BLETHER or BLATHER

A short reprise of my life, the good, the bad and the downright nasty.

The main thrust of this blog will deal much with my self-taught art, discussing any new work in depth
.
Add my feelings, emotions and routine day to day things.

'Blether', 'blather', whichever, it is Scottish or English as a method for general discussion.

For those unsure of the literal meaning it is 'to to talk for a long time in a silly or annoying way'.

I would hope that my utterances will not be the latter in the description, but full of worthwhile information.

Needless to know that I like the words and they loosely represent that which this blog is about.

In the next few days, I shall offer a short post about myself, my life and my future aspirations.

I was born on 28th September 1943 in the town of Jedburgh in the county of Roxburgh, Scottish Borders.

The first six years of my life were spent here, then in 1949 my family moved to Castle Eden in County Durham in the North East of England.

All my schooling and college education took place here.

I left college in 1960 and took a post as a student nurse, nursing was my life for the next eight years.

It was after this a number of personal problems overtook my life it spiraled and descended into an alcoholic stupor.

This phase lasted for some 20 yr, treatments, hospitalization on many occasions and many other attempts to stop the drinking.

It was fortunate for me after these 20 yr that I was able to start to get some control of my life. I managed to get a position with my local Council.

My position was in home care, requiring me to work together with the elderly and others who suffered from psychological or physical disabilities. This position I held until I retired in 2012 some 23 yrs.

During my life, I have been married twice and divorced twice, with 4 children. I now live in Portugal with my Portuguese partner and have been teetotal for two years plus.

I must add here that during my years in home care I very seldom had a drink because of my work with vulnerable people, also instant dismissal if one was caught drinking on duty.

There you are my life in a nutshell the good, the bad and the ugly.

In my retirement, I have spent much of my time teaching myself how to draw. I hope now that I can offer a competent level of work. Latterly my focus has been on educating myself the art of pastel painting.

I have never had any training, tuition or instruction in any of these art forms, everything is self-taught.

Thanks you for reading. Tom


12/09/2014

Just hopefully start with this blog, I am just trying this first note to say that I am not very conversant with blogs or blogging.

I have a never say die attitude to life so I will try to offer you something that you may like or not. So is life. You might ask where did I get this attitude from so I would want to present this text which may in someway explain.

I had the privilege to work together with severely disabled persons whose lives were, physically or psychologically compromised or both.

I would watch in awe as they took very simple tasks and completed them.

To watch the frustration, the determination, anger and finally the utter joy of completion.

At every stage of the task, they refused assistance.

They never gave up, despite, in our terms the tasks they undertook were of modest complexity.

I think that we can learn a lot about ourselves from this.

This was just an example of the my wonderful work experience, from the people I worked with whose lives were compromised, whether in their homes, day centers or specialist units.

When I retired at the age of sixty nine and a half, I was very sad to leave the people, who had contributed, to make so many changes in my life, my clients.

That's it for now. Tom

13/09/2014

Had a somewhat miserable day, an inspirational devoid.state of mind, luckily there was some sport on tv so I was not to down heartened.

It is strange that I start to regenerate later in the day and evening. This is not very good for my artwork as I like to work in true light.

Over that past several weeks I have been working very hard and I have several paintings finished or near finished.

I have posted two pastel painting this evening both with a stormy theme and I hope over the next few days get more published.

I know that I shall be better tomorrow, even more so if Manchester United win their football match. Looking at it this way it will offer some time to start the draft on a new picture I am planning. I have to also watch the golf tomorrow night, go for it Rory.

That's me for today, speak soon. Tom

14/09/2014

Lazy day spent with family, no work allowed. As stated yesterday I did manage to get some sport viewed.

I shall be out early tomorrow to get some materials, to do this I have to walk the 2/3 miles to the center of Lisbon, my nearest art supplier. I do not mind this as the the whole walk is filled with many beautiful architectural sights. Some of these sights I hope to show in future art work.

On my return I shall get down to some serious work.

Early start so I shall close now. Tom

!5/09/2014

Done my shopping in central Lisbon, got caught in a heavy shower of rain.

