallery in March (see NEWS AND REVIEWS page on my website) and Jonathan was appalled by my choice of stretchers.
As I wanted a linen canvas, I had chosen a frame with thicker stretchers, which apparently makes it much harder to frame.
After much discussion I am going to have the canvas restretched before it is framed.
The good thing about this is I can have two inches lopped off the top of the picture as the background was always too big
 You can now see the finished painting on the DISABLED VISITORS page. 

Scratching At The Surface

I invested in a set of wire brushes just after Christmas to experiment with rubbing down the surface of bits of my painting, 'Forget - Me - Nots'.
I wanted to give the impression of some of the images fading away to represent loss of memory.
Luckily I tried the brushes on a preliminary canvas first, as I nearly overdid it!
The painting is now finished and you should be able to see the end result when it moves to the DISABLED VISITORS page in the next few days

Art Opposites

'Art Opposites - Different Approaches to Oil Painting' is the title we have finally decided on. Francis Jeans and I are doing a joint exhibition of our work at the Babylon Gallery, Ely starting 16th March.
You can read all about it on my NEWS AND REVIEWS page on the website. It is the second story down in the REVIEWS AND ARTICLES section.