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It's been a difficult 48 hours or so.Firstly my youngest son woke at 4:30 yesterday morning vomiting..a change of bedding was needed...but the worst of it being that he sleeps high up in one of those IKEA beds with a desk underneath...so when he was sick he leaned over the edge and I'll leave the rest to your imagination!! Eldest son then fell sick a few hours later..the stage was set for a day of nasty smells and much groaning. They were feeling almost completely better this morning so Will headed off to school and Sam to college.

I then got a call from my daughter's school saying she had been sick and would I go in and fetch her. It's only a mile away, so I walked, but brought her back in a taxi...one home she went on to vomit at 20 minute intervals.I then had a call from Jan who had been working in Nottingham all day...she was driving home trying to suppress waves of nausea...if you've ever had to do that, you'll know how dangerous it can be. One old colleague of mine was so urgently needing to throw up, he tried to aim into the cigarette ashtray that you pull out on the dashboard...obviously it was totally inadequate ....his cassette player never worked again after that!

At time of writing, Annie has thrown up around 15 times and is now tolerating water at last...Jan is curled up in bed having thrown up lots......I've escaped so far...but for how much longer?

The lion shall lay down with the lamb

The image of the lion laying down with the lamb is a powerful concept.The mighty lord of beasts, and the frail timid soon to be Sunday lunch roast lamb. The root of the imagery is of course contained in the Old Testament book of the Bible, Isaiah. The author writes about the lion lying with the calf...the lamb lying with the wolf. The Lion/lamb is in fact a misquote. I don't think however that the lion/lamb pairing is out of context with the Biblical passage and it's imagery.

For the purpose of my artwork however, I am not alluding to any theological context..at least not consciously. My concept is a little more simplistic...I like contrasts and the apparent contradiction and juxtaposition of ideas...I like the iron and steel of the train...the age and bitterness of the Starman..the wide eyed nakedness of the Cello girls.The softness implied by bare feet..the harshness if the gravel... 'Quintadagio' refers to a group of five and a piece of slow stately music...placed in front of the train which weighs many tons and travels at great speed loudly hissing steam, a fire driven behemoth . light and shade...nature and man made....male and female...dream and reality...you get the idea i hope!

The more I think about it, I like the idea of foxes and chickens 'lying down' together....what would the off spring be like, i'd guess we could call it a 'Frickin'.LOL !

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I promise this is the last fox..now each of the girls have their own corresponding foxy accompaniment.But what will the Starman be gifted with?...I like the fact that the fox is a scavenger and also the hunted...perhaps I'll throw a hen in as part of the mix.I like the idea of the Lamb lying down with the Lion!

I owe a very deep apology to all my trusty readers who also have blogs of their own. I've not read any other blogs this year...I really will get around to visiting you all soon!

Quintadagio - 51

I could just make my apologies for having not posted over the couple of days...but the truth is that following the funeral, I seemed to plummet into a dark place. Perhaps that's a little melodramatic, but I found myself not wanting or able to motivate myself to even consider picking up my pen. Today however, I did...the reason?....well, the sun shone...it's been grey and cloudy here with no sign of the sun since last Friday...and one sight of the sun made me feel so much better.So here's another fox!I'll not complete the lower parts until I'm totally sure about the texture of the ground beneath...the scene is set next to a railway line so that should mean gravel...we'll see.

Thelma Ashton - 2 September 1929 - 2 January 2010 .Rest In Peace

As you know, my mother In Law sadly died on Saturday 2nd January...today we had a funeral.After a service before the cremation , we headed back into Derby to the church Thelma attended for a service of Thanksgiving .This is the display Jan assembled at the front of the church.Thelma used to play the violin to a high standard and once played with noted violinist Yehudi Menuhin, she was also an Analytical Chemist ....but above all I knew her as the Mother to my wife and my Mother in Law...a clever intelligent private and caring woman....sadly missed.