Locals think I am crazy walking home in the torrential rain in shorts and 'T' shirt. The thing was it was so oppressively warm that the rain cooled me down somewhat.

Home now and I have set up three drafts of images that I want to do.

There is my day in a nutshell. This evening I shall present other images to my list.

I have presented a pastel painting of a husky, with some notes. The painting was a request from my daughter Lisa who has loved this breed since she was a small child. We were never able to have one as part of the family mainly due to working commitments and financial constraints.

The second display is a graphite drawing of storks nesting. I noticed these wonderful birds on a recent vacation in Lagos, Algarve. Apart from this large colony of storks residing on top of a derelict hotel opposite the marina, there were others on chimney stacks of a demolished waterworks station.

I have also seen these nesting sites in many areas of Portugal.

Until later. Tom

16/09/2014

A rather industrious day, working on three ongoing paintings.

Thankfully I seem to be getting back into a reasonable work ethic, after some days of horrible lethargy.

During my short break from my labors I fixed the leaky sink in the bathroom. My partner did not want me to do this, when i asked why she replied at your age you should not be doing these kind of tasks. I was rather shocked at this answer,with some hurt feelings.

I contended in my defense why should a 71 year old(on Sept 28) reasonably fit man not do such tasks. She replied you might hurt yourself as you are getting older(tongue in cheek), I replied I can hurt myself doing any task. I left the discussion there.

I am presenting an eagle this evening. The image is a creation made from two focus photographs, as I could not find the image I wanted from other photographs.

I had a specific image in my mind and with a combination of the two photographs I got a semblance of that which I required. The background is taken from one of my holiday photographs and is loosely represented in the pastel painting.

That is it for now. Tom

17/09/2014

Here we go again.

Long day working on the paintings I have in progress at the moment.

I said a couple of days ago that I have three paintings in progress at the same time. Let me explain, I work on a painting until I need to walk away, what I do is stop, rest then start again with another topic. In doing this it seems to keep my mind and focus alert. Some may not agree with the way I work, but might I add that if the picture I am working on is of a very important and needs to be finished I concentrate on it solely.

The pictures I am working on are all personal, not requested, hence the more relaxed attitude.

You will have noticed that I have introduced another facet of my self taught art and craft namely sculpted models.

As described in the description of the 'squirrel' the unit on show, I only work on personal or commissioned works.

This self taught art project started some 25 yrs ago, as described in the presentation I literally started with a lump of clay and progressed to commission standard in two years. I had a business that failed not because of the art/sculpting but more my lack of business acumen.

I have many sculpted units in many parts of the world, at one point I was commissioned to create 10 Scottish soldiers, each soldier to be around 5 feet tall. They are now I believe somewhere in Germany. I also have a horse head sculpture in France, a deer head sculpture in Holland and many other sculptures in the U/K.

I shall stop here and not digress to far into my past art activities, but concentrate on the present self-taught enterprises. Remember I still work to a lesser degree with sculpting.

I shall go now and worry about the referendum in Scotland tomorrow. I am and have been since my birth in 1943, a proud Scot and very proud to be British and part of the United Kingdom community. Scotland will destroy itself with a 'yes' vote, it would be better staying with a strong U/K.. Sorry did not mean to politicize tonight's commentary, but it is very important issue for me and all Scottish people. Unfortunately I cannot vote on this referendum as I live outwith Scotland at the moment.

That's me for now. Tom

18/09/2014

A yes no day.

Not very good weather here in Lisbon, torrential downpours not much sunshine very depressing. At some point I will have to go out to the supermarket for necessary supplies. Let me say that it was fair on the way there and a downpour on the way back.

I have submitted a seascape come sunrise. This to me is a diversion from my normal way of presenting work, I am normally very particular about detail, in this picture I have developed a more free style.

I have thought many times that I must try to express myself more freely.

In all my art projects I am continually reminded that I should not be so finicky, as I see faults that no one else can see them.

When I was making my sculptures this was a major problem, my wife and daughter continually on my case, they would say my work was good but I saw minute faults that I had to correct.

