Art of Zinkibaru

Eye Book #4

2011-05-14T17:10:00.004Z

I haven't uploaded any of my Eye Book for months, though it is still ongoing. I am simply much better at beginning a task than completing it! If you haven't seen the earlier entries or you want a quick reminder you can follow these links to Eye Book #1, #2 and #3.

I created these pages in the late autumn and winter of 2010 and they document the remainder of my recovery from surgery and the aftermath. I continued with my practice of drawing the same view as I could see it to mark each week post surgery.

I also continued to document my thoughts about the process.

Week 6 was the worst week by far - much worse than the surgery, than the posturing even. All that anxiety management I did in the 90s certainly came in useful!

But at last I was allowed to wear my contact lens again.

Possibly the best day of my life!

So back to Mr Sheard for a check-up. As ever a bizarre experience but this time with both good and bad news. My retina was holding up well and he was as sure as he could be at that stage that it would continue to do so. However there were other problems.

Apart from the hole in the iris, which has been causing the double or tripple vision, the necessary work of removing cateract remnants (left over from the congenital cateracts I was born with) so that he could get at the retina to repair it, had also had a detrimental effect. Those remnants appear to have been acting like a pinhole camera to help focus my sight and could no longer do so once they were gone. So things look more blurry, less defined, with less saturated colours. I could no longer read my own writing, my watch, see to safely cross roads. I had some adapting to do.

But I was determined not to shy away from it. I never quite believed that the tinted contact lens would work (and I turned out to be right about that), and besides I didn't want to place too much hope in it since it would take months to find out. I wanted to get used to the sight I had there and then.

The first major problem to hit was snow. 10 inches of it fell in one night and more came. Conditions outside became horribly icy in great bumps and slides where the frozen snow had drifted. I couldn't safely go out unaccompanied for about 3 weeks mostly because I couldn't get from my door and across the pavement to the relative safety of the road. And nor could I predict the conditions I would find at my destination. That was December, then I had flu. So it was the new year before I was able to put much of my adaptation campaign into action.

I didn't add much to my Eye Book during this time. I could do most things within my house with my eyes shut long ago so I didn't need to do much in learning how to opeerate electrical goods and so on. I have never been able to read the buttons on such things so when I acquire something new I have someone go through it with me and tell me the function of each button. Then I remember the position of each function and never have to look at the thing again.

I've had difficulties reading some of my mail, and difficulties with persuading various organisations (including the eye dept at the hospital!) that they can send me things in large print. A couple of months ago I managed to get hold of a 6x magnifier which helps a lot, and I have someone to read to me the things I can't see. I was already accustomed to operating the computer by audio and listening to talking books.

I'm not entirely sure how I've been getting on with my artwork. It's difficult to gauge exactly what I can't see anymore so it's difficult to know if it's any good. But I keep going with it because I need to.

The outside world has been the most puzzling. I have a fab long cane which I probably could have done with years ago, and I am still trying to learn safe routes to the places I want to go in order not to get me run over and the road users heart attacks! But people give me a bit more leeway when I'm brandishing the white stick and are also incredibly helpful with telling me about obstacles and so on.

I have more news, but need to wait for #5 if I'm going to keep anything in order!

ATCs - Sheffield and Metal

2011-05-05T23:18:00.003Z

So, having completed the ATCs for other people's swaps in a timely manner I have been decidedly late with my own. The two themes that have been trying to grab my attention this time are Metal and Where I Live. And I have struggled with them and I have made them and I can now swap everything out!

I wasn't the only one to struggle with Where I Live. On the face of it the theme doesn't seem any more or less challenging than anything else, and, on the basis that it's meant to be easiest to create from what we know, this one should be a breeze. I concluded that it's somewhat like the experience of having done too much research for an essay - the struggle is less that of trying to find the 4000 words and more that of trying to keep it under 6000. We simply are so immersed in the places we live that it's very hard to distil it into 2.5x3.5".

I couldn't settle on any one image to represent Sheffield because it is such a city of contrasts. From here I can get on a tram and be in the city centre in 15 minutes, but if I spend the same amount of time walking in the other direction I am in the countryside. Sheffield is famous for the heavy industry of steel manufacture yet the Peak District, one of the country's major national parks, is only 7 miles away. We have so many people living way above ground in great tower blocks of flats yet we also have a ratio of 4 trees to every person who lives here. Whatever insane niche hobby or interest you may have, you will probably find a club, society or venue for it somewhere in Sheffield, or the support to set it up yourself. The friendliness of those who live here is matched only by their bluntness. The only thing we don't have, as far as I can see, is a beach - though even that is attempted for the occasional summer weekend.

How does that fit on an ATC? After days and days of thinking nothing useful I decided I needed to work with two contrasting images, and set to work with these:

This is a photgraph taken from the station tram stop, looking out over the station towards town. It was actually a summer's day but a huge grey cloud had gathered over the grey buildings so that they all seemed to be of a piece.

By contrast, this is a view over the pond in Hillsborough Park, opposite which I lived at the time this was taken. It was one of those glorious warm days in early autumn when the saturation levels of the world colour stream seem to have been turned way up to maximum.

I was going to resize and print them tiny and mount them together on some kind of background, but photoshop was calling me so I decided to shuffle the deck. And ended up with this:

It wasn't what I had expected, but to be honest I didn't particularly have a plan when I set off. It has an odd dreamlike feel about it, which I am not sure is just my response or one that others will share. It doesn't look like Sheffield at all, not really, but it does feel like the Sheffield I inhabit in some less tangible way.

So, metal. This has been a really popular swap again. We did it a couple of years ago and enjoyed it so much we're having another go, although with some alterations in the sign-ups. I had the opposite problem with this one than that of the Where I Live swap - too many ideas. And as the cards started coming in the ideas multiplied. Then Paula sent me some self adhesive metal tape along with her ATCs and it was barely out of the envelope before I had to start using it! I've never seen tape like this before, it's like a very thick and very sticky foil, and it seemed to me that it would be a marvellous idea to created a textured surface and stick the metal tape over the top, then work it into the texture.

I used string to "write" the word Metal on each card and then stuck and worked the tape over this as described. Once I had the words nicely outlined I swiped them with brown Stazon to highlight the texture. Being shiny they are, as ever, impossible to scan well, but here's my best impression of how they turned out.

That concludes ATC-making for now. With any luck you'll get geosculpture next, or maybe more eye book, or something entirely random. If this can be anything other than a contradiction in terms, I would say the random is most likely!

ATCs - Fish nets and mermaids

2011-04-24T15:13:00.003Z

I've been gone a long time! In fact I haven't been a very conscientious blogger for about a year now. There have been a lot of changes in my life: the mad dash to the end of my HND and the HND show, then eye surgery and recovery, the search for a way to work and the decision, recently made, that despite all the obstacles in my way, in the words of Labi Siffre, we're gonna do it anyway! So in the not too distant future this blog is going to be on the move to a new, and I hope more organised, home where my new business will be unveiled. It won't be for a little while yet because I'm spending some time laying the foundations, but it's on its way.

Meanwhile here are some ATCs. At MixedMediaATC_UK we recently had our fourth birthday and we have some great new members bringing in new energy as well as more established members enriching us all with their inspiring art and craft work. We also have a growing band of fantastic hosts, and here are some ATCs I've made for swaps hosted by two of them.

Firstly, mermaids.

All those little dots are blue glitter, but as ever it's so hard to get that shininess factor into the scanned image. It's a bit of a sandwich with ink-dyed metallic papers and mulberry papers at the bottom, then the glitter, topped with a slice of acetate with the mermaid image printed on it.

I am in two minds about how well this mermaid image works and would welcome some feedback. I wanted to focus on the movement of her swimming and draw her almost as an arrow darting through the water. So I simplified it right down to as few lines as I thought I could get away with - though afterwards I wondered if I went too far down this route and could have done with a bit more definition. I just thought woman, fish tail, swirly hair, swimming, and this is what came out! But can you tell it's a mermaid?

Also on a maritime theme, my second set is entitled Tangled in a Fish Net, a theme suggested by our resident male - only the second to appear in the history of the group!

