Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
visitors since 29 March 2004.
All you need to know
'The only way to save yourself is to sacrifice your reputation.'
Recent exhibitions
Archive
-
▼
2005
(151)
-
▼
December
(23)
- Better be better than the last one
- Truly unbelievable
- Good news
- My consciousness returns like a bloated corpse to ...
- Here's to a consumerist frenzy based on a Christia...
- Back in the world (sort of)
- Zombied
- Waikanae views
- Start the programming now...
- The here and now
- Random thoughts
- Strangeness
- Titahi Bay and environs
- The views from the hill next to my olds' place...
- Strange weekend
- Catharsis
- And then my magic art powers failed me...
- Don't know about this one...
- Update on previous post
- Some documentation
- Sitting in the cafe reading the paper yesterday
- This morning
- Dreadful news
-
▼
December
(23)
© David Cauchi 2001-2011
11 comments:
David, I absolutely adore your work! I love the background colours and their 'blurness' -- and then the sharpness of the figurs/objects you paint/draw[?] onto that background....
Listen, the above description does not sound very professional. I know. I don't know the proper technical terms when it comes to painting. I'm just trying to tell you that I truly like what I see.
Do you sell your paintings at all, or are they only for personal use?
Ta muchly. These are playing round with watercolours, which I haven't done before. I like them a lot.
Don't worry about knowing technical terms. Do you know George Orwell's six rules for effective writing from his classic essay 'Politics and the English Language'? Less is more, and saying what you mean clearly and unambiguously are the main things. (But that's me being a prescriptivist again, ho ho.)
Yep, I do sell occasionally. There's a list of shows I've been in so far at the bottom of the paintings page of my website (link at right). On the paintings page proper 'private collection' indicates the ones I've given away or sold. I'm still starting out, so there's more of the former than the latter.
Ye gods, it should be '...clearly and unambiguously is...' cos of the singular subject and 'painting pages' in the plural. Plonker that I am.
Oh yeah, and it is draw. The black lines were added by pen after the paint had (mostly) dried. I like the combination of loose and controlled elements. I reckon it works well, but it's important to get independent confirmation. Cheers.
This is also me playing around with a larger palette than normal. I usually use old school Renaissance techniques - building up thin glazes of pure colour using a very limited palette (before now I've used pretty much only earth colours - yellow ochre, raw and burnt sienna, raw umber, and terra verde). None of this new-fangled 17th century mixing your colours with white and black to tone them bollocks.
Ha ha, been there and done that. The Illuminati Guy paintings are mostly based on news photos of Bush. 'The cabal' is taken from a photo of the National Security Council meeting on 12 September 2001. See if you can recognise some of the others.
I've never been entirely happy with them though.
Thanks for elaborating on your techniques, David -- and for not minding my lack of a technical vocabulary :-) You write 'the combination of loose and controlled elements' --> that was exactly what I meant in my initial post. It's that very combination that makes the paintings look fantastic in my view.
I'll be sure to check out your links !!
I don't know George Orwell's six rules of communication - I'll have to look into them too! Alan is quite an Orwell fan. He might have them somewhere...
Lilly:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
I particularly like number six, especially the term 'outright barbarous'. You can read the 1946 essay they're from here.
I got a bit too keen with the latest watercolour effort - overworked it just a tad. Might still put it up as a salutary lesson but. Quick and simple's the go, then on to the next one.
Gothamimage:
That's a really good idea. Might just do that. Maybe putting a bunch of similar kinds of things into an online cut up machine and seeing where the associations take me. Throw in something incongruous to keep things interesting.
Won't elaborate on the cybernetic control thing at the moment (Rose did reckon it sounded a bit full on). But basically there's been a war going on for all of human history between the control freaks who want to rule the world and independent free human beings. The current lot (your lot in particular) have fairly good reasons for thinking they're close to winning their objective of a totalised vertically integrated (shall we say) global society. All this brain scanner research freaks me out, especially in combination with the teeny robot and crazy DARPA stuff.
The resource wars have already started. First oil, then water. We're in for a rough ride.
I can't believe I missed out on this huge conversation. I like this one too. I'm am not so good with the watercolors. I want to do too much at once. It's the layering, and drying, and painting some more.
George Orwell-brilliant!
david,
good work, i liked.
jl
PG: Yeah man, and unlike other mediums you don't have nearly as much scope to rectify your mistakes. I kind of like that though - kind of like having to show your working when doing maths exams at school.
JL: Cheers bro. Got another to put up when I get my hands on Rose's scanner next.
Yep, I get your point, and it is a good idea. Ha, ha, could always grab stuff from the evil Denis Dutton's Arts and Letters Daily site (you know that one?). Seriously though, I'm reasonably familiar with the war of worldviews being played out in the US media - try to keep up with what's going on. There was an opinion piece on A and L Daily a while ago which was all about why Bush and co didn't lie about the reasons for the war during the build up or aftermath. Seemed like a classic case of cognitive dissonance from a quick squizz - hmm, my deeply held beliefs and the observable facts about the world don't match up so let's try to get rid of those pesky observable facts through elaborate rationalisations and redefintions etc etc.
We'll see. It could tie in with the other stuff I've been doing.
You hit the nail on the head - the best advice I've ever read is to do authentic stuff for your own benefit, not what you think is fashionable or what you think someone else wants.
Only time will tell indeed.
Post a Comment