HAIR TODAY

Just wanted the highlights to be more contrasty but the guy overdid it and now I'm almost white-haired. Or platinum blonde. Haven't been my real dark brunette self for many years now but this is beyond the pale. Don't know if I hate it or like it.

SELF-IMPRESSION

Sometimes I impress myself. It's okay to impress yourself as long as you stay in reality and don't get into Trumpish-type insanity which totally denies the existence of reality. My latest bout of self-impression was for a challenging bit of DIY which you wouldn't expect from a so-called Little Old Lady (LOL) if you believe those clichés about LOLs and LOMs (Little Old Men).

I was expecting delivery of a new sofa to replace the exceedingly uncomfortable, decrepit one I boastfully re-upholstered in another bout of DIY a while ago. I realised that the new sofa wouldn't get through the door of the living room and the only solution was to remove the door. This is what I proceeded to do. Unscrewing the rusty screws from the hinges was slow but not impossible (I stood on a box) but the middle bit, a long rubbery thing fitted into a hole, took a lot of tugging and wrenching. It eventually gave in to my efforts and the heavy door was released. Impressive, eh?

Well, yes, but the door being heavy I only managed to lean it against the wall. The delivery men brought the new sofa and, hurrah, it fitted through the door-less doorway. Now I have to ask a neighbour to help me put the door back on its hinges.

HIDEOUT

Waiting for proofs from dStudio. Many thanks to those of you who ordered Giclée prints, you'll have them soon. Meanwhile I've been working on a new small painting. Maybe it's finished, maybe not. It's kind of cartoonish but why not? I like it. HIDEOUT. NdA 2020. Acrylic & tempera on canvas. 30 x 30 cms. (12" x 12")

GICLEE PRINT OF "HABITS"

For the benefit of anyone interested, this post is about ordering Giclée prints of the image above: Habits-Stanislavski-NdA or other images by me. To get prices for Giclêe printing I contacted dStudio a company specialising in working for artists. Their website is very informative and well worth a browse.

I must now give a little lecture on the words giclée and limited editions because, as Michael Caine once said, not a lot of people know this. If some of you are experts on these matters please yawn quietly.

1.Giclée is from the French verb gicler - to spray or squirt - which is what inkjet printing equipment does. The difference between ordinary inkjet printing and Giclée printing is that the latter uses light-fast,pigment-based and longer lasting inks in a wider range of colours, printed at much higher resolution, producing sharper, more intense and durable results. Another crucial factor is that Giclée can be printed on a wide variety of media including museum-grade archival papers, canvas etc.

2. Limited editions: as an artist/printmaker who has created and printed on a hand press a great many limited editions in various techniques such as etching, relief-printing,collagraphs, stencils, monoprints etc. I get a bit pedantic when Giclée prints are called “limited editions” and priced as highly as if they are the same thing as hand-printed artist’s original prints. They are NOT the same thing. Each print in a bonafide traditional limited edition is an original, hand-inked from an original block or plate drawn by the artist. The Giclée printing process is excellent and produces excellent digital reproductions of an artwork. Nothing wrong with that and I’m happy to make use of this process now and then. But I am not jumping on the bandwagon and charging for a Giclée print what I would charge for my original prints. paintings or other artworks. End of lecture. Down to business now.

For an A4 size (29 x 21cms) GICLEE print of Habits-Sanislavski-NdA on Hahnemuhle 100% cotton Photo Rag 308gsm archival paper, plus a certificate of authenticity, I'm asking £60 which covers my costs and allows me a modest profit. You can pay me via PayPal or bank transfer. If in London you could if you wish collect a print from me, but dStudio will deliver prints anywhere. Their rates for delivery (see their pricing page for different options.) Please add relevant delivery charge to the £60 when you send me your order and include the address where you want the print or prints delivered.

Anywhere in UK: Standard delivery: £3.40 Europe: £6.50 USA and rest of world: £7.50

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New mail

DEBATABLE

The Trump ascendancy to power has turned the USA into a caricature of itself. All the worst tropes about America and Americans you've ever heard or thought are outlined in blazing neon lights and shouted from the rooftops at deafening volume. That this seems like a television show gone haywire only makes it more dangerous because it's so much easier to laugh than to take in that it's actually happening in reality and infects the whole of this planet.

