joehendry.com

Well. it’s Hogmany and not only another year, but the first decade of the millenium over already. Can it really be ten years ago that we were all worrying about the millenium bug, planes falling out of the sky and partying like it was 1999?

This decade, for me was marked by massive change. If anyone had told me ten years ago where I would be in 2009 I would not have believed them. Whatever the noughties held for you may  you have a fantastic twenty ten.

Through the holiday’s I have painted in the studio whenever I have been able to. It has been strange entering the building and a customer who visited commented on the eerie fee. Cafe Sejuiced is closed (see pic above). and there is a real “end of the year feel”.

Personally, I am enthusiastic about the New Year and have some really exciting things lined up including work with Braewell Gallery and I will be continuing to exhibit at Park Gallery amongst others: watch this space.

So, Happy New Year from this artist to you and yours.

I am enjoying working on this new Goddess painting so much that I thought I would upload her larger scale than normal size and let some of the detailed brushwork show. This is the artwork rferred to in yesterday’s post based on a a girl I “know”.

If you read the blog a few months ago and at another point earlier in the year you will know that I suffered “block” a couple of times. It really is frustratig when this happens and sometimess you just have to wait for it to pass. At the moment I am in a period of growth it seems which after the less energetic painting spats I have had, really feels fantastic.

Also, today I took delivery of two of the largest canvases I have ever bought at 3 feet x 5 feet and I just can’t wait to get started working on them. In saying that, I have no idea at the moment what I intend to paint on them.

I have the Artist’s Christmas get-together at the WASPS Studios tomorrow. Crash helmets ready…..

Beginning with the painting “Sacred Feminine” which was completed recently, I am really getting carried away with some new “Goddess” themed art. I may elaborate in another post where all this has come from but for the moment I will just post this second in progress piece. (you can see the very beginnings of this artwork in an earlier post, below)

These faces  have come straight from my mind and are then developed as the painting progresses but I am now also working on a third painting which is based on a girl whom I met online. I have altered much of the appearence but it is still based on her bone structure etc. It will be interesting to see if she recognises herself – image to follow.

It can be a funny old place the WASPS Artists studios , if you have read elsewhere on my website you will know that when I first started painting from there I described it as being like the empty hotel in the movie “The Shining”.

Over the past while though, things seem to have become a shade more sociable and we are even having an artists get together for Christmas. Wether or not anyone actually turns up is another matter.

Artist and ace signwriter Gillian Orr’s sign was rather humorously defaced today. The sign should read  “Bring some booze, yer guitar or sax (Jeff). Jeff McDonald is an artist and sax player, not known for his “sexiness” so Friday should be even more interesting.

I like it when there is a bit of light-heartedness around the studios and this sign is beaten only by the one on the loo door after it was marked as out of order which read “Toilet blocked…..eat more veg”

I am quite choosy about what TV I watch. I have to admit that I get completely taken in by X Factor.

Have you seen “School Of Saatchi”? It’s a sort of X-Factor for artists. Or it could even be The Apprentice for artists. Anyway, it’s odd because there are various experts judging and some things strike me as odd. This was typified by a female contestant who rigs up strange “sculptures” from found items. On one of the shows, she hung a whistle from a handrail and on another there were odd metal shapes which looked like a collection of , well, odd metal shapes. Could you call it sculpture. Could you call it art? This question has of course been asked before but what I find odd is that it seems to depend on what the artist says about the piece. Then a decision is made on wether it is art or a pile of junk. Surely art should speak for itself.

At WASPS where my studio is, the ground floor is rented out sometimes to graduating art students. Last year we had a dead bee hanging from a clock and a bath filled with mud.

All I can say is, after a week, the mud smelled like the devil.

Give me the Mona Lisa anytime and well done Joe McElderry….

A few weeks ago I received an email from Martin Elliot,  the photographer of “Tennis Girl”. It simply said “My compliments”. I easily get star struck and this poster is legendary for me. I remember it always being in the poster browser in John Menzies for what seemed like most of the seventies when I was a kid.

I wrote back to Martin who asked for a copy of my Andy Murray bum painting which seemed to appear everywhere during the summer of 2009. Martin replied “I would like it for my scrapbook – I’ll fit you in between the Ricky Gervais and Frank Skinner versions!”

So, off my print went and today I received a signed print back from Martin. What a guy, I am so chuffed. All this came about during working on paintings for my ArtDeCaf(now Braewell Galleries) solo show last June. The painting had been very serious an in a minute of lightheartedness “New Balls Please” was born.

Anyway, it’s on with the more serious painting in the studio at the moment but I won’t forget my homage to Andy Murray or the smile it seems to have brought to so many peoples faces. Just as Martin’s print has brought to mine.

Well, that’s it. all this years art events are over. The last day of the Parade Artists’ art exhibition was yesterday. A massive thank you to all of you who came along and browsed, chatted and purchased paintings.

Also, I completed my last painting commission for Christmas and it is safely at the framers so there is definately a relaxed sense of satisfaction around in my studio.

I feel it’s time to slow it down a tad now and chill over the coming weeks. I have to admit to being a bit of a “bah-humbug” type guy so whilst the shops are crazy busy, I will be painting at a more leisurely pace. I am not anti-Christmas, just anti-too-much-consumer-commercial-hype-stress etc.

Things are alraedy in place art-wise for pretty much the first 4 months of 2010 and it is looking really exciting – more news to follow.

More news on that soon.

New Female Painting

Today was the second last day of the Parade Artist’s weekend at the Wasps Artists Studios in Glasgow.

These events are marketed by the artists involved and it can be a bit of an uphill struggle as the marketing budget consists mainly of enthusiasm rather than hard cash.

The first weekend of the event was well attended but today it seemed that the bite of recession was more evident. This is also apparently THE shopping weekend before Christmas so perhaps that’s the reason why people were elsewhere.

Not being one to sit and stare into space, I just had to get my easel down and start some new work. It’s amazing how you can lose yourself and I completely forgot that I was in the middle of a public area. Comments from other artists included several “I don’t know how you can do that with everyone watching” to the usual “can you guess what it is yet?”.

This reminded me of my first painting demonstration at Park Gallery earlier this year which was quite an experience. The paint was sliding off the canvas ….because of the heat. Hard to imagine now in the nippy Glasgow air.

Well, it’s been a good week painting. One of those well-balanced weeks when i have had the opportunity to work on a variety of painting.

This painting, with the working title of “A Mother’s Love” is a big canvas that I have been working on for a few weeks (you can see it in the earlier stages below). I can’t explain how fresh this paintijg feels to me. It may not seem that way to the viewer, I don’t know but the whole process and the meanderings of the method of painting has kept me coming back to the painting in between working on commissioned paintings and other new pieces.

I also think there is a definate knock-on effect and the enthusiasm can be infectious from one painting to another.

Tomorrow is the start of the last art event of the year for me, the second weekend of the Parade Artists exhibition in Glasgow and the above piece will be on display to get the public’s initial reaction.

It’s one of those weeks when I have been quite happily painting away on various art commissions and other paintings and then I just go completely off at a tangent.

I have noticed recently the aggression and anger surrounding the discussion of art and painting. People becoming incredibly animated, almost to the point of rage at times, just because they don’t like or agree with a particular painting.

So, despite being “warned” by various gallery owners that I should not paint celebrity artwork and should steer myself more to the “fine art” side of the line, I treat myself now and again and this week I have also been working on a big new Marilyn Monroe painting.

Can’t you see how it makes me smile?