Ceci n'est pas un piment

The upcoming group exhibition at the Espace d'Art is on the theme of Surrealism, Dada and Fluxus. My painting is a take on René Magritte's infamous Ceci n'est pas une pipe which features a realistic rendition of a pipe suspended in mid-air with those words painted underneath. The idea being that, rather than an actual pipe that you can fill with tobacco and smoke, it is in fact a mere representation of a pipe.

As followers of my blog will already know, chillies have recently become a favourite subject of mine. So while it is not a particularly original idea (just search Google Images for Ceci n'est pas...), I thought it was rather neat that the French word for 'chilli' starts with the same two letters as 'pipe' which gave me the added dimension of a play on words.

Acrylic on canvas board, 41x33cm 

Misty Beach

A sea mist drove us off the beach and onto the boardwalk at La Franqui, from where I did a quick watercolour. It wasn't quite as deserted as I have depicted it but I'm not very good at people so I decided to leave it.

Stargazer Lily

Watercolour from one of my own photographs. For my friend Laughing Anna's birthday. Off to the party now!

Millgate Centre

This is a view of my home village of Delph that I first painted 20 years ago. The Millgate Centre houses the public library and Saddleworth Players amateur dramatics society.

Red Chillies in a Jar

Another in the chilli series. Bird's eye view of some big dried red chillies in a thick glass jar. Watercolour with a bit of pen and ink.

Garlic Bulb

Coloured-pencil sketch on Ingres paper.

Orange Chillies

A parcel arrived in the post the other day, packed with dried chillies of all shapes and sizes, colours ranging from palest yellow through burnt orange and garnet red to dark brown. All the way from Devon. Now shipping chillies from England to the south of France sounds a bit like carrying coals to Newcastle... but here in the foothills of the Pyrenees they are a rarity. And apart from liking spicy food, I've found that they are a perfect still life subject.

Here are my first two line and wash drawings of one of the varieties.

Dried Chillies

A quick watercolour sketch of some papery, shrivelled up chillies, last year's crop left to dry out on the plant.

Pink Garlic

I realised it was almost a year since my last post. Just to show I haven't been completely idle in the art department, here is a drawing I did in February. Pen and ink and coloured pencil on Ingres paper.