So hopefully I can get this out of my system and progress. Getting older (71 yrs in ten days time) I would hope that I can resolve this problem

Have to go now, the polling stations have closed in the Scottish referendum, so I shall now stay up until the results are finalized. I hope that they vote to stay with the United Kingdom.

So here I will be sitting fingers crossed, proud to be both Scottish and British.

Thank you Tom

19/09/2014.

Here we go again.

Sat and watched the Scottish referendum to its conclusion, with thankfully a good majority wishing to stay in the United Kingdom.

I am therefore somewhat tired as I have only had a few hours sleep from 7.30 am this morning after watching the results from 10 pm.

Needless to say that I have done very little work as my mind did not want to concentrate.

To-morrow I shall be doing some work on a horse commission(sculpting) that I am presently working on.

I also have a couple of pastel paintings that I shall be working on throughout the day.

The biggest distraction on the weekend is sport, luckily there are only two things I may watch, Manchester United at football and the Grand Prix. I try not to watch to much sport as it becomes rather addictive. While on the subject the other team I support Saint Helens in rugby league, they had a wonderful victory to-night, I watched with much satisfaction.

Back to more important things like the graphite drawing I added on to my collection of artworks. I hope that it is liked as much as I liked the subject matter.

I am trying to get to my bed before midnight to try and get my schedule back on track.

Speak later. Tom

20/09/2014.

Short and sweet tonight.

Spent much of the day working on a rather large wildlife image.

There were interludes where I watched some sport, Lewis Hamilton getting pole in the Singapore GP, my football team plays tomorrow so I shall have another interlude watching Manchester United and of course the GP.

I have presented tonight a graphite drawing the last in the trilogy of images of my friend Kerry's animals. In this both the horse and the dog are shown in the picture.

I was going to show a pastel painting of a still life, being unsure of whether I can use it for this purpose. I have withdrawn it until I check whether I can use it or not.

I am working hard to get more work out from new work, I still have some older images that may be good enough to show.

I shall go now, but I would like to say that I have had some wonderful discussions on the Scottish referendum with both 'yes' and 'no' supporters. I would like to say that my region in Scotland voted 'yes' 33% and 'no' 67%, so I was well satisfied with that.

Speak tomorrow. Tom

21/09/2014

A good and a bad day, not art, but my sporting likes.

Good was that Lewis won the Singapore grand prix and now leads the drivers title race, Man United after a spectacular start, stopped playing and as a consequence were defeated. Just after half time they were leading by 3 goals to 1, eased off and were beaten by 5 goals to 3, this left me rather p****d off.

To cheer myself up I started to work on the large wildlife painting and progressed well, but this painting will take several more days to complete.

I also worked on an image that I have been thinking about for a long time. This painting was only intended as a practice but the end result was not to bad at all. Unfortunately I could not photograph it because I ran out of true light and I do not have the equipment to replicate it. So I shall possibly have it ready for tomorrow.

I have put a new pastel painting on the site, I hope it will be well received.

I will close now as I have to be up early!! tomorrow as I going with my partners daughter on her driving lesson.

Thank you for looking in. Tom

22/09/43

Sorry just a short note this evening not able to do much work.

The image I said that I was going to show this evening still I feel needs more work.

It has been quite an interesting day, I went, as described yesterday, with my partners daughter on her driving lesson, and as you see I returned unscathed.

After the lesson we went for a coffee, there was a small shower of rain whilst we were having our snack. Next we went to the supermarket to get some supplies, when we left there the rain had started and was coming down in 'stair rods'.

We walked about 100 paces and were somewhat wet. We took shelter for a short while, then decided to go to the nearby cafe. We sat outside under an awning which protected us from the now monsoon rain.

The road and the pavement was just like a river and the water travelling at rapid pace with the street corner where the cafe is situated beginning to flood. The thunder was so loud above us and the lightning flashes were quite spectacular.

A light wind developed so we were unable to continue sitting outside. We went into the cafe and stayed there for the next hour and a half, in total we were three hours in waiting for the storm to stop.