The background image is one of my photos taken at the harbour at Scarborough last year, which I've turned black and white and artified a bit. I am endlessly fascinated by lobster pots and creels and bemused the friend I was staying with by taking about a hundred photos of them. This is just one of them.

Now I just need to make ATCs for my own swaps!

No Entry - Digital Story about my attempts to return to work

2011-01-26T19:27:00.003Z

This is my first ever foray into the world of digital storytelling. It is the product of a two day course organised by the woman who has been supporting me with the seemingly impossible task of returning to work from and with long term illness.

There is so much in the news these days about people languishing on benefits, cheating the system and not even trying to work. I want people to know the other side of the story - that however proactive you are in your attempts to get back into employment, the government won't support you unless you happen to coincide with their ideas about what it means to have health problems or disabilities. For those of us with chronic fluctuating conditions there is less help out there than there is for most families on a middle income because we can't even qualify for Working Tax Credit.

Here's my story. You may need to turn up your volume, it seems to have come out very quiet.

Altered Book Round Robin - Dragons, Sewing, Gardens and Wales

2010-12-30T23:22:00.005Z

The eye book is still ongoing and I have many pages to upload and edit, but meanwhile other things are happening in my little house of art.

Here are 4 months' worth of altered book spreads which, between them, conclude my contribution to the MixedMediaATC_UK ABRR of 2010. This first is Sally's Dragon book and I chose to illustrate the myth of Zin Kibaru, after whom this blog is named. I made a sculpture of this creature for my art A level years ago and one day when desperately searching for a username that hadn't been taken my eyes alighted on him and I thought: no one will have that. So zinkibaru I became. Here's the tale:

In the pocket lives the story:

In October I worked in Paula's A Stitch In Time altered book, which is a lovely collection of participants' memories of all things stitch. I decided to revisit my sewing box project of a few years ago and fished out the image to right, altered the colours a bit and printed it on fuzzy paper, mounted it on felt and wodged it between the glued pages to make it nice and soft. On the left is a similarly trapped shaker thingy (terminology right up to speed tonight!!) which is basically a bit of vellum holding in place a bunch of sewing stuff which live behind it and move when you tilt the book. The rest is soft pastels and white marker pen and a cute little sewing machine button.

November's book really stumped me. This is Jean's The Lady and The Garden book, and as I know about as little about ladies as I do about gardens I was flummoxed for quite some time. Eventually I came up with this.
The middle section forms a page with the inner semicircle cut out, so can be turned over to reveal this alternative view and quote:

Again a combination of coloured pencils, soft pastels and white pen, as well as a ribbon whip stitched round the edge of the semicircle. Ladies and gardens accomplished, yay!

And so we come to this month's offering, a spread in Iris's Wales book. I was the last to have this book and a couple of vague ideas I'd had for it had already been used by other people so I had to give this one some thought too. I went on several holidays to Wales as a teenager and was always fascinated by the Welsh dolls and their beautifully woven clothes, so I decided to do a spread about them. This is a very simple collage on a black gesso background, quite different from the way I've approached the other spreads. I printed the background fabric on inkjet cotton and used fabric tape for the tag.

Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for my own book to come home.

Eye Book #3

2010-11-18T03:51:00.005Z

Here is part 3 of the Eye Book, which I have to admit is growing way bigger than I imagined so there will probably be another 3 posts on it before I'm finished. Again, do scroll down and read #1 and 2 before this if you haven't already.

So we left things at sight at +2 weeks, and here is my account of my surreal 2 week check up.

...and here is what I saw a week later. By now I was already getting bored with drawing the same view - or non view as the case may be - but I wanted to keep the view consistent to best reflect the changes in my vision over the weeks.

Every so-often I got into a hissy fit about the gas bubble. The problem was that it was so inescapable, it was there with eyes shut or open, in the light or in the dark, and there just wasn't a way to look away. So here's a page about that.

Lots of questions were arising for me at this point. I knew I was only half way through recovery but I was beginning to have doubts about its success. Unfortunately some of these were borne out, but that's a later part of the story.

Life transformed!

And we're fairly zooming through now. Here's what I saw at +4 weeks.

Incidentally, here's where my Dad's theory on completion falls down: to create an accurate record of the recovery process the project demands that I don't edit or try to improve on it. If I did I would be giving a false impression of the whole process and then I might as well not have done it at all.

Oh, shudder, I didn't like the day I did this page..

I was so relieved all was well (apart from the whole not seeing properly thing), and here is a happy page to end this segment.

So this was the point at which I had first confirmation that my sight might not return to my version of normal after all. It was another month on before that was confirmed, and I will talk more about that in my next post. But I think it's important here to note that I had a month's preparation for the news that was coming, and in that time I practiced a lot of provisional acceptance which has been extremely useful since.

Eye Book #2

2010-11-10T21:11:00.005Z

This is #2 of the Eye Book posts. If you haven't read #1 I recommend you start there. These pages seem forever ago now, I'm lagging about 6 weeks behind in posting these pages.

My Dad doesn't understand why I'm doing this posting journal pages I could barely see as i made them, he thinks I should only publish things I've been able to complete and check and amend. Actually, truth be told, he doesn't think I should have a blog at all but that's another story. So here's why I'm doing it. Firstly I want to tell people that art doesn't have to be beautiful or complete or finished. Art is worth doing even if you believe you'll never produce anything worth seeing. This process we make changes us, helps us cope with difficult things, changes others if they get to see it. Secondly, whenever I meet new people a point in the conversation comes when they ask me what I can see. Even at the age of 36 I have little idea how to answer - the problem is, I have no idea what everyone else can see and that makes it hard to draw comparisons. So I wanted to make a record of what I can see and what it's like, in order to not exactly answer that question, but answer a related one. You'll see as the pages go up that what I can see has changed a lot over these weeks, and I hope that is interesting and informative. Perhaps others who are about to go through vitreo-retinal eye surgery would find it useful to know what's coming too. Thirdly, life just isn't about completion and checking and amending, we don't get to see the ultimate meaning of our lives or go back and amend things we did and wish we hadn't. We get the here and now to do our best and act in anticipation of meanings becoming clear often after many years, often not in our lifetime. But my Dad is a modernist so what can you do?

So, here we are at the beginning of week 2, I'm still posturing (right cheek down, left ear to the ceiling), and I'm

If you're not familar with her work it's well worth a look. She was a Mexican artist who only really started to paint seriously when she was recovering from a horrendous road accident. Her work is interestingly introspective and autobiographical but without being at all miserable - a feat many artists don't achieve.
Anything can go in a journal. My Mum came to stay for my last few days of posturing and was reading aloud to me when we came across this quote and it just had to go in!

This was so funny. I had all these plans for what I'd do when I could stay upright as long as I liked. When it came to it I was too overwhelmed to do anything other than sit around being perplexed!

Ah yes flatpacks must be made. I left the dowels well alone this time though!

What I could see 2 weeks after surgery. At various stages in the gas bubble process I felt that it resembled soemthing from outer space. It hasn't quite reached the planetary stage yet. You can see that I'm now sitting up to draw so things are horizontal, whereas they were diagonal when I was posturing. At this stage I still wasn't very keen on keeping my left eye open for any length of time as it felt like a swamp, so I was using my right eye for most things, and it was getting very tired because it's not used to having that much work required of it.

I will try to be a bit more prompt with #3!

Eye Book #1

2010-10-22T00:21:00.005Z

I've been gone from my blog for awhile because, on 14 September, I had emergency eye surgery for a partially detached retina and detached vitreus. I had 3 days' notice of the impending surgery so was able to put a few things in place to make my life easier in the 8 week recovery. This also gave me time to gather materials for a journal.

Here's a quick summery of the medical details to put things in context. I was born with congenital cateracts, had a number of operations between the ages of 6-18 months to remove parts of the cateracts. Unlike with age-related cateracts these procedures didn't give me normal sight as there are developmental stages in the life of the eye which happen in the months after birth and which my brain bypassed as it couldn't see out! So I've always had a level of visual impairment, my left eye being better than my right. Another complication of this condition is that my eyes don't work together, I can look out of either one of them but not both at the same time, so things like speed, distance and slope are hard to determine.