The best of America now seems to be in shadow, in chiaroscuro, while Trump and his cohorts prance around in ominously hypnotic technicolour. The Trump-Biden "debate" was another illustration of an unbelievable yet factual state of affairs. Biden isn't the ideal opponent but at present he's the only alternative to catastrophe. He urgently needs to get out of the shadows and inspire voters to stop the Trump ascendancy.

HABITUAL INSPIRATION

I needed something to kick me back to the work which has been lying comatose since I stopped paying attention to it because of this that and the other. I was leafing through a notebook where I keep inspirational quotes and found this one by Stanislavski. Doodled a decoration around it and here it is.

MY VERY OWN CATARACT REMOVAL

It was not a pleasant experience but not entirely unpleasant. Blessed NHS sent angelic drivers to pick me up and bring me back home. The wait at the hospital was long but quiet and punctuated by the insertion of many varieties of eyedrops. The op itself was surrealism, sci-fi and existentialism. Only the left eye was anaesthesised, I was fully conscious, lying down, head and face covered apart from small area left open for the surgical business. Various masked and gowned persons moving about, talking, presumably about what they were doing, and strange, melodic machine sounds. Instructions given to me were simple: look up, keep both eyes open, breathe. What I saw looking up was something like the view from a spaceship. Different kinds of lights, shapes like abstract skulls, crystalline cobwebs. I felt calm, detached. Also annoyed that it was taking so long. It seemed long but maybe it was only an hour or two. Then the surgeon said it's all done, everything went very well. In the waiting room, they gave me a cup of tea,biscuits and instructions to take home plus more eyedrops I must use for 2 weeks several times a day. An ambulance ride home and that's that.

The glint in my eye is not a glint: it's a reflection on the plastic shield taped over the de-cataracted eye which I must wear for a week every night when I sleeo but can take off in the daytime. As yet I have no idea what the world will look like through the doctored eye. We shall see. Goodnight for now.

CATARACTING

Here is a photo of cataracts . The next photo is of somebody whose left eye will have a cataract surgically removed tomorrow. Too bad to lose such a beautiful natural phenomenon but apparently it improves vision. Who knew?

A PARAGUAY CONNECTION

When I posted the Paraguay parts of my fragmented autobio there was a sudden and welcome influx of Paraguayan visitors to my facebok page and some have since become my long-distance friends, One of them is José Luis De Tone, a photographer, critic and journalist who lives in Aregua, a beautiful small town outside of Asunciòn. Browsing his facebook page, I was struck by a photo José Luis took several years ago of himself with a college friend, Elizabeth. I commented on it, saying that it would make a very interesting painting. Well, what do you know, I've done it. Below is a photo of it taken yesterday. The actual colours of the painting are not so dark but my camera never gets colour right. Maybe I need a better camera. José Luis De Tone with Eli. NdA 2020. Acrylic, watercolour and coloured pencils on handmade cotton rag paper. 30 x 40 cms (12 x 16 inches).

LATEST PORTRAIT

A portrait I started in July is now finished and Plum Johnson, who commissioned it, has given me permision to post a photo of it before I ship the painting to Toronto, her home. I had several photos to work from but chose only one. The background design appeared in my mind almost fully formed when semi-awake one morning. I did a quick sketch of this geometric 'dream' before starting the portrait. Strangely enough, Plum tells me that the background has symbolic significance for her and resonates deeply. The process is intuitive and I have no idea how it happens but it does, quite often. In his livre d'artiste Jazz, Matisse wrote: En art la vèrité, le réel commence quand on ne comprend plus rien a ce qu'on fait, a ce qu'on sait... (In art the truth, the real begins when you no longer understand what you are doing, what you know...) Portrait of Plum Johnson. NdA 2020. Acrylic on canvas. 60 x 50cms (24 x 20 inches}