The rain seemed to abate to a heavy drizzle so we decided to make a dash for it, just to get home. Outside the the cafe the pavement was flooded, with the water some eighteen inches at the roadside. We had to jump the torrent an walk on the road which by this time the traffic was at a standstill, thankfully camber was helping to move the water to the side gutters which were still a raging torrent.

So as you can see a rather adventurous day. When we checked, other parts of Lisbon fared worse than that which we had to endure. Apparently the news photographs were showing water almost half way up the cars.

I have been working but as I said the pastel painting I thought I could show is not ready and more work will be done tomorrow when I shall get a full day of work.

I also did some work on the other large wildlife paint which is progressing slowly.

I hope that after a night of sleep, I will have more to say on my art projects, till later, Tom

23/09/2014

A pretty ordinary day, finished the pastel painting that I have mentioned in past posts, I am not completely satisfied but hope that it might be acceptable.

Carried on with work on the large wildlife painting and it is progressing satisfactorily.

Also I am drafting out another project.

I had a communication from an artist from America(via FAA) who will be visiting Lisbon next month, so we are going to meet up for a coffee and a 'blether' about everything including art. I would hope to show him and his friend some of this historic and beautiful city.

Not much else today, speak soon Tom

24/09/2014

Very short today as I shall be going out this evening.

All that is to report is that I am continuing with all as described in the last post.

Speak tomorrow Tom.

27/09/2014

Sorry about a couple of lapses, two things, computer problems and family problems.

In saying that the computer may have to go again as there is a problem with the head phone jack and I get no sound to them.

I have put a drawing of a young American pine marten on show, I hope it is well accepted.

I an also trying to write a newsletter, the subject in the first instance much about myself and my first sortie into the world of art with my self taught sculpting.

I am hoping as I progress I can get to the point where I am talking about art, the emotions, the frustrations, the excitement and everything that I feel about art.

I think I have to express these things as a newcomer to the field of art.

From my point it is important, as I am self taught in all the art practices I perform, graphite drawing, pastel painting, sculpting and now a new area of watercolor painting.

I struggle inside when I see so many wonderful works of art, in saying that I never try to equate the standard of my work with any other persons work.

Art is an individual way for expression and everyone has to find their own standard, stay at that level or try to improve. That is where I am at the moment.

Anyway shall get myself to bed, day two of the Ryder Cup and Man United at home, with work in between.

Speak soon Tom

30/09/2014

Sorry to go AWOL, but was off celebrating my 71 st birthday on the 28 th.

I a lovely time and visited the Estufa Fria a tropical wonderland site with my partner and her daughter. There were plants and trees from all over the world and many beautiful flowers on show.

So you might realize that no work as done for two days, Saturday and Sunday. Monday back to work and getting close to finishing two projects a pastel painting and a water color.

The pastel is quite a jump for me as it is large, some 60 cm x 50 cm., and again back with my favored subject, wildlife. The water color is a first for me in this medium, though only at an A4 size and it was an experiment that I wished to try. The subject being Dusk in a Park.

Both these submissions are shown in my galleries.

Ok that's it for now, speak soon Tom


01/10/2014

Not much to report today as I have been out enjoying some of the wonderful sunny weather with the temperature around 27 degrees.

I went with my partners daughter on her driving lesson, she sits her test tomorrow. After that the rest of the day just seemed to slip away.

One good thing is that I have now found a new art supplier, situated so much nearer my home. Now I will not have to travel to the city center for supplies.

I have been contacted by a fellow FAA member who is coming from America to Lisbon and we will meet for a coffee and have a good 'blether' about art, well that is the plan.

Back to work tomorrow, speak soon Tom

06/10/2014

Sorry about the last few days, little has happened so I decided not to bore you with my day to day boring stuff, nothing exciting has happened.

Now I have something to write about.

I am rather excited and pleased to present my first acrylic painting. The excitement you may wonder why, but for me I have tried this type of painting before and I made a right pig's ear of it.

Now I have made the long and hard progression with many hours, days, weeks and months of hard work, I suppose we can now also add years to this.

I am very proud of the fact that I did all of this myself, having had no tuition or training in any form, in any of the areas of art that I pursue.