Another feature of congenital cateracts is that is makes detached retina later in life more likely, so I've always been aware that this could happen. Actually in my case it was the vitreus that detached; the detached bits have a tendency to tear the retina and burrow their way through, detaching the retina from behind. Amazing what these little specks of body can get up to!

So the surgery was to remove the vitreus altogether, repair the retina, and inject a bubble of gas to act as a splint to the retina post surgery and while the vitreus reforms (- not only can it burrow but it can reform!). The cateract remnants in that eye were getting in the way of the surgeon seeing what he was doing so he removed those as well.

OK, so the journal starts when I went into hospital the day before surgery and is still ongoing until this process reaches its conclusion. I'm going to post it in, hopefully, manageable chunks.

As with any hospital admission there were a few comedy moments. One occurred about an hour after I was returned to the ward after surgery. A nurse appeared with posturing equipment - a tabletop device with a ring pillow so I could begin keeping my head face down for 24 hours. She wanted to know if I felt well enough to sit in the chair and use it, and I said yes, but could she arrange it with some space in front so I could do my sewing? Given her reaction, I assume that usually people don't tend to do sewing an hour after surgery with a patch over their good eye and their head in a ring pillow! I'd recommend it, it definitely helps pass the time. I did some journalling like that too...

The next day the posturing stepped up in earnest. Ten days of right cheek down, left cheek to the ceiling for 50 minutes of every hour. My parents took it in turns to stay with me to do the things that can't be done in 10 minutes or with a silly walk! I discovered that the posture is OK for drawing but not making tea, OK for doing the washing and washing up but not for sitting at the computer. I started making textured panels with tissue paper and gel medium and went on journalling.

On the Friday (3 days after surgery) a friend picked me up and conveyed me to the pub. Ten minute car journey sat up, an hour in posture (with pillow) in beer garden, ten minutes to eat, then obviously another hour in posture and another pint had to be consumed before I could sit up for ten minutes in a taxi home :) This all costs money so I had my first attempt at a cashpoint. Checking my balance wasn't really an option but by counting patches of writing I was able to get the amount of money I had in mind.

Throughout these weeks, and still, the inside world has been much easier to navigate than the outside. The outside is pretty much like a parallel universe, or several really as it's continually changing as the gas bubble goes down - now at week 5 the bubble fills only about a sixth of my eye. Here are some of the things I like about the strange outdoors.

I decided to keep a weekly record of what I could see through the effected eye. Here is what i could see a week after surgery. At this point my eye was not at all keen to open so mostly I was seeing the shut view on the left. This is also a diagonal view as I was still posturing when I drew this one. The subsequent weekly drawings are on the horizontal - and will be in future posts.

Keeping the journal has been a great process, it has helped me to cope with the operation and aftermath better than I probably would otherwise have done. It gives a sense of purpose to this time, that I have an unusual situation to document creatively. The weekly drawings have been particularly useful as I can see very directly how much progress I am making, which is encouraging when I still have nothing approaching the sight I was used to.

Watch this space for part 2!

Altered Book Round Robin - Christmas

2010-09-04T17:02:00.003Z

I've been a bit perplexed by the need to think about Christmas in August, but that is Sue's choice of theme for her book, and some of the artists will be altering it during the festive season, its run-up and aftermath, so it will no doubt seem more appropriate as the books go round the circle.

I am not much of a fan of Christmas even when it is in season, so I decided instead to focus on Winter Solstice, when the sun appears to stand still in the sky, and then returns or is reborn to lengthen the days again.

The Sun Stands Still, pastel painting, 8 1/2 x 10 1/2" © Becky Vigor, 2010.

I made this as a tip-in because my experience of working with soft pastels within a book is that I end up colouring many pages besides the one I intend! For myself this isn't a problem because I can work round or over or with my pastel dust streams, but other people want to work in this book after me, so I have to try to be tidy!

I worked on watercolour paper because I knew I was going to want to create numerous layers and flatter paper fills up too quickly. Sometimes I wonder if I really need to make all the layers I do, as it obviously takes quite a bit of time. But I don't think I'd get the blending effects and richness of colour I want if I tried to take short cuts. I am learning to save myself time and mud-coloured angst by fixing the work more often, and the whole lot got a coat of glue at the end to trap all those pretty but meandering dust specks in place.

It's a long time since I worked in pastels, I've really enjoyed picking them up again, and am sure they'll be featuring again in something I create before too long.

Creatuve Spirituality 2: The Wisdom of Trees

2010-08-26T14:22:00.005Z

Here is the tree spread I began a couple of weeks ago. It's in a square 8x8" journal, as is the Ebb and Flow spread I did recently.

The process of this one was strange - I had the writing in my mind first before the image came, and created the image for the writing to nestle in. That part was all very quick, but then I procrastinated for ages over getting the writing in. I don't know why, especially as the writing was done in my head long ago. What is it that holds us back from these things?

The Wisdom of Trees. 8x16" journal spread © Becky Vigor 2010.

The text will be tiny, though may enlarge if you click on it. To make things easier here is what I wrote in type:

"The deciduous tree knows how to soak up the sun and bend with the wind. Its roots go deep as it reaches for the sky. In Spring and Summer it turns its leaves to the sun, busily gathering light all day then passing the night in photosynthesis. There is much work to be done to gather this harvest of light. In Autumn, with the shortening days, this great task is accomplished. To continue to gather diminishing light would weaken it now, and it's time to begin a deeper work. Joyously the tree shakes off the leaves that have brought such abundance. The Autumn gales drift the dead leaves downwards to be reborn as fertile earth to nourish from below. Now, in Winter, the tree stands stark and bare against the pale sky, holding an inner stillness as it attends to its roots. Above ground the tree bends with cold, damp, dark, while its spirit goes underground to strengthen, repair, attend to all that was set aside in the busy Summer. Time to use that energy now, quietly to prepare for the new life already seeded within."

I am trying to learn from the trees. No one can give a definitive answer as to how to live a balanced life, but the trees seem to have it sorted. I think I had the idea that balance was a constant, but it's clearly cyclical, using what we find difficult in order to bear fruit.

Recycling recycled fabric for ATCs

2010-08-15T12:24:00.005Z

It's a long time (or at least seems so) since I spent an afternoon messing about with fabric. These are ATCs for a Recycled Fabrics swap I'm hosting on MixedMediaATC_UK.

This is actually the second time the main fabric has been recycled. Once it had served its useful life as a tea towel it was given to us to cut up as rags for the printmaking process. We use rags in printmaking predominantly for cleaning - cleaning ink off our printing plates with white spirit before reinking them or when we're packing up, and cleaning, again with white spirit, all our tools and implements, and generally the entire surroundings as oil-based ink seems to have the ability to cover everything in sight. Somewhere in that print studio there lives a hair dryer for when we can't wait for things to dry naturally. It started its life white but is now fingerprinted in uncountable rainbow hues. No rags were used in cleaning the hair dryer!
I have often salvaged these inky rags from the bin because they can end up with such interesting colour combinations and patterns. Sometimes they look almost tie dyed after being scrunched in the hand whilst picking up ink. I wanted to share this process with the recipients so I decided to fold pockets into the ATC design to accommodate a small explanation.
The shiny bits are offcuts of fused angelina fibres saved from another project. Shimmery things never show up all that well in scanned images, but you can just about catch a glimmer going down the middle of the pockets.

They're quite sturdy little creations, and it occurs to me that I could make other pocketed things like this... I need to start keeping a book of ideas because I have too many and I amass so much idea clutter I have no idea what's at the bottom of the heap. In fact I need an ideas filing system so I can have some chance of finding the things again. Really there are simply too many of them and it's as frustrating as I imagine it must be to not have enough. I could do with some sort of distribution network to send out ideas to places there there are not so many around, then they could unbunch themselves, stretch and spread their wings.

I seem to have gone off topic again. My concentration is not good right now. Maybe I should go and have some breakfast.

