The big gig: finding sites, thinking, painting

More blank canvases for the mural project. Freezing (and eerie) walking around locating sites. Freezing painting in the studio too.

In the Studio: Prep for THE BIG GIG

I just got permission to take over a semi derelict housing estate in east London and use the buildings (there are over 12 buildings) as a space for mural painting exhibition. The project  will start in March and is supposed to conclude during the Olympic games this summer.

I’m working on paper which will be later mounted on the buildings, this way I can start now, and will avoid working outdoors in the cold winter. I’m doing it all so far on my own expense. 

It’s a dream I shared one day with my friend and mural-painting partner Osama Elsehli. OsOs, I’m going for it Bruv, and I’m thinking of you.

taking time over drawing ….

I started the Bedtime drawing project just to see what it is that I draw last thing at night (actually more like 6 am) before sleeping. But now I see that I am right now spending the whole night on one drawing and I sleep only when it’s done.

These drawings coming now are really crafted, taking hours and hours and a lot of fine work. A lot of deep focus. Getting deeper and deeper into the drawing.

finished before sleep …

I worked on this for a long time, but I finished it before sleeping.

Bedtime drawings again …

This is the 6th drawing I have identified as the “last drawing before sleeping.” I’m wondering if once I have got a lot of them I can learn something about the half-sleeping half-waking state I am in when I draw before I sleep. This is not just a drawing I do before bed; I draw a lot every night, so this is just the last of many. By the time I draw this one I am in a state of exhaustion.

I just completed the last of a  series of 12 paintings, oil stick on paper. I am going to photograph it in the studio now.

Yesterday’s Bed-time Drawing and the painting it inspired …

Before I went to sleep, I drew this:

Next day I went to the studio and painted this:

What is this creature? It came to me in the last exhausted moments before sleeping. You tell me….

Bedtime drawing

I’m posting the last drawing I do before sleeping.
Usually this drawing takes place between 5 and 6 am while I am in a total physical exhaustion and my head is genuinely spaced.
The last drawing of every day is not necessarily a good or bad drawing, but by far never failed to be one of the strangest.