My painting XLIV

As at 23.12.08

Here as promised to myself (on target, on time though decidedly not under budget), at the end of 2008, is the first complete working of my picture. It stands like a newspaper chess problem awaiting some crucial endgame strategy. Like the Good News President I have to be black as well as white and make all the moves. So my new year's resolution is resolution itself: farewell to faintheartedness; dithering adieu.

Happy New Year to my shadow readers and as Yogi Berra said, if you see a fork in the road ahead, take it. Watch this space; things may proceed quite quickly as of now.

My painting XLIII

As at 16.12.08

The moment approaches when the whole surface of the picture will be finally activated. As in that last adjustment of a camera's viewfinder the entire image will suddenly be in focus and only then will I really know, without the distraction of untreated areas, what I shall have to do by way of revision and adjustment. I should reach this point by Christmas. Excitement and anxiety are mounting in tandem.

My painting XLII

As at 5.12.2008

The scale of the bit-to-do-today, my giornato (see My painting XXVIII), has remained constant. At this stage of the picture, however, its size in proportion to the remaining area to be worked has increased enormously. At the outset, a year and a half ago, a section of fifteen or so square inches was little more than one four hundredth of the surface that lay ahead. Now, having (albeit deliberately) painted myself into a corner, each day's work is less than a tenth of what remains to be done. Soon it will be a fifth, then a half and then arrive at its own odd singularity. Which makes for nervous days. At that point the whole of the picture will be reopened and liable to revisits and revisions: the rules will change.