There was from the beginning,  an idea that this project would be illuminating.

 I imagined a certain tension would grow up around the problems that the chosen images throw up. Questions such, Can I paint this? Am I good enough to paint this? What if I can't paint this? How do I paint this? How do I paint something that I haven't chosen? How important is the notion of choice? If it is important, then what decision, what mechanisms, come into play when I make a choice about an image.

Let's run with the last one. 

Why did I choose Untitled (November)? I liked the image, the tension in scale between the machine and the man; the machine itself - a lathe - a thing before binary, and chips and the micro machine world of more recent times. I like the idea that it was a difficult thing to paint but knowing what I knew, I could do it. Untitled (January)  more obvious, I think. The figure has dominated art of centuries ( let's remember that 'abstraction' lasted only 60 yrs, beginning with Maleevich's white on white and ending with Rothko's black on black); figures are an instinctive choice. (January) reminds me of Degas, and if he was a reference during the making of it, also Boticelli. Raphael, Cabanel - just about anyone who puts a nude in the waves. The strong light and dark contrast between the two figures is its greatest appeal, however. It's those Greenberg black/white holes again - I can't get enough of them. You might say

(illusory) Space - the final frontier.................

All these decisions though were in some way unconscious, later coming to the surface to face greater scrutiny. So how then does one cope with someone else choice? The same tonal contrasts in (January) exist in (October); it suggests a straightforward rendering, working dark to light but I faltered twice on this one, trying to be too fancy. I got hung up on the cat!  (December), is not so easy. For me it is just a cloud, shifting, intangible, meaningless. The composition is awkward and so the first thing I did was to cut it down and focus on the small boy. Something makes me think it is you, circa 71, road trip, in some midlands lay-by, replete after a tuna fish sandwich and packet of Golden Wonder crisps - wanting a pee. I would never have chosen this image to paint as there is - for me - nothing to paint - no purchase, no way in. I can't carefully replicate all those muted colours or flat tones. I am not an image scientist. I can't just copy the photo, like Richter  might do. For me I have to have something painterly in a photo, so that I can steer the image back towards paint. This last point is an important one. In a photography I am looking for a painting - my painting. 

Until last night, (December) was an under-painting - a lightly washed in idea - with a predominantly red ground - jammy red. I thought I could see this red in the degradation of the photo (a Polaroid, perhaps). The obvious next stage was to work up from this and so I did with a warm light on the face with differing degrees of opacity- the red ground adding both greater warmth to the warm, creamy lights and when thinned with a turpsy cloth, optical blue/mauve shadows. Old tricks but with a heightened twist -a jammy reddishness. There is no attempt at present to smooth the tonal transitions so It has tachist feel about it. The face is thrust into the bottom left corner with the space rising above it - an invertion of Munch's Scream, now I think about it - totally unconscious. 

I'll resist explaining my approach to the other images, as this stage, for fear that this blog becomes too technical. I think though there is great scope to share processes, especially if we get stuck. There is also the thought that anyone reading this might think that I am purely technically minded. It does obsess me, the need to find the most economic route to finishing a painting and I spend a great deal of time on process, but I simply can't hold any set of pre-considered instructions in my mind long enough, simply because the process often suggests itself as I go along; or should I say, the paint - the uncontrollable aspect of the paint - directs me, tells me, argues with me. On top of which, when I am working, instinct completely takes over. Painting becomes automatic, improvisational. At the end of a session, it is like opening my eyes to something I have not yet seen. I move from within the painting to outside of it and face what I've done. 

I also find that things discovered in one painting are consciously used in others, that the painting process take on a mix of conscious and unconscious decision making. A likeable combination of green/grey on a white ground glazed with black/green which I created by cleaning a brush on a discarded painting (now resolved) became the planned ground for (November). I suspect none of this new to you - it's how we work etc, etc

I've have a good week in the studio, completing a number of paintings, which always makes me anxious. If I am not struggling, it makes me suspicious. Too good might = too bad.

My final point, is that for me photographic images cannot all be treated the same way, like Richter. The tendency to fall upon a styles of working and repeat yourself is for me rather one dimensional. At the moment, I am using every aspect of knowledge that I have and mixing it up to create individual paintings (individual responses), possibly ones which look as if they have been painted by different artists. In this regard, I think of what I do as more akin to music - the way in which, one album to the next (unless of course you are Oasis) has a different sound. Musicians actively court the idea of reinvention in ways that painters don't. They move studios, bring in different producers, de-tune there guitars etc. 

On that note. 

(November)  is definitely a Bach Fugue and (January) is a tone poem - Delius, Grieg, take your pick. (October) is a two note post modern Glass 'masterpiece' and easily broken and (November), something by the Sisters of Mercy - Marianne.

 Where's the creativity in repeating yourself - there isn't any.