December 2016

2nd: Just over a week to go! This has been an interesting little adventure. For some it may seem a simple thing, nevertheless when you are new to something.....So next Saturday (the 10th) bring along your best colouring skills and join in the fun.

November 2016

19th: Had a message pop on th phone yesterday. As I can only ever seem to be spammed I thought best just quickly delete it. Yurns out it was deposit from Art Lovers 1932! Apparently I had won a prize in their annual art competition. owing to a variety of reasons I was completely clueless. I had entered and then life just took over. It's the second time that this had happened. First time was in 2008 with the Sasol New Signatures.

15th: had a quick squiz of my entry for the 2nd. My evaluation? Rubbish, and so have edited.

2nd : Well whats been happening? Had a trip over to the UK. Mostly spent my time in a kitchen. Managed to escape for a weekend to London. Went and saw the Turner prize finalist's. What did I think? Ummmmmmm, what a load of Kak. I can only suggest that this reaction is because I am getting old, and plus I have spent too much time in the Sun , This of course means that my brain has been fried to the point of which I can no longer lie to myself by finding some deeper meaning in something that is patently not there.

Anyway being working on a portrait of Moira Forjaz. It has taken some months to organise but I have finally been able to get there. The above pic is just a little snap of the final images.

September 2016

2nd September: A pinch and a punch for a whole month missed. A whole month of intentions and plans but not much moving forward. At least with Spring in the air the itch to be pro active is starting to be intolerable. First things first, and a first for me. I have decided to self publish my colouring book. Unfortunately as it is not a real book, as in a novel or some such other, I don't qualify for an ISBN no. Bustards. I had high aspirations. But anyway, got myself the next best thing, a proper, registered, it is so legit that they give you a certificate to tell you that it is a legit, barcode. So yip I am now the proud owner of barcode.

July 2016

A page from the "Rainbow Nation"

20th July: Well there is just over a week to go till the final judging happens for this years Sasol New Signatures. I have to admit that while it is really cool to be selected for the final show, it would be nice to be given an award. But as a friend of mine said, 'your work is too subtle',

Great news from this years Turbine Art Fair. Heidi Erdmann from The Photographers Gallery ZA took some of my work along and got plenty of sales.

A couple of weeks ago I popped over to Hermanus to meet up with Lawrence Brennon. He is a photographer that has been developing the photopolymere technique. This all fits into my wider scheme of looking to use plates to print my photographs and not inkjet printers.

June 2016

Sasol New Signatures 2016 Entry

29th June: Another year another Sasol! That makes it six on the bounce. Almost had a complete and utter disaster on my hands but luckily things turned out alright in the end. Ok so the pic up above does not look like much, but most of the work is in the little books that are sat on the plinths. These are mindfulness colouring books with a twist.

Copper Plate being prepared.

2nd: Last week I finished off my internship at Warren Editions. With all that I had hoped to do it was over with a bit too soon. But hopefully I am going to be able to use the studio on an ongoing basis. I am really keen to master the photo gravure printing process. But seeing how difficult it is to prepare a plate, I guess for the moment I will just have to be happy with getting it right. The polishing of the plates is in itself a tricky process. If you get tiny, unwanted scratches at any stage of the process, you are looking at starting all over again. A task that I think that if the Greek Gods were really looking to punish Sisyphus, they would have chosen this one. Pushing a rock up a mountain only to see it roll back down, and repeat for eternity? Easy. Prepare a plate for photogravura, it's going to drive up the wall.

April 2016

So, I open up the blogger page today and I get some warning about some or other EU directive about warning EU residents about cookies and third parties and what not's. So in true Bernard Black style I am going to not enlighten myself, plead ignorance and say, there, that's my warning to you if you are a EU visitor. Got it? Splendid!

News? started an internship at Warren Editions. Not much to say other than I have just started this week. I am hoping that over the coming weeks I will be edging closer to being able to produce my own photogravures. First though I have to master the art of preparing a plate.

February 2016

Jack Ass

11th: So here we are in a new year and a new town. Over the Xmas holidays we packed up everything, baby bath and all and made the great trek down to Cape Town. And so now here we are busy rebuilding. Things are slowly getting there, for me though there is the question of a studio space. So while we have sorted out the space to live now comes the time to sort out a studio. Part of that journey may mean that I just make do with short term solutions.

Meanwhile the above pic is of one of the fab penguins to be found on Bolders Beach. I am busyputting together a piece of work for Intoto Gallery for their Fin Feather Fur exhibition.