Jasper Johns must have been a gardener.

Or at least a man with a shed.

For those not of an artistic persuasion, you should know that Jasper Johns was, and perhaps is, a great American artist.He’s still with us! I recall in my late school days loving his work. As I understand it he went out of favour later on in his career, though I claim no special knowledge. He has an exhibition on in London at present at the Royal Academy, so I presume that those in the flow of these things, consider it’s time to resurrect his reputation.

Jasper Johns Exhibition at the RA

I am going to go along for old times sake, and to take a look at the people looking at the work. Great place for people watching.

There’s something slightly ‘up cycling’ about his stuff to me. He makes common objects into things of beauty, but then I think many common objects are. Perhaps it’s just that he makes us look, or at least helps us look. The RA says this about his stuff: “His treatment of iconography and appropriation of objects, symbols and words makes the familiar unfamiliar, achieving this through the distinctive, complex textures of his works.” Anyone know what that means in plain English?

I was reminded of his work as I strolled back from my allotment. There I was “appropriating objects”. Perhaps he was a gardener too?

Jasper Johns: Ventriloquist, 1983.

Paul Davies: Sheddist 2017

Some of my friends have gone…

These chaps above have all gone to new homes as well as the finished version of the one below. In many ways I prefer the one below to the final. I’m sure they’ve all gone to good homes. The bike drawing has been sold for charity, so I am particularly pleased about that. It was bought by a chap who’s friend is greatly into motorbikes. The charity that will benefit is Headway. This one’s for charity

Hoping for a fine day today so that I can find new homes for some of the others, but it’s been a good week anyway.

Interestingly, the drawing that has had the most reaction is the one on the poster below and still no one mentions the bear,like it’s normal to have a stuffed bear in the loft.

A quick tour of the exhibition.

Thanks to all those people who have dropped by in the last few days and to those of you out there worldwide who have dropped in here.

You can see more of what’s on in the show right here:My site where you can buy prints of many of the images that I have in the show.

How much!!!!!!!!!??????

I’m in the middle of getting together my exhibition stuff for August, and here’s one of the final pieces. If a cartoon can be called a “piece”. There I go again devaluing what I do. In the good old days when I was working for ad agencies and design companies these sorts of drawings were commissioned and the fee was based on the use it was put to. If it was a visual then you’d be lucky to get £60-00 for it, if it was used for editorial in a magazine then it could be less than that. On the other hand if it was used for a small ad campaign then the fee could be aropund £300-00 or more to include the rights to the drawing. For a big ad campaign it could go into four figures ( rare this! ) This was in the 80’s and in the heyday of illustration being commissioned, and I was lucky to have had my best years of illustration commissions then.

Now I’ve changed direction and I’m doing all my own ideas and will soon be publishing them as prints from my website and having an exhibition of the originals. This one is just a sample of one of the prints on drawings about people with apt names, these two being Valerie Uptchuous and Benjamin Dover: Ballroom Dancing Champions. The original of this will be on sale at the exhibition, and this version as a print. Here’s another : Desmond Pratt

As someone who’s been ‘in the business’ for years I’m used to people saying ” How much!!?? ” when I tell them what I want for a drawing. This phrase is usually followed by the muttered, spluttered “…but it will only take you a short time to do it” as if creative work should be charged by the hour like a taxi driver on a meter.

The point of this is “How much?” I want to sell them, and of course I have digital files of all of them and I’m not selling the rights to the images, just the orginal black and white artwork.

I guess I’ll find a way, or let the market decide as they say. We’ll see. I’ll be posting more on the exhibitoion as we get closer to it in August. Apart from the drawings about people with apt names, there will be a series about the British, see here for more about that: Pont: Graham Laidler, and the British Character Indicentally I’m still trying to find living relatives of the esteemed “Pont” to invite them along to the exhibition, but no luck so far.

I’m looking forward to it myself. I’m looking for other venues around the country to show it too, so any suggestions on where I might be able to take it, then let me know. I’ve looked in London but my reaction when I saw what they wanted for the rental of a small exhibition space was “How much!!!!!!!??????”

