the answer is still no

Russian style

Faye channels a part from Doctor Zhivago.

Who's a lonely pony....

Which led me to the sinister reflection that a horse that rides no shadow carries a cruel companion.

tarragonsmith.com

Try Not To Complain

An oil pastel I had the whim to make a few nights ago.  The lips are on the reverse side of the translucent film I used.

tarragonsmith.com

sketch for the Kiss of Judas

Tarragon made this large sketch - it's almost life size - in preparation for a finished oil painting depicting the final embrace of Judas and Jesus. Inspired in part by late medieval painting, especially Burgundian gothic, he portrayed the figures in contemporary dress. The idea was that didactic imagery should not be embellished with fancy dress that could only distract the viewer from the story.

The finished painting appeared in the Canadian painting competition, the Kingston Prize, and is now in a private collection.

Waverley Abbey in the Setting Evening

Waverley Abbey at Night

Drawing these few pictures reinforced to me that you can always tell the original from the folly.

There's some background information and a related drawing by Romney here.

Coming back late to Compton

K's Plants

Sisters and Brothers Come Together

Daughter of a Memorialist

A recent drawing by Tarragon:

One can find this image in a poem, or perhaps the poem finds the image:

In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
Will commit that indiscretion.

It's by Ezra Pound, from his earlier period that was still imbued with the self-aware and cautionary dissatisfaction characteristic of artists in the Edwardian period. Soon enough Pound would shift from warnings to denunciations.

As for Tarragon, he too is concerned with the problems of inheritance. It must be very wearing to grow up in the shadow of the great artist; everyone would prefer to be spoken to for him or herself, not their breeding. It is, however, a problem that is nobody's fault.

Young Beauty ruminates on excess.

The last of the blossoms

I drew this in Victoria park. Blossoms were falling into my water jar and chasing babies across the fields. Work on Victoria park commenced sometime in the 1840s and took several decades to complete, perhaps because it was in a part of town that the Queen rarely visited. It sits on the north side of the Regents Canal and is probably one of the nicest places to live in London; to live by that is.

The price of property in now far beyond the reach of those for whom the park was originally built, but that's the way love goes. If I am in no rush I commute along the canal to get to my studio in Bow. The canal is built up slightly above the park and affords a vantage point of, say, a twelve foot tall person. It's very pleasant.

Young Beauty Prepares To Go Out

Young Beauty Applies The Rules Of Science

Esther, the beauty pageant winner

Actually this is just a picture of a young beauty combing her hair. But as it happens the model's name is Esther, named after the winner of the first ever recorded beauty pageant (according to the Old Testament, although it is possible that Helen has priority).

The historical Esther had the good fortune to live a happy and carefree life with the pharaoh in his big house with many servants. As is often the case, her old family unit weighed heavy on her conscience and strained her relationship with her husband. From his point of view it was a classic case of "not-the-inlaws-again". As I said, this has nothing to do with my picture.

Bamboo at Kew Gardens

This picture reminds me of an Ito Shinsui print of a sexy woman trying to eat a firefly. Her fan doubles as a big moon on the horizon and triples as a light reflector placed conveniently for the photographer who is tired of young idols who just want to eat insects.
Most photographers aspire to something more respectable, jobs for National Geographic and the like. This is why painters are sensitive about photographers.

Young Beauty Waits To Be Unzipped

Colour

The insects all ran off.

Slumber On

If Tissot had the convenience of the Eurostar at the turn of the century he probably would be too preoccupied sketching women of uninvolved virtue stepping between sliding doors to notice this barn ensconced in snow, but it would be there. Is this something Tissot should regret? I doubt it. And if one hundred years ago the snow fell for even a day longer per year than it does now, he would be stuck in London anyway.