Double trouble

The smaller one of these just wasn’t working out, the hand and foreshortening beat me so I started again and I’m so glad I did, the colours and pose are working so much better in the bigger one. Painting satin is so satisfying, it’s bliss! I had no idea how different the colours were in the two paintings until they were side by side. Wish it would dry, I’m itching to carry on!

How to take your own photos for erotic art

I found it really hard to choose pictures for this post as generally the photos behind my work are unseen, I prefer them to be a mystery. I mainly work to commission and I wanted to share a post to help my female customers produce their own amazing images so they  really have a piece of artwork to be proud of. Not just that though- I’m happy for other artists to share this with their own potential models and for people to use this advice for their own photos however they like to use them. I’m sure the advice works the same for men, it’s just that I prefer painting girls.

Peachy!

I’ve been revisiting my pile of discarded/unfinished work. Some have been destroyed, I’ve even finished others. When I unwrapped this one I discovered a new love for it. I don’t know why I didn’t like it or what I thought it needed, it’s sweet and dreamy. Hopefully somebody will feel the same and take it home.

Girls, help me out

I really want you to get behind me on this. Before I start, I want to stress that I’m going to be making generalisations. Even I can find exceptions, but I’ll be using evidence for my arguments that what I’m saying is largely true, and I’m really asking for feedback on this one.

Current stats on alt.com, this is better than other sites because I think generally women are more involved in alternative sex sites because they have more to offer them..

View Current Broadcasts of: All (83) | Men (72) | Women (2) | Couples (man and woman) (5) | Couples (2 men) (0) | Couples (2 women) (0) | Groups (0) | TS/TV/TG (4)

When I clicked through, the one woman online by that  time had 72 viewers, the man at the top of the list had one, the rest none. I always use that as a very direct illustration. Women don’t watch as much porn as men- you knew that, right?

Even here in blogland most people come upon my blog by certain search terms- that’s why I use the tags! I exist within a world which already has it’s rules and standards and expectations. I can’t have things my way. But I really want to tell you how I wish it could be.

The reason women don’t search for porn is due to experience. It excludes us, we have to search too hard to find something we’d like, even then we’ll have encountered countless gynaecological pop ups in the search for fetish art or classy erotic photos. I know men who feel the same. The woman who likes cheesy gynaecological porn is about as rare as that one woman watching the guy in the cam room. (And that woman is probably a man)

I really absolutely don’t want to see an orange hard-faced man having sex with a girl two generations younger just because he has an unusual ability to keep hard during the photo/camera session. And if I see it I turn off the pc and go watch eastenders. I don’t need an up close biology lesson or another picture of a girl getting a facial.

There is a problem which leads to a fundamental division I can’t do anything about. It’s hard to fight my corner, my argument for “erotic art” when it too often comes under a banner which automatically includes everything from basic hustler porn to bizarre and unpleasant hardcore which most people search for because they’re looking for revulsion or something to ridicule.

Just as the meek naturist couples often have to share space with oil basted exhibitionists- they feel the same, if they were to try to show people how innocent it is they’d have to take them to a place where they’re more likely to see public masturbation than anywhere else in the country and their argument would be instantly invalid.

And that’s how I feel. For all this time I’ve been trying to work out how to reach women. I so want to spend my days telling girls how to take amazingly erotic photos of themselves which they and anyone else they can choose to show will find stunning/ sexy/ empowering. Because I know that women feel that their sexuality has to be hidden. They don’t want to be associated with a kind of pornography which is about abuse. Many guys visiting prostitutes don’t ask if the girl has been trafficked-  or so many of them wouldn’t be, they don’t ask for credentials of the girl in the videos they look at.

There’s a fantastic article in the guardian about the differences between the viewers of male and female strippers. It’s a perfect illustration of the polar extremes.

I want a middle ground so that average women (not swingers, not those responding to the desires of their partner) can enjoy erotic images without being visually assaulted by things that will turn them right off) Scarlet magazine was great- informative, clever, erotic, it’s gone. Thank god for Ann Summers and internet sex shops.

Women are never going to find me, if they do they’ll be frightened I’m a guy wanting to perv over their photos.

I want a world where women understand that guys will always look at girls and that’s no threat, but where we can meet them half way.

I’ve asolutely nothing against porn, nothing against nudists, nothing against swingers. I just want my audience to reach further than that into the wider public. Somewhere between those and the high art world is everyone else, my target market.

