still life and cataclysm

Sometimes you just can't help it. There is a cool breeze coming through the window at last.

The late winter sunshine had pushed to 37 degrees during the afternoon and had been hot enough inside our helmets to soft boil an egg. I found myself leaving the throttle wide open just because it was cooler, despite the trees and scrub whipping by and the bike bitching and kicking at it's redline. It turns out that sand is not the easiest surface to ride on, and Lachy has the bruises to prove it. We decided that corner speed is bad, and the answer is lockup, point and squirt on any surface that responds well only to powerslides. In accountancy terms I think it's called 'fast in - fast out' with a bit of boredom in the middle. One day I'll get better at it.

GILNEAS CHAT > LFM HOGGER KILL PST

My masters course is done, except for the CSU admin stuffing up some paperwork - doesn't matter. They promise to have already sorted it out - it's only money. 

colour and movement

In the world before Monkey primal chaos reigned,
Heaven sought order, but the Phoenix can fly only when its feathers are grown.
The four worlds formed again and yet again,
As endless aeons wheeled and passed.

...and I dreamed of a world with oak trees and butterflys,
a world without hate and cucumber and icicles,
where all men have free dental treatment,
and all women are at liberty to be at liberty.


Harlech Castle
Half a decade ago we found ourselves on the north west coast of Wales. This particular trip had been notable for the speed with which the then seven year old Lachy could get up historical monument stairs. 250 steps to the top of York Minster, won by miles. Half a mile up the steep Bavarian road to Neuschwanstein on a full stomach, jogged out of sight. 10km of uphill German bush tracks to Berg Eltz, "guten morgan wee boy, where's your family?", "A couple of K's back down there mate!",says Lachy pointing approximately down into the fog filled valley. Just as well Roozle could keep up a bit - Koh and I and Taff could na. So a blur disappears up the stairs at Harlech Castle, "doesn't matter"I thought, "I'll catch 'em at the top". I gained the battlement several minutes later to find him standing at the barrierless brink gazing down the 200 foot drop to the Welsh grass and rocks below.
Who said I couldn't move fast?

last week

This last week was the last week before the last week of semester. I'm pretty chuffed about that. Next semester has the potential to be absolutely terrible. Can't wait. My intentions to fit a bit more painting in between cholelithiasis and azeroth have rather found a snug fit amongst the gutterish mud and refuse commonly known as wayside. Observing the sabbath as sunset friday to sunset saturday gives a welcome break from the awful books. Spent a few hours last night filling in the radiography staff holes that appear when theatre beckons a crooked finger to the evenings lovely solo worker and then sinks its claws to the bone. Literally. That's orthopaedics for you. Still our fearless leader soldiers on - leading his exhausted troops from the safety of a bunker lined with coffee cups.  I finished gathering my ultrasound appendectomy journal data by 0030 and fronted up back to work bright and early half an hour late at 0900.
I painted one of these - but am not letting on which.

Last weeks Monaco F1 was uber cool. It's the first time Lach has stayed up with me to watch a European timezone GP, and Lewis wins it, and goes into the champ lead. We were both sad for Sutil after Raikkonen rearranged his rear end, although I did think that Raikkonen did incredibly well just to get it under control enough to hit him... Monaco was our favorite NFS-5 track - all five versions of it! Am currently playing Race 07 with its 300 different cars and 32 tracks etc etc. At least it doesn't have Tiff Needell yelling out "what do you think you're doing? - this is not a dodgem track!". I think that is where road rage comes from.

group of seven

Apparently the scenery in Canada is so neat that until the early 20th century there had been hardly any landscape artists from that country. The problem must have been one of mesmerism: the paint had already dried on the easel before an artist could drag their eyes back down to the blank canvas. Sometime around WWI a group of seven dudes got a grip (ltd) on the problem and produced, in a variety of mostly post impressionistic style, a beautiful and valuable record of the spirit of Canada. Some of my favorite of their works are here below: collected to inspire my own brushy journey - as someone somewhere said, "... I don't known much about art, but I know what I like".

AJ Casson - Summer Hillside


Arthur Lismer - Isles of Spruce


AY Jackson - The Red Maple


Emily Carr - Brittany Coast 1911 (not really one of the seven but should have been)


Frank Johnston - Winter Stream (the only dude to abandon the seven)


Franklin Carmichael - October Gold


JEH MacDonald - The Little Falls


Lawren Harris - Snow


Tom Thompson - The Pool

mmmm strawberries

Nothing at all to do with not using pastels but WoW prog: Non70s, Satguy NE Rg 64, Nyct4 Dr Sh 65, Fergus Dw Hn 64, Angue Hm Pal 41. Getting better deciding which paint colours I need to get from the shop where they look down their collective noses at me and judge me as a pretend artist. They are right of course, but as the customer I feel they could at least be a little condescending. Here are a few more pics obviously painted using primary colours only. Where does one purchase moon-grey and dragon-eye-red from?


I was just wandering home after work one night when I saw something similar to this rise above horizon. I extinguished the candle on the peak of my miners cap and followed the incredible creature until it was beautifully encompassed by the ghostly full moon. I will remember that sight forever - it is etched in my mind so vividly that I was able to accurately reproduce it here. Shortly after the mental etching thing I took out my arcane crossbow with thundertip chargehead and shot it dead, stuffed it and sold it at the carboot market.


This painting is like the dragon one, but it's a lighthouse. You can paint a lighthouse, but you can't shoot them. Well, OK, you can shoot them, but they are complete buggers to stuff.


This tree belongs to Loren. He found it, and shot it with a camera. I painted it in such a way that it is nearly but not quite completely utterly unlike the picture he showed us. In other words I stuffed it up.

ancient art

A few of my gothic-period paintings from the early nineties showed up, so I thought I'd post 'em in an effort to encourage myself to rediscover life. That's life outside of work and study, not life outside of Azeroth... I used water colour paint with lashings of gouache on 160gsm black paper. The subjects are all either imaginary or done from memory, with the exception of Stonehenge which is based on an on-site sketch done in 1991. The pieces are un-named, as they should remain until my skill level rises thirty or forty notches.


Generic Celtic cross, early morning


Welsh church, bound to be Llan-something, mid afternoon


Bushfire remnants other side of Hunter river, moons up and holding water


Randy Mamola, 500cc Cagiva, Phillip Is 1988, I think


Stonehenge, sunset, bucks party 3 day trip to the UK 1991, must have been young.