Tuesday 31st October 17:50

I had another meeting with the school today - just to tidy up loose ends, organise times..etc for the big painting...


..came home and layed up the board. The board has 3600 squares on it each one measuring 1cm - they all have to be numbered from 1 to 12 to show which shade has to be painted on that "pixel" - thankfully I have Susie coming to help me with this in the morning...

..I will then paint 1500 - 2000 of the squares and leave the rest for the children. I'll post more when I've done that.

I'm afraid "The Veil" didn't get a look in today - serves her right for being so dammned difficult!

Cheers...

Monday 30th October 17:00

...well that was a hard day's painting! This veil is going to kill me!


I'll get a bit of a break from this painting after today. In the morning I have meeting with the school and then, back in the studio, I'll be putting the school's canvas together - as I have to mark it up in a "child-proof" manner that'll take me most of the rest of the day and most of the following. I'll post it here when it's done.

Then from Thursday I have some design work to do...

..catch you soon!

Monday 30th October 06:30

Dear Diary...

..I had a very busy "family" weekend and a few graphic design meetings - I did manage to paint more of "The Veil from Hell" and when the light comes up I'll post a photograph of what I did (light was good and here she is)...

..today in the early dark hours I have been working out how to lay-up the canvas for the forthcoming school project. I have a second meeting with the school in the morning, just to tie up the loose ends.

Hopefully I'll be painting today - I can't wait for this one to be finished!!!!

Have a good Monday!

Mark HH

Friday 27th October 16:30

Busy busy day! Dropped my daughter off at "Moma's" and got home just in time for my client's photo shoot...

..it was a "first shoot" and quite a laugh. We did some shots for her family and then we did some corporate shots that she'll use for her advertising.

There is a look and style (from both me and the model) that has crept in to the black and white shots and I simply can't put my finger on it - they somehow remind me of how I remember Virginia McKenna in born free...

I managed a little more painting but I'll save that for the next time I write.

Cheers and have fun weekends!

Thursday 26th October 16:00

Half term is slowly grinding me down...

..and my dear daughter!

I don't know if it's the fact that I'm constantly in demand or this is a genuinely difficult painting - it might just get re-named "The Veil from Hell!" On the other hand it's comming together rather nicely now and I know it will be one of the best if not the best I have painted.


I'm knocking down the studio now as I have a photo-shoot to do in the morning - the lovely Claire and her nails! Don't ask - if she gives me permission I'll post a few of the shots on my web-site and might put one on the blog too...

..in the meantime have fun!

Wednedsay 25th October 05:30

More of the same...I will make my daughter another large area that she can paint today. Apart from that not much new.

Will post more later.

Tuesday 24th October 12:55

Who's training who? In a few weeks time I'll have 175 school children my daughter's age and not much older helping me with my painting!


I didn't feel so guilty about painting today as my daughter got to help me - she did really well, I only had to do a little smoothing here and there - it was fun too! I worked on the top of the painting and Becky worked down below. When I sign this one I'll have Becky put a little "bb" next to my signature...

..now for clean-up and lunch!

More later...

Tuesday 24th October 08:45

I'm not late - just busy...

..it was an 04:00 start to the day for me. Woke up, wide awake, leapt out of bed and got on with it! I think I'm making up for lost time yesterday. In the dark hours I find it impossible to paint any detail or complicated shading - so I painted a thigh and some background - simple stuff!

I want to get the dark background finished this morning - so that I can spend the whole afternoon with my daughter.

More later...

Monday 23rd October 17:15

I think I've broken my blog - I don't think I can upload anymore pictures...

..well what do you know? The pictures i wanted to upload this morning have appeared here!

Ok - great!

As for the rest of the day - it was a bit hit'n'miss like the posting of the images! I really didn't get more than a few brush strokes done...

..well, slightly more than a few - an earful!

Catch you in the morning! (and I'll format the blog after inserting the images in future...)

Monday 23rd October 06:00

The morning rush hour is about to descend on the Holland-Hicken household, where chaos reins for a short while...

..except today it will be for a little longer! Half term for my daughter...

I will try to get a little painting done when the light comes up (thank heavens for CBB's!) but more than likely I'll be stopping around lunch time today.

However I have a special painting project that I'm working on that requires quite a bit of computer work - thanks to the new "wireless" we've installed I might be able to work on the project and be with my daughter at the same time!

A little about the project...

..I have planned a special painting. It's not unique by any standards and the style has been used a zillion times before - but the execution and number of artists involved is! I've put together a painting of the "Mona Lisa" comprised of just over 2000 "pixels" or 1" squares on a canvas. On the 7th of November (by coincidence my daughter's birthday) I will be taking this canvas to my daughter's school...

(there should be a picture or two here - but I can't seem to upload today!)

..that, a hand full of brushes and 10 pots of pre mixed acrylic paints.

