Abstract and Modern Art Paintings Blog

I’m sorry, I’ll say that again…

Posted by Swarez on January 28, 2010  |  1 Comment

Forgetting the food for just a moment, there are plenty of reasons to loathe the fast food hamburger chains. Poorly trained staff, unhealthy products and garishly decorated ‘restaurants’ are just three of the gripes on my ever growing list of hate. If there are any signs of a positive future for these companies it lies in the food, which is irresistible when you want something quick, warm and overflowing with carbohydrates. The lure of a double cheeseburger and fries makes us act like moths around a saturated fat light bulb.

The Bipolar Polar Bear

Posted by Swarez on January 24, 2010  |  No Comments

It’s long been documented that artists and the creative amongst our society are quite often as mad as a box of frogs. Well, by this I mean that they carry personality traits that are synonymous with certain categories of mental illness, a term that’s as harsh as it is broad.

I feel uneasy with carrying a label that an unsympathetic society has given me in order to appease itself or place me in a box marked ‘fruit cake’. I know myself better than anyone and prefer to think of being bipolar as a heightened level of awareness. Unfortunately this also brings a greater depth of emotion which swings from one extreme to the other, almost always born out of what’s going on around me more-so than things I can ever generate in my head. Behaviour breeds behaviour.

New Drip Painting in progress

Posted by Swarez on January 20, 2010  |  4 Comments

It’s been a while since I have had the motivation to get painting again. I haven’t been short of ideas – simply short on desire. Thankfully though I now have my creative head on again and have been working on this latest piece. It is the first time I have worked on a piece of unprimed canvas cloth. As i paint on the floor I have noticed that a lot of paint has gone straight through onto the carpet underneath which looks pretty cool!

Get Rich Now? – I don’t think so!

Posted by Swarez on January 18, 2010  |  3 Comments

Swarez says NO to get rich quick schemes

The saddest thing about those internet sites that claim to be able to offer you guaranteed incomes of £20k per month is that very often the PDF that gets sent to your inbox, after you’ve paid $50 into an account in the Caymen Islands, is, in fact, another booklet on how to get rich quick. It isn’t actually any secret at all. There never is any secret system to earn a fortune. It’s another con by a pyramid marketeer who cons all the of the people below him to believe that if they play their part in attracting would be desperado fortune-seekers they too will see their incomes rise majestically towards the stratosphere. Oh dear oh dear, you gullible twats.

Was Jim Clark the Greatest Racing Driver?

Posted by Swarez on January 18, 2010  |  2 Comments

During a recent conversation with a friend of mine about great historic racing cars and the drivers that made them great we came upon the legend that is Jim Clark. It was always going to be difficult coming up with a top ten, there are so many great names and marques to choose from. It should have been no surprise that Jim Clark featured so highly on both our lists, especially considering how many career highlights he had before his untimely death.

The World’s Best Ever Newspaper Headline?

Posted by Swarez on January 14, 2010  |  8 Comments

We can all remember at least two or three interesting newspaper headlines from years gone by but few have the shock value of this one. If the editors had used something a little less descriptive perhaps it wouldn’t have had the impact that it did. If ever there was a knockout hook then this is it. I doubt we would ever get away with that in the this country. The famous “Freddie Starr ate my hamster” headline seems tame by comparison.

Penguins of the Apocalypse – what was I thinking?

Posted by Swarez on January 11, 2010  |  1 Comment

Sooner or later I’m bound to talk about paintings, it’s inevitable. However, I tend to see the process of creating art in a slightly absurd and warped perspective. This has been demonstrated perfectly during the creation of Penguins of the Apocalypse, the painting you see attached to this post. It is an interestingly titled work isn’t it? I may like to point out that I didn’t begin by imagining a line of penguins wandering meaninglessly through a nuclear holocaust – that would make me just plain weird. The question beckons though: What was I thinking?

The curse of the self-serve checkout

Posted by Swarez on January 10, 2010  |  10 Comments

The curse of the Self-Service Checkout

I’ve been a life-long hater of checkout queues. Even two or three people is enough to send me into a head shaking frenzy of disgust, often accompanied by a “..for God’s sake”, muttered loudly enough for people to turn round and stare. So it was with initial joy and happiness that I came upon that saviour of all mankind – the self-service checkout. I marvelled at her shiny stainless steel weighing scale, the excitement of her touch screen LCD, the  sultry way she invited me to “place my items on the scale”. It seemed as if the queue haters dreams had come true… or so it seemed.

Why I look like Gollum in the mornings

Posted by Swarez on January 9, 2010  |  7 Comments

Swarez looking like Gollum

Life can be irritating when you haven’t got hair. On the face of it this may seem like an ambiguous statement – after all, I don’t spend an hour each morning glued to my Nicky Clarke straighteners, nor do I wander aimlessly up and down the supermarket aisles searching for anti-frizz conditioning serums. No, far from it, all I really need to do is to extend my face washing routine upwards by six inches and Voila! Oddly though, that’s not quite where the story ends…

Cold weather blues

Posted by Swarez on January 8, 2010  |  9 Comments

On days when the temperatures fall off the Kelvin scale I get particularly jittery about my paintings. In part this is due to the fact that my home studio (nee sieve, as it leaks like one) is about ten feet from the backdoor of the house and not IN it. I have none of the comforts of home even though I’m so close to it. Despite my best efforts to keep the warmth in and the continental ice shelf out  my efforts are always in vain. The ice wins every time.