Quintadagio - 50

I thought you might like to see the foxes in context of the whole picture...today I've been working on smaller areas, namely the cello girl's hands, the strings on the cellos and the background.you might be able to see pencil lines showing where I'm considering adding another fox..in fact I'm toying with the idea of having a fox for each girl.

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I did spend yesterday working on the leaflet that will be used at the funeral .It was a privilege to be able to do what i could. I won't publish it here until after the funeral which will be next Monday.

As you can see, I've returned to my foxes today, I'm not happy with the right foreleg here...I'll have to see what I can do to make it better....and I've yet to finish the brush!

As you can see

Quintadagio - 48

I'm slowly increasing the time I'm able to apply to my work at the moment.Today I've concentrated on the foxes...I've just about decided how I want the legs to look, you can see the pencil lines showing the various alternative positions. Tomorrow however i will be working on artwork for the leaflet to be used at my Mother In Law's funeral next week.

Quintadagio - 47

Here's an update on the Foxes progress.I'm fairly happy with the way they're turning out.

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Foxes symbolise many different things to various cultures....Cunning,adaptability, cleverness.....to others, the fox is seen as a visitation from the spirit world.The ancient Celts understood that the fox knew the terrain,woods and sources of food intimately, so would follow the fox as a guide and revere it for it's knowledge and wisdom. I also read that some native American tribes saw the fox as a wise and nobel messenger, whilst others considered the fox to be a trickster luring one to an evil demise.

Quintadagio - 45

I think Bobkat's advice was right...not to feel that I need to resume posting right away. I'm finding work/concentration incredibly difficult. If you're a friend on my Facebook page, you'll have read my status updates which usually concern humour......I love humour and of course it's a way to deal with things.....but it masks the truth in many ways.....it's also a little like switching to auto pilot...the nearest thing I can liken it to is when a person has a terrible head injury, a medically imposed coma is sustained to allow the body to heal and rest....I think we tend to 'switch off' certain public facets so that we can heal and restore in our own way.

I don't know how consistent I can be at the moment...but I will continue..just bear with me.

Quintadagio - 44

Foxes?...
Lots of snow has fallen all over the UK...infact it's probably the longest prolonged spell of snow and ice in nearly 30 years!I took this photo whilst waiting for Annie and her friend to pull the sledge up the very long and steep slope that was behind me!

Twelfth Night snowball fight.

Snow fell today turning just about all the UK into a giant frozen wonderland. Whilst many struggled to cope with the conditions , work at homers like Jan and I enjoyed ourselves. Whilst the sadness we have felt at the death of Jan's Mum on Saturday still bites deeply, we were able join our neighbours in one last Christmas event...it being Twelfth Night, we threw snowballs at each other and for a while , abandon ourselves to some seriously physical stuff. It was cold, it was wet and we had a fantastic time.

We've since come inside to get warm, send Annie off for a bath (Thanks for the photo Annie!) and prepare to take our Christmas decorations down. A lot of our talk and concentration centres around the forthcoming funeral and the arrangements that have to be made. Jan, Colin her Father and her brother David have been working together to make all these arrangements.

We have taken a great deal of comfort from the many very kind wishes and sympathy from our friends here and on Facebook. So I'd like to take this opportunity to say a very heartfelt thank you to everyone who left a message. your words really do have the effect of making us feel supported and loved even though we have never met most of those who comment. The blogging community is brilliant isn't it?

PS: I did work for a couple of hours today...I'll publish the progress tomorrow.

2010..is here.

Hello...may I take this opportunity to wish you a very happy new year.It seems odd to be writing this greeting even though it be only three days into the new year. My absence from posting was initially purposeful as I need to take a Holiday to enjoy Christmas...it was so good to have Jan not working over the period and this meant we were able to do lots of things as a family.

Jan's Mum however was not well, and over the Christmas period began to deteriorate in her health..this necessitated Jan to spend ever more time helping her Dad to care for her mum...getting up in the mornings and bed times etc...

