Painting Outside.

The first plein aire pictures I made were for Walkerloo.  They were back drops for my portable paper soldier army on tour.  

10 years later I painted views of my garden for my mothers birthday.  They all now hang on her wall and she loves them.

Throughout the summer of 2021 making the picture 'Les Trois Ages du Dragon Baligan' I painted daily but when the project finished I missed the brush wiggling activity.  

Since leaving University I've made most of my money painting houses.  When I moved to France I did a weekly oil (but with acrylics!) painting course at the local art school.  My first paper soldiers were coloured using marker pens which was at first straight forward but I found the fixed colour range  restrictive and expensive!  So  I began to paint the soldiers with a set of gouache I'd bought for the painting course.  Mixing new colours with paint and developing brush techniques to make convincing pictures feels magical.

Taking my goats onto the hillside one beautifully mild morning in December 2021 I decided to get my paints and join them beneath the bright blue sky.  I posted the painting on the Instagram account I'd begun using after a visitor's suggestion during my Dielette studio.  

Over the next few months I began making a couple of outdoor paintings a week spending 5 or 6 hours in the lanes and fields around my home in still concentration was wonderful.  

In the Spring of 2022 scoping properties for my Isigny mission I decided to paint my chosen location.  Over the 5 months of "Au Monstre D'Isigny" as a means of engagement with the town and it's people I made over 50 plein aire paintings.  

Returning from Isigny I continued to go out and paint a couple of times a week.  

Painting outside is wonderful.   You have to be quick if you want to catch a particular scene. Especially if the suns out.   I've lived next to the sea for more than 20 years but until then I'd never tried to paint it.

Christopher Wanker Pants Down. Strike Three. New Light Prize Exhibition 2017.

At home for Christmas 2015 I came upon The 'New Light'  painting competition show held biennially at the Bowes Museum in County Durham .  Born in North East England I met one of the criteria to enter and decided to try for the exhibition in July 2017.  I submitted two pictures recently made 'The Aluminum Ladder' and 'The Tale Of Christopher Wanker'.

The Aluminum Ladder by myTHself , acrylic on board, 1220x1530. 2016.

The Tale Of Christopher Wanker by myTHself, acrylic, map and false gold leaf on board, 1220x2220. 2015-16.

In September 2017 I was disappointed to receive a letter regretting to inform me that my pictures had not been chosen for the exhibition. Strike 3.  Fucked off with failure at judged painting competitions I knew I must find for myTHself a place to show Christopher Wanker.

I had enjoyed making the pictures and valued the results but failure to win an exhibition space meant in accordance, with the agreement I had made with my wife, I must return to building full time.  By the end of October 2018 the house I had begun building in 2013 was finished and let out.  I became a land lord with time to make pictures.



  

Christopher Wanker Pants Down. Strike Two. The Royal Accademy Summer Show 2015.

2015 was the bicentennial year for the Battle Of Waterloo.

Inspired by the Royal Academy Summer Show Open Call for that year I made pictures for the entry application.

In 2013/14 I was commissioned by my friend to paint a picture for his new restaurant in Cherbourg.  Respecting the taste of the patron I planned and painted a large sensible figurative acrylic composition.

I enjoyed painting at this scale and gained confidence in the pictures success at the restaurant.  I had thought painting a de-funked medium but skillfully applied paint to make a picture can be magical.

Between 2013 and 2018 I spent most of my time building a house but mid-Winter is unsuitable for building outside.  I dedicated a month to make a new picture for the show.   Judging it was time to expose more I decided to unite two disparate parts of myTHself - Christopher Wanker Fantasy banker would back the toy soldiers at The Battle Of Walkerloo.

Alas the pictures were not short listed for display in the RA summer show of 2015.  Strike 2.

I had never been completely satisfied with any Christopher Wanker photo montage picture.  Whilst living in France I took an afternoon painting class at Cherbourg art school and was shown the basics of 'pretend it's oil' acrylic painting.  I developed a kind of brush scrubbing paint technique on to a dark painted base board which had solidity.  I was seduced by the leather like surface of the painted pictures.  This Christopher Wanker had been painted onto the road map surface, which had been glued to a board.  His painted body united into the map surface as picture on to paper.  The unity of the UK road map and myTHself Christopher Wanker was much more convincing than the photo montages.  Painting the map and him together made Christopher Wanker more real, as a picture. 

too big for my studio i made him in the living room.