Been a long time in posting this as it was completed in February. Nevertheless, this is the film of my painting a portrait of my Mum.

Acrylic on canvas, measures 80cm x 100cm.

Whether you can place yourself into the fun or whether they make you the onlooker think upon your place in society, it’s worth the leap out of the mundane which good street art gives us.

I think the full impact of what Asada is saying would best be realised through an actual viewing, as she did, in the ‘Color Vision Experience Room at the Hokkaido Color Universal Design Organization (HCUDO). But if you follow this link and read her findings it does make an interesting proposal – especially with someone like  van Gogh, for whom colour was such an imperative.

I found this article on the man who most influenced him very revealing:

The Man Who Inspired Jobs  - being Edwin H. Land – creator of Polaroid, and this quote a breath of fresh air:

“Market research is what you do when your product isn’t any good.” And his sense of innovation: “Every significant invention,” Land once said, “must be startling, unexpected, and must come into a world that is not prepared for it. If the world were prepared for it, it would not be much of an invention.” Thirty years later, when a reporter asked Jobs how much market research Apple had done before introducing the iPad, he responded, “None. It isn’t the consumers’ job to know what they want.”

This is quite a coo for Gallery 49, in Bridlington. The whole space will be devoted to  signed limited edition prints by Sir Peter Blake and other RA friends.

Peter Blake is perhaps most famous for his collage work and especially the cover he made for the Beatles’ ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’. But he had hit the Pop Art scene long before that, emerging in the 1950s and becoming one of the best known Pop Artists by the early 60′s exhibiting along side David Hockney and R.B. Kitaj. At that time he sourced images from advertisements and music hall entertainment and was always interested in the juxtaposition of collage and use of popular images with fine art.
“from about 1954 I realised that I could paint the subjects I liked such as wrestlers and strippers and the rest of it. I was also aware of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg in America who anticipated Warhol and Lichtenstein and I definitely based some collages on their work.” Warhol himself, he says, was less influential. “I’d already started by the time I came across him. I’d made this thing with Captain Webb matchboxes which he couldn’t possibly have seen but it did anticipate his soup boxes. Things seemed to be happening at the same time although we wouldn’t have known what the other was doing.”

Of course, later on in the 60s his most famous creation, led him to be forever in the minds everyone with the iconic creation of Sgt Pepper. Collage as an art form has never looked back.

Blake has continued to develop links with the music world with further Album covers for The Who, Band Aid, Paul Weller, and Ian Dury. (Blake had been Dury’s tutor at the Royal College of Art in the mid-60s)

His focus shifted to mythical elements of English folk lore for a short time  – his ‘Ruralist’ period – but then returned to his more populist roots, again linking with the music industry and covers for Oasis but also the Young British Artists such as Damian Hurst and Tracey Emin.

More recently, he made a reworking of Sgt Pepper with famous figures from Liverpool’s history, as a promotion for Liverpool’s successful bid for the title of European Capital of Culture 2008.

Blake has said that, “I have this analogy of a tree. The branches are all my collages and collections, graphics, printmaking. But the trunk is painting.” He has turned his attention now to painting, or ‘big painting’ as he puts it.

Nevertheless, all of those collages, collections, graphics and making of prints still feed his imagination and in this exhibition he returns with an interesting collection of prints along with his others from the RA such as Sir Terry Frost, Barbara Rae, John Piper, Bruce McLean and Donald Hamilton Fraser.

Gallery 49 from 3rd July until 31st July 2011

| Artists Wanted | In Focus : Pete Eckert from Artists Wanted on Vimeo.

It’s just a selection of stills taken of me painting a portrait in acrylic on canvas. I was trying out some techniques I’d not used before – like a mid grey undercoat as Holbein used when painting The Ambassadors. I thought I might try letting the base coat show through in some of the highlighting. But as it turned out I painted over practically all the surface.

Also I’d been looking at polychrome work and Estofado – the process of layering of gold leaf and then paint particularly on sculptures made of wood. They would reveal the gold leaf by scratching the top layer of paint off. The polychromer can scratch or scrape the design off the reveal the gold underneath.

As well as scratching it off I’d heard the gold leaf was used under paintings to help make the painting itself glow – especially the flesh tones. So I  tried that too. I think it did work. There was a finish to the facial area that felt more vibrant. The final picture. Click on it to get a close up of the detail.

Video Music: Daydream by Danny Sharp

Tell me what you think.

Brilliant opening sequence by PolitelyHomicidal. It features Roy Lichtenstein’s comic strip works, of course Andy Warhol portraits, and others from the Pop Art movement, but also the much overlooked Richard Hamilton’s Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?

I like that way he links popularist images and icons and moves the ideas on to what is important, today.

You can catch the video here.