Paul Watson’s notes on ongoing artwork, giving an insight into the creative process.
As the third national lockdown in England doesn’t look like it will be a short one, I’ve been making some plans on how to continue my artistic practice under the restrictions. The vast majority of my artwork comes from working with life-models, either through drawing or photography. I…
I’ve been trying to figure out the legality (and ethical conundrums) of restarting my life-drawing practice under the revised “3 Tier” system that is due to come into force in England on Wednesday 2nd December. I’m approaching this as objectively as I can, not in a “looking for loopholes”…
Read the rest of “Life-drawing during Covid: some thoughts”…
I suddenly realised I haven’t updated this for a few months, and while I haven’t been especially prolific I have actually completed some more Acid Renaissance artwork, so… Sketch for “The Lotus Eaters” Sketch for “The Lotus Eaters” came together over June, and it’s…
The Heartwood Institute’s Tomorrow’s People – Exploring Far Off Utopian Flipsides: Wanderings 14/26 The latest blogpost from A Year In The Country discusses The Heartwood Institute’s album Tomorrow’s People via some personal interests of mine: utopian societies, Gerrard Winstanley,…
It’s a cool clear morning here on the southern coast. Sparrows perching on the phone lines, distant cries of seagulls. It feels so calm, but it shouldn’t be. The tiny fracture lines in the world widen. The question of what sort of world we will emerge into post-lockdown continues to be…
Following on from April’s blog post, lockdown continues to force my Acid Renaissance series of artwork into different directions. Photography has been temporarily abandoned, as has in-person life-drawing. Instead I’m currently concentrating on drawing using photographs of life-models (or…
Read the rest of “Acid Renaissance update: The Oracle and the Sexton”…
eBay Experiment The drawers in my plan chest are full, I’ve run out of space to store artwork and a plan chest drawer filled to the top with stacked paper is surprisingly heavy - just opening and closing a drawer is starting to become heavy exercise. So, as an experiment, I’ve put…
My plan for December 2019 and the first three months of 2020 was to take Acid Renaissance into new territory. It would be brighter and more hopeful, and start to signal some potential radical futures. Sometimes, though, things just don’t turn out how you expect. Instead there emerged a…
The problem with modern democracy is that it has thoroughly convinced everyone that you only get one chance to improve society every five years. Didn’t succeed this time? You’ll have to wait another five years before you can try again - that’s the rules. The way to start to change…
Read the rest of “Albion: utopianism and the post-apocalyptic pastoral”…
I’m going to be returning to talking about art and all the related stuff I usually talk about in the next few weeks, but until then I wanted to post a few pictures from another walk. In some ways these walks are related to my art practice, serving as one of many sources of inspiration - my…