Monday, 30 July 2012

Mallet, Pliers and Staples



I spent the day making, stretching and priming 4 pretty large canvasses the other day in the studio. I always make my own canvasses, apart from the smaller ones I’ve recently used for my still lives. It’s often because they are made to fit specific compositions or arrangements that I have carefully planned, and also so I can have a bit more quality control over them, as I find the ready made canvasses I can afford on my budget not that good quality. I buy the stretcher bars, and have a large roll of canvas that I buy, which works out well economically, and then put them together. I’d like to say it is a satisfying and rewarding job, but I find it pretty tedious, especially when you have such limited time. Oh, I look forward to the day when my young son is old enough to stretch them for his old man to earn his pocket money. Yeah, right…

Still, they are done and are waiting to work on now. I try and think carefully about how to best use my time, and I prepared these with the view that I have four paintings planned that I would like to do in fairly quick succession over the next few weeks before going to Scandinavia on the 18th August. I’ve just got to find time to do them now….

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