Sadly, yesterday, Jan's Mum took a turn for the worse and had to be rushed to hospital.She sadly died last night peacefully.

We're still in shock and not really thinking of much else at the moment. My holiday from work is not a holiday any more. I will return to work as soon as I am able, which should have been tomorrow.But I know you'll excuse me for a little longer.

My mother In Law was a lovely woman..very intelligent and musical..she owned a degree in Chemistry and was a qualified violin teacher.An incredibly dignified and private person, she was not only to be valued for her very kind and caring nature, but was also the Mother of my very gorgeous wife Janet.

the photos here were taken what seems a lifetime ago, but were in fact on New Years Eve at our friends traditional gathering.It was a beautiful time but now tinged with sadness as one was not aware of the sadness only hours away.

thanks for continuing to read my posts...I'll be back sooner than you might think!

Message to Santa.

I wasn't going to write a post here tonight, but I was writing an email to my friend and whilst doing that, my daughter Annie came in with a drink and mince pie for Santa and a carrot for Rudolf. She left a note which she had hastily written...if you click on the pic you can read it. Please take note..the drink in the glass is one of my favourites: Dark rum....but there's enough there not only to incapacitate Santa, but also all his rein deers ! I will be returning it to the bottle once Annie is in bed......well, most of it !

May I take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Christmas.

Carol singing in the avenue

Last evening we took part in carol singing to the houses in our avenue. This is a tradition that's taken place over the last six years.We post invitations to all the houses and meet under a certain lamp post...we then move from lamp post to lamp post singing under each. We then all go back to some one's house for mulled wine, mince pies etc.

Yesterday's event was attended by around 25 - 30 neighbours...you can see by the photos that snow was on the ground and it was bitterly cold. Temperatures in Scotland were measured at minus 16 degrees in places!!For us it was around minus 3.

every one came back to my house.To disguise the mess, we decided to ban light bulbs, so the house was lit by candles (see above)...this caused a couple of problems, as I had to go out to the car to fetch something...on return ~I dropped the keys into the what I thought was the key pot, but it turned out to be the mulled wine I'd left next to the key pot!....the keys are very sticky today!

Here are two pictures of the singers...above: singing outside our house and below , gathered outside the front garden of Tim and Lynne's.

It was a lovely evening.When every one had left...Jan and I settled down with Annie and osme friends (Andrew, Jane and Sarah) to watch a DVD of 'White Christmas'..which always makes me feel christmassy...

At home with the Youngs.

I bet you were beginning to wonder where I'd got to?..Well folks, it's that time of the year where I start to wind down a little and enjoy all things Christmassy.Here's a little view of my front room (I should have plumped the cushions) and the lovely warm glow. Outside there is snow on the ground and ice has remained all day. I've not actually worked on my picture since Friday but I'm not worrying about it....If I get time, I'll do some and you'll be the first to see the results.

Quintadagio - 43

Today had quite a pleasant start.It all started when I mentioned to Jan that being self employed at Christmas meant not having any work colleagues to have a Christmas party with.Jan is also self employed so we decided to combine our respective businesses and have our own little 'do'. But when we put our diary's...well, actually I don't keep an appointments diary, but when Jan looked at her days, we could only find this morning to have breakfast together. So we dropped Annie off at school and headed off to the local Sainsbury store cafe.

Before going to order our food, Jan thought it would be fun to buy 'Secret Santa presents' so we toddled off into the store to buy a little gift each.Once we'd each paid for our gifts, we went into the cafe to order. Whilst waiting for our food to be delivered , I set up a small Christmas tree I'd brought from home on our table.It's little fibre optic lights twinkling away.We wrapped our presents to each other in paper napkins and laid them at the base of the tree.

