Ok, so I’ve done some further thinking. This blog is ultimately looking at the creative process from my personal perspective. It began with the 365+ digitally-created self portraits of 2010-2011, a social media project projecting and exploring the presentation of self in an era of over-proliferation of posted self-portraits. Not a few people who actually know me in real life were unsettled by my frequently unflattering self-portraits as I tried to draw, paint and photograph e

It’s springtime and time to re-think the purpose and function of #dailyfail. It’s all about looking at the process of creativity. It explores my conviction that following instinct, making do with any tools to hand and tackling unappealing ideas is a way of seeking and confronting “failure” as a concomitant aspect of risk-taking and as an essential part of the creative process. The “#dailyfail” title is tongue in cheek: since I believe embracing failure (or less than perfect r

Well, it’s been something of a daily failure to achieve anything creative this last week. I’ve not been idle, but if I’m honest, it takes as little as five minutes to put pen to paper. Any pen to any paper. So there isn’t really an excuse. What I really wanted to do today was sit in Regent’s Park and draw passersby. Then I became distracted by the variety and mix of people along the Marylebone Road: suits and uniforms, veils and sleeping bags. And only a notebook to scribble

It’s been a day of ambiguities consequently reflected in this picture. What’s real, what’s not and does it matter anyway? Held the camera up blind at an unknown angle and decided to use the Paintbook app (again) to process whichever part of the image appealed to me most. The half dead flowers beckoned and are now transformed back to life. This is as much as my brain can handle after an afternoon contemplating but not actioning “real” work-in-progress. #creativity #Failure #ri

It’s been a busy busy week. After giant leaps with studio work last week, this has been the opposite. I haven’t had a break for a fortnight do I decided to sit and watch an old black and white 1962 movie with Gregory Peck and Burt Lancaster. It was a good opportunity to do some rapid sketches from the screen with a vector-based painting app, Paintbook, which is a good tool for filling areas of colour in seconds. Or filling with white in the case of ‘noir’. #creativity #Failur

After four months, I’m forced to add a new category. Digital. The whole point initially of #dailyfail was to return to the unambiguous ineradicable mistakes of traditional media. But it’s also about exploring all ideas for good or bad, and I can just as easily try out ideas digitally. I awoke today thinking about heavy pink skies and grey rain and dismal isolated abandoned pubs. Again. The iPad was at the bedside, so I could record the idea without even getting out from under

On a roll. Dragged out another painting I have been stewing about for longer than I care to think but there’s something about it which made me rely rant to give up on it. Today was the turn of Cadmium Yellow Deep to make an appearance. I planned to wipe away the edges but ended up leaving the rough canvas marks because of the interesting ambiguous collage effect. There’s an intriguing contrast and tension now between a classically painted set of figures and a few strong brush

An exciting day in the studio. Radical transformations to not one, not two, but THREE paintings. Went mad with spray paint on two (large works on the ongoing theme of the Holbeck Botanics series) and smeared my beloved magenta over a third which I’ve been gazing at and pondering over for a couple of years. I am surrounded now by beautiful colour in the studio in whichever direction I turn. This is as exciting as it gets. It all seems to have taken seconds, but glancing at the

Back in the studio. Back to the current work. Or one of them (I always have a number of works on the go; it’s a practice I developed on my degree course. I work so quickly, and am so impatient, it’s the easiest way to ensure not overdoing anything). No danger of that here. I can’t move off the background. It’s essential I get exactly the right shades of blue and yellow. I have been painting in my head for days and have tantalizing glimpses in my imagination of what I’m lookin

Away from the mothership and with limited materials and time to hand, and with a lot of background work to do following my joint of the emerging artists’ programme at Debut Contemporary, I’m taking a break from making. Just whilst I’m away on holiday. I haven’t actually had a break from blogging in 15 months so it’s about time. So for today, some pencil studies… #creativity #Failure #risk

I’m really enjoying messing with the MagicShutter photo app, and using it to draw. It has some amazing possibilities: a degree of control is possible but the control is directed to making happy accidents. So it’s all rather strange. #creativity #Failure #risk

Stuck in traffic circling London, art materials safely packed out of sight, darkness falling and the dawning realisation we will not be catching our reserved place on the cross Channel shuttle. So I have to play at drawing with a slow shutter photo app which has infinite possibilities and naturally very little chance of failure because car lights on slow shutter speeds are always going to work. I probably could have done these blind. But then I became fascinated by the possib

Some days it’s impossible to resist the lure of digital play. Particularly when you are travelling up and down the country in a train with an empty biro, fading laundry marker but plenty of access to electrical sockets and power and thus in no danger of running out of charge. I was seized by the idea of virtual graffitti and messing with virtual duck tape. Or duct tape. However you say it. I’ve done a few pieces with deliberate real graffitti. It’s interesting to observe the

The under layers of a new work. I like documenting work in progress. It’s all part of the digital revolution. A hundred photos taken every day of anything from a stain on concrete to an interesting fold in a bag. So why not photograph every mark in a painting? I think I do it because I live the raw look of the intuitive free early stages where anything can be done because no real time has been invested and you can paint over anything. Of course, you can do thus at any stage a

Discovered a new painting tool today in the course of laying down a ground for a new painting. A Crown Matchpot tube applicator on unprimed heavy fairly rough paper works a treat. The paper practically sucked the paint out of the tube and consequently left some great marks on the paper. Sadly it’s not the effect I was looking for in terms of this piece, but I will use these tubes again for drawing, I think. #creativity #Failure #Postaday #risk

Slightly larger than thumbnail sketches, I’ve resurrected the deserted pubs theme. Playing around with the colored backgrounds I prepared weeks ago. Messing at this scale is very different to working at the scale I have in mind. There could be a fair bit of glorious failure in store… #creativity #Failure #Postaday #risk

More basic observational stuff. I’m on a once-a-week commute to London at the moment. Lots of train time for surreptitious drawing of fellow passengers. It’s interesting how much moving someone does even when supposedly asleep. #creativity #Failure #Postaday #risk

Back to basics. Basic observational drawing. Himself has been having boxing lessons for a while now and I kept saying I would quite like to go and observe. The boxing coach was really quite excited at the idea of me sitting and drawing. He thinks I would enjoy the authentic aesthetics of a traditional spit n’ sawdust boxing gym. He may be right. I will have to go and look sometime. #creativity #Failure #Postaday #risk

It’s always worth holding on to old work you sort of feel something for even though it didn’t quite work at the time. After a couple of years propped up with its face against a studio wall, inspiration may strike when it’s turned around and looked at afresh. As is the case with today’s image. I’m currently sorting through a mass of work because I’ve just been invited to join the emerging artists’ programme at Debut Contemporary in London. So I’m taking the opportunity to loo

Messing with pen and ink is always fun. Inevitably this means calligraphy is fun, except when it’s not. Calligraphy has particular challenges for a visual artist used to playing and messing and failing. Real calligraphers are concerned with proportion and accuracy and devote years of practice to the art. Dipping into Arabic lettering for just a few hours was therefore never going to be a huge success from the strict perspective if a professional calligrapher, but it was an en