Contre Jour

'Contre Jour' or 'against the light' is an art term used to describe back-lit images in paintings. I read about it, in connection with an exhibition of Daumier's work on view at the Royal Academy.
I made the trip to see his work because I am interested in using silhouette images in my next but one, (they are forming a queue in my head!) family painting. I am using my collection of shadow puppets to depict two male cousins of my mother's and show how they were seen very differently by each parent. I will try to show this by portraying them  in keeping with the Javanese tradition of the men seeing the actual puppets, while the women only saw the shadows.
I am interested in Contre Jour because rather than a flat sharp shadow, Daumier used to add other colours to make the image more subtle and mysterious. Starting my painting is probably a year away yet, but it's nice to keep carrying these ideas around in my head.

P.S.  If you want to hear the two latest radio programmes featuring me (OK, maybe you don't!), they are now available on my website on the NEWS AND REVIEWS page.

That Ends Well

After a disappointing beginning to the weekend (see my last blog), I rather dreaded as to what might happen next.
However, I had an interesting family who visited Ted Coney's Family Portraits on Sunday. They came from near Croydon, while visiting Bury St Edmunds for the weekend. The wife was a friend of a college friend of mine, whom I hadn't seen for over forty years. Perhaps one day she will visit, too. Anyway, I was able to show them my painting 'Lavender and Dead Bilberries', which is about our wedding  and includes an image of Jean (my old college friend) who was a guest at the wedding all those years ago. 'She hasn't changed a bit' was the reply.
The other thing I was not looking forward to, was the charity auction for ADEC on Sunday evening, in which there were two pieces of my work. One was a small preliminary study on canvas for my painting 'Minglelands', on which I was working  out how to do the gold leaf section, to represent my grandson, Barnaby. The other was a print donated by UKPhotoGallery of a pen and wash study of mine, depicting the Morris Minor.
Luckily, both sold and the auction made £900 to support our local cinema and Babylon Gallery.  Phew!

When Will I Be Famous?

Do you remember that old film where Charlie Chaplin invited everyone to a party and spent lots of time getting it ready, and then no one turned up?
Well, I felt a bit like that this morning. Last Friday the tourist office rang me  in great excitement to say that The Times were coming today to research for an article on Ely and
Ted Coney's Family Portraits had been picked as one of the attractions they were interested in featuring.
I spent a good one and a half hours getting everything ready and even had  the spotlights on and film rolling, so that when the reporter arrived at 11am, he could see what a pop-up gallery really was.
I waited (luckily, I kept painting) until after 12pm and finally rang up to see what was happening. The first message back was that they were running late, so I kept going. The second was more disappointing as they had passed me by, as they were now very late.
So in an instance, my chance of national fame and recognition had gone!
This afternoon Nigel came to film the Morris for a video he is making to publicise my prints, on
YouTube. It did attract a lot of interest from  passing visitors, so I suppose I had a bit of fame of sorts, today. 

A New Perspective

I was showing my painting 'If The Boats Come In' to my old friend Joe, the other day, as he likes to see my progress, when he comes to visit. He is always very encouraging, so I was surprised when he commented that he thought the perspective was a bit out on the boating pond part of the picture. When he had gone, I did have another look at it, and damn it, maybe he was right!
Daniel should be putting new photos of the painting onto my website in the next few days, so you can judge for yourself, if you think my efforts have now made the image, stronger.
 It can be found on my News And Reviews page, as can my latest foray into radio interviews (again, be patient, it should be on there, soon.)

Wish Upon A Star

Have you noticed how you wait for ages for a bus and then two come along together? So it is with radio programmes. After appearing on Radio Cambridgeshire the other week (mind, I haven't heard it yet, but I was told it was on, last Monday) I found myself on Star Radio the other day. Two lovely young people came to the house to do an interview while we looked at the paintings. One recorded while the other asked me questions. It was nice that they sounded so enthusiastic, so lets hope that comes over in the recording. It is not on until 18th November, just enough time to rally a few last visitors before I close for the winter on 15th December.

Oily Rag Approach

On the face of it, my old 1940 bicycle  plays a very minor role in the development of
Ted Coney's Family Portraits. However it is quite important, not only because it conveyed me 800 miles to Scotland to help  produce my painting 'Diamond Sutra' but also for my cycle ride from Harby to Westminster Abbey, which enabled me to gather material for 'Snow Angels and No Angels'.  I also place it at the end of our track to display a clipframe, giving details of my tours   and use it as a (slow!) moving display board when travelling between Ely and Cambridge.
So, I was quite upset when I realised a few months ago, that part of the chain guard was missing as the screw had come loose. I did go to various bike shops to try and get a replacement but no luck. I finally managed to persuade my brother, David to make me one, which he duly did. Not unreasonably, he suggested that I could at least paint the metal, once he had fashioned the shape. I applied the paint with an 'oily rag approach' which means I didn't try to make it look brand new, but it still looks a bit rough and ready compared to the rest of the bike. A work still in progress, I think.

Alright On The Night

This week I gave my outreach lecture 'On The Edge', a slide/sound show about my work, to a group of women in Abington. It all went smoothly and from the comments I got at the end, I think most of them really enjoyed it.
 I am always very nervous when dealing with technology, so I decided to have a practise the weekend before, to make sure everything was working. The sound is very important to the talk as I intersperse live commentary with a 50 year old Ted, talking  on film. This gives me a chance to check my notes to see where I am up to, but also enables me to demonstrate props which I wouldn't be able to lug around when speaking away from home. For instance, at one point when talking about the painting 'David's Journey', I am filmed assembling the labyrinth of mirrors which I used to work from, when developing this project.
Anyway, to my horror, the sound refused to come out of the laptop and I could feel panic rising inside me. I tried to keep calm and look to see if the sound had been inadvertently switched off somehow.
In the end I ran Daniel, the chap who looks after my website, and he very kindly popped round on his way to the shops.
It seems, that by plugging the lead into the laptop and not connecting it to the sound system, I had  inadvertently stopped the sound from working in either bits of equipment.
 . Daniel saw this immediately and soon got me organised. I was just glad I wasn't giving the talk on that day.