8″ x 5″, oil on canvas.
Today’s little painting. The Cheesecake was plain and I added a hearty dollop of strawberry jam to top it off. I’m afraid the photo doesn’t show all the different colours in the creamy layer. Fun to paint!

“The first impulse towards painting, or art in general, stems from the need to communicate, the effort to fix one’s vision, to deal with appearances, otherwise the work is pointless and unjustified, Art for Art’s Sake. Art is making sense and giving shape to that sense. Art serves to establish community. It links us with others and with the things around us, in a shared vision and effort.”
The Daily Practice of Painting Gerhard Richter

I thought this was an interesting quote from Gerhard Richter, its a book I studied in art school, and it has raised some interesting questions for me about doing daily paintings and what is conveyed in those paintings, if anything. I have to admit that its the one thing that has bothered me about doing them, though I could, possiblty say that what I am communicating is about form and colour rather than the the experience being about the practice of putting paint on canvas. Maybe its because my art educatin led me to have to always justify why I did anything and that “cos I want to” just wasn’t good enough that I find myself revisiting this quote from Richter. It does raise another question, that of whether what the artist meant by a work actually matters once it is in the public gaze, because every viewer will put their own interpretation on the work. Just a thought.

A little more of Pakistan – it’s getting colder every day and men in the early mornings wrap them selves in blankets like a shawl, to keep warm. And what made me laugh was the sight of a man on a motorbike, wrapped in his blanket, with a helmet on, weaving his way through the traffic, and another on a bicycle similarly wrapped up. Some of the soldiers wear dark blue wool uniforms, the shirts are long, just above knee length, rahter like a shalwar kameez shirt, belted at the waist. Now its getting colder they are wearing British military style sweaters over the top and though it at first looks very odd, it is in fact extremely smart and rather exotic. It is rare to see a man without some form of facial hair, whether just a moustache or with a full beard which vary from neatly trimmed to longer in the Muslim tradition. Men’s clothing is surprisingly dull in colour in comparison to the women, from white through pale blue, beige to grey.