I recently discovered that my website had featured in the design magazine “Smashing”. They were launching a design competition and used (among others) mattbrownart.com as an example of the sort of thing the judges were looking for. Thanks guys.

It’s interesting watching the ripple effect that ensues whenever a high-profile website briefly turns its spot light in my direction. Firstly, this site received a spike in visitors. Sales of my art increased slightly and I also received a higher volume of spam - (due to my email being cited on my contact page).

Interestingly, a number of other sites referenced me within a short space of time, each creating their own rivulets of traffic. Were these related to the Smashing article? Who knows. But my Alexa rank climbed more a million places as a consequence.

Amusingly, I briefly became the most prominent Matt Brown according to Google, topping the list of my namesakes. Since I have a common name, it’s a tough and competitive league. Even though we never communicate, I’m sure my Matt Brown doppelgangers, some of which include a politician, a musician, a major-league baseball player, a Lord, a professor, an actor and a self-proclaimed vampire, keep tabs just like I do.

After all, several of us seem to depend upon the internet for a large portion of our income. And even more of us have careers that involve a public profile. So far, no-one has climbed to the rank of super-stardom, so unlike the Steven Spielberg league, there’s still everything to play for.

To my knowledge, there are no Matt Brown world-leaders, Hollywood leading men, Nobel laureates or criminal masterminds. So that top spot is always up for grabs. But sooner or later, one of us is going to win out…

My latest painting is a large double-canvas picture of a peacock feather. The peacock feather seems to be a reoccurring motif in my work.

But finishing a painting and prepping it for sale are two different things entirely. I want to present the picture nicely. I want to show it in the kind of environment it might end up in. But getting this piece up online has proven to be most difficult. Notice how the two canvases in this mock-up picture don’t quite match. It isn’t because I’ve painted it wrong, but because everytime I photograph them (seperately), I get my angles wrong. It’s driving me nutso!

Attempt one:
Taking each canvas outside by the sea and in the sunlight. Madeline holds each one as I wrestle with the wind, pin back my hair and try to take a photo. Result: The perspective is off, and there’s too much glare from the sun.

Attempt two:
Ambient light from inside the house. Result: Not light enough. Blurry images. Colours dim.

Attempt three:
Scanning the picture in, bit by bit on my tiny A4 scanner, and fitting it together on Photoshop like a jigsaw. Result: Hours of fiddling; havin to rotate each bit by a degree or two; impossible to get the canvas flush flat on the scanner bed. Pulling hair out.

Attempt four:
Canvases on floor. Halogen light pinned to the doorframe. Stood wobbling on a chair overhead trying to take a picture. Result: Disappointing. Colours dim.

I’m returning to the scanned jigsaw method. As fiddly as it is, the colours and contrast are correct. The picture above is one of my Photoshop creations. I’m quite pleased with the lighting effects and the wallpaper etc. It’ll be much bigger when it’s finished.

Next to do…
Design a website to showcase painting. When people type “Peacock Feather” into Google, I want my site to come up No.1. How best to go about this I do not know.

Ho Hum! I just want to paint.

Here’s my latest picture. Prints will be up for sale in the next couple of days…

Drawing with confidence – the type of confidence where you trust in your hand’s ability to create the line you see in your mind - is an incredibly difficult skill to master. My current style is somewhat scribbley. With practice, this will improve. But it’s interesting to observe the lines of hesitation and the compulsion to go over the contour once, twice, three times.

It betrays something of my thoughts too. Like handwriting (and mine is awful, by the way). Currently, my style of drawing is not as fluid as it could be. There is a brittleness that comes from neglect. Not to worry. These are things that can be learned and relearned.

Presently I’m taking great pleasure in learning about human anatomy. The construction of the human figure. Being able to understand the mechanics and the form seems to be a step up from simply drawing what you see.

At the other end, if understanding is gained, I think there is probably a balance to be achieved, since not every human figure follows the same precise formula of proportion and muscle tone. However, like all English teachers tell you – once you master the rules of grammar you can bend or break them with an authority that says “this was not an accident”.

A few days ago, I was in conversation about how we all seem to “tune out” various objects, people and happenings from our vision. Selective blindness, I suppose. One of my habitual blindspots is the electric toothbrush in our bathroom. I know it’s there. It’s where it always is. But about twice a week it’ll take me a full minute of staring before I can locate it right under my very nose.

A little later, I was perusing a blog, and the blogger in question mentioned a curious hobby � collecting individual playing cards she finds left in the street.

Since she was told about the strange phenomenon, she’s been finding discarded aces, queens and jacks all over the place.

Pah! I thought. Who discards a single playing card? And just how many card-carrying, street-wandering litterbugs can there possibly be?

Sure enough, later that same day I was walking down the street when something caught my eye in the gutter…

What the…?

