August 13th 1973

“Bludy hot. Done Hawkwind painting + but then. Andy G came up in afternoon”

I mentioned a few days ago about my attempt at painting, conjuring up the lousy excuse that I didn’t have a camera to photograph my 1973 art all these 36 years later.

Well with a new (albeit refurbished) camera suitably snagged from Olympus Auctions , here’s part one of the twinned TRO artwork “but then” mentioned today…

I say “part one” because – yes – I was pretentious enough in the seventies to have imagined a PAIR of paintings. Unfortunately, the second in this ‘series’ appears to have disappeared in the mists of time, a little upsetting as the two represented ‘before and after’ images of my painted ‘universe’. It showed some of the planets and solar systems seen here exploding in further flashes of gaudy poster paint.

Yes, poster paint. I was “old school”. Actually, I was too cheap to buy oil paint. Bit of a shame really, for – as can be seen from the photo – the artwork has not stood up to the multi-decade rigours of being thrown about in the back of closets and moving vans very well. The surface is all scratched to hell and the colours have started to deteriorate in several areas.

But its nice to still have as a reminder of when I was vaguely artistic.

The other “Hawkwind” painting I can remember, although it too appears to have been discarded along life’s journey. It was based on Barney Bubbles‘ logo for the band. I didn’t mention the name “hawkwind” but styled the double-headed – erm – “hawk” into something even more trippy in a splash of greens and reds.

One day it will appear on “Antiques Roadshow” as a multi-million pound ‘attic’ discovery.

Or not.

Advertisement