James Flynn

I am sitting here writing this entry in reasonably high spirits, despite being subjected to around two hours of prime time garbage TV. I say subjected to, because I occasionally have no choice in the matter. If it was up to me I think I would actually get rid of the TV now, for the little amount of time that I actually watch it, it is not even worth having. Don't worry, I do not plan on rattling on about rubbish all night, I have got some more work done tonight aswell. I have just finished a new piece simply titled - "a tonal study". This is a new portrait I have done using charcoal and white pastel, my new favourite medium. I will post a photo of this new piece tommorow,( I would add a photo with this entry, but I do not like taking photos under artificial light, as it casts an orange glow. Much better to wait till the morning.) but for now, I would like to express my new found love for charcoal.....

It's been a very long time since I have done a lot of work in charcoal, I have actually always regarded it as one of the hardest mediums to work with. Until recently, I had pretty much left it alone, but now I cannot get enough. I am always on the lookout for nice reference material to work with, and I am very much into my black and white, high contrast stuff right now. The classic "rembrandt shadow" type portrait shots are great with charcoal and white pastel, and I certainly had a good time tonight with this medium. I really like the way you can just "get stuck in with charcoal, it really is a very forgiving medium, especially when used on paper washed with watered down black acrylic, with is my preffered method, which you may have guessed. Haha I just needed to get that off my chest, because I have got a few more pieces lined up like this, and I will present them as a series when my exhibition finally happens, which by the way, is going to be a very large exhibition, seeing though I have around forty paintings to show and counting!

I just also wanted to say that I am looking forward to next year now, I am finally starting to get things going, I have got plenty of ideas in the pipeline, I aim to have my own sketch column in a newspaper pretty soon, and I am eager to get my framing studio up and running, so I can get busy framing too. Good times, busy times, but good times. Thanks for the support from everyone on twitter too, much appreciated, come back tommorow and I should have my new piece uploaded here too.

See you soon,

James