Paul Watson’s notes on ongoing artwork, giving an insight into the creative process.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to get a set of postcards made of four of my drawings, and they’re now available to order on the shop section of this website (£3.50 for the set of 4 postcards, which is about $5.68 USD or €4.48 EUR at time of writing). I decided to get the postcards printed…
1. One of my Blindfolded Seeress drawings in its early stages “I still come closest to success with drawing.” Paul Klee, 1903. As an artist I’ve always been drawing, even when my professed medium has been painting, collage & assemblage, photography, or printmaking. It’s…
Read the rest of “Drawing as a principle medium, or, “why I love drawing” (Part One)”…
I recently bought this rather creepy “blank” bird mask by Seattle-based artist Cassandra Mélena. My plan is to paint and decorate the mask to use in another series of mythologically-inspired photographs in the same style as my Blindfolded Seeress, Death Mask, Badb Catha/Crow Mask, and Bark…
I wrote about the more philosophical side of masks in a previous blogpost Masks, Deception, and Truth. This post is more about the history of masks. Get yourself comfortable - this one could go on for a bit: An introduction and some politics When using masks in artwork, the obvious initial…
Read the rest of “Masks - a bit of politics and a bit of history”…
Click image thumbnails above for larger images I didn’t know what this charcoal drawing would turn out like when I started. I knew I wanted to—had to—work in a slightly different technique: the short, sharp, mark-making approach I used on the three Badb…
Click image thumbnails above for larger images I wrote about my ideas for the next series of photographs/prints in a post in February and since then I’ve been working on the mask and other props, and drawing out some very quick (5 minute) sketches - all of which…
Looking back on my photographic work since 2012 I’ve got to the point now where I feel I’ve amassed a good range of these pseudo-mythological characters. There are probably a couple more female characters to do, then I will turn my attention to the male characters. …
I was asked recently why I used masks that are obviously masks in my photographs, rather than using some digital manipulation to produce monstrous photo-realistic visages like those produced by special effects in films and TV. The thing is that I like masks, I like the…
I’ve started putting my ideas together for the next series of artwork, which will probably consist of a lino print as well as a series of photographs. It’s all based around another imagined mythological character which I haven’t thought of a name for yet. There are some visual similarities…
Well, it’s come a long way from the first scribbled sketches I posted on this blog in January – the first 13ʺ × 10ʺ fine art giclée print is now up for sale in the online shop. I’ve never tried to sell photographs before on the online shop, so it's all a bit of an experiment. It’s…
Read the rest of “Blindfolded Seeress - first prints printed”…