I’ve started to think a lot about Christmas, might seem a bit early to some of my generation, but the reason is I’m semi-decided on painting all of my gifts this year, and even with my slapdash style it takes a fair bit of time to push all the paint around to where I want it to be. I’ve sketched out a series of four paintings, so far, and they’re all weird self-portraits. I think it’s funny as hell to give people a gift which is a portrait of yourself. But they have to also be good enough that people will actually hang them. Another reason this is a funny gift is that not everyone is likely to actually like my style at all, but the etiquette of gifts is pretty much that they have to be used, hence having to wear the ugly jumper your nan gave you when she comes to visit, you know what I’m saying.
The problem is, if I make paintings I’m really super happy with, I’m just going to go ahead and keep them all and give people snickers bars wrapped in newspaper, closed with a length of dirty string.