Whew what a busy few weeks. I've been working like mad on the commission that is due first~ for next Monday actually. As you can see I'm about halfway there. the under painting has been covered with the first few colour layers, lots to do yet though.

I also have another miniature done, and I must get more of these done a.s.a.p. as Hen's Tooth in Dorchester is looking for more. Hen's tooth is a charming tea room that hangs the work of local artist's, you really must go it's on Catherine St near the bridge.

Last weekend I took a wonderful workshop with Kim Harrison, on surrealism and developing creativity.

Some of the stuff we did was way out, and all of it was great fun. here is a sampling of what I did.

The surrealist were trying to access the subconscious, which is why some of their stuff is so dark and twisted. they called it "liberation of the creative forces". These were the days of Sigmund Freud, and many of the artist had been a part of the first world war, and were protesting a world gone mad.

The blue thing with the umbrella and the pear family were the result of a incongruity exercises, inanimate objects taking on human characteristics. the gray are 'automatic drawings' pulling images out of texture rubbings, which are supposed to also be from the subconscious, the colourful one is a similar exercises using blobs of colour. the other less clearly seen was a metamorphose where we started with one thing and grew it into something else. As I said great fun and I can see using some of it in my Eden Revisited series.

The other aspect of surrealism was the illustration of dreams. which is what Edvard Munch, Salvidor Dalli and company were doing. we didn't have time to work on that, although we talked about it, and how it was done.

Kim also introduced us to Emil Nolde, I'm trying to find a book on him, his work was wonderful, (the finding images in paint blobs technique) All the more so when you realize he developed this style because he was forbidden to paint by the Nazi's, and had to do something that he could hide away in an instance when the came knocking.

As I've said before artist's paint because they must.

Until next we met, take care in this nasty weather, now I must go paint.

Robin