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Today’s Works in Progress
Two new Blond Card series started. I said to Tina, last weekend, I’d do a painting of Camden Lock bridge for her daughter. I didn’t have any ideas for it, and it’s not the kind of painting I do had she not asked, so I just started drawing and hoped something would work out. She…
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See the first batch and get general info here. Most will be part of The Camden Market Free Art Man street giveaway, which is itself part of FREE ART FREES ART. Each day I’m at Billy’s studio, I make a set of around twelve oil transfer drawings based on a pencil drawing. I did the pencil drawings a few weeks ago, there’s about ten of them. Once the ten sets are dry, I’ll scan them. By this point there’ll be so many of them, I might make a book out of the scans.
I’m at Billy’s every Monday, so unless I can get some more done at home, this series will take at least a couple of months.
The photo above is the source drawing used to press the oil on to the paper. I use both sides so get mirror images of the original. The transfer drawings will be glued on to cardboard with PVA and Advertism. Unlike my acrylic paintings, I won’t PVA glue over the top as I don’t want a gloss finish on these and PVA on oil in general, although Google says is possible, seems dodgy to me.
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Giving my art away on the streets of Camden Market. I’ll do another video and post specifically about the new series of Blurt, Steemit and Ecency crypto-social artworks I had at The Camden Market Free Art Man today.
12 inch vinyl records primed and hand painted in acrylic, then tied on to Advertism laden cardboard. One interviewee said she was passionate about upcycling. I should have mentioned the cardboard being upcycled from the streets. Mainly the streets of Camden Market in the 6pm-8pm window between local businesses putting their rubbish out and the Camden council bin collectors taking it away. The biggest contributing shop by far is Guitar Guitar, for which they have their own Blond Card. If the shop had a letterbox, they would have received one by now.
I also had a new series of Kozmic Records 12 inch vinyl which John, the owner, saw today when stopping by to chat. I gave him a small Kozmic Records Blond Card for his birthday the other week. It’s currently up in his shop. The Kozmic Records Blond Card is my most popular artwork, apart from the Nirvana ones.
The mother of a Crewe Alexander football player took a Blond Card today. There was a repeat customer from Golders Green, near me, who makes surreal artwork herself. A guy from New York, who I advised look out for @ronthroop Ron Throop doing Free Art Frees Art over there. The lady he was with has a cousin at Oswego University, right near Ron, where Ron’s already done a Free Art Frees Art giveaway. I advised she also look Ron up as he may be back there at some point. Both Ron and @offgridlife had artworks of them taken at Camden today.
There was a law student who does performance art. Alan, the legendary town crier briefly took a Blond Card. As is becoming more and more popular, a French tourist decided to answer the questions in French. A 52 year old dyslexic PhD student gave a moving interview about how art helped her after her son died. The last two interviews happened as I was packing up.
The first was a driving instructor who video interviewed me first for a film he and the lady he was with are making. In the interview I was asked a question about the Highway Code that if I got right, would net me £10 in prize money. I didn’t know the answer and couldn’t say now what the question was. I think it was “At what type of crossing can both a pedestrian and cyclist cross?” Apparently it’s a Toucan Crossing. I’ve never heard of a Toucan Crossing and have held a full driving licence since 1995.
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An album I’ll be giving away at The Camden Market Free Art Man in CD format with some accompanying original artwork.
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12 inch vinyl LP’s, primed and painted with acrylic paint. Tied to thick cardboard. Red letters individually hand stamped. Writing in black Sharpie permanent marker.
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Finally getting started on these, and finally getting back to oils. It’s been years since I did anything in oil and taken too long for me to get started on the Offgridlife Claymation series of oil transfer drawings. Based on Offgridlife AI videos of claymation figures doing FREE ART FREES ART. I found some paintings on plywood Shelley did around 2008 in Billy’s studio, used the backs as boards for each colour, apart from red, for which I used a sheet of paper, and drew out the following ten or so pictures. It’s a unique, distinctive and painterly way of making oil transfer drawings that I’m very pleased with myself for inventing.
All yesterday’s were traces of the same drawing. I have about eight more to do and intend to make at least twenty of each. If I can clear enough space in my home studio I’ll get some more done this week. Otherwise, the next ones will have to wait till next Monday.
A lot of these will be given out at The Camden Market Free Art Man once glued to cardboard and Advertismed. Hopefully many more will be sold online.
They’re all dry now, despite being done in oil paint only yesterday. An oil painting can take weeks to dry, and a century to fully dry. Due to the method used, these don’t only dry almost as quickly as acrylic paint but also don’t become sticky for a couple of days. Maybe years down the line the oil will turn the unprimed paper yellow. The first ones I did over a decade ago still look fine.
Edgeworth Johnstone 