Down with Dowels

2010-08-13T23:12:00.000Z

This post is a little off topic but is a "post allied to art" as it all starts with my studio vamp. I would call it a studio revamp but I'm not sure the original vamping ever took place - it's a bit like those keep fit regimes which I always feel are a little presumptuous because really I need to get fit before I can keep it!

This whatever-I'm-doing-to-my-studio currently involves me in making flat pack furniture. Now, as a good child of the 70s and 80s I was brought up on MFI. I didn't so much get taught how to assemble flat packs as absorb it as part of my childhood environment. Now that I'm responsible for my own furniture I, as a loyal income support claimant, follow the Argos list. Furthermore, I have constructed numerous bits of furniture for non-flat-pack-compatible friends. I feel that these decades of experience qualify me to say the following:

The dowel is the most useless, counterproductive and pointless thing ever to have been made out of wood. It either will not go in or will go in and not come out or it breaks creating a permanent state of neither in nor out. It is the wooden equivalent of the Grand Old Duke of York! Whoever invented it should have been refused the patent and told to go home and invent something less infuriating.

In defence (grudgingly) of the dowel, it would make a tiny amount of sense to use them if hole drilling were more precise. If, instead of being too wide, too narrow or too short the holes matched the dowels I could see that an argument for their merit could at least be begun. But just look at the flat pack for a minute (that imaginary one in front of you I forgot to mention til now). Look what else is in that little bag called "hardware". Screws! Screws are very good at holding things together, they go in the same kind of holes, and they are a lot more accommodating when it comes to slight inaccuracies in the drilling, because they have a thread and therefore can bite and hold the wood they're screwed into. And, to date, I've never managed to snap one in half when trying to remove it. Down with dowels, all hail the screw! If I was ever on Room 101 the dowel would be the first thing to go!

OK, just needed to get that off my chest before I start step 4!

Creative spirituality

2010-08-10T20:25:00.005Z

Since the beginning of 2010, or perhaps a bit before, I have, quite haphazardly, been bringing together creative, spiritual and health-related aspects of myself and my life in a way that seems to be benefitting all three and forming a kind of gestalt.

I haven't done this very intentionally until the last few weeks, but something is growing and changing in my life and its direction because of it all. How do we ever decide where things began? It could be yesterday or the day I was born, because everything we are brings us to here. But I think this process started with a man called Ron who I've never met, but, around Christmas time he put out a call for people with mental health issues to help him with his research into spirituality and belief in mental health. Well, as you can imagine, I was hooked. That inner theologian is still alive and kicking in there somewhere! So over subsequent months Ron and I have had some really interesting email conversations, which I hope (and if I write it "out loud" on my blog it will surely happen) has led me to start planning to write a document about how people can best work with (instead of against) people who self injure, with spirituality as one of the factors.

Next, I had a short-lived attempt at doing the Creative Goddess e-course. This was back in February when I had too many calls on my time and resources to be able to do more than begin. I hope I can enrol again when it next runs. I did get as far as writing my profile though, and was initially quite stumped by the mandatory field: "What are you Goddess of?" I have to say that it had never occurred to me to consider this question ever at all! But, as usual I was sat here online in the middle of the night, and as I gazed out the window my fingers started typing - and later I made this journal page.
The image on the right is how the page looked when closed. I hope this journal page explains a bit more concretely what I said about creativity, spirituality and health aspects forming a gestalt.

I have written "this is not my moon" for two reasons. One reason, that came after it was written, was that I wanted to clarify the fact that, despite claiming to be goddess of the moon, I stake no claim - even in the realms of imagination - on ownership of the moon. The moon is not subject to ownership by anyone, even perhaps itself. Second, and more immediately, was my utter dismay when I searched for moon images to use on my journal page. None of these images show "my" moon, the moon I've looked at all my life. My moon is a light, I can't see any of those crators and topography, I see a beautiful pale off-white luminescence, similar to the colour of snowdrop petals. I see halos and ripples of cloud dramatically backlit as they race across the sky. I see crescents, circles, maybe something hazy in between. But unless I was going to wait for a clear night (and, remember, it was February) I was going to have to use images of everyone else's moon. But "everyone else" can already see that moon, I wanted to show you mine. It made me feel a bit better about the whole goddess thing though, because if no one else can see my moon then I guess I'm the only candidate!

Now I've just been reading about phases of the moon here and it seems the moon has a 29 and a bit day cycle. I vaguely remember knowing and forgetting that. So where does all this 28 day business come from?

Anyway, moving rather tangentially on to the point of this post, this identification with the moon started me thinking about cycles of nature and cycles of bipolar, and indeed the less extreme cycles of life, and in ways that I'm not quite sure how to express as yet, setting my experience within the big picture of nature rather than the little boxes of psychiatry is leading me to understand myself very differently. I made a similar connection with my pages on ebb and flow a couple of posts ago - the moon and tides being so influential on one another (I always think the scientists don't give enough credit to the sea in this partnership), it is no surprise that their cycles evoke similar meanings for me. Just now I am working on another set of pages about trees, which I hope will help me to a place of being a little more articulate about all this. It's almost finished so I'll post it quite soon. There may be a mini-series in the offing.

Seagull Sumi-e

2010-08-07T21:03:00.002Z

The current challenge on the newly named Art Jive is to paint sumi-e. I was going to just skip it because my painting skills are not up to much already without trying to emulate the skill and fluidity of Japanese brushwork. Then I thought, well, why not do it digitally? Then I can have the challenge of working differently in terms of colour, placement and simplicity without having to mess about with paint brushes.

So here's the original photo. It ought to be a flower or something but I found Mr Seagull first.

And here he is having been removed from his context, subjected to digital brushwork and rendered in colours of which he'd probably highly disapprove!

Sumi-e!

Altered Book Round Robin - Europe

2010-07-31T21:04:00.004Z

Here's my latest contribution to the MixedMediaATC_UK altered book round robin. This is Wendy's book and the theme is Europe, more properly, European travel. As I don't venture much beyond these shores I thought I'd better do Greece since I've been there a couple of times and know some of the language, though rather more of the ancient than the modern, and for those who don't know, almost all the two have in common is the alphabet! That's a bit of an exaggeration but not much - for a good comparison go and try to read Chaucer!

Anyway, in a moment of slightly over-enthusiastic creativity, Amanda, who had the book before me, altered a spread and a half of the book, leaving me with the not unpleasant task of doing the same in order to even things up. Here you can see Amanda's last page on Italy next to my first page on Greece.

That first page did cause me some bother. If any book archaeologist would care to excavate the original page they would have to scrape down through many many layers and would only be able to imagine the amount of muttering that accompanied the creation of each! I am still not happy with it but short of ripping it out and rebinding the book (which I did give a few moments' serious consideration!) this is as good as it gets. What it's *meant* to be is a representation of the Greek flag and some of the herbs that grow there, overlaid with the quote that you see there.

Things got better once I turned the page.

The way this works is that the spread proper has a mini book of cut and folded pages in triangles and squares that turn inside the spread. The little pages contain the original Greek and the English translation of Revelation 18:13, that maverick book of scripture that only made it into the Biblical canon by the skin of its teeth at the Council of Hippo in 393CE. However I've not put it in the altered book for some obsucre theological point, but because it describes all sorts of things that smell good; and that, as Kipling has told us (above) is how we know a foreign country.

The rest of the spread attempts to illustrate some of those smells and/or name them in Greek: bread, water, oregano, feta, ouzo, olives, taverna... ah yes, that running up along the right translates as Christ - erm, I guess there is some kind of Christ-smell..? I just doodled it there by the church when my brain was having a rest :)

Moving swiftly on, here's a detail of the part with the small pages.

OK, now I'm going to beat a hasty retreat and contemplate the next altered book which has arrived for my attention this morning - Sue's book on Christmas. Ah, now I see what's happening, I'm getting my themes mixed and Christ got in a month early! What do I get after Sue's book? Sally's on Dragons I think. OMG I feel a spread with a dragon setting the Christmas pudding on fire coming on! OK I'm gettting out of blogland and I'll come back when the meds start to work ;)

Creative ebb and flow

2010-07-22T11:51:00.004Z

Since the exhibition I've been in a bit of a lull creatively, finding it hard to move on to other projects and start new things - or finish old things I have already promised to people. I do often find that transition frustrating - I tend to have quite a long lead-in to my work, with a sizeable chunk of apparently producing nothing as I research and think and let things settle down into The Ideas. Then I get up and running and the work tends to follow on at a fair pace after that. I think I notice all this more at the moment because the last few months have been so intense and vibrant for me creatively, and now I watch it ebb away and wait for the tide. So I decided to make art about it.

