Camden Text series and New Blond Cards

London's getting some of the effects of Storm Dave so I couldn't do The Camden Market Free Art Man today. Even slight rain on PVA glue covered artwork makes staging it impossible and windy conditions blow my paintings into the road and passers by. Tomorrow's forecast is much the same. This time last year was much warmer and drier, which meant I planned to do Camden Market 2026 every Fri, Sat and Sun from March to November. If April turns out wet, like it's currently looking, I think this years Camden Market Free Art Man might not get properly started until May.
So today I finished, photoed and videoed the first eight Camden Text paintings, and started the next three Blond Card characters: The Elephant's Head, The Black Cap and Makwafilms

I'll make twenty of each new character this weekend along with some new ones of existing characters. The Elephant's Head and Black Cap are Camden venues/ bars I've only recently become aware of. I noticed The Elephant's Head the other night, while collecting cardboard the local businesses leave out for the bin collectors. They had a band playing by the front window that you could clearly hear and watch from the street outside. One of things I like most about Pattaya in Thailand is that you don't have to walk into every venue to see and hear what's going on. G Boy told me about The Black Cap on his way to its re-opening, a venue famous for its famous drag queens. Here's a G Boy Blond Card:

The Camden Text series started at Billy Childish's studio, where I paint every Monday. It's a large warehouse style room above the ropery at Chatham Dockyard. I have a lot more room there than at home, so started making acrylic paint monoprints of the words "The Camden Market Free Art Man" and Heckel's Horse Jr. Unlike printing inks, acrylic paint dries extemely quickly, so I need the space to have all the A2 size sheets of paper immediately to hand, to quickly press on and throw aside. I did some painting around the letters and brought them back home for black outlining and gluing to cardboard with some Advertism on the front. I won't be gluing any Advertism on to the backs of my paintings any more, not until I have someone working with me. An assistant could cut cardboard and paint the pieces black. They could supervise The Camden Market Free Art Man while I paint beside the display. @ronthroop and I spoke about public painting on Thursday's Black Ivory podcast, where I said it would be too disruptive to be interupted all the time. I've since changed my mind. One of the best things about The Black Ivory Podcast is watching it back and disagreeing with everything you see yourself saying. There's another guy who paints live on Camden High Street. He has a much-more-popular-than-mine painting display next to the entrance to Camden Town tube station. He spray paints on to sheets of paper. Passers by can pay whatever they want. If he can handle public painting, so can I. He doesn't do interviews though, so I need a helper. Or maybe I don't.