I’m not going to tell you where this is…

…apart from the fact that it’s not that far away from where we live. I don’t want all of you crowding in there getting in the way of the scenery. It’s like all those holiday magazines with the headlines “Undiscovered Thailand” which is not now going to remain undiscovered for much longer as everyone now knows, thanks to the magazine.

Stunning photograph by my friend Sally Ware, as is the following which she also took. She’s taken lots of photos of these wonderful leaves and this is just a sample of one of them.

Both photographs copyright Sally Ware

The Art of the shed

I’m a fan of this artist’s work. Guided here by my other half who discovered him for herself some years ago, and is herself inspired by it, take a look at Antoni Tapies

In a homage to his paintings here are my own images, gleaned straight from the plot. A heady mixture of art and “sheddism”. A sunny day helps both the art of the shed and the growing of the plot.

This one is called “Untitled 1”

This one is “Unititled 2”

and this one is “Rusty nail”

and finally this one:

which is called” Self portrait with shed door juxtaposed”.

All are available as fine art prints, of course. Get in touch with your bank details.

Yes, but is it art?

I’m a big fan of art galleries and love to watch the watchers. In my quest to get together my exhibition about the British inspired by cartoonist “Pont” I’m working at present on the one featured below. The people looking at the art are at times as entertaining as what they are looking at. There’s usually a bloke of a certain age dressed with the cravat and matching floppy kerchief in the top pocket, a large woman who can be guaranteed to block out most of what’s on view as well as one who dresses in the same colours as the paintings, so has a tendency to look like a piece of artwork. “Certain Age Gentleman” is able to lean forward from a fixed spot as if his shiny brogues are nailed to the floor inspecting the detail of what he’s not understanding at all. Small boy is more interested in what’s up his nose than the valuable piece in front of him, the painting only serving to remind him what’s up there. There’s likely to be the odd Japanese person if this is in London, it’s on the itinerary of the group trip.

This is the first rough, the final artwork will be at my exhibition in August here in Cheltenham, I’ll be putting details on here as well as featuring a lot of the drawings, which might be described as art, “but not as we know it Jim?”

This will tell you more about “Pont” Pont: Graham Laidler, and the British Character

Three stages of artwork, is it ever finished? No.

This is the first rough, or the idea stage for one of my drawings for a coming exhibition here in Cheltenham in August, that I published here some months ago. Here are some links to refresh your memory:

No such thing as a Greek postcode?

I’ve had a break from blogging as we took a trip to Spetses in Greece to visit a long standing friend and fine printmaker/artist. It’s a long trip that’s worth it. Flight to Athens and a night at Piraeus, the nearby port, before departure the next morning on the ferry. The joy of dropping in on a couple of other islands on the way including Hydra, where Leonard Cohen found himslef in the 60’s. What was he so bloody miserable about? I was in Manchester where one had the rain to be miserable about, and his bloody records did not help.

I was apparently studying art and design, though this was not always apparent to anyone else, Ros was there too and already showed talent. I remember being very impressed with her stylish haircut, an odd east London accent, and the fact that she’d been on “Ready Steady Go”, one of the orginal pop programmes that was on ITV in those days, as well has her artistic abilities of course!

Are artists like jackdaws? Can’t resist collectiong bits and bobs, this is the wall outside Ros’s place, you’ll never find it, there’s no postcode, but at least you get to see it. For the real deal go to her website: Ros’s site It’s well worth a click.

We were on our way to see her and her hubby, as well as to get in some walking. It was February when we set off and I’d packed nice warm clothes. Some never came out of the suitcase. Or accommodation was in sniffing distance of the bakery and in the old town, recommend staying there, though take a sense of direction with you, only a couple of streets have names. Apparently you find places by knowing the names of who lives there.I was looking forward to seeing a postman with a look of total confusion, but it appears that Ros’s post is just delivered to a bar in town where they know she and hubby pop into regularly.

What we found on Spetses was wondefuly scenery, very friendly people and weather to match their sunny dispositions, we were lucky in some respects that we’d caught a good week. I shall blog some more about the place over the coming week with tales of dogs on bikes ( really ) and some unusual community singing, but for the time being take a look at this little video, the result of a walk to the top of the island. No road noise, there are no cars apart from the odd taxi on Spetses. In the distance the Peloponese mountains of the mainline with a dusting of snow on the peaks and a bird in the background. Anyone know what it is?

