I hope that I'll get to finish this one (I'll get to the reason below) which is all in homage to the melting Dalí watch, sine qua non. I started with this, wondering: Dalí painted his first soft watches in the early Thirties (when they were already beginning to fall out of fashion) and today they're quite uncommon. Does this make them more or less surreal?
This is how far I got "at press time". Especially O, and then N, forms the basis for the others:
I suppose that it's no mean feat to keep this blog up and running for week after week, year after year without missing a beat (at least not by very much) -- but I'm human. As I write this I'm going to hospital where they're going to do quite awful things to my face, all thanks to the madman of last week (q.v.) so we'll see if I'm fit for Paintstakingly next week or too much in Pain, or too deep into hospitalisation. Spur-of-the-moment drawing:
Within a few days, a fortnight maximum I'll have to face surgery -- my cheekbone is broken -- but at least I finished this... I've been assaulted by yet another madman -- this time despite all precautions, on an ordinary subway train and not during the latest empty hours either -- so happily there were others there. Now, what can one do? The black eye -- this is funny English as it's actually a beautiful deep purple -- a hue that would grace a peacock. So it ended up like this:
Here you see some of the work in progress. The eyes...
Beginning on the peacock...
Then it wasn't difficult (save but for the constant pain) to sketch the outlines for the rest. Note that the downy neck of the bird is related to the beard...
So. Let's make the lines a little better.
Close to my home there's a nice Japanese family and they grow a most beautiful Cherry tree, so I took some pictures when it was in full bloom...
...and now I use some for the peacock.
Voilà.
What else can you do with a purple black eye?
I don't know if I'll ever get around to finishing this one. But starting things is fun. From the middle of the jumble, inked (oil might join -- if I feel like it)
Another detail. (You see some pencil too that I haven't cared to erase yet.)
It is really a little too elaborate, and we'll see if I'll make it any further. And as for the Meaning of the whole thing... I'm the last one to know, as usual. But there's a point in pointlessness, and especially Sweden, so sure of itself, so rational, so purposeful... is a country that gravely needs pointlessness.
For this image, which might be an allegory on clearing your mind, renovating the head or at least thinking the other way round, I thought the other way round...
I started with the computer; made lines that I printed out and then went over with wide watercolour washes. I usually finish with computer, and if I work by hand, I start there... Then I scanned the lot and added details digitally; the flags and tape, the rose and other lesser things. This way we got both precision -- where sought for -- and living sweeps.
I like the red balloon. Gives one hope, doesn't it?
This part -- as usual, I don't know what it means. If it does.
