Goodbye Heygate Estate

Here's a project I've been doing for the past few months... recording the demolition of the Heygate Estate in SE London, previously home to over 3000 people, with photographs taken from 3 angles from platform 4 of the Elephant and Castle overground station.

The estate has all but gone now - if you scroll down you will see how it has gradually disappeared. I'll be continuing with this to record the construction of whatever eventually takes its place.

http://smallplanes79.tumblr.com/

Painting in acrylic 1

Portrait painting from a photograph, using something of what I've learned about using complementary colours to show light and shade (blue and orange/yellow). Still not sure I get this entirely, but it's early days...

Perspective and painting

Started a new painting course last week. I haven't painted much for years, so it'll be great because it teaches colour theory, composition, technique etc. Last week we looked at perspective (see sketch above) and tried to mix black from the three primary colours, which I found to be nigh on impossible.

Things I have learned so far: I'm rubbish at mixing colours, and when I try and paint a self-portrait I end up looking like Michael Caine or, as my classmate John put it, "that bird from On the Buses". More experiments in painting to follow...

Sketches of Musical Heroes

...and their songs

Things mean a lot

Entire City Block

When I first moved to London I had a go at some photomontage for a zine I was doing about my feelings about feeling lost and excited all at the same time in a new city. It was also about how the words of my heroes (musical and otherwise) get me through day-to-day.

942.1 London

If I had my way I'd walk through those doors and wander...






The gentleman at the end is Melvil Dewey. He invented the Dewey Decimal System. He also suffered, according to his Wikipedia entry, from "a persistent inability to control himself around women". He's in there because he was part of the zine. 942.1 is the Dewey number for London (library-geek).

Midnight in Paris

Last night I went to see Woody Allen's new film, Midnight in Paris. Halfway through it occurred to me that this was the first time I had seen one of his films on the big screen. It was a really great film, and very funny. But it upsets me that Woody is now too old to star in his own films. As a leading man he was anti pseudo-intellectual (the cinema queue scene in Annie Hall is the classic example) but you knew there was a lot going on underneath the surface. He possessed an intellect that was unpretentious and able to laugh at the world in a knowing way. Owen Wilson can't quite pull this off.

Halloween mask... or, if Woody and Serge Gainsbourg had a love-child