The Grotto

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Pstotto
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The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:06 pm

From what has been found that has so far survived, cave paintings top the list.

'The last Supper' by Da Vinci needs constant meddling with after only 500 years compared to 30,000.

Presumably 'the photographic' and 'depth of field' and 'image resolution' were still the facts of realism way back 30,000years ago because those are pictorial matter-of-facts.

We don't know if the cave paintings weren't nightclub scenes behind a bar.

We don't know to what extent the surfaces on which the paintings were made and the pictorial worlds around them, were contemplated-as-image with all the subtlety of current photographic knowledge.

I have been lucky to survey the history of art, mostly through books and also at first-hand in the making of pictures.

I've been working on a painting in the garden on and off for about 15 years.

This year I decided to bring it into the flat.

Each year I imagine I can finish it.

It's very difficult to make because it requires a lot of imagining.

I go for months without looking at it and being off it.

I've decided just to work on it until the end, whatever.

Even if it take 40 years, it's a project.

'The Grotto' Jan 2021.

The Grotto.jpg
The Grotto.jpg (611.48 KiB) Viewed 3752 times
Last edited by Pstotto on Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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huw.Y.WattfromWare
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Re: The Grotto

Post by huw.Y.WattfromWare » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:12 pm

Is that it’s limits or a portion. It keeps you looking. I love it.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Aclaret » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:15 pm

If anyone can, you can Pstotto. I remember seeing your artwork of Turf Moor perhaps a year ago. You have a great talent.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Wellsy1882 » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:17 pm

What is it
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Pstotto
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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:20 pm

I don't know what it is because I haven't seen the picture finished.

It will be something unknown.

This is my 'Star Wars' or 'Star Trek' or 'Lost in Space', a journey into fantastical imaginings.
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Aclaret
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Re: The Grotto

Post by Aclaret » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:25 pm

I know nothing about art, what do you need to do to finish it, cant you call it finished now......or what about leaving it as it is and calling it ' Unfinished in the Grotto'

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Re: The Grotto

Post by tarkys_ears » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:26 pm

Have you got a high resolution/bigger version?

Pstotto
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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:29 pm

Nightclubs etc. often have fake exotic interiors however there's the realism of it being a backdrop to life and also its fantastical nature is closer to the truth of our existence on the skin of a ball of molten metal in outer space.

When one leaves the nightclub and the silence and ringing hits, the world just been can always claim mystic status even if it is fake.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:30 pm

It's a real picture 4ft x 6ft.

Resolution-to-form is the intended finish.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Buxtonclaret » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:38 pm

I really like that, Pstotto. 8-)

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Aclaret » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:42 pm

The more you look at it, the more it drags you in.
I guess that's what you call a work of art.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Rileybobs » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:47 pm

Very impressive.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Marney&Mee » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:56 pm

You’ve missed a bit Pstotto
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Re: The Grotto

Post by The Enclosure » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:57 pm

It would make a great jigsaw puzzle, a very difficult one mind.
The more you look at the painting and the more your eyes are drawn to it ,it's pretty impressive and if I was you I would leave it well alone now.
Last edited by The Enclosure on Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Pstotto
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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:00 pm

There's some way to go to match the synesthesia of Action Transfers.
Last edited by Pstotto on Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Pstotto
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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:02 pm

It's like a jigsaw puzzle, trying to finish it, because there are different levels of detail which constitute different forms and the extremity of the vision can't be got back.

It's a bit like a matrix and getting all the bits in the right place.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by bfcjg » Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:20 pm

Love it I think really good art is something the average person cannot do this is one of those pieces. This could be the one Pstotto that gets you famous if that is what you want.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by huw.Y.WattfromWare » Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:31 pm

I’d take advice. You could reach a point where you feel you can’t stop. That it is never exactly what you are looking for and in the process you could ruin what is very special.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Peter Loo » Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:42 pm

All right I suppose but hardly a masterpiece is it :D

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Claretlad » Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:46 pm

Alberto Burri,eat your heart out.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by WalkdenClaret » Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:38 pm

Very nice Stotto, I'm with Aclaret, it draws you in and makes you wonder, ask questions.

I've no idea about art, other than liking what I like. Looking at this, it makes me think you're channelling a bit of Guernica, and a bit of the geometry of Joaquín Torres-García / Bridget Riley. Which I'm trawling now, so cheers, Stotto.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by huw.Y.WattfromWare » Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:47 pm

WalkdenClaret wrote:
Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:38 pm
Very nice Stotto, I'm with Aclaret, it draws you in and makes you wonder, ask questions.