In some ways it seems too self-conscious to make art about making art, but on the other hand I need to create from where I am, because there is no other place to stand in this moment. And it serves its purpose because now I feel a little more at ease with the rhythm, I understand more about what the ebb is for, and I can embrace it for itself, and also because in so doing I can call in the tide.

Fishy ATCs

2010-07-18T21:00:00.002Z

I haven't done anything about photographing my journals from the exhibition, I think I've wanted a bit of a break from those images for now, so here is something else.

Fishy ATCs for a swap on MixedMediaATC_UK. So not a complete break as I'm still messing about with shells.

These shells all have convenient (and in some cases natural) 1mm holes through them so they can be used for beading. It's a long time since I did any beading and I've found it really restful.

I have in mind to adapt this design and work it up for a larger scale project, so there could be more beading of shells to come.

Meanwhile I'm enjoying the opportunity to catch up on what else is happening in blogland and stocking up on my stores of eye candy. I feel as though I'm re-emerging into this lavish world after a period of self-imposed exile, and it's great to be able to re-establish the creative connections which bring me so much joy and inspiration.

Sea and Shore - Exhibition Photos

2010-06-30T21:45:00.007Z

So, for those of you who missed it, and for those who want another look, here are the first lot of exhibition photos. This first one is how it looked when I staggered in with my big bag of books, the ink still drying on the comments book!

Art-world wisdom is that you should have blank white walls for your work to hang on, so that all the attention is directed at your work rather than what surrounds it. Not being one to uphold tradition, and also not having a great deal to actually hang up, I decided to do this instead.
John and I struggled with the bottom layer for the best part of an hour - as soon as we stuck one bit the previous bit refused to lie flat. We got there in the end though, and the sea and sky layer went up like a dream. People kept coming by and saying how nice it looked, which was all good but there was no evidence of any of my own artwork yet!
More nice comments, still no actual artwork, but at least people will have somewhere to sit down when the art appears! The mini beach had to become very mini in the end so as not to fill the venue with a load of sand. But a beach is a beach, however tiny... isn't it?
Love these nets, they are chopped up old badminton nets courtesy of John. I was starting to feel the sea breeze by now :)
It's that beach again, and my beach mats valiently trying to cover the carpet.
Now this is more like it, the journals are starting to appear. On the little table is a scroll journal entitled "Rope and Rust", on the wall behind are four hanging journals comprising drypoint prints featuring the fabulous guide dog puppy Pickle on his first adventures in the sea. Across the front we have a line of silk prints illustrating the changing colours of the sea. On the back wall is my Hope journal which shows viscosity inked anchor collagraphs and opens to reveal four mini books containing quotes of hope. On the shelves are the two pyramid journals, not yet very artfully displayed. To the left you can see the consternation in Angela's booth being caused by a severe lack of hooks!
Close-up of the Pickle prints. I created these hanging fabric "frames" in such a way as the prints could be slotted in individually, and removed when sold. It took a day to make them but I really like them, and they can be used over and over again to display other art of the same size.
Here's the Hope journal, the doors, just peeping open.
Well here is the finished product. All the books on the shelves or hanging up (except the more theoretical ones which appeared for the external assessment later in the week). I will put pictures of the shelf journals in another post or we'll be here all night!
My acknowledgements: a bit blurry but no less heart-felt for that.
Here is the exhibition "in use" on the Wednesday.
This is some of the scroll unrolled. People seemed wary of opening it themselves so I decided to chuck it out on the floor so people could see.
Here's my beach again with the bucket candles I forgot to bring earlier in the week, and the appearance of one of those theoretical journals I mentioned.
Last one for now: the pyramid journals. On the right is the beach hut journal, which opens out to reveal another (even more) mini beach, and on the left is the sister journal which tells the history of beach huts. Beneath on the next shelf you can just about see: on the left, aluminium collagraph journal turned into an accordion spine book of stuff about sailing. Middle, Sea Side Shapes, a 4"x4" spiral-bound journal of drawings of shapes and patterns in the sand and sea. On the right is the top of my "milkman's wallet" book containing images of sunsets over the sea.

I have enjoyed revisiting these images. I loved creating this body of work so much and am missing it. I will come back soon with images of the smaller books and journals.

Altered Book Round Robi: Beautiful Creatures

2010-06-28T11:16:00.004Z

Firstly, my exhibition went really well! My "all right on the night" mindset prevailed over the anxiety and was borne out. Thank you to the many friends and family members who came to my beach!

Now, as the photos I want to show you have not yet left my camera I thought I'd show you my latest spread for the MixedMediaATC_UK ABRR. These titles get ridiculously long, it's easy to see how jargon evolves!

So here is Amanda's book, entitled Beautiful Creatures. Of course, when thinking about my spread, my mind turned immediately to cats... I'm now fairly certain I was meant to think about women - which may go some way to explaining why I'm single LOL! So anyway, here is my spread paying homage to the beautiful cat.

It's fibre tip pens, gesso, coloured pencil and ink pad, oh, and glue - lots of glue!

Time for change

2010-06-20T15:20:00.005Z

It's really very odd to consider that after today, tomorrow morning at the latest, this project is at an end; not just the Sea and Shore journal project, but my HND. Of course there's the exhibition to come: hanging it all tomorrow, though hanging is a bit of a misnomer as far as I'm concerned because very little of my stuff will actually hang up.

Here's one that does. It's huge and took hours just to do the measuring! Each letter tile is hinged and opens into a book with quotes about hope, anchors and the sea.

After tomorrow I get a day off. I'm not too sure what that means anymore so perhaps just as well that I have to turn what has become my house-sized studio back into a house so that other people can come and sleep in here. That accounts for Tuesday.

On Wednesday the exhibitoin starts properly, the work having been internally assessed on Tuesday. It's going to be an odd show, 350 people exhibiting all sorts of probably unrelated stuff, not many visitors I should imagine, the college doesn't appear to have put out much publicity or invited people to its private view. We students couldn't do much in the way of publicity either because there were no decisions being made as to when the public would be let in. Then when I did track down the man who could give me answers and have him provide them, he went and changed his mind after my publicity went out. No one told the exhibitors, I found out by accident really. So mostly people are either already committed or they changed their plans so they could come and now can't come on the new date :-S

However, having an exhibition does make an excellent excuse for getting in touch with all my favourite people, and some of those favourite people will be able to come despite the chaotic arrangements, including, I hope, a friend who I haven't seen for 15 years!

Wednesday and Thursday, then, we entertain the public and the external verifier, and part of that public is my lovely family and friends, so I do some socialising too. Friday morning we take down and get out pronto according to the timetable we've been given. That's fine, I just have to figure out where to dump the sand!

Saturday is earmarked for a long lie in. And then? Then I don't get to go in the print studio anymore, then I have no one but me expecting me to get on with a project, then I have no hypercritical tutor terrorising me into improving my work :-) , no irl creative peers to work with. On the other hand I have time; time to start the many projects I've been waiting to do, time to look into setting up my website, time to experiment with all the ideas and techniques I haven't had time to play with yet, time to work intuitively rather than towards some big scheme, time to do online courses and tutorials, join more swaps and challenges, time for MixedMediaATC_UK, time to get my studio sorted once and for all.

Time to meander along the shoreline and let my worries float out on the tide, my joy and inspiration flow back in.

Altered Book Round Robin: Letters to Myself

2010-05-21T20:09:00.005Z

I'm currently hosting an altered book round robin (ABRR) on MixedMediaATC_UK for people who haven't altered books before. There are 9 of us in the circle, each with our own theme, and my theme is Letters to Myself. During April and May we've been preparing our books and then decorating the covers and first few pages before the books go off on their travels at the end of the month. We should all be reunited with our own books in about February, by which time all of us will have worked in each other's books.