My work may not be of the highest standard, I do not know. I do know that I have had much of my work appraised by several professional artists and they have highly commended my work.

I think I will move away from that rather mute discussion I seen to be having with myself.

Now some other news, I will be meeting an artist from the U/S tomorrow in central Lisbon, for a coffee and a 'blether'

Needless to say I will feed back the outcome tomorrow night.

I shall also be working hard to get some new work for you to see.

Till tomorrow Tom.

7/10/2014

Well I had a great day, with my partner Fatima we met with a fellow FAA member from California, Phil Dynan, in central Lisbon.

We spent the whole afternoon talking art at a place named Pastelaria a Gelo, where we enjoyed coffee and a local delicacy 'pastel de nata'.

We then walked and visited my local art supplier and I bought some items to help me in my move into acrylic art. Phil helped me to identify the items I needed.

In our discussions he offered solutions to many of the questions I needed answers to for many of the small problems I was having, as I am very new to this medium.

You might gather that there was little work done today, the 'little' was to complete some drafting of new paintings that I am planning.

Tomorrow is a going to be a busy day as I try to promote my new work further.

I will be meeting with Phil on Thursday morning to spend part of his last day in Lisbon together.

Speak soon Tom.

8/10/2014

Spend most of the day working on one of the acrylic paintings an also worked on a water colour(color) painting.

The water color(colour) painting is of some flowers that I photographed on my birthday outing at Estufa Fria translated as Cold Greenhouse.

With this painting I used black paper and for a trial I used one of the water loaded paintbrushes. I was so pleasantly surprised with this paint applicator that I shall be using it again.

Tomorrow an early start as we are meeting with Phil again in the city, unfortunately it is his last day but I have gained so much good art information from his visit.

Ok till tomorrow Tom

9/10/2014

Another good day.

Met with Phil and his travel companion Sarah for breakfast, unfortunately he is leaving later today, going to London then to Brighton.

My partner(Fatima) and her daughter(Monica) helped Phil by showing him the shops were that he could buy presents to take home. After this we split up, Sarah and my Monica went to explore the sights of central Lisbon.(Monica has lived in Lisbon for several years and knows her way about).

Phil, Fatima and myself got on a tram and went to Belim where there was an art exhibition.

Can I say that the tram was absolutely full and we were standing in the compression unable to move, the heat in the tram was around 38 degrees, very uncomfortable.

The exhibition was held in the Centro Cultural de Belim, a beautiful modern building using two floors one for older art and one for new/modern works.
We enjoyed the visit and I saw many exhibits which I really liked.

When we got back to the city we had a snack then went our separate ways, after taking some group photographs for our memories.

Back home I was quite tired so I only did about an hour of drafting work.

I will not be working until Sunday as we have a visiting relative and as this is a small flat my work room becomes the spare bedroom.

That's it for now, if anything crops up in the next few days I shall make an entry, Tom

12/10/2014

Long weekend, but now the visitor(my partners niece)has left to return home to Lagos(Pt), so this afternoon I will put my work area back into place.

I shall work on the drafts that I am preparing this afternoon/evening, hopefully tomorrow I can return to work proper.

The good things, for me, that happened this weekend, were (1) St Helens won the Rugby League Challenge Trophy, the last fixture of the R/L season.(2) Valentino Rossi came third in the Moto G/P. (3) Lewis Hamilton won the Formula One Grand Prix.

The only disappointment that I had in this vein of sporting activities, was that I was watching the Bathhurst 1000, from Australia, when the road on Mt Panorama began to break up and their would be a delay in the race whilst they repaired the road(already 57 laps in). So I admitted defeat at 3.45 am and went to sleep.

So with not being able to work I followed my next favoured(favored) pursuit's, that of rugby and motor sport.

That's it for now speak soon Tom

13/10/2014

I feel a little better today, having got down and done some serious work, after the past several days of inactivity.

I have been working on a few drafts of pictures that I would like to finish in one of the methods that I now pursue.

I am continuing to expand the floral water colors, with more exhibits from Estufa Fria, they, I would like to present in the near future.

