The Blender
Finally! I have a surface to draw on. All thanks to a fan shaped brush. Yesterday I took the phantom for a guided tour of the art suppliers of Ipswich in search of the mysterious blending brush a fabled sable item of rare power. It was raining the sort of fine mist that penetrates all clothing without seeming to make an effort. By the time I finally tracked the Grail down to it’s hiding place in an emporium called “the Range” a persistent and constantly renewing drop of water had settled in on the tip of my nose. To make myself feel better I purchased two brushes, a cutting mat, scalpel and blades and DVD labels all for under thirteen pounds. As I write I have completed my first redrawn spaceship SID. Below is an image of it standing proudly in front of my season one “Blake’s 7” VHS collection.
The Devil’s Coat Tails
Regarding the painting of my boards I have had many suggestions from so many interested parties, including the use of arcane brushes, mixing fairy liquid with gouache, spraying, rollering and scraping. Some have found fault with my preparation, which I cannot deny was a little slipshod and have suggested primers and base coats. My favourite suggestion from my dear friend Paul Becker is transcribed below:
“If you melted down your your Pilgrim hat and the single rogue sideburn, surely that would be a primer as smooth and black as the devil’s own coat tails?”
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I still haven’t telephoned the Bingo hall
Boards
I continue to struggle to paint four boards with black paint. The perfect surface still eludes me however. As of yesterday I had applied and sanded four layers of blackboard paint but still there remained imperfections on each board. Today, I employed a new softer, wider, wetter brush and stroked each surface repeatedly until it resembled a limpid pool (except black), Imagine my horror when on closer inspection that the ‘new’ brush had in fact been filthy with all manner of dust, particulates and hair and that the pools appeared infested with water boatmen, midges, caddis fly larvae and even frog spawn.
Tomorrow I sand.
After much consideration and more than a little prevarication I have pruned back my sideburns using an electric hair trimmer. They appear much more controlled now and not at all what I want but time will help. I have prepared four boards with blackboard paint for Monika’s spaceship drawings. After the first coat they were almost perfect. When I came to do the second the paint had congealed to a slimey paste which I stubbornly tried to trowel over the surface of the boards. This morning I have spent a good deal of time sanding (and swearing). Soon I shall venture out to Wilkinson for more paint as I am stubbornly convinced that this is the only way forward. I still have not phoned the Oxford Bingo Hall in Whitstable a failing that has caused my companion to make repeated offers of help. Telephonics escape me. I have managed to make a couple of tiny sculptures in my Alien Abduction series.
Monika Bobinska came to my sham of a studio yesterday. I had spent the previous hour unpacking the items I had previously packed and making a few stunt works in progress. I had made sure I had a packet of Leibnitz biscuits and some coffee and felt as ready as I could be. She turned the former down because she was on a “detox” (an alien concept to me) but did have a coffee. As usual both she and her intern Adam were fascinated by my studio’s history. It is sited on a US airbase in the military police headquarters. We have an interrogation chamber with two-way mirror, and my room is a cell with reinforced doors. After initial pleasantries we got down to business. She seemed to want to see lots of things and I tried to keep pulling new surprises from drawers and cardboard boxes. I showed her films of stars and spaceships, photographs, drawings and alien abductions. Cosmic mysteries all. By the time we had finished two hours had passed and I had agreed to show three films, to make a new series of sculptures, have some lightboxes made and to redraw a number of spaceships a little more carefully. And all this to be finished by the beginning of January, what a fool I am! How quickly have I been ensnared by the commercial gallery system!
Now I am exhausted at the very thought of all this toil. So tonight I will rest and watch an episode of “Blake’s 7” Its plot, stolen from “Star Trek”, involves alien forces pitting our hero against his arch enemy for entertainment. It also contains vampires of a sort.
In response to my worries about greying hair my companion found this quote by the Humanist writer Marsilio Ficino:
“To Stay Young:
Suck the blood of a youth… an ounce or two from a scarcely open vein on the left arm… when the moon is waxing”
Three Books on Life, 1489