But if it doesn’t happen soon I’ll give up the commission part of my work, give up social networking and concentrate on my own work which I’ll sell through galleries.

Is there any hope? I don’t know

Ok, I give in

I admit it. I can paint men. I just don’t want to. These are drawings from life class in art college many years ago.  Acrylic on paper, no idea why I can’t paint in acrylic now, guess I just got out of the habit.

I can’t wait to get myself back into a life class. Because my models aren’t professionals I take photos to work from. I can remember what it’s like sitting still for all that time and I can’t ask someone to do it for free, but just looking at these makes me remember what a different process it is to working from photos.

I just hope this time the models in the life class are female

Wine O’clock

new painting resting on my tattoo table. I’m still not sure if it’s finished. I think I deserve a night off, some wine and a good nights sleep. Cheers

Apologising for the naked ladies everywhere…

It’s so grey and rainy today, I’ve got all my daylight bulbs illuminating my work area and it’s still so dark and grim I ust can’t summon up the will to paint so I’m just going to write a bit about my life in the real world. Yesterday the man came to read the meter and put a card through the door saying he’d be back this morning.

Recently I rearranged my house so there’s no route through straight to the back door and everyone has to come through my front room, kitchen, and studio to get there. There’s no back gate and the meter is just outside the back door so short of hiding everything I’m doing and taking everything off the walls I’m about to deal with anything from confused embarrassment, wide eyed voyeuristic interest and a barrage of questions (see previous posts)

I rarely get a hard time from anyone who actually sees me and what I do in close proximity, the mystery is taken out of it. I’m clearly not painting in the nude, or a man pretending to be a girl so that’s half the battle.

But maybe I sometimes do feel a bit apologetic about it. Contractors and salespeople are generally male so I don’t get any real hostility or suspicion from these strangers who come into my house but I do have a sinking feeling when I know I’m going to have to say something. I wonder what this one will be like.

As you can see from my post photo today I’m pining because I’m not going to erotica at olympia this year. I’d have known so much better this year what to paint for that particular exhibition and I’m sad not to be going. I’d enjoy it so much more if I did it again. And I’ve never seen Dita Von Teese live, that would be so amazing. And the shopping, all those goodies I could use in my work. Shoes! Corsets, masks, feathers…. I’m sulking.

 

Desire

As you can see, it’s still wet so it won’t be on sale for a few weeks. Crimson takes ages to dry.  It’s one of those paintings I’ll have trouble parting with. It might accidentally get framed and hang on my wall for a while.



 

Now for sale here

Girls

I made this up.  Just started drawing straight on the canvas. I went to my photos to reference the position of the second figure’s leg.

Why are they both girls? Because I haven’t got the first idea what men look like any more. I’d get one round to model but they’re always trouble. Girls look good together in paintings.

I’ll have to wait a few days til it’s dry before I carry on, and I usually mess these ones up in the next layer so thet might be the last you see of it…

getting a bloke in

I don’t know why I’m puting off new photo sessions since I got my new camera. I have new props, two fantastic new outfits and still I can’t seem to commit to actually geting some new photos taken.

I’ve been making some sweet decorative little pieces on small canvases which I’ll list on etsy soon as they’re dry but what I really need is a new studio session. I was thinking yesterday about trying to get men involved again. My photo sessions with men have been unsuccessful, for different reasons. Mainly because I just don’t seem to know what to do with them. When I’m posing girls it’s easy, I’m projecting myself through them.

It’s like lingerie, girls have got endless options, guys look silly in anything but the most basic stuff, or they look great- but gay.  Same with posing them for photos or drawing. I can put them into basic life class poses but giving them the same look I give my girls is just so wrong. Funny, but wrong.

Men in my work are best used as accessories. They come with a partner who I direct around him and what happens to him in the photo session is just perfect for my work. The trouble has been that the couples have been self conscious and not believable. Girls who give me great erotic photos when they’re here alone stiffen up with a man there. Strange but true.

I have a friend who does a bit of cage fighting, I thought about going along and taking pics there. Men all angry and sweaty and not wearing much. It might give me a better idea of what to do with men without feminising them and to make them a more active part of the process.

Maybe I should get a naked man of my own instead of borrowing other peoples, but they’re so much nicer when you can give them back