As my theme is Letters to Myself I decided to chop my book into an envelope shape. Although I've done all sorts of sacriligious things to books I had never yet chopped the corners off the whole thing, covers and all, so I wasn't entirely sure how to go about this! The book had a very handy dust jacket which made it easy to fold and make a template, then it was really a matter of hacking away until the corners were off!
The theme I've chosen is also a bit unorthodox for an AB. My idea is that each participant writes 2 letters: one from an older or younger version of themself and one from themself now. For example a younger self might write to present self about a situation she is facing and the present self replies with the benefit of distance and maturity. Or it could be the other way round with the present self initiating the correspondence and an older or younger self replying. I think it will be interesting to see what we want to say to ourselves across the years, and to do so creatively using art/craft techniques to embellish and illustrate our letters.

I wanted some background paper for my blurb on the back cover and my title page so I created this image by layering together old letters, envelopes, postage stamps etc in photoshop.
Here are the sign in and title pages. Each participant can use a card inside a mini envelope to sign in and give details about themselves and their spreads. The title page contains a flap with ribbon closures which gives further information to the artists. Here are the pages with their flaps open.

For some reason it took an inordinate amount of time to get those covers and pages made, and I have yet to do my letter spreads before the books start travelling. Oh, and then there was that exhibition to work for...! And journal pics will be shown very soon, promise!

Northumberland Journals project

2010-05-10T12:34:00.008Z

I have been working on this project since the middle of January and one of the main things that has stopped me blogging about it recently is that I just don't know where to start! I'm engaged in the process of creating 20 (give or take) art journals/artist books about the Northumberland coastline in winter for my upcoming HND exhibition which is now, scarily, only six weeks away!

I decided it's time to bite the bullet so I'm going to start with some photos which I took on two visits to the area in recent months: to Beadnell in November and Alnmouth in February.

During these two trips - only 10 days in total - I managed to take a rather overwhelming 1000 photos - and then had the task of sitting at the computer for more hours than I'd like to guess editing them! My favourite 150 found their way into three photobooks and the project was underway.

This plethera of photos, as well as memories and sketches, have formed the basis of the work I've been doing since then. Working across media in a variety of bought and handmade books, often combining writing with art, I am creating something of an extremely expanded travel journal to commemorate these holidays and my love of the sea and shore. In future posts (hopefully not too distant future!) I will show you some of these books, but for now here are a few more photos.

Cats in the post

2010-04-11T17:34:00.003Z

I haven't said anything about what I've been creating for the last 3 months because I couldn't close the chapter on the anthropomorphic lesbian cat love affair in France (otherwise known as The Holiday of Nine Lifetimes) without showing a photo of these lovely creatures who arrived through my letterbox (a feat that impressed the "real" Molly and Rosie no end!) on a day in early February when I was in dire need of good news.

Jean of MixedMediaBlooms and longstanding member of my ATC group MixedMediaATC_UK had read my story and been inspired to create Molly and Rosie fabric dolls! I am thrilled that not only did my creativity inspire Jean's - a true example of visual dialogue - but that she was then kind enough to allow me to adopt her stripy cat dolls. If you scroll back to her blog post at the time you'll see how she made them. I was impressed with her attention to stripiness - so much more neat than mine in the drawings! - but then I'm not patient enough to mask sections off :)

Jean's cats have been in college with my book, which my tutor has still not consented to relinquish as she keeps wanting to show it to people. That seems to me a good enough reason to let her keep it awhile, but I retrieved the cats so they could come home and be photographed and set up house in the art room.

Many thanks again to Jean who brought a sunbeam of joy into a day in my life when joy would have seemed the most unlikely of visitors. That circumstance of their arrival adds to their symbolism for me because they remain here as reminders that even at the most troubled of times if we can even touch a finger to a speck of joy it will lead us to where there is more.

Art factory

2010-03-26T23:08:00.003Z

There's so much I need to update here that I barely know where to begin! Since my last post I have completed seven art journals amongst other things, and the last few weeks I've been wanting to update things here but been overwhelmed by images and not known what to publish. This here is my visual to do list which is hanging above my table in my art room. I hoped that if I made it pretty I might pay more attention to it - I'm not sure how much truth there is in that but the work is getting made nonetheless. I also need to photograph a couple of little creatures who have made my 2010. I won't say more as yet, but in my next post all will become clear.

That's it for now, but I hope to be back soon with eye candy :)

The Holiday of Nine Lifetimes

2010-01-22T23:45:00.011Z

You wouldn't believe how long it's taken me to upload the pictures for this post! If you use Blogger you'll know that pictures are uploaded 5 at a time, and that they load backwards. So you have to start with your last image and work backwards in blocks of 5, ensuring that each subsequent 5 starts at the beginning of those uploaded. If anyone knows a more logical way of doing this, tell me! So here we have 21 images uploaded in this fashion. I am 99% sure they are now in the right order, but if something doesn't make sense just improvise :)

Anyway, the point of all this uploading is to show you my story! This is the culmination of the Plagiarism project in which I've inserted anthropomorphic cats into otherwise innocuous artworks.

The binding I chose to use for this book is somewhat experimental. Here is the cover:

Here's a detail of the Molly cat on the left hand side. I printed the cats for the cover on fuzzy paper so they feel furry to the touch.

This is how it looks inside. The covers open like 2 doors and are secured by a ribbon and brads in the middle and by gaffer tape on the edges.

The back 2 pages of the story are stuck down to the base board but the others are tied together acordion fashion with eyelets and ribbons.

So, the story. I'll just let it run without butting in. That writing is my handwriting by the way, once it's been messed with in photoshop.

The end!

It was fun and it definitely brought out my quirky side :) I loved having the excuse to use all those bright colours and to write an actual story for the first time since school. And inventing eccentric anthropomorphic lesbian cats was also rather joyous. This project has been in my mental in-box for a couple of years so I'm delighted to have finished it at last. But I'm going to miss those cats!

Plagiarism Project - the Sketchbook Pages

2010-01-20T00:25:00.003Z

It's awhile since I blogged about this project, in fact I don't think I've mentioned it since November. It's now virtually finished and I'm working on other things, but in my bid to catch up with myself I've uploaded the most visual of the sketchbook pages from this project.

So, just to recap, the aim of this project was to select eight recogniseable images from artists who've influenced me, draw them in my own style and turn them into a narrative. Choosing the first six images was easy enough, but the final two presented narrative problems. I had realised that the story would need to take place in both England and France already, and just couldn't work in any more countries! I will give a brief outline of the story when I post the final images in the next few days. For now here are my sketchbook pages based on the eight images - and the feline heroines of the story inching their way in!

First up, pages based on Lowry.

I got stupidly excited about letting myself turn the sketchbook upside down and draw from other directions!

Next, Doug Dawson, a pastel painter.

Now Kurt Jackson, a plein air mixed media artist.

Here is a page based on Cezanne's ubiquitous wax fruit compositions.

Now some of Rosina Wachtmeister's cats, who hold an essential place in the narrative. Hope she doesn't mind me renationalising some of her cats!

Here we have Matisse's dancers masquerading as cats.

Now one of Jim Dine's hearts uniting some of our protagonists.

Lastly Bronwyn Bancroft, an Australian illustrator, setting the sun on the story.

Back with the next installment soon. Now I'd better go to bed or I'll never get to printmaking in the morning!

Happy not-so-new year!

2010-01-18T00:37:00.002Z

Productivity is high in this little corner at the moment, but not much is finding its way into blogland. Partly this is because I've been spending more time making than blogging, partly it's because I have an annoying penchant for keeping things in order and things have not been in a bloggable state in the correct order. Partly it's because I'm amid computer chaos - the one on its last legs has been replaced by a shiny new one but the shiny new one has no software to speak of so is not terribly useful as yet.

