I have been trying to do a ‘Daily Doodle’ of my thoughts as a way of practicing ‘scribing’ and also because it fun 🙂
These are the images so far…..my favourite so far the music one above.
Back in the studio on a beautiful sunny day. Painted over the ‘Suit of Nettles’ “illustrations” after photographing them so I can create a single print of that work. So I have 12 x  2 feet square canvases to work on.
I also tried out a small box of chalk coloured soft pastels and this produced the three drawings above. The titles random or joking for instance ‘Welbeck’s Revenge’ celebrates the Arsenal’s win over Man U and no I haven’t read Fifty Shades of Gray and never will.
A good start and I hope I keep momentum up until Lady Bay show on 16th/17th May (and F.A. cup final 30th May :-). Last year’s Lady Bay was unforgettable as we came from behind to beat Hull:-)
Key Quote for the day:
Action is the foundational key to all success.
-Pablo Picasso
i.e. just do it stop thinking about doing it …..
So after 40…yes 40 years (I started at the tender age of 16 in 1975) as an infrequently practicing artist I find myself finally with a studio and time to paint so as of next Monday there no more excuses….
Artworks 1975 – 2000 ARCHIVE here
https://shaunbelcher.com/paintingÂ
What will it look like? Well going by the last completed canvas above from May 2014 probably a bit cartoony, Â a bit abstract, a bit colourful….somewhere along the fault line between Contemporary British Abstraction (see show on now in London poster below ) and a crazed version of Disney trapped in a hunting lodge…so think David Lynch and rabbits…paint…it’s all about the paint..stupid….
So her it is or there it was and now it is or almost now …or something….whir..dribble…splat..thunk….
Read Andrew Parkinson’s piece on the show here Why Abstraction Now PDF
1984 London
1985-8 London abstract work used as covers for The Weather Prophets band.
2015 something remarkably similar on the wall of my studio……plus ca change…
These the only three pieces of work this year and they were all submitted.
The selectors took the two drawings..have to work harder on paintings 🙂
The full list of exhibitors here:Â http://nottinghamcastleopen.com/
Bit of a shock to system this. I knew my artistic output had ‘slowed’ but as I can only find one canvas and two drawings from the whole last year it not slow it slithering to a stop.
Mostly the result of the gradual wind down of the Multimedia course and its attendant crap ( not from students I would like to make clear) and the failure of NTU SAD to recognise anything else I did..and an attempt to bury me in graphic design…
I did not have much time to paint I was too busy trying to save my job until I gave up trying and did something I enjoy instead i.e. creative writing which fabulous…and such a relief at least for a year….I due to return in June 2015..we shall see…
The Moogee show ready for taking to Lady Bay for the weekend. This is my third time in the Lady Bay show. First time was in 2003 just after I had moved here and was a kind of retrospective. Then again in 2005 (I think) when I showed in the Church Hall and revealed the Curse of the Moogee.
Now it is going to be all Moogee in one form or another culminating in the M.A. illustrations for James Elkins.
I have decided to go with an all black and white theme as the room is decorated that way so it kind of makes sense.
The show starts Saturday 12-6pm and Sunday 12-6pm. Look forward to seeing some of you there :-). Woof.
I am showing here in my oldest friend…almost as old as me ..from school Stephe Hitchman’s house :Â The house overlooking the allotments 11
Mark Green (Drawing workshops) Hannah Hitchman (Illustrations) Shaun Belcher (Illustrations)
Further details here:Â http://www.ladybayarts.org.uk/festival-2014.html
All works inspired by the great Roger Price
Silly blog post title of month. it amused me to write that especially as I just wrote that the future of painting is behind us…a smidgen of irony here.
At 55 years old and with a back catalogue of failed projects, dumb moves and shit jobs behind me (before I shipwrecked on to Academia Island) I have decided to once more ride into the valley of death armed with nothing more than a paintbrush and some blank canvases. Why? Why not everything else is shot to bits so might as well tilt at the greatest windmill of all….the painter of modern life.
I spent the day clearing out the cobwebs in my too often deserted studio and discovering that I had actually painted a few canvases in the past few years. Not many because I remain unconvinced that it an honourable occupation or even a perfectable art..see below. If I am like Will Self trapped in a Guston led Gutenbergian brain then so be it. I think paintings matter. I think they can change the world and that’s it really. Sod the consequences….life too short.
So here the sweepings from the last few years soon to be revealed at Lady Bay in my old schoolfriend Stephe’s front room. Not quite the Tate but you got to start somewhere:-)
p.s. Â not the big ones they aren’t finished…
