Just as we come to the end of the year I feel like I'm just getting going. I've been photographing reflections in my black and red gloss surfices using my small digital camera. The next stage will be to photograph the reflections on film, 35mm and medium format, scan the negatives into the computer and print on good quality paper - next year hopefully. Here are some of the images to date.

Been a while since written up blog, finished print elective, trip to New York, amazing and now half way through third week in painting. I feel the painting is a little slow for me, of course the essays are on my mind and they take up a huge space time and head wise. Feel I could be more experimental with materials, but I will have time over the Easter break and I have plenty of materials at home like tar and lime and ash and wood canvas etc. Here are a couple of examples to date. The first one is household gloss black poured onto acetate and a sheet of lead laid on canvas underneath, the next is a pool of the same, it reflects kind of like infinity, the next two are acrylic.

First week of print was slow, worked both on mono print and drypoint but not happy with results, just experimenting. Trip to London for weekend, went to the Anslem Kiefer at the White Cube and was completely blown away an experience. Also saw Joan Mitchell late work, not as good as her earlier work.  Did more mono printing today and here are a few examples.

My theme for the print elective is invasion of personal space, as in the Church being forced down my neck, also the restriction of space because of economic situation. The opposite of this is the creation of space in ones mind through having some sort of spiritual practice. The artists I have been looking at are Tapies, Kiefer, Frankenthaler, Idris Khan and Angela-De-La-Cruz.

What a buzz sculpture was, incredible room of people doing wonderful stuff, everybody who visited were blown away by the amount of activity. In the second week I started to make a piece with bamboos with the intention of handing them, the theme being separation but that changed as I made more and more of them. In the end they were like a little forest or musical instruments or a little tribe a gathering. Going to enter them into the drawing competition along with a spinning top drawing.

Walking blind in sculpture is quiet fun. Found myself a bit of grid and hung it from the celling and started attaching wire. Next attached sweet wrappers and tinfoil to it. Not looking to bad but difficult to photograph in the crowded space, presto lets film at night and light it with a single source, a red head in this case. This elective is a lot of fun and wide open, like painting with objects.

No pictures at the moment, sort them out tomorrow. Just come off first elective, painting, I could spend the next two electives painting using cards bits of stick, anything but a brush, I got a glimpse of possibilities, but alas got to turn my head towards sculpture for the next two weeks, no doubt that will be full of surprises as well. The whole tempo of the place has accelerated into another sphere, theres a great sense of excitement, if we can keep this up for the next three and a half years the sky is the limit, we will never be able to live normal lives again, I love abnormality.

I'm really enjoying the painting, still painting with bits of card except for the weekend project to copy a Lucien Freud painting, quiet a challange and these kind projects take me forever cause I got to take my time hear some sounds, make phone calls, eat, watch movies and all sorts of other things. My construction has lots of meaning for me but it is full of circular shapes and I find them difficult to get right. As usual nothing done in sketch book, will work on it tomorrow please God. Results today, I waited till the early evening before I checked them out, did good, so am happy, just want to get into painting, in with a chance.

I'm always amazed how wonderful it is to paint with a piece of card or a stick, anything other than a brush. The pressure of exectation is removed and whatever happens is a surprise. Our first assainment in painting was to pick 6 to 8 pictures that interested us. I had some colourists, Llyod Martin, Sean Scully and the white of Robert Ryman, also Gerhart Richter, Chaim Soutine, Frank Stella, Klara Liden"s wonderful torn posters and a picture of one of Robert Gobers draign holes. Then we had a morning of mark making with paint. The current project is to make an instillation inspired by an art work. I have picked Duchamps "Urinal" and Rauchenbergs "Monogram".

I created a seperate gmail account for blogging, bad idea. Spent the week working on various things, some worked out and some I'm still trying to make something happen. One piece is a row of 5 tops. Firstly I stuck 2 sheets of A2 together to make a larger sheet and painted it with white emultion. Drew the tops and painted them with gouache. Then I sanded the colour off and recoloured a portion of them with pastels. Stuck another 2 sheets of A2 on to the back cross ways.

Wonderful Christmas in the sunshine in the south of France. Made plenty of notes for work so hopefully get some of these ideas down on paper over the next week. Plenty of reading, mainly reading Panorama, a book on Gerhard Richter, one of the great modern contemporary painters, his methods, techniques, subjects, really inspiring. Also read John Berger's Ways of Seeing, also interesting. Had a look at Roland Barther's Camera Lucida, couldn't get into it, I'll try again, the new biography of Charles Dickens, great to get a chance to read so much.