Day 0126

Slept late thanks to the sensory deprivation chamber that is my room (after everyone has finished slamming doors on their way to work that is). Sat in the park and let the world go by. Popped down to the beach and then dashed to the Picasso museum before it closed.

Very interesting to see his early work. I didn't realise he was academically trained. Very proficient from an extremely young age. Well-handled realistic portraits as a teenager. Lovely landscape studies on bits of wood. Can see why he changed style so many times and needed something fresh: the path he was on to begin with has been bottomed out. No matter how good you get at academical, realist painting it has all been done before.

After Picasso and all the movements I've learned about in The Shock of the New videos (the last of which I finished yesterday), is there any point in trying to find a new path in art? Is there any stone left unturned? I think not but I've still worked on my boring copy tonight, in a characteristically bloody minded and pointlessly unthinking way.