I've no idea about art, other than liking what I like. Looking at this, it makes me think you're channelling a bit of Guernica, and a bit of the geometry of Joaquín Torres-García / Bridget Riley. Which I'm trawling now, so cheers, Stotto.
Strange you should go Spanish. I thought bits of Dali and bits of Gaudi.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by scouseclaret » Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:00 am

Pstotto wrote:
Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:20 pm
I don't know what it is because I haven't seen the picture finished.

It will be something unknown.

This is my 'Star Wars' or 'Star Trek' or 'Lost in Space', a journey into fantastical imaginings.
I don’t care what it is, but it’s visually stunning, which to me is all art needs to be.
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Re: The Grotto

Post by JohnMac » Sun Jan 24, 2021 9:15 am

I rarely have a clue what you are on about but enjoy your posts nevertheless.

That is very impressive!

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Nonayforever » Sun Jan 24, 2021 10:20 am

Hi Pstotto,

Vulgar question - would you consider selling it ?

Pstotto
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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Sun Jan 24, 2021 10:38 am

The picture is only half finished, it's a work in progress.

A picture can be left at any time, because there's still the pictorial of what's there.

However I still have ambitions for it, as I see more of what it can be.

If somebody offered me a million for it, I'd quit.
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Pstotto
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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Sun Jan 24, 2021 10:39 am

It is actually a bit like Gaudi's original entrance to the Sagrada Familia, but it's not intentional.

Pstotto
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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Sun Jan 24, 2021 10:59 am

Garden picture 2 web.jpg
Garden picture 2 web.jpg (498.92 KiB) Viewed 2933 times
This was what it was like before I brought it into the house.

It was falling apart so I had to reinforce most of the picture with expanding foam, so it took on a completely different look, almost like the primitive arches of Parc Guell by Gaudi.

I had no option but to change it otherwise I would have lost the picture to the elements, so now it's a different picture altogether, but I'm still using the same rationale for making it, which is that every part of the picture can be form representative because 2D shape represents 3D form, according to perspective geometry.

StuffyClaret
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Re: The Grotto

Post by StuffyClaret » Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:36 am

It seems to me that the final outcomes of this imagery could be extremely diverse. I can see a route whereby the final image could resemble some kind of enchanted garden but on the other hand I can see an image that would be akin to images portrayed in Dante's Inferno and the seven levels of purgatory.

I am fascinated as to where this will end.

In the words of PW: Exciting Times

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Re: The Grotto

Post by GordonvaleClaret » Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:27 pm

I love the way you've hidden the mouse.

Pstotto
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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:27 pm

The reservoir of forms takes in all of creation and every man-made artifact too, so any amalgam of that will be a strange phenomenon, perhaps an alien.

Making the picture is a bit like Journey to The Centre of The Earth... If I can be bothered. :-)

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Re: The Grotto

Post by huw.Y.WattfromWare » Sun Jan 24, 2021 3:29 pm

Please get a return ticket.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Volvoclaret » Sun Jan 24, 2021 6:07 pm

Where's Wally?

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Vintage Claret » Mon Jan 25, 2021 7:57 pm

That is stunning Psttoto.

Showed it to Mrs VC as thought she might appreciate it being a former art student who still does a bit though not to that level.

She loved it especially the vivid colours particularly the contrasting blue effects.

She was asking about the 2D/3D aspect, is it all 2D but formed to look 3D in parts or are there actually some true 3D elements to it?

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Tue Jan 26, 2021 11:10 am

The surface is buckled, it's not flat.

The picture has been rotting in a garden for 15 years.

It's fixed together with expanding foam which I squirted into all the holes and seams and this has formed its own life, rather like fungi growing on rotten wood, so there's a relief of about three inches.

I view it all as pictorial though, as if it were a flat surface.

The whole expanse of the visual field is pictorial and as such I'm also playing with object/illusion as well as surface/illusion.

With there being 24 sq ft of surface, it's a lot to know.

It you look in the top left hand corner, there's a piece of motorcycle I picked up from the street and nailed into the picture.

You can see a diagonal line, that's where the picture had folded over and then I've stuffed the gaps with foam and then painted on them.
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Re: The Grotto

Post by COBBLE » Tue Jan 26, 2021 11:42 am

PS how will you know if it is finished or is that the wrong question?

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Tue Jan 26, 2021 1:34 pm

The challenge is to make a fully realized image, of absolute facility, as if Tom from Tom and Jerry could dip his paintbrush in a tin and just do anything with it.

There is the lure of absolute facility inasmuch as that 2D shape represents 3D form, so any amount of chaos could be seen as perfect representation IF you had the genius vision.

If you don't, then you can spend 15 years labour on a mess and go mad, like De Kooning and Van Gogh, who both tried it (and me too and I have gone mad).