Anyway, here I am with Resolution Revolution, only 17 days late! Do you remember this thing? Instead of making new year's resolutions we choose a word that we want to take with us through the year, with the intention that it will help to shape our lives in the months to come. My first word was Freedom, last year I chose Curiosity, and this year it's:

I chose Enjoy because 2009 didn't seem to have offered anywhere near enough in the way of enjoyment, either in life or in art. I spent so much time being ill to the extent that my life ground to a halt for months on end. A number of traumatic situations arose which used up too much of the remaining energy. I spent a lot of time unwilling and unable to do anything creative. When I look back on 2009 there are only a few isolated periods of time that I was able to enjoy.

This year is going to be different. I am determined that whatever comes my way this year I am going to squeeze out every inch of joy I can. I know that there is no one on earth who can put as much pressure on me as I can put on myself, and that needs to change. I am not the sort of person who responds well to pressure as some people do. I am way more productive in all areas of my life if I relax, chill out and enjoy. I seem to have some Calvinistic instinct that tells me I'm only doing things properly if they feel like hard work. It's so not true, especially in art. I am currently -and will be for some time - engaged in a big journal project, and I keep feeling guilty because I'm doing "just one more page" in one of my journals instead of...? None of this making time for art business, the art has to give way to make room for the rest of life!

So before you all screech "hedonism!" there are one or two caveats. Some things have to be done anyway despite the fact that there's nothing enjoyable about them. Cleaning out the cat litter is an example. But the end justifies the unappealing means, because I can enjoy clean fresh air when it's done. Other things are not enjoyable for me personally but they make other people happy, or make them unhappy if not done. There has to be a balance here, because, following the cat litter principle, making people happy makes me happy so seems like a good plan in terms of future enjoyment. However, making other people happy at the expense of my own happiness and wellbeing is one of my favourite tricks, and a habit I could do with losing. So enjoyment has to be portioned out sometimes, and maybe there's a more enjoyable way to meet the needs of everyone concerned if we look more creatively.

I hope you all Enjoy 2010 too.

Camera Tossing

2009-12-15T02:23:00.006Z

I came across this an hour or so ago and decided to give it a go. I was initially apprehensive because I'm completely terrible at catching things and I knew that if I started throwing my camera around randomly as suggested, I would very soon have a dead camera. Then inspiration struck - use the wrist strap! So, in no particular order, here are the 7 interesting of the 25 I took, some more photoshopped than others.

Can you tell what it is (they are) yet?

Tape etching and viscosity inking

2009-12-08T09:28:00.009Z

- Not sure why but this is posting as if I wrote it on Tuesday. It's actually Saturday 12th! -

Getting at blogs - both mine and fellow bloggers' - is not proving easy at the moment. For one reason and another I'm just not sitting here reading and writing much. There are a few changes I need to make in my life in the near future, which I hope will increase my blog time.

Anyway, here are some overdue pictures of what I've been up to in printmaking. These techniques are not all that new (except to me!) but are rather modern in terms of printmaking history. I always get a bit stuck trying to talk about printmaking because it's so involved and variable and I'm sure makes little sense to most "normal" people. Anyway, here goes:

So here's the plate. Aluminium with edges filed down and degreased with ajax - not whiting as usual, hence no nasty ammonia fumes! I stuck parcel tape and gaffer tape over it in random patterns creating overlaying ridges in places. I scored into the tape and the background with a needle. I fought bitterly with book-covering sticky plastic to cover the back - apparently we need all our parcel tape for etching these days so have to use the book stuff for mere backs of plates! No air bubbles allowed or they'll etch into the front apparently - Grr! So that done, or maybe before that, I lose track, I had to scorch the front with a flame thrower. Finally it got etched in copper sulphate for 4 minutes, and then for an indeterminate number of more minutes until it looked etched. This picture shows the plate once it's been used for printing - cleaning never really makes it all that clean!

Next comes the inking, and here it is inked up to print.

So with viscosity inking the plan is to print using 3 colours in one go. The first layer - in this case blue - is intaglio, and it seems it needs more than the usual amount of linseed oil to reduce the ink to the right consistency. The method (unsurprisingly) relies on the relative viscosity of each ink, which keeps the colours from merging too much. So after rubbing off the blue I rolled on a layer of Naples Yellow mixed with linseed, and then a layer of Sepia mixed with nothing at all. Here's the first print.
Probably my favourite so far. I wanted to see more of the top colours though.

Print 2 was on unblotted paper with the press a bit too tight. So lots and lots of blue and not much definition resulted.

For print 3 I didn't clean the plate and just rolled over the two top layers without adding any more blue.
See what I mean? There are so many variables and I've barely scratched the surface. And that was my two hours in the print room gone - having prepared and and made the plate ready to go before I got there. It's why I get annoyed when people go on about prints not being "original" or worth as much as other kinds of art. The plate-making takes time, the inking for each print takes time, and if I ever managed to get two prints the same I'd be quite impressed with myself because that's pretty near impossible as far as I can see - they're all unique.

Anyway, I am always quite taken with the by-products, so here are some photos of the piece of newsprint I was wiping my roller on.

I didn't go in this week, but have taken notes from a big fat book so hope to have more to show from this plate before Christmas.

I am being researched!

2009-11-29T21:05:00.002Z

But before I get to that, here is a digital I made in my photoshop playtime recently. It's a picture of Edale layered with a piece of embellished fabrics.

I have loads to upload but first I thought I'd share some information about myself as a visually impaired artist which I have just written in response to the following request:

"I'm doing A level art and i also have visual impairment. I am using you as an artist research in my work but haven't found much information on the internet of your disability. Would you mind giving me some information about this please?"

I tend to forget to talk about my visual impairment so it's no surprise he couldn't find much reference to it. And as it's about how being VI relates to my art, I decided to reproduce it here.

...

Sorry it's taken me some time to get back to you, I've been away for a week and only got back yesterday. It's great to hear from another VI artist and I'd be really interested to know what kind of work you're doing and how you find being VI influences the kind of art you choose to do. In my experience, while there are disadvantages there are definitely advantages too.

I'm not really sure what kind of thing you'd like to know, so I'll just blurble away for a bit and you can let me know if you have more questions or want more information on anything I say. I'd be interested to know how you use the information too - it makes me feel like a proper important sort of artist to have someone researching me LOL!

OK, so in terms of visual impairment I was born with congenital cateracts. I had operations to remove the cateracts when I was little but my eyes hadn't developed normally so I have nystagmus and my eyes don't work together so I can only look through them one at a time. To be honest there's not much point looking through the right one though, because there's not all that much to see if i do. Things my eyes won't do are judge speed, distance, slope. On the sight chart at the opticians I can see the top letter and guess at the ones on the second row with my left eye. With my right eye I can see a load of blurry things! As for reading, I can read most printed text but very slowly and not for long. My eyes get tired from focussing on tiny things, my reading speed can never get much above a third of everyone else's, even if I have a good size font.

So in terms of art I suppose my visual impairment has quite a big impact, though I don't often stop to think about it much. One thing I decided when I started my HND was that I wasn't going to do sculpture anymore. Partly because I was already struggling to find space for my A level sculpture pieces, but also I just didn't want to fall so neatly into the stereotype. When you hear about VI artists - not that you do very often - they always seem to be making something 3D with lots of texture. That's all good, I love texture, but I don't see why we should confine ourselves to what is obvious. One of the questions I find hard to answer is when people ask me how much I can see. I was born with this level of vision, I don't know what they can see any more than they know what I can. So maybe I ended up in the visual arts partly as an answer to that question - "look at my art, that's what I see".

A lot of what I do, especially drawing, is fairly realistic and observational. This is where the advantages of being VI really come to the fore. A lot of people, especially beginning artists, look at what they see in front of them and become overwhelmed with detail. They don't know how to select a composition from all that information in front of them and become impossibly bogged down in getting everything in the picture and how many windows there are in that building on top of that distant hill or some such thing. For me that work is half done because I simply can't see all that extraneous information in the background so it's never going to make its way into one of my drawings and cause a distraction from whatever's in the foreground. I like drawing objects because I can put them right in front of me where I can see them, and I can pick them up and turn them round or look at them more closely if I want to.