We then ate our food.I love a good 'Full English' breakfast, but only enjoy it rarely (this was the second in a year!)...The doctor told me to 'Keep an eye on my weight...so I put it all at the front where I can 'keep an eye on it!' After we'd eaten, we did some hand jive table dancing, played a game of charades, played spin the (ketchup) bottle for truth or dare,then opened our presents. I got a jar of anchovies in garlic and olive oil.

We returned home to resume work...Jan had to spend the day doing admin for the upcoming show which will be staged next spring...she is currently selling shows to theatres around the Midlands.I carried on with my dotting...business as usual!

Quintadagio - 42

Christmas is approaching and there are lots of things one needs to do, so that will explain if there is a slowing down of my progress. But I will do what I can to maintain my output (blimey, that sounds so formal!uurrk!)

Quintadagio - 41

Here's a slightly skuewiff view of the entire composition as it stands.I've been working very close to the image of course, and it's relatively large. So it's really nice to see it here in it's compact view.Below is a close up of the area I've been working on today..the flash on the camera has slightly bleached the photo.

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A disturbed day as far as my routine goes..I find it difficult to drop and then pick up my work to only have short sessions to work in. a planned visit to the framer (who was closed!) and shopping in town went awry and found me back home earlier than I thought. Sorting out some work for Jan's theatre project saw my day fractured as far as undisturbed work. Then went out to do the weekly shop with Jan, Sam and Annie.

It's something to do with the time of the year I think ? :-)

Will the real Cello girl please stand up ?

I always do these introductions to what inspires me so badly..in a cringe worthy sort of way, but I guess I'm just best at drawing not writing. But here are a few of the faces that make up the inspiration for my 'Cello girl'. I'm often asked why I chose to repeat the particular look and hair stlye...well here's a sort of explanation.

Above is a photograph of the actress Wendy Padbury playing 'Zoe Herriot' in the BBC serial Doctor Who. I first noticed this character in about 1967 (I was 6 at the time) I loved the programme and loved the fact that I as a viewer became frightened when the monsters turned up, the characters were too, but learned to master their fear and eventually defeat the monsters through a mixture of bravery and science. As a child of 6 with a very active imagination which brought all sorts of nightmares and fantasies, I drew comfort from the fact that one can overcome fear ....and Zoe epitomised it for me!

In 1969, man first set foot on the Moon, and as a 9 year old, my head was still full of space fantasies and science fiction.On television, sci fi shows were all he rage, and non more so than the shows produced by Gerry Anderson. Thunderbirds had held a generation of children spellbound by the interaction of puppets and fantastic machinery. But in UFO live actors took the place of puppets. Above is Gabriel Drake playing the role of Lt.Gay Ellis...Moonbase controller. She was the perfect successor to Zoe....I thought the future would really be like this!



Below(not in any particular order ) are the types of faces and especially Bob Cut hairstyles that always catch my eye.

Gemma Arterton(starring in the movie Saint Trinians)


Georgina Taylor..actress, appearing here in the BBC series 'Casualty'

Maria De Medieros..actress , appearing here in the movie 'Henry and June'

Phoebe Cates as seen in the movie 'Drop Dead Fred'

And last but not least, the TV, Radio presenter and journalist Anne Diamond

So there you have it. Now when you see my work and the girls that appear in the scenes, you'll know why they look the way they do....no doubt more cringe worthy posts on the subject will appear another time!

Quintadagio - 36

The wheel is starting to emerge here..I've had to redraw it a few times getting the spaces between the spokes right. Looking at the Starman and his fiddle, reminds me that tonight I have to attend a Barn Dance..a friend of Jan's having a birthday party. Will I dance?..or will I find a cosy corner by the bar?...I know which option I prefer...and it doesn't involve any 'docie - dohing' !!

Quintadagio - 35

A big achievement today was passing over and around Starman's head. I'm looking forward to working on the spokes of the wheel to the left of starman which if it turns out how I envisage it, should be quite impressive.

