Self Portrait Progress

The bottom half of Self Portrait is now done! I am now moving up to the brain area! The stubble has worked well I think. I was wondering how I would approach this but using smaller pieces of poem text seems to have worked to create the texture needed. Soon I will experiment with applying colour!

Northampton Town and County 99th Annual Show!

It was a great night at the private view last night! There are over 250 works of art on display of all types from different artists! The show runs from now until the 8 th December at the Northampton art gallery and museum. Well worth a visit.

Somewhere in Scotland....

I have just finished a painting of a landscape depicting some where in Scotland. It was an experiment where I used sand and plaster, hessian cloth, and collaged text as a base texture. I then added colour with acrylic, impasto medium and colour pencil. All applied with speed and lots of splattering, scrapping of a knife, scribbling, using fingers, and my favourite a toothbrush!

The studio portrait.

Back in the studio... Managed to get the next row started. The nose has now appeared. I am enjoying getting all the details on the skin - but now wandering about how to get the stubble texture accurate..... Probably more contrasty text will help. We shall see....

Postcard warhorse sold out!

I am really pleased I have sold so many postcards of Warhorse at Thorpe Malsor! Time to re-stock and order some more....

The Portraits Progress!!

I am making some progress on the portrait of me. It has a more raw feel as far as texture goes, in comparison to the 'Sophie' Portrait. I might suggest it even looks painterly. This is due to the smaller size of the support and the text being the same size as on 'Sophie'

Thorpe Malsor Open Studios

Getting ready for Open studios this evening! I will be showing my landscapes and warhorse text painting at studio 19 Thorpe Malsor! Please come along!

Portrait started!

Hooray first line started and text sizes altered as it nears the edge of the support. The blurring also seems to be working.

Self Portrait.

I have started work on my first self portrait. It will be made of text from poems given to me by my fiancé Sophie. It is an experimental work inspired by the paintings of Gerhard Richter who uses blurring in his painting. This effect gives an emotive atmospheric and still silent mood to the work.
My portrait will have blurred and repeated edges like Richter but very sharp facial features. Then I hope to add larger text as the poem reaches the edges of the picture. This could enhance the blurred and distorted effect.

Later I will experiment using thin glazes of paint to apply subtle colour, as on an old painted photograph.

This is in preparation for creating my cross painting mentioned in previous blogs.

Art in Action! Amazing !!!

This Saturday I went to the amazing art festival with colleagues. 'Art In Action' show cases artist - sculptors, painters, print makers, world art, glass makers, designer makers and so on. I came away inspired having watched demonstrations in print, glass blowing, sculpture in clay and stone. I even saw Spanish flamenco dancing as well as blacksmith making art. Not to forget all the painters working away! I going next year and one day I want to show my own work there!

The Bible and the Cross - long exposures.

Recently I have been experimenting with a long exposure app on the IPhone. Here I have created a visual blur perhaps from the perspective of my cross project suggesting how faith or Christianity is viewed. Or perhaps how faith shifts and moves in our hearts.

Woody Guthrie

I have just listened to a couple of great program's on BBC iplayer celebrating that 100 years ago Woody Guthrie was born. It is inspirational to hear his words and how they have so much relevance today. The programmes included interviews with people of America who struggle with poverty, drug addiction and unemployment as well as racism and the struggle to just feed themselves. A symptom of the times. Woody wrote about these people in his time - straight from the heart. He was also a Christian.
An inspiration I can take into my work in some way. In the song below The lyrics referring to bankers seems particularly relevant today.


Jesus Christ
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land
A hard-working man and brave
He said to the rich, "Give your money to the poor,"
But they laid Jesus Christ in His grave

Chorus:
Jesus was a man, a carpenter by hand
His followers true and brave
One dirty little coward called Judas Iscariot
Has laid Jesus Christ in His Grave

Chorus

He went to the preacher, He went to the sheriff
He told them all the same
"Sell all of your jewelry and give it to the poor,"
And they laid Jesus Christ in His grave.

Chorus

When Jesus come to town, all the working folks around
Believed what he did say
But the bankers and the preachers, they nailed Him on the cross,
And they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.

Chorus

And the people held their breath when they heard about his death
Everybody wondered why
It was the big landlord and the soldiers that they hired
To nail Jesus Christ in the sky

Chorus

This song was written in New York City
Of rich man, preacher, and slave
If Jesus was to preach what He preached in Galilee,
They would lay poor Jesus in His grave.

The New Elizabethans - Cross Project

There is a great radio show on at the moment called The New Elizabethans. James Naughtie profiles people that have been influential during our Queens rein. The recent program was very interesting to me as it talks about Francis Bacon and his work. His view was that "life is extreme and brutal" and that if people observed the world as it really is they would not perhaps find his work so shocking. His work looking at crucifixions talks about him using the cross as an 'armature' for the subjects he was interested in. His was not religious in any way and saw life in very dark and menacing terms

'God doesn't exist'

This is what my 6 year old daughter said at lunch after church last Sunday. I suppose she is is searching for certainty as well as challenging important issues in her own way. My answer to her was - "how do you know?". She thought a moment and said "because when I asked him to answer my prayers it didn't happen.". "He has a plan and his reasons for not granting all our wishes" I replied.

Post War poets

Phillip Larkins poems - Church Going and Abade have interesting references to my last post as well as the 'human condition'

Honest Doubt: The History of an Epic Struggle

I have listening to a radio programme which is a series of lectures looking at doubt in faith. These talks link in with my own feelings about faith. I have been attending a Methodist church in my home town for about a year now. Although Christianity is new to me I realise the importance of not completely believing or honestly doubting my faith. I particularly identify the idea put forward that it is only through questioning faith with a certain 'dis-loyalty' that we can break from tradition put forward change. (one of my main concerns is low attendance at church and it not drawing people in) when things stay the same, as in a tradition it will eventually cease to work or break apart. It is the nature of the world that everything must change after all. So the importance of doubting and questioning something is important to make positive and challenging change.

