Man Made

Is the theme for this year's Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. I love the ritual of entering this prestigious competition....pondering on the composition, the reverent trek across London town to hand deliver your offering...the weeks of waiting....and for the vast majority of us, the rejection letter and the 'ho hum it was fun anyway' and return trip to fetch your work followed by a self-consolatory pint in the Glass Blowers' Arms.

I have pondered awhile on the theme for this year: Man Made. When I think of this, it conjures images in my head of suffering brought about by man's inhumanity....dark certainly, appropriate probably and it fits in nicely with my long unfulfilled ambition to do a mother and child portrait. Maybe this latest idea...which only crystallised this afternoon, has been brought about by me and M posing for Lorna yesterday....but once the idea formed....I couldn't get it down on paper quick enough.

This may sound trite or even pompous, but it was as if the sketch ran away with me and I know I should have used a softer pencil but that would have involved stopping to fetch one from the studio and I dared not.

So here is my idea. Acrylic. Big. In black and white for impact. It isn't nearly finished as a drawing, but it has all the elements in place for me to start considering the actual painting.

This drawing is A4, done in HB, white and black crayon and black ink felt tip.


I have been playing around with ideas for a border for this painting.
I envisage it being around 3 x 4 feet in size. What do you think of this? Its just a software created border, I was thinking along the lines of blood red marks as if made by fingernails...perhaps in a texture similar to that used in the Sun Shadow painting last month. ..

I need to be sure one way or another as the border would be painted last and if I didn't like it, it will have effectively sabotaged the entire work.....but I kind of like the semi-destructive nature of the scrathing round the edges..... Hmm