You may also hear a bee landing on me at the finale to the video. It too was friendly.

“My paintings are like your soup”

A day out to visit one of my very favourite people and an artist who should have more recognition of her work. Sally Williams has been an artist all her life and a friend for quite a while. She lives out of Gloucester in the countryside and we decided to visit armed with soup. I explained that the soup that I’d made was a one off, an original. In other words, she’s be unlikely ever to taste it again. ” Why’s that, what’s in it?”. At this time of year the main ingredients are the bottom of the fridge and anything else I can find, I replied. “So bit like my paintings then?” she responded. Hardly I said, the only real link might be that they are both one-offs, and in the case of your paintings “originals”

She’s a child of the Severn and this river has, with other parts of this area, been her inspiration and it literally glows out of the paintings. The area near Purton where lie the Purton Hulks is a favourite spot. I’ve written about this before but it bears another look: On the banks of the Severn…

The inspiration for the painting above may well be from
this beached ship here, a photo I took myself in 2013.

Here’s another gem, this time it’s gateposts. I took these pictures of Sally’s work just today and only on an iPhone, and it does the iPhone credit that it can capture some of the feelings of the paintings, but they really need to be seen to be fully appreciated.

I was also really taken by this one below with the verse from an Ivor Gurney poem, incorporated into the painting. The verse sort of sums up what Sally’s passion with the Severn is about, and it’s not just the River, it’s the meadows that surround it and the feeling in the air. It is really a relatively undiscovered area of the country in many ways. Slimbridge, where the famous Wetlands and Wildfowl trust have their patch, is well visited but the surrounds such as Purton and further up river Epney, are quiet little places. No wonder Ivor Gurney loved the area so much.

More about Ivor Gurney

Last but not least is what inspired our visit to Sally today, apart from soup. Her Christmas card featured a lovely painting. We were so glad we’d seen the real thing as well as the printed copy. Again this is a one off, a soup that cannot be revisited once cooked. Lovely work, if you want to see more take a look here: Sally’s website

If perchance are thinking of making any resolutions in the New Year then let one of them be “I will go forth and buy an original painting” and forget about the soup.

A big thanks to all who have bothered to visit my blog over the last year, and I take this opportunity to wish all of you a very happy and peaceful New Year.

Bloggomania and cow gum.

I’m moved to draw the above by postings by this chap which are well written and entertaining, worth a look. Jon Beckett

I’ve been busy re-discovering fun of glueing. It may be worth recounting here exactly how I do my drawings. They are drawn straight onto layout paper which is kind of paper that will allow you to see the page below, not tracing paper but similar but a lot more opaque. So quick first rough is done on this and then the second done over the first and so on until I get to the final drawing. So it’s done in layers, a sort of photoshop type of working that I’ve been using for years. All those years ago photoshop was just somewhere you could buy a camera.

My methods are born out of doing layouts and visuals for advertising in my early days and storyboards for tv commercials. The paper is cheap and the method of working is good with markers as layout paper is made for markers. Once the final piece is done , I’d then glue this layout paper to board, this was later changed to paper as the drawings would need to be rolled onto a drum scanner. In those days all I did was the final drawing and the only equipment I needed were the pens ( I use something called a Pentel Sign Pen, not expensive ) and the magic markers ( which were and still are ). I no longer use magic markers as most of my work is black and white, anything with colour on it will have been done digitally these days. Today, one is expected to scan one’s own work, and of course to produces digital files to supply the artwork. When I tell people that I used to send my original drawings on the train to be collected by the client at the other end, they give me that quizzical look as if I should be looking for my carer.

Below is the first rough for the drawing above, in this case, simple idea and drawing and I have drawn that doctor patient thing a few times in my career, so no messing. One rough and then the final from it.

The glueing of the final drawing was usually done with “Cow Gum”. It was not as some people might think, made from cows, but was invented by a Mr P B Cow. It was essentially a rubber solution glue which one spread over the back of the paper, and if you wanted a very firm hold over the receiving card too. Placing the final piece onto the receiving card could be tricky as any misplaced paper would stick quite firmly and air pockets could be a problem but practice made perfect and most things could be repaired.