That's what modernism was about, the conceit to cheat to perfection.

Post-modernism is a cry to 'Give us a break, Lord,' it's too much.


On the other hand and as a result OF the innate perfection of a picture, one can just do a brush stroke and be satisfied, like Chinese Calligraphy.

If one has lesser ambition for picture then one can leave it when it looks 'OK' and you're satisfied that you've given enough time for that picture.


The Grotto is a bit like those 'stream of consciousness' animations that can mutate forever, like watching reflections in a river.


If one finds oneself chasing shadows or bubbles in lemonade, then it's better to try a different way of working otherwise it's like De Kooning and there will never be a solution that one can grasp.

My way of keeping sane is to write art theory and do 'test images' to state what is going on and thus absolve myself from the drama.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Tue Jan 26, 2021 1:53 pm

The Grotto blue detail.jpg
The Grotto blue detail.jpg (457.04 KiB) Viewed 2326 times
If you look at motorcycle or car adverts painted in the 1930s etc., the illustrators contrive a foreground and background, whereas for me, that's learned behavior, as I want limitless depth of field with everything in focus and detailed.

One can put a mark the size of a pinhead on a picture, but if it's 6ft long that a lot of pin heads to look after and manage.

So really the painting is too much and I'm working on some much smaller pictures because it's easier to manage detail.

If you look at this detail of the painting, if one has the cognitive spatial IQ to see it as order of form and space then there's a path to bringing that vision to a greater clarity, but as such visions are often extreme and fleeting, it's almost impossible to fix a vision.

So, a point of ending might just be to create a pictorial matrix that facilitates visions rather than makes them concrete.

There's an art to that and a way to present that and for the most part that is what one can achieve, although there's pressure to go beyond that, if you're not connected in the art world, because I have to do something better, which isn't really fair.

Only a few artists are promoted in the media because they want a society of big and small people.

'The nation's favourite artist' David Hockney's fame is founded on the suicides of thousands excluded for him, but they don't put that in the press.

The say 'break through' because there's a will to stop you from the likes of Hockney, who want to kill off everyone else, so not the nicey nicey pictures of flowers etc, that they have at the R.A. or in whatever newspaper.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Tue Jun 29, 2021 8:08 pm

Just update a detail of how it's going.

It could take a few days or 30 years to finish depending on contingent forces.
The Grotto (detail update).jpg
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Pstotto
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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Tue Jun 29, 2021 9:07 pm

The Firmament.jpg
The Firmament.jpg (260.87 KiB) Viewed 2066 times
This is a detail of a detail.

Outside the Zeitgeist, cosmology lurks.

Pictorial space exploration with geometry is just as important as any other cosmological science.
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Re: The Grotto

Post by LoveCurryPies » Wed Jun 30, 2021 11:41 am

The Bayeux Tapestry had some restoration work done on it in the Mid-1800's. Surprisingly, the Victorian threads have lost their colour and gradually turned white, whereas the original 950 year old threads have kept their colours.

Pstotto
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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Wed Jun 30, 2021 5:49 pm

30,000 years old cave paintings still around... Most art of now will perish at some stage leaving no trace however meantime it's liable to start off as one thing and lose its context and pictorial function or painted over, vandalized whatever.

The following drawing is an imagined pre=history to the Grand Ganyon:
What's left of the original.jpg
What's left of the original.jpg (692.69 KiB) Viewed 1633 times

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Billy Balfour » Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:31 pm

The Führer won't be happy, Pstotto. You need to quit these degenerate art projects.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by tim_noone » Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:36 pm

Pstotto wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 5:49 pm
30,000 years old cave paintings still around... Most art of now will perish at some stage leaving no trace however meantime it's liable to start off as one thing and lose its context and pictorial function or painted over, vandalized whatever.

The following drawing is an imagined pre=history to the Grand Ganyon:

What's left of the original.jpg
Would make a great Jigsaw :D

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Thu Jul 01, 2021 9:35 pm

People do like to contemplate imagery via doing jigsaw puzzles.
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Pstotto
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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Thu Jul 01, 2021 10:19 pm

Down where I live BB, they'll soon be stubble on the fields to make a straw effigy for Bonfire Night.

Last year I made a Hitler one and a song for it:

A penny for the Fuhrer
For one more cockney
Fewer

A penny for the Fuhrer
For one more cockney
Fewer

Whether that was a degenerate art project, only God knows.

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Re: The Grotto

Post by Pstotto » Sat Jul 03, 2021 5:48 pm

Meanwhile, there's been an incident at The Grotto, there's been a spill.

The police are looking for someone wearing a Sunderland scarf:
The Spill.jpg
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