Today I finished an acrylic painting of a Bobcat, Wildcat or Lynx whichever name you wish to use, I hope you like this painting.

Not much else to talk about this evening as there is little sport on tv to interest me.

So speak soon, Tom

18/10/2014

Hi, sorry not much to speak about over the past few days.

I have been working very hard and have completed one of the two paintings that I have mentioned in previous posts.

I have posted this painting called 'Yawn' tonight,

The second will be completed, possibly by the end of the weekend, though I think it will be Monday before I am satisfied.

My work rate has been disrupted as my partners daughter was in the process of moving to London, so much attention has been geared to her needs.

She left to-day, so now there is only Fatima and myself, so there are no excuses my for not working.

That's it for now, speak soon Tom

20/10.2014

Here we go again after a somewhat successful weekend, plus Monday.

I finished the painting called 'YAWN' over the weekend, working both on it and the painting I completed to-day.

Possibly I could have completed these paintings earlier but there was a continuous stream of exciting European rugby matches being played Friday to Sunday. In addition to this my partners daughter left to live in London on Saturday, so you can imagine the emotionally charged atmosphere, not conducive for work.

I shall be working on a series of water colors over the next several days. I shall enjoy the change in mediums, then after these I shall be working on a graphite drawing and a pastel painting.

The pastel painting will now have to take a lesser portion of my time. The reason for this is that I noticed I was suffering greatly from the dust created when working with medium. The symptoms were as follows: (1) reddened and stinging eyes, continuous feeling of something in the eyes causing me to rub much of the time. (2) nose drying causing the sensitive nasal cavities to present sores. (3) irritation of the skin of my hands, drying and cracking. (4) Lastly and I think most worrying was the effect I was having in my lungs. I was continuously coughing up phlegm.

Since I have moved into watercolor and acrylic painting the symptoms as described have disappeared.

In saying this I must say that I do enjoy the pastel painting, it is a wonderfully expressive medium and some exciting effects can be created, reference the leopard and many of my pastel collection.

That's it for now, speak soon Tom

28/10/2014

Just a short note to say that I have been trying very hard to get a water color completed. There have been a few problems which I am trying to work through, how else does one get experience.

I am a great believer in trial and error, at the moment several errors and I am trialing resolutions to make my work better.

I have presented a graphite drawing this evening, it also has a short story relevant to the above statements.

The project in which I wished to present was of a graphite drawing of a lions head.

I have two books of paper, one for graphite drawing and the other, for water or acrylic painting.

I unfortunately was a little lax in making my selection and chose the water color paper.

As I was drafting the lions head I noticed that the texture was a little rough, it was then that I realized that I had chosen the wrong paper, the drawing paper is quite smooth in contrast to this paper.

Unfortunately (sob story)as I am a pensioner with little money and to waste a piece of valuable paper would be sacrilege. So as I always do in these situations, I carry on and make the best job of the erroneous beginning.

It was quite an interesting experience, but as always I have ended with a reasonable representation of that which I was trying to portray. I must admit that I enjoyed experimenting with the tones and finishes.

As I said, the image is in my work page, hope you enjoy, speak soon Tom.


31/10/2014

Here i am again, to present my newest work.

This painting is in water color, as I continue to try and improve my water color potential.

The scene is taken from a photograph(legally able to copy) which shows an area of water with multiple reflections from the forest behind and with a canoe and its reflection in the foreground.

This project was quite a challenge for myself as I am relatively new to the medium of water color painting.

There are so many differing features throughout this picture and as you can see I have tried my best to capture them all.

Nothing else of note at the moment, just to add that I am working on the continuing theme of the flowers from Estufa Fria.

Ok that's all for now Tom.

01/11/2014

Just a short update to say that the first of my paintings has been sold, albeit it was of the post card size. That does not matter it was a sale, which has cheered me immensely.

I have tonight posted another painting in the series I have undertaken, to show the flowers that were on display when I visited, as a birthday treat, Estufa Fria in Lisbon.

I have completed one Brinco de Princesa(Princess Earings) and now tonight the newest painting Estrelicia, both of these are water color paintings.