Cow gum no longer exists, it was replaced to a great extent by spray mount adhesive, which used the same sort of adhesive: sprayed! This was supposed to be progress, but of course health and safety soon got onto the idea that this might not be that healthy and someone else invented glue booths to take excess spray away from your nearest and dearest, or anyone in the wrong place when the button was squeezed. I dislike the stuff, lamenting the demise of Mr Cow’s fine product, itself no doubt a major hazard of some sort, as were those magic markers. A few hours working in a windowless room with cow gum and magic markers and you’d think you’d been using magic mushrooms.

Well, good news, thanks to the internet I’ve found a replacement product for Cow Gum, and it’s called Studio Gum! It has the same sort of design on the tin and I’ve been joyfully mounting a load of drawings this week. Cow Gum used to give off fumes and was best used in a well ventilated room, this new stuff is just as noxious! I’ve had to choose a dry day when all the windows could be open when applying the solution.This new stuff performs very much like the old cow I used to use, so now am working on a series of drawings that can be properly finished off at last. One of the key things about cow gum was you could make what was called a ‘cow gum rubber ‘ by spreading a bit on a window and then just rolling it up, this is then used to take any excess gum off the drawing or surrounding paper, that’s what that big lump of stuff looking like ectoplasm is on top of the tin!

I’m hoping to put together some little movies in the New Year to demonstrate my working methods, so that others can try them out. “The Joy of Cow Gum”, I bet you can’t wait.

Ooooer what a kerfuffle…

Seems like the Turner Prize has manufactured a bit of a ‘kerfuffle’ yet again. I think that if no one took any notice of them they would consider it a failure. Politicians sticking their comments in are only good for the news about it. The public, we the great uninformed, get to show our outrage, contempt, shock, horror, curiosity, admiration, and in my case envy, at what they have been allowed to do. Strewth, I wish someone would give me a few thousand quid, a large warehouse and ‘people to help me bring my vision alive’ that I’ve drawn on the back of an envelope. I’d love it. I’d talk all the ‘art bollocks speak’ using the word juxtaposition juxtaposed with just about everything, and leave the public gasping at my daring and skill.

But that’s the point is it not. The fact that they have the freedom to do this stuff is the essential thing. The fact that a lot of it is just ‘art bollocks’ is the price of freedom.

I’ve called this one “Drawing a blank”

It’s one of the drawings that will be in my exhibition in August of next year,
I’ll post details nearer the time.
Thanks for looking in.

What is it about masons?

A trip to the Mason’s yard at Gloucester Cathedral. I have a friend at the Cathedral who said she would help me out getting a small sculpture repaired for me. I wanted to match the stone and make the repair myself and asked if I could have a little stone dust to match the colour when I make the repair. She was happy to oblige and off I went with the wingtip in my bag. The sculpture was of a bird and it’s wing the victim of the gust of wind.

I’ve been to this place before and it fascinates me. There’s something very calm about the place and the masons themselves exude this calm too. Perhaps it’s a result of working to reasonable deadlines, after all you can’t re-craft the pinnacle of a Cathedral in a weekend. Ollie, the guy giving me the advice there on how to repair my modest piece went through everything in details about the glue and the hardener, then paused, looked me straight in the eye and detected that I would not be approaching this repair with the calm and expertise that he has, and offered to do it for me. Brilliant chap. They also let me take a few photographs in the place, and here I came across these bits and bobs.

Everything, but everything is covered in stone dust, mason’s included.If you ever get the chance , they do have ‘Open Days” every now and again, don’t miss it. I’m in awe of the skills that these guys possess in bucket loads.

This chap is a clay model of a gargoyle at Gloucester Cathedral which is now in situ on the edge of the roof. Go and take a look at it, but take a pair of binoculars as it is up very high.

Don’t look up in the rain as you’ll get an eyeful from his mouth

In the background it looks like a photo of previous masons and their apprentices,
they seem to be working in a tin shed! They don’t now.

Another quite small plaster model which was attached to the wall,
I think these guys have a bit of a sense of humour.

For more information take a look here:
Gloucester Cathedral

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