Gavin McDermott

This was ostensibly a collection of his early work at the Ashmolean in Oxford. However, it was the big, literally heavy metal ‘paintings’ which really grabbed me, and I’ve been thinking about metal ever since…

Listening to Mathew Syed’s Radio 4 Sideways show about the passage of time and inevitable decay got me thinking about (amongst other things) my ‘fondness’ for the pastoral ruins of paintings by Claude. Obviously, there’s the incredible light and the ‘pastoral’ nature–these aren’t untamed wildernesses, and people never feel too far away. Instead, there’s a lovely sensation of nature being close, and of the possibility of things reverting to a more natural state if simply ‘left’, wood and stone, rather than plastic and concrete.

I was thinking about what best to seal a collage with… Specifically, I was wondering about an acrylic on canvas + collage (paper stuck with PVA)—and if Mod Podge still my best bet to seal as a top layer?

There was/is quite an eclectic mix at The Higgins in Bedford, but the thing which stayed with me after this particular visit was a reproduction of A Portrait of the Artist as Shadow of His Former Self by Kerry James Marshall

Although I could give this the alternative title of Pictures of People I’m Reading Stuff By. It was quite a thing to realise that some great writers actually discover what they’re thinking and what they know by doing

Good old trusty pencil…

I have been quite taken with Queen Eleanor in Stony Stratford for years (and it wasn’t too hard to track down the artist Luke aka Chiba Creative).

Not boys from… No, I mean charcoal