Rapunzel - a fairy tale painting in progress

 It's that time of year when family commitments mean that I don't get into the studio - or out in the field - much, and so it's been a little frustrating having a part-finished large work lurking in the studio.

Rapunzel is, of course, the well-know Brothers Grimm fairy tale. And it was a bit grim for the prince - when his night-visiting antics had been discovered by the witch, he got thrown down the tower into the thorns, which must have broken his fall because his only injury (a cruel one) seems to have been the loss of his eyesight.

This wasn't the end of the tale; he later recognises his love by the sound of her voice - she and her baby were turned out of the tower to roam the forest - and the little family lived happily ever after in the prince's court.

This image is not finished yet, and with the Artikinesis exhibition at Blake's Lock coming up less than a fortnight after the schools go back, it may be October before I raise a paintbrush at the prince and the tower again.

Streets Wide and Narrow

I've never been to Dublin, so I placed Molly Malone in a generic cobbled street... and then they sort of acquired a graffti'd look.

Skewball

Last weekend I went to Newbury Races (mainly for the sake of the fibreglass horse statue that we painted at the school). There is clearly a modern influence on my picture of this C18th racehorse.

I knew the rather fanciful Peter Paul and Mary song (Skewball was a racehorse/And I wish he was mine/He never drank water/He only drank wine). Then I discovered the False Lights song of the same name; it was a completely differert song. It was one of several broadsheet ballads that spoke of the wonders of this horse.

I used bits out of several of these songs.

Whack for my daddy-o

Whisky in The Jar. In a jar. More or less. As popularised by Thin Lizzy...