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Progressing well today. I really don't have a lot to say except that it was just short of six hours dotting, my eyes and neck ache after such intense working. I remember thinking that after 'Jigsaw'...I would work on something that was less work heavy. I appear to have been totally wrong. By my timings so far, I'm estimating this picture to take 300 hours + This means I'll finish some time in February!

Anonymous and indecipherable stuff...IMPORTANT NOTICE

Whilst I love receiving any comments regarding posts to Dancing for Beginners, I do not as a rule accept anonymous posts which aim to direct me or my readers to sites that promote financial products/ illicit substances or any other non related art subjects. I do receive certain comments from friends who can only post as 'Anonymous' (I know who you are by the things you write!). I also do not accept comments which are indecipherable by Microsoft or other translation devices. Recently I've had a whole crop of comments in Chinese and Japanese script...I'm sorry but I cannot read these so I won't be publishing them .If this is you and you are attempting to make a bonafide comment, I apologise'''please endeavour to translate before you post!

Quintadagio - 33

I had a comment left on my Facebook page from an old friend...actually probably one of my oldest friends. My friend Richard was the person I sat next to on my first day at infant school, and after many years, we're back in touch. Richard used to know me as (amongst other things I'm sure he could tell you) an artist even at such an early age..I have always drawn and my parents , friends and especially teachers encouraged me to follow my interest and develop my talent. Anyway, back to the comment which was basically asking how I manage to do 'this'.

This is not exactly a guide to Hyperpointillism or really how to do it..but I thought I'd show you a series of photographs steadily zooming out from one dot ( see above )....it was probably the first dot..every journey begins with one step...every one of my pictures begins with one dot.

I'm reading another book at the moment by Salley Vickers.I love her writing as it's very human and addresses many of life's bigger issues in everyday settings. In my current book 'MR. Golightly's Holiday' the main character who is an author remarks that for the artist, there is no better feeling than to hold the concept and vision of a piece of art in the mind...knowing what it will become and how it will be achieved before any mark is on the page/canvas........ I know this feeling well, and there is no more better example than this drawing. In my mind, I know what it will look like...I know what I want..and bit by bit I'm creating what I have already seen in my mind.

A group of dots become an eye...a set of eyelids...To reach even this stage I have worked on repeated sketches in my sketchbook...rejected many and decided on this...if you look back the the first posts of this piece indeed showed me scrap a previous face in favour of this... At this stage, you can probably still count how many dots I've drawn.

Moving further away you can still see the first dot...you could also at a stretch count how many dots there are...but you'll be hard pressed to count any further. I love the way that one's eye reaches a point where 1..2..3..4..becomes 'a lot' becomes 'too many to tell apart'.

This type of work is by no means easy. I've spent the last 27 years using this technique, and each time I compose and execute a work, I learn more...I push the method a little further. It is by no means quick or easy.

How many hundreds of thousands of dots are now gathered here?..certainly too many to ever count..and by now the eye loses the ability ( at least at this resolution) to differential between dots...

Over 100 hours of pure dotting have now gone into Quintadagio...I'm nearly 25% finished! ..and I'm the only one who knows what it will look like.But you can too if you come back tomorrow...and the next day...and the next........

Quintadagio - 32

The Cello Girl's face appears to be a little bleached out hear thanks to my close proximity when using the flash...today I was out for lunch with Jan, we met a couple of her friends for lunch which was an absolute treat. I marked (belatedly Saint Andrew's Day..) by ordering Haggis Neep and Tatties which was gorgeous.

For those of you who don't know what a Haggis is, I'll explain. It's a traditional Scottish dish which is a mixture of oats , barley seasoning and minced beef/lamb and onions...this is then packed into a sheep's stomach and cooked. 'Neeps' are boiled swede and 'Tatties' are potatoes.

A couple of pints of real ale hit the spot nicely. the company was splendorous and warm resulting in me making two friends, both lovely warm people.