Halloween Print Sale

This year I didn't do a print sale during my birthmonth (that's right – whereas most people celebrate their birth-days, I'm a little greedier), so to make amends I'm offering a 20% discount on my Swirly Skulls prints (aww what the hell! - I'll extend it to all my prints on paper), to coincide with my favourite time of year, Halloween. Although, to be honest I should probably have thought of posting this a little earlier, so I'll set the sale period till the end of November.

If you would like one of my screen prints at 20% less than the listed price just check out the range here and drop me a line at wayne@waynechisnall.com

Happy Halloween folks!

Stonewall Season - Charity Auction & Party

From 1-10 November Stonewall will be hosting Stonewall Season, a series of events that celebrate LGBT life, culture and people - culminating in a Closing Celebrating event that includes an art exhibition and charity auction at the Tanner Warehouse on London’s fashionable Bermondsey Street. The theme for the Stonewall Season is #ByMySide.

If anyone would like to come along to the closing celebration, the evening will begin at 7:30pm with a champagne and canapé reception. There will be an exclusive art exhibition comprised of one-off pieces, created exclusively for the night by some much-loved artists including Marc Quinn, Maggi Hambling, Henry Holland, Gareth Pugh and many more. Throughout the evening you can enjoy more drinks, fantastic food, entertainment and music too – including a set from DJ Jodie Harsh.

Each of the bespoke works of art (including my charcoal, acrylic and resin piece, titled 'Together') will be included in a silent auction on the night. I will post more details about this at the start of the Stonewall Season, once the works appear online.

Tickets are limited and available for £149 - book now to avoid disappointment!

For more information and to book tickets online, please visit www.stonewallseason.org.uk or contact the Events team on 020 7593 1875 or events@stonewall.org.uk.  

Alternatively you can click here to book your tickets.

If you can make it to the closing celebration, I look forward to seeing you there. If not, I'll have a little boogie on your behalf.

Stonewall Season Closing Celebration 
Thursday 10th November (7:30pm - 11pm)
Tanner Warehouse
50 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UD

Tentacled Dreadnought

When I was handed one of C.F. Martin and Company's rather lovely Dreadnought acoustic guitars by art collector and guitar aficianado, James Dyer, and instructed to do whatever I wanted to it, I was, at first, a little apprehensive. As much as I love working on bits of old wood and other pre-existing materials, when presented with something so beautifully made, and perfect as it is, it can be a bit daunting when asked to add to it – especially if that addition renders the object in question unfit for its original purpose; although, sometimes it's that meddling with the expected that art uses to help us to question the world we know around us, and which we often take for granted (not that I'm necessarily making any such grand claims in this case).

Another daunting aspect of being given free rein on any project is that there are no boundaries to help focus the mind. So I decided to look to some of my recent work and drew inspiration from a couple of paintings that I had done on pieces of antique wood, salvaged from some of the Victoria and Albert Museum's old packing crates. The piece that I especially drew inspiration from was my Tentacle Touch Teddy painting, which was exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum's latest Vamalgam show.

To achieve the effect of the tentacle emerging from inside the guitar I first had to create an additional wooden section that partly filled in the sound hole (on which to paint that section of the tentacle) – thus rendering it pretty much useless as a musical instrument, but hopefully transforming the Dreadnought into an new art piece in itself.

Stonewall Charity Auction – Work In Progress

I'm currently working with a new material (well, new to me), and whenever I get to play with a new technique or material I get quite excited, and often frustrated, as I work out what the materials can do, and how far I can push them. This new material is resin. I originally bought it for use in my sculptural work but for now I'm drawing/painting with it, and am working on a body of charcoal and resin drawings on paper, and charcoal, resin, and acrylic paintings on paper. It's fascinating stuff to work with and, depending upon how you combine or use the two or three materials on the paper, the resulting outcomes are incredibly diverse and often less than predictable. So far I've produced around ten new pieces – but I'll post about them some time soon.

For now I'm working on a piece for a charity auction organised by the leading LGBT equality charity, Stonewall. From 1-10 November Stonewall will be hosting Stonewall Season, a series of events that celebrate LGBT life, culture and people, and it will culminate in a Closing Celebrating event that includes an art exhibition and charity auction.

The theme for the Stonewall Season is #ByMySide. And as you can see, I've cleverly avoided being clever, and drawn two figures holding hands whilst standing side-by-side. I'm not quite sure why the figures ended up looking like skeletal aliens – I think that I was trying to approach the drawings with an economy of line.

As I'm still finding my way with the resin, and to reduce the amount of time I have to spend stretching paper, I'm working on three different versions of the drawing on one piece of paper (and will choose the most interesting one for the auction, once they are all completed). The drawing/painting on the right of the photo is at it's finished stage, as I don't want to over work it, but the other two are works in progress so will probably end up looking very different.

I rarely post images of works-in-progress – not because I don't want to give away any of my processes, but because I feel that a lot of works-in-progress just look like bad art. Maybe it's an ego thing.