Gah, it’s been a month since I last posted – again. I have not been idle – far from it – but I have been busy doing things that are not painting and not learning Russian. This is somewhat frustrating, but as John Lennon said, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans”.

What I have been doing is a lot of cooking, because Savannah and I are participating in Vegan Mofo (Vegan Month Of Food) this month. We have had a great time cooking a lot of new recipes, and she has been photographing and blogging about them. You can see and read about that at her blog: In Her Grace.

I haven’t done any more work on the nude, the oils I had mixed dried out and the idea of recreating the mixes seemed like entirely too much bother. This got me thinking about the Genesis paints again – the oil paints that literally never dry until you want them to. Why did I stop using them again? Oh right, because I got obsessed with the idea that I had to use “real” oil paints if I wanted to be a “real” artist. I wonder if “real” oil painters expressed the same prejudices when acrylics started to get popular. Or tempura painters, when oils were invented. Anyway, with 20/20 hindsight I can see that I made good paintings with Genesis and that’s all that truly matters, and anybody who thinks otherwise is being an elitist twat. That said, I guess that it’s “horses for courses”, and I’m sure I’ll go on changing from one paint to the next depending on my mood!

Let’s see, what else? I’ve actually found some time to read a book – “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline. As a dyed-in-the-wool child and fan of the 80′s, I’m enjoying it immensely, but even if you’re not an 80′s fan it’s a great story. I’m halfway through the book and frustrated I can’t find the time to read more of it, but tomorrow is looking clear so far.

I’ve also been thinking a great deal about what I paint – last week we finally got around to watching Legend Of The Guardians – The Owls Of Ga’Hoole and the location art was so breathtakingly beautiful that it rekindled my desire to paint fantasy art in a major way. Given that it’s difficult for me to get to any actual landscape to paint, and using live models for portraits and nude work is also a fiscal improbability, developing the ability to paint from my imagination does seems a logical and appealing choice, but how much of that needs to be grounded in the ability to paint actual reality? No, I don’t know either. I do have a number of books about painting fantasy, now I just need an extra ten hours each day to read them, work through them, practice … maybe next month when Vegan Mofo is over.

Lastly I want to give a shout-out and link to somebody I discovered via Youtube when I was looking for cloud painting demos. This is the first of three clips showing a painting almost completely from beginning to end, and I learnt a lot just watching how he painted clouds, even though it was speeded up!

Daniel offers coaching in person and online, which I plan to utilise in (hopefully) the near future!  You can find out more at his website – http://www.danieltibbits.com.