Rainy weather!

Okay so it's been raining buckets, but there is still so much to look at outside! Also got myself a waterproof sketchbook, apparently you can go under water with it!! Hmmm.... I will have to test it very soon.

Cross Project

I have started a new project inspired by Salvador Dali's painting Christ of St. John of the Cross. I aim to make a text painting using text from revival stories, prayers, bible passages  to create an image using the cross. I am interested in the point of view Dali used of the cross -  which makes it look as if it is floating above the earth. I have started experimenting using photography as a starting point. Water could be used to distort the cross eventually or distort our view of it in some way. I am also interested in how water can be used symbolically to give meaning. For this reason I have started to work locally at the lakes using a cross as a motif to experiment with.

Here are the results so far....

Town and County Art Exhibition Delapre Abbey

We have a wonderful exhibition of 91 paintings, drawings, prints and photographs at Delapre Abbey
in Northampton over the Jubilee weekend.
Starting tomorrow( Thursday) and on every day until next Monday from 10.30 to 4.00 each day.
All the work is original and for sale and it is all inspired by the beautiful Abbey and grounds.

Please try to get along to see the work and do your best to publicise the event. There are other events at
Delapre during this time for the Jubilee including a picnic in the park on Sunday, Please go to the Northampton Borough Council website for details.

Threadneedle Prize pre-selected!

Well the latest news is that I have been pre-selected for the Threadneedle prize exhibition with my 'Warhorse' painting! I wasn't selected for the RoyalAcademy Open never mind competition is very fierce with over 11,000 people entering. Trouble is Warhorse needs delivering by 9th June and it's stuck at Royal Academy until June 23rd . Arrrgghhh! Help!!!

Lady with the fish. Painted

I have now painted the picture I was working on 'Lady with the Fish'. I used text to paint the sculpture itself and then other materials to create texture. This included, wallpaper, sand paper, fabric and then plaster. This was all worked over with acrylic paint and colour pencils. It will be on show at Delapre Abbey at the end of this month.

Lady with Fishes

At the moment I am working on a new painting based on a sculpture which is in the grounds of Delapre Abbey in Northampton. I am using text to make the sculpture but this time I will be using paint to apply colour. In addition to this texture will be layered into the work using tissue paper, cloth and wallpapers.

I hope to have this ready for an exhibtion at the Abbey this May with the Town and County Art Group.

Close up of sculpture in text!

The Painting in development March 24

Original Photograph

Royal Academy London Entered!

I had a really great response to the 'Warhorse' painting I made and completed recently so I decided to enter the Royal Academy Summer exhibition. Its the oldest open exhibition in the world and can have up to 13,000 works entered for selection each year! I 'm sure this year it will be really really popular with artists entering as it the Olympics this Summer in London!

I got my framing done in Wellingborough at a really good framers called Arti Farty or Sports Frames which sounds funny but they do a really good job.

Entering work for the Royal Academy involves ordering a form online. You can enter 2 works for £25 each - so I entered  'Warhorse'. I then had to arrange a courier to take my work to the venue in London as my work is large. Picture Post picked it up and took it down for me. Then I needed to have Royal Academy labels and a barcoded sticker on too. So, all in all quite alot of work and no garantee or getting in. But, I am proud I have done it and now I will have to wait until the 24th May to find out the result.

Wish me Luck!

Warhorse - the text painting is now completed!!!

Finally the painting I have been working on since August 2011 is completed! Last week the last text rows were added to the top of the image and the edges of the board covered. Since this time I have varnished the painting with UV protective gloss to help preserve and protect it for the future.

I hope my painting will initiailly have a strong impact on the people that view it but then after this draw them closer to study the way it has been made. The bottom half of the image is made from World War One poems and the top half from poems written during very recent wars or crisis.

This week I will be arranging to have the work framed (unglazed) before entering it this year to a number of national exhibitions. My ultimate goal would be to show this artwork at the Imperial War Museum in London or a show which gets lots of exposure. This way I could get the vital feedback that all artists relish but also it would perhaps get a message across. This message may be interpreted in many ways according to the person viewing the painting but by using poems from different eras one idea might be that the suffering endured during war is the same regardless of when or where it happens to take place.



Warhorse. By Jamie Poole 2012



Riders

This painting was inspired by the relationship between man and horse, which is a subject which I have found intriguing  for along time. Also when I made this painting I was very much inspired by the painter Daniel Richter whose style I have explored. His painting is called Travelfast



Riders. 2009. Painted using wax resist, acrylic paint, pencil



Warhorse Article Download

Work on the painting is progressing very well - I now only have 3 rows on poetry to add until the painting is complete! Then I will be adding a special UV varnish over the surface to protect the artwork and help preserve it. It is removable varnish from Windsor and Newton that comes in matt or gloss. After experimenting I found gloss adds depth and creates a much more satisfying finish. I now expect to completely finish work in February. Hooray!

A photograph of the painting 'Warhorse'.

I have now written a short article about the painting which can be downloaded from my new website.

Please following the link below:

http://jamiepoole.paspartout.com/pages/about

The Blue Cross Archive



Goodbye Old Man by Fortunino Mantania was commisioned in 1916 by the Blue Cross to raise money

 

BBC Artical: The Blue Cross Opens it Archive



Me working in the studio on 'Warhorse'