Tuesday 29 January 2008

it seems my inexpertise is showing! two out of the last three attempted links havent't been done proper so here I try agin
click here to hear Nils LofGREN if this works let me know: actually I should be able to see for myself shouldn't I ???.

click here also it opughto get you Vinegar Joe a great bansd which had two ,.. actually I aready said this the album version is a lot better.
I have a little commision to paint a local beach scene I'm struggling! I've started about 6 versions but amn't satisfied, the first is an attempt at a traditional watercolour the second domne quicly and without drawing an attempt at a freeer (how many eeee's in freer?) appraoch I might give it one more go from a different position, church closer up, less sky, we'll see.

a man walks into a bar..........ouch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyLEa-EtlNg this is a band I like, and a song by the ex bassist from Free who seemed to disappear. Vinegar Joe had not one but two great singers although Elkie Brooks move to middle of the road didn't do her voice justice in my 'umble opinion

Monday 28 January 2008




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj0Ydw4I9lU
this should lead you sowewhere interesting.

Tried celery soup today Not nice I only bought it because it was going cheap and Im partial to budgie.

Apparently we could all have died! someone came to service the fire and it seems when we got the chimney stack reduced as it seemed to be threatening to fall over and land on soeone, the roofer let loads of junk go down the chimney, blocking the escape of CO, that deadly carbon monoxide. BUT we live to tell the tale! flippin heck!

Thursday 24 January 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncOTaYAOQpU
this if technologie is to be trusted may link you to a great track by underrated NilsL ofgren from back in 1976

Wednesday 23 January 2008

here are a few more sunlight photgraphs I don't think anyone is looking at the davetakespictures blog so I shall put some here. I went chasing up the coast road after this brilliant and quickly changing sky which looked like either a heavenly visitation or close encounters.





I'm trying to paint less, more slowly and hopefully,better. this one is under construction so to speak, from a drawing of a photgraph I took out one morning.

The sunrise; will I ever get sick of sunrises? will they ever stop being a little bit magical? Anyway out this morning at Culercoats on the rocks when the sun rose lighting uop this ship waiting to come in to the Tyne.
the day took a brief but unpleasant turn for the worse when on trying to empty the bi (why is it my job?) the binliner broke spilling putrid food over my trousers much to my annoyance. So I chucked the bin out.

Tuesday 22 January 2008



haven't put much on for a little while, I've decided that last year I painted too much with too little qyuality,so I 'm trying to paint less but better, will I succeed
who knows
heres a watercolour done a little while back.
Also one I'm doing for a coulpe of old friends who used to live around here and wanted a view of the beach, I wasn't inspired at first but went down and phot'd it and did a bit of a sketch and have started 3 or 4 watercolours, this is best of the bunch so far but needs work.

Went to Gateshead on saturday on my bike a bit far for me and have had a sore back since.
can't think of anything witty to say.
Wernt to see Aliens vs Predator:Requiem; not terribly good, rubbish end.
But on a brighter note have ticket for Jethro Tull in May, so that's smething to look forward to.

Monday 21 January 2008

http://www.interiors.intendo.net/magritte.html

I quite like Magritte but sometimes I forget his name. so many artists' names begin with 'M' modigliani, monet manet munch and many more

Friday 11 January 2008

I thought my drawing days had drawn to a close but then inspiration came in the form of my sketching bag which I put
down on the rocks in order to take a picture of Tynemouth beach for a small commission what I have been commissioned to do of the beach. I also sat and draw it and suddenly I felt like a proper artist again, until I got cold and packed in! but I had had the presence of mind to both notice and photograph the bag in all its light and shaded glory and that evening as I sat and watched tv and browsed in 3 different dictionaries ( I was puzzled over the difference between affect and effect, always have been words have that effect, they affect one so!)

A drawing done while watching telly aways has a t least a faint whiff of the programs attached to it at a molecular level, in this case I started drawing while watching a program about how badly battery hens are treated (only free range for us from now on) and finished it watching a program about Barry Humphries. So the picture has a strange undercurrent in my mind or at least it should have. Also looked up: baleful which should really have soething to do with farming in autumn. Odd philologies!


Thursday 10 January 2008

words

here are a few words I never use:
hubris
ennui
antediluvian
to mention but a few
but especially ennui who says ennui these days?

Tuesday 8 January 2008

HERE ARE A FEW DRAWINGS:
A NICE PIECE OF WOOD DONE IN CHARCOAL THE SAME BIT OF WOOD DONE IN PENCIL, LOOKS like its fleeing OR doing a little bit of Haunting
some boxes
some stuff

Monday 7 January 2008

here's a nice picture what I took this is a a tree. with a very interesting shadow.

Sunday 6 January 2008

found this on stumbleupon and thought it mildly amusing; well actually quite funny; but what do I know of literary merit, mind you I once read a book......


Men Are From Mars...Women Are From "As the World Turns"
A true story...
RECEIVED FROM AN ENGLISH PROFESSOR: This assignment was actually turned in by two of my English students:
Rebecca --last name deleted-- and Gary --last name deleted-- English 44A, SMU'S Creative Writing, Prof Miller
In-class Assignment for Wednesday Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to reread what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached.
----------------------------------------------------------------
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay.
The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit. He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth -- when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.
Little did she know, but she has less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through Congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion which vaporized Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow'em out of the sky!"
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate adolescent.
Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium.
Asshole.
Bitch. True story.
Back
this is probably a repeat,as post christmas torpor continues whatever that might be. This is a corner in Tynemouth at night, mysteriously the sign gives us no directions! a rose! with some creative clarting aropund on the computer
a seagull! looking more noble than seagulls actually are, once saw a seagull fly off with a whole and living blackbird in its beak.Thenj agian I have been known to walk around with a whole sausage in my mouth!

Thursday 3 January 2008

DON'T FORGET , IF YOU WANT TO SEE MORE PHOTO'S CLICK ON DAVETAKES PICTURES AT THE LEFT OF THIS. AND IF YOU CAN BE BOTHERED LEAVE A NICE COMMENT.

Wednesday 2 January 2008

feeling a little bad about how little art is getting on this 'art blog' (hey little Art: getoff!) still, I am on holiday and have (temporrarily) lost the will to create so I'm (mm why has this gone blue? what have I touched????

I'm putting some older stuff one, it may or may not have appeared in earlier postings but is the simpsons and scrubs can do repeats than so can I !!!! this represents a happier time in my painting I had just got back into oil painting and had a good stretch of painting one a week, every saturday moring 2 -3 hours and managed to keep it up for about 13 weeks producing 12" square paintings of simple still lives. I did a few pebble pictures and it was fun going out collecting pebbles, for one I (this blueness is irritating) oh: it's gone how did it arrive and how did it disarrive?

I went to South Shields and collected black pebbles for this one I collected mostly whitish ones. It was a good time. this is one of a short series of ivy paintings in watercolour I really love variegated ivy and found it quite challenging to paint.