I will have possibly four more paintings in the series, these will be presented one by one in the near future.

Ok that's it for now, speak soon Tom

4/11/2014

Another addition to the flowers that I photographed when visiting Estufa Fria, Lisbon as a birthday treat.

This painting is named Hibiscus at Estufa Fria and is painted in acrylic, a diversion from the first two painting in this series which were water colors.

The present list in this series is as follows:

(1) Brincos de Princesa from Estufa Fria (08/10/2014) Water Color.
(2) Estrelicia from Estuda Fria (01/11/2014) Water Color.
(3) Hibiscus from Estuda Fria. (05/11/2014) Acrylic Paints.

I have possibly two or three further images to complete this series.

That,s it for now, speak soon. Tom

16/11/2014

Just a short note to explain why little has happened the last couple of weeks.

We are entertaining visitors from Scotland and unfortunately my work area has become a third bedroom.

Because of this I have had to move all my work materials for that reason and also as the 6 yr old daughter of the visitor(my partners sister) is and has been ever since I first met them, a destructive child with no controls from her mother.

I have taken the easiest way out as I can do without arguments about my materials. I would have much of them damaged or destroyed. I know her mother would support the child in wanting to use my equipment, Sorry not going to happen.

The good news is that they go back to Scotland on Thursday, then I will get back to work.

In the meantime I have been working on a horse sculpture trying to progress it. I am also working on a large Eagle model that I created some 25 yrs ago, unfortunately it was damaged during its flight to Portugal, needless to say it was damaged in transit and not by flying itself.

Well I shall leave it there and update again after this mini crisis. Tom


23/11/2014


I have survived the torment of the past 15 days, having lost my work area to a bedroom.

I have said, in the last post, that I have done some work on the Eagle repair and the new sculpture of the horse. Having done SOME work, the some being very little, as I have difficulty in working when people are around and not in my work space.

My little moan finished I have been doing some preparatory work to my work area. Firstly I have made a bigger work board for my easel as I am now doing bigger works.

I am in the process of drafting two new landscapes. I would hope to allow more freedom to my style in the work that I will be a challenge in these paintings. I will continue with the acrylic for the time being, then I will do a couple of watercolors and to finish this phase a pastel painting.

I have posted, at the moment three sketches of my granddaughters and one of my extended family,my partners daughter in an embrace with her boyfriend.

I have to be up early to wish my youngest granddaughter, many happy returns on her second birthday on skype as she lives in Scotland and I am in Portugal.

That's it for now, Tom

28/09/2014

Hi, here I am back working now that our 'guests' have gone home.

I am quite happy that after a week I have finished my new acrylic painting. A rather interesting painting from a national park in south west Serbia.

It shows the Tara mountain mountain which is part of the Dinaric Alps and in the valley flows the Drina river.

I acquired the use of the image from a friend who lives in the Vrange Municipality in Serbia and she loves to visit this national park for all its beauty.

I have done and continuing to work on both the eagle repair and the horse sculpture.

Ok that's it for now, I shall have the new painting just started by the middle of the week, Tom

14/01/2015

Hi again sorry to have been absent but I have been having many problems getting my head round my art. It feels that I have been hibernating since my last post, desire to work has been almost non-existent.

It has been such a demoralizing period, though I have done a little work, self criticism being my worst enemy. I have locked myself in my flat and cut myself of from society, the only thing that I kept up was Facebook and this kept me in touch with reality.

Understand I was not depressed, just lost focus and the dedication I had shown previously. My partner was aware of my thinking and was pleased that I was still happy in myself, her main problem was my staying in the flat and did her best to get me to go out for walks etc.

I will post again soon and discuss the work I am at present involved with.

20/02/2015.

Again sorry for delays in making posts, it has been a quite hard time but the sun is beginning to shine again.

A strong partner is essential when your motivation drops.

Can I say that the two county scenes mentioned in a previous post have been completed, Tara Mountain and Dusk in the Scottish Borders.

I have worked on and finished a few more paintings which I will describe in future posts.

Thanks Tom.

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