Perhaps I, too, can build up an entire deck of crumpled, mismatched cards. What will happen when I complete the set? Will a strange, poker-faced wizard pop out from a bush and challenge me to a magical game of Texas Hold’em? Will I gain access to an unearthly secret society? Who knows?

In the meantime, I think I’ll try and see if the same principle works for ten-pound notes. So keep an eye out for any flittering across the pavement. If it works, and you become filthy rich, just remember who it was who lifted your veil of selective blindness.

Clicking on the old Firefox icon…

As of March 2007, that’s how one in four of us enter the Web. So what does that little Firefox icon mean to us? Well. It can mean anything:

• Surfing
• Shopping
• Music
• Emails
• Research
• Chatting
• Work…

It’s our gateway into the world’s collaborative fairground of cyber delights – our friend the internet. So as an icon, it’s absolutely loaded with layers of imagery and meaning.

What emotions can it trigger? Sometimes it symbolises fun, after a hard day’s graft or, like Solitaire, a guilty pleasure, grabbed when we should be working. Combined with mild addiction, (in my case an obsession with my website statistics) it’ll trigger a buzz, a little rush of endorphins. Who’s been watching my site? How many pictures have I sold today?

Of course, that can also turn into disappointment – why haven’t they replied yet? Why is my site down? Why’s it going so slow?

What it means to you, however, is an entirely different kettle of javascript variables.

But there’s no denying it… Just a handful of pixels and yet so many possibilities. Icons are perhaps one of the most potent forms of imagery of our time.

Yesterday I was merrily framing my pictures, and marvelling at the power of my beautiful staple gun.

Wow! Isn’t it great? I thought, oh-so-innocently. Look at it go!

There were a couple of awkwardly-placed knots in the wood. Any of my previous staple guns would have melted in my hands, but not this little fella. What a hero.

PA-CHUNG! — straight through one knot.

PA-CHUNG! — straight through another.

PA-CHUNG! — straight through my thumb!

Oucho galacticus, that hurts! The little fella bit me! He bit me, the little—

I stop and stare for a while, marvelling at the staple now puncturing my nail, and what feels like my bone.

I almost don’t want to take it out. Just looking at it makes me feel queasy. But I know it’s going to get a whole lot worse. I mean, at least there’s no blood yet.

I pick up my pliers; choose some appropriate expletives, and bite my lip…

At first, it won’t budge. Gosh. It must really have dug in deep, the pesky critter. The unavoidable wiggling is sore as I apply more pressure.

It’s coming. Ooooh! Hmmph!

And now the rush to the bathroom to stem the twin geysers that have sprung from my beloved opposable digit.

After twenty minutes or so, the bleeding seems to be under control. And here’s the result…

A pair of near-invisible puncture wounds is the only clue that anything happened. And the painful throbbing of course.

The annoying thing is, I was only half way through my work. It took me hours to finish, one thumb short.

Here’s the dastardly culprit…

Hopefully, my thumb won’t turn black and fall off. Oh the perils of being an artist. I don’t know how I put up with it!

I’m sorry for the recent silence. It seems I’ve had absolutely no time for writing these past weeks. I have been rather busy though, don’t worry.

Here’s my latest painting. Mmm. Strawberry. Again, this is a departure from my usual style. However, I’m studying the effects of light as it interacts with surrounding objects.

The painting is a mixed media painting (acrylic and glazes) on canvas, mounted on natural fibre board, and is approx. 7.5″ x 8.5″.

Whilst I may have sketched and drawn ‘things’ in the past, this effort is probably my first ever attempt at doing a proper painting of a ‘thing’.

Certainly it’s the first time since using poster paints at school. Why have I chosen to stray from the jagged purple splodge that represents the path of an abstract artist? Well, it’s because I feel I need to study light.

Light falls on objects. It interacts with them in strange and curious ways. As well as creating two-dimensional patterns of colour and form, I often intend to fill my abstract pictures with light; to create an illuminated three dimensional abstract space.

The problem is, these pictures are coming from my head, and so I have nothing on which to base my perception of light and shade than my own feelings. My whim.

On top of that, painting is still unfamiliar to me.

If I were painting an object I could perceive where the light falls, where it reflects and where it diffuses. I need to gain a better understanding of the properties of light, so that when I come to paint imaginary objects, they are accompanied by an accurate imaginary light-source.

So here we go. It’s a garlic bulb, by the way!

It is a mixed media painting (acrylic and glazes) on canvas, mounted on natural fibre board, and is approx. 6″ x 9″

I’m discovering the wonders of glazes and how they can catch the light in fascinating ways.

I also like the act of mixing thick, creamy paint. It’s like being back at primary school. Up to my arms in reds and blues. Getting messy. Can’t beat it.

I’m falling in love.

It is a mixed media painting (acrylic and glazes) on canvas, mounted on natural fibre board, and is approx. 6″ x 8.5″