BACK TO THE PAST

I'm thinking of getting Giclee prints done from some of my self-portraits and other paintings to sell at very reasonable prices. Below are some of the self-portraits from a series I digitally painted in 2006. Others are shown on this page:
 http://www.nataliedarbeloff.com/selfportraits.html

And here is a video I made in 2007 wth some of those portraits and a sound track of me singing over  Just the Way You Look Tonight.

Me and Vincent. 2006 Digital painting.

Me and Rembrandt. 2006. Digital painting.

 

 

 

 

 

DON AND VLAD TÊTE A TÊTE IN HELSINKI

Who's going to write the play What Donald and Vladimir Said Privately in Helsinki?

Anybody want to have a go?

DOODLE FOR TODAY

A doodle from me to clear the mind and lift the spirit.

NOT WELCOME TRUMP

I really really really want to be part of this protest but with my currently dodgy hip, I could get stuck in a crowd with no way to get back home except via a long walk and all public transport diverted or full up. Looks like I'm just going to be watching it on telly and friends' internet eyewitness reports.

DO IT MYSELF

I'm starting to repair a semi-rotten windowsill. The rot is in the wood and has eaten two bloody great holes in both corners. The middle of the sill is not too bad. I've scraped off most of the cracked paint and removed loads of crumbled wood, dust etc. from the holes. I know that the best solution would be to replace the sill entirely but that's not going to happen so I'm doing my usual patch-it-up-and-hope-for-the-best.

I've bought wood-filler and wood hardener but considering the depth of the holes, I'll apply the hardener and when dry, insert some filler, squish in pieces of wood cut to fit approximately then more wood filler in the gaps. Finally sand and repaint.

HE WAS GENTLY AMUSED BY LEAVES

He was gently amused by leaves.

Woke up today with that sentence in my head. Sometimes I get cryptic telegrams like this on waking, no clue of who what where they're from. Poets get them all the time, don't you? Most of the time I forget them. Decided to run with this one.

He was gently amused by leaves
The height of things was an interesting question
To leap or not to leap?
His eyes did not see
So much as foresee
Consequences.
Not a bad life
On the whole.

PANIC IN VAIN

In prehistoric days before computers, before the internet, we never had this strange sense of being cut adrift into outer space, lost, abandoned, rudderless, when something in the system breaks down for no apparent reason and our home, our online home, which sometimes seems more real than our actual physical home, is suddenly Not. There..

I'm exaggerating a little bit but I have indeed been pacing the floor, climbing the walls and tearing what's left of my already sparse hair simply because my website, for a few days, vanished from the internet as if it had never existed. Yes I know this is not a bona fide catastrophe but only a vanitas vanitas type of thing. Nevertheless, panic. 

I'm pretty good with computer stuff and can solve problems by myself most of the time, but this one struck too close to home, literally my home page which reassures me I'm still alive, digitally speaking, each time I log into the worldwideweb: NOT THERE!

I phoned my broadband provider. Surprisingly quick to act they sent me an engineer today, Abdullah, lovely guy who admired my art on the walls. We chatted about art, life etc. while he efficiently installed a new modem and concluded that the problem had nothing to do with broadband connection but only with my website host.

Long story shortened: I phoned mine Host. Polite guy with slight French accent answered. I asked would he rather speak French than English? We continued in my native langue de chat. The problem, quickly discovered, was their fault, not mine. My website was blocked by mistake because they were slow in confirming its renewal. Website restored. Two friendly guys in two different corporations in two different countries doing their job cheerfully and well. One foolishly panicked, vain customer satisfied. Tout est bien qui finit bien.

PORTRAIT DEFINITELY FINISHED

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you need to do it or that you must do it. In making art and in teaching art one of my guiding principles is that less is more. Being too obedient to what your eyes tell you can mean producing something that is competent but banal, pedestrian. What you must obey is the truth of your intuition and this often means having the courage to reject information, too much information.

I knew that the last version I posted of my portrair of Fionn Wilson with the more detailed. lighter hair, was wrong. Wrong in terms of my portrait of Fionn, never mind anything else. The added information about hair detracted and distracted from the character of the face. I knew this while I was in the act of 'improving' the hair and yet I carried on, going against my intuition. 

So I've now made the hair darker, removed some of my needless tweaking, and I think it's much better. I'm stopping now.

Finished portrait of Fionn Wilson. 1 July 2018