The pictures from 2005's alphabet party are here.

thank you

Thanks to everyone who came along and helped to make the party such a success. There are three of my photos just below. You can also see the photos that Alex and Chris took. Dave's pictures are also great.

I've tried to preserve as many of the paintings as possible, but they take up a lot of space, so if you can let me know what you'd like to be done with yours, that'd be helpful. (You can identify them via Chris's pictures or my snapshots of some of the paintings.)

Also, if anyone has any ideas about what to do with the large canvas, please let me know.

why?

I'll be 27 in mid September, and I can't remember the last time I had a birthday party...

when?

2pm, Sunday 31st August

where?

My house, on Hills Road - please call me if you need directions.

things to bring

• a pot of paint in some interesting colour
• something to drink
• artistic talent
• trowels, brushes, etc.
• if you happen to have some old bedsheets or canvases lying round, they'll come in very handy. Otherwise, any carriable rectangular pieces of wood would be great - we'll probably end up painting onto cloth dust sheets and nailing bits of the sheets onto bits of wood so they can be taken away easily.

things to leave behind

• anything that you would mind getting paint on - in some recent experiments, I managed to get paint on my clothes, despite trying to be really careful...
• there's no need at all to bring presents, just the stuff on the list above

what's the idea?

We're going to try to create Jackson Pollock-style "drip and splash" abstract expressionist paintings, since it looks like enormous fun. I expect the results will be mostly horrendous, but it should be interesting, and there's a small chance that someone will make something good. I should emphasise that this is no way intended to be disrespectful to Jackson Pollock, despite the horrendous pun in this domain name.

• A feature on Pollock at The National Gallery of Art, Washington.
• Jackson Pollock images from WebMuseum
• IMDB entry for "Pollock"
• A article on fractal analysis of Pollock's paintings and the BBC's summary.

what kind of paint is best?

I did some experiments with some random paints from B&Q, which mostly worked fine. Some problems did come up, though:a

• One paint didn't work well at all, but I'm not sure what the distinguishing characterstics of that one were. Anyway, I would steer clear of Dulux One Coat Gloss. Most of the other paints worked about as well as each other...
• The paint takes a long time to dry properly, since typically you're splashing it on quite thickly. I think this suggests that we want to keep the paintings small and carryable. The simplest way to do this would be to nail them to flat bits of wood with tacks, so if you have any of them lying around that would be very useful.

more details...

If you have any suggestions for how to make the party a success, please email me.

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