Simon's Blog

What a stupid question. There is a million reason why David Hockney can make drawings and paintings that I can’t – if ever there was a truism this is it. Yet this has inspired me to have another serious attempt at making another drawing using Brushes – I just saw what Hockney could do with the iPad – perhaps I was missing something. And it turns out that I was – the will to approach the medium sensibly and forget about the detached feeling I now get from drawing using the iPad.

And you know what I seem to be able to make a reasonable stab at a a likeness – this is far from finished but it does mark an interesting first step. I wonder how I can screw this up over the next day or so? Only time will tell.

Sent from my iPad

I’ve been messing around with oil pastels this afternoon as part of a first step into painting. I have played around with these before but now I am going to seriously work on this. Let’s hope that after a couple of months I am able to produce better results than this experiment – time will tell.

Sent from my iPad

Not really. But a strange thing has happened to me – a 2001 moment. Suddenly, I understand what the jaw bone can be used for – perhaps Saul on the road to Damascus? Well forget all this hyperbole and frankly ridicules self engrandisment What the he’ll am I talking about?

Yesterday I went to the Ashmolian in Oxford and saw some exceptional work of art. Somehow I felt effected by them. When I got home I sat down in front of the TV to try and catch up with all the programmes I had recorded. As I did this I started to sketch the people I say on the screen. Slowly I started to draw them in a different way – something I had never done before. I have no idea why I did is but suddenly I was able to make really good likenesses of people with little or no effort. Sketch after sketch just seemed to come together in moments. I have no explanation for this and I am now frightened that this is just a passing phase and I will soon drop out of the zone – god bless mental health! But while it is lasting it is wonderful.

Sent from my iPad

Hubris is such a great learning tool. The other day I was so pleased with myself when I thought I had captured Scarlet Johansson’s likeness. On reflection I hadn’t or at least to my satisfaction. Hubris. However, this made me have another attempt and again not quite right. This was getting frustrating and then I took. Step back and looked again at what I had produced and suddenly it struck me that, whilst they weren’t likenesses they were nonetheless very good drawings. The woman in this drawing has a beauty that Johansson doesn’t. This isn’t to down play the actress but rather to say that she has inspired me to produce something beautiful and in the end that is more important than any false pursuit of a likeness that is false.

Sent from my iPad

I have just down loaded the google app for the iPad and to my great joy it has a voice search facility. As with all these application they either work brilliantly or very badly. I have just tried to search for the ‘…artist Ingres…’. This was too much for the system and it came up with some wonderful options – including ‘Jobs in breast’ ( the mind boggles). So thank you Google for your new toy, it is much appreciated.

Sent from my iPad

Had another go at trying to make a likeness of Scarlett Johansson and this time I think I might have got it a bit better.

Sent from my iPad