Official!

Well hello there!

Hope this edition finds you all in the best of health, fighting fit, mentally alert and raring to go! Oh it's a Friday for goodness sakes. Everyone in the known Universe is always up and buzzing on a Friday; the weekend and all that. And so should YOU be. Get on with it - smile - NOW!

Yep - it's official - my elbow is broken, so it's only another 5 weeks to go and I will be just like you all; well, sort of. That's all the bad news for now I reckon, except the weather which no-one has control over [bit like me and my body really], but I can't think of anything else that readily springs to mind, so that must be good.

My real painting is obviously curtailed for now. It was pencilled [no pun intended] in as a possibility last week, but now I find myself confined to running ideas through my head and trying out some practice sessions in my little home studio/office. You would think it's fairly easy to work with just one hand, after all, how many brushes etc can you use at the same time. It's weird though - taking tops off paints [I couldn't open my inks last week], holding stuff, mounting papers etc onto the easel to work on, using and tearing masking tape or simply trying to balance and support yourself whilst working. Oh enough of that!

My watercolours have been given some hammer, now the problem of transferring water to my desk without spilling any on the laminate flooring, thereby enabling me to slip and possibly do myself an injury [another - haven't you got enough already - how many do you want] has been successfully overcome.

There is a slight chance that with a lot of luck and plenty of perseverance on my part, that I may just be developing a bit of a style of my own. Yeah - thought that would shock you all - make you splutter on your cereals and all that.

As a standby I am also doing reasonably well with one of my newer bestest friends, the gouaches. Although we have only known each other for a couple of weeks now, I feel we are getting along famously. Those who have seen stuff on my website will be aware that I like doing cartoon type drawings, as I call then; oh you know, things done with black lines round them all - whatever the subject. My iris have been given a work out using these on a smaller scale, and the poppies are in for the same treatment soon - but please don't let on to them. I don't want them to start putting themselves into a forced "wilt" just to spite me.

Last night we were at a party for a friend's birthday, I saw on his walls classic railway posters from the "Golden Era" of rail travel. The same style I was working but minus the black outlines. Now I have never seen these, and I was sort of taken aback. I wasn't sure if I was pleased things like these were popular, or that what I was working on had already been covered. The only outcome was that they looked good and somebody else liked them too. Best develop some more ideas for subjects then!

Whatever you use, please, enjoy your art.

Paul