The plan is that during the course of one day all the children, staff, governors, dinner ladies, caretakers and even the school mascot "Teddy Robinson" will all file into the community room to paint 10 or so of the squares - at the same time my assistant and I will be hiding (with a second) canvas the previously painted squares...

..at the end of the day we should have a pretty good rendering of "Mona". I'll take it home tat night - tidy up the finger prints and spills and then it will be unveiled the following morning in a full school assembly - the theme of the assembly will be "Working together, look what we can achieve...etc"

We'll then have it photographed and a small mounted print will be made for the school to sell in the lead up to Christmas - the school does a lot of this sort of thing and has bought some fantastic kit for the kids - for instance my daughter who is just turning 5 uses a 60" projector lit touch screen to guide "virtual" characters through "counting rooms", "writing rooms" and all manner of other hi-tech learning...

..enough of that - I'll keep you informed!

Have fun - rush hour beckons...

Sunday 22nd October 17:15

...what a gloomy day we've had in here today - the light was OK for painting this morning but this afternoon was dreadful. Nonetheless I got a good deal of work done this morning and family things this afternoon.

When I'm painting I reach a point - like "The Wall" for runners ...etc. It is a point where I am often overcome with "overwhelmingly-crushing-self-doubt" and it usually happens about 2/3rds the way through a piece. It is a dreadful time where I start to think to myself "..this is never gonna fly..." - Well, today I put into practice something which I think will help me through this...

..I painted the face first, in all it's beauty. Now, as I work through the rest of the painting I'll be able to refer to this little bit and know "everything's going to be OK!"

Dinner and parenthood calls! Half term too for my daughter - that means little bits of painting here and there - and lots of computer games!!!

Cheers - hope you have fun too!

Sunday 22nd October 06:45 hrs...

..of mice and men!

My canvasses didn't arrive in the right order - so my pair of ballerinas will have to wait, I have one ballerina sitting before me and the other is still in limbo and as I want them to be a matching pair I have to paint them both at the same time.

However, I have sitting beside me "The Seventh Veil" all ready to go. A beautiful photograph taken by my friend Gabriele - and that is what I shall start today - the canvas is 1130mm x 730mm (51" x 29") - a good size, when finished the model will just look life sized! I'll be painting it all in black and white and then adding a mediteranean skin tone to it at the end...

..it will look pretty much like the photograph, apart from the fact I might just put a hint of "ski-slope" on her nose to make it slightly less "Roman"...

..I'll try to post tonight a photograph of how I've got on...

(did you notice that I didn't moan about the "blog's interface" today - I must be getting the hang of it...)

Saturday 21st Oct 07:30 hrs.

I have been up for hours and feel like I've acheived nothing. It really has been a funny morning so far - I didn't get the chance to do anything towards my next painting - it's been e-mail after e-mail after e-mail (and now this cumbersome blog - I know I'll get used to it!)

I have a dear friend who I collaborate with - in fact I use a great deal of his work as source material for my paintings - his name is Gabriele Rigon and as far as I'm concerned - no other photographer in the world can consistently produce such stunning and beautiful work as Gabriele...

..we not only help each other out artwise but we try to look out for each other commercially as well.

I have been speaking to a publisher in the south of England who has printed some of Gabriele's work on box canvas with a view to selling the prints through some of his galleries - I have to quote from an e-mail I just had from him...

"..in fact one gallery has asked me to collect some SOR stock, they were reported to the police for putting them in the window, bit drastic I know but some people have a problem with a beautiful lady showing off her body..."

..it's a funny world.

I am starting some new work today, as I mention in my biography, when I'm mixing my paints up the whole studio starts to look like a chemistry lab - I'm just about to do just that- better hide my laptop...

..more later

Well, first things first, welcome to my blog - I haven't blogged before and I'm pretty useless at keeping diaries - I am rather chatty though...

..so I guess my first day here is going to be used up setting the blog up! Why can't these things be more intuitive?

Having said that I finished this painting yesterday "Inquiète" and I'll be taking that to my local gallery for sale - they also have a few of my limited editions framed up which I will be collecting too...

Catch you later...

17:40 I knew that today was going to be a day at the computer and not weilding a paint brush! I had so much admin to do that it took over, that's the problem when I do paint - I am so focused that everything else slips, for instance I managed to get my car re-insured by a matter of just a few hours!

In the meantime I have a groan - the workings of theis blog are rubbish - so damned difficult to use - and I was a technologist for the last 15 years!

The best thing is the admin is now out of the way and my canvas is ready, sketched and primed for my next painting - I'll be up at 04:00 or so fo r a quick coffee and a smoke or two, I'll have my paints mixed by daylight and I'll get some work up on the blog..

cheers...(or is it cul8tr - that's why the site is so f11ck1ng 5h173 - 17'5 d3sgn1ged by k1d5 th47 74lk l1k3 th15 on their mobiles all the time!!!!!)

..see you in the morning