I also use photo references more than a lot of people would approve of. People are absolutely right when they say that drawing from a photograph is no substitute for drawing the real thing. But I simply can't always see the real thing so I needed to find a way to work round that. So I've built up a way of working with photos which gets me as close to the real thing as possible, and often out the other side and beyond! Firstly I only ever work with my own photos, with the occasional exception of using photos that I was present when they were taken. So I have to be there in or with the real thing at the outset to take the photos. Other people's photos are no good for me to use because they're what someone else saw. Taking a load of photos means I really look at things, look for compositions and patterns and colours and textures and how I might use them later. Sometimes I take photos of the things I can't see clearly because I'm curious and I can later upload the images and see what I couldn't see at the time. Then I do a load of editing in photoshop to sort out various issues that I would otherwise have sketched in the field. Only after that process, once I'm happy with the images I'm going to work with and the ones I'm using for context and composition, do I start working back in pencils, pastels, print, stitch, whatever.

Another way being VI influences my work is that I can't do things that need precision, like measuring something to the nearest millimetre. I did a book binding course last year and found myself with the task of cutting some greyboard to a width of 6mm. I decided that wasn't the class for me and went back to making my own imprecise raggedy handmade books with deckle edges and uneven binding. To be honest I have never been one for rigidly observing rules or chasing unrealistic goals of perfection, so measurements of 6mm have no business trying to get into my art anyway!

I don't know you and you haven't asked for advice, but if I was to give you one piece it would be to never see your visual impairment as a limitation creatively. There will be things you can't see to do - so do them another way or decide to do something different. There will also undoubtedly be things you can do and others can't, because of your VI and the person you are because of and in spite of that. Do the art you want, not the art you think you should do.

Let me know if there's more you want to ask me. And I would love to see some of your artwork if it's anywhere online, so let me know if you have any links.

Becky

New project - Sketchbook pages

2009-11-01T23:15:00.003Z

I have been making a start on the project I mentioned at the end of my last post. The images are chosen and the story mostly written, so I've been getting on with designing my cats. The idea is that I select eight pictures by artists who inspire me, weave them into a narrative, and reproduce them in my own style. My story does this by following two cats as they go on holiday to France to visit some cat friends. I will therefore be reproducing these esteemed works of art with stylised cats portrayed therein! Hence to design the cats.

So now to put them in the picture, so to speak!

Journal news

2009-10-23T21:36:00.003Z

Since I last posted to this blog I have spent a lot of time not making art. However, I had a longstanding commitment with Maggie to produce a tutorial for her online magazine QuiltWOW, a quarterly magazine for quilters and fabric artists. By no stretch of the imagination could I describe myself as a quilter, and my dabblings in fabric art have been no more than dabblings, so I was very honoured to be asked. Fortunately for the subscribers Maggie was wise enough not to ask me for an article on anything pertaining to sewing, although sewing would certainly add something special to the project I have created. I can't say much about what that project is, except that it involves making a journal that engages all the senses. If you want to know more you'll have to wait for the December issue of QuiltWOW.

In other news - though, to be honest, there isn't much - I have rather belatedly enrolled on my course for the final year. This means that I have to get my act together and overcome my drawing block. The project that requires immediate attention, having been postponed for about 18 months, is called "A Plagiarist's Tale". I will say more about this in another post (provided all goes to plan!) but essentially it involves reproducing a number of works of art in my own style and incorporating them into a narrative. I am quite daunted by the prospect of returning to college and also the commitment I must make to producing art regularly again when I've done so little in the last 4 months. I have no idea whether I can do it, whether I can regain the necessary stamina, whether the notion that I can draw is any more than an illusion. All I can do is live each day with the aim to get through it and the intention to make art whenever I can. If I get an HND out of it, so much the better.

2009-08-25T22:33:00.003Z

Maybe

Maybe I'm doing art again. I'm not very confident about it but for the first time in a couple of months there is something to scan and blog.

The last 6 weeks have been a complete write-off as far as art goes - well, as far as anything normal goes really. Terror, rage, hopelessness, futility, frustration, helplessness, violence, hatred and pain doesn't really cover it but it's as close as I can get. I didn't cut up all my artwork or burn my supplies but only by scrupulously banning myself from even opening the art room door. Nor did I do any obvious or direct harm to myself or anyone else. I listened to LOTS of talking books, stayed in, saw no one but the most insistent, and listened like hell to those talking books because the second they stopped, whenever I had to change a CD even, the terror, rage etc swamped me again. It was very hard to stay so still with all that energy surging through me but it seemed like the only way to survive.

Things are so much calmer, just the last few days. I hope it stays that way - until the next time.

Through all of that the idea of making art was totally abhorrant. I was to have been working on my body image project but I've done none of it, and still don't really want to. I feel that all the joy and positive energy that fuelled the project is dead and gone. Also I don't want to have to think about assignments, deadlines, assessments and so on. I should be returning to college in three weeks. I have no idea whether or not I will.

There is still so much anger that has nowhere to go, and that's what has got me arting again. I realised that, for me, the only feasible way to deal with it is to write and draw. There is no one available to receive the anger, no one to take responsibility for how things are. So I need to express it somehow else.

I am making a book. It is to be called The Little Angry Book of Heterodoxy. I have planned the illustrations, written the text, made and bound the book, all in the last 3 days. Whether it progresses any further I don't know. So I thought I'd post a bit of it while there's something to post, and to try to keep the momentum. Not much to see yet.

The inside cover and what will be the title page. Those ribbons are going to have a couple of tags attached.

There was a problem with the binding. All was well until I attached the cover, then, when it was too late to do much about it but abandon the whole thing and start again, the top stitching of the first signature gave way. When I turned to the offending section I found that some extraneous flecks of red paint had also made their way onto that page. I thought if I gave up on this book and had to start again it would never get made at all, so came up with the following solution:

Steristrips! It so happens that this particular spread can only be enhanced by wound closure. I have stitched a bit too - steristrips were never made with book binding in mind! I have to say, though, that paper is not as pliable as skin, so my wound closure expertise is not in evidence here.

The book is going to be a combination of text and drawings - monochrome pencil drawings with some addition of watercolour. I am not sure yet how to do the text. I keep looking at fonts to draw from, then looking at the 300 words I have to write and getting daunted. I am no calligrapher, that's for sure, and I can't stick my book through the printer either. I keep looking at Jan's use of text and wishing I could create something similar. Still thinking....

2009-07-18T17:28:00.002Z

Nothing to show

Looking back at my last few posts it seems I haven't made art of any significance for about a month. I hadn't realised it had been that long. Here is why.

Firstly, I finished a major project and there always, for me, follows an interlude when I'm reviewing where I've got to and thinking and researching for the next project. The research involves thinking and reflecting on what I aim to achieve, looking at art by other people which is relevant to what I want to do, taking photos and messing about in PhotoShop with them, tidying up the chaos created by the previous project, and a bit of procrastinating while I summon up the confidence to move on. It seems to me that I can't actually draw, and that the drawings I appear to have done in the past must have come into being by some process that didn't involve me. I get scared to start a new set of drawings because I am just me, and the person who does the drawings may not come back.

Secondly my life got taken over by events. I went west for a wedding in North Wales, then became overwhelmed by the heat. A few days later I went south for a wedding in Basingstoke. I came back and the next day went to Scotland for a holiday with 8 members of my family. I took drawing materials with me but there was no time.

I had a great time and am so glad to have done all that, but since returning home I've become increasingly low and am finding it hard to do the basic tasks of daily living. Drawing comes a fair way higher up the list than basic, so none has been done. Today I started playing with the latest DSDF image and I hope I'll start on a drawing for it soon. I've made some starts on the last few themes but not got any of them finished in time for the deadline. I would like to achieve this one though as it will help with my people-drawing aim. But it's very hard to get underway.

So all in all I have nothing to show. I have plenty of ideas, imspiration, art made in my head. That is never the problem. The problem is the energy and focus needed to achieve the focussed concentration that drawing requires of me. Because it is partly true what I said about the drawing process being a separate entity. Not another person but another state of being. If I can't access that state then I can't draw.

2009-07-02T22:51:00.002Z

Paper experiments

I have all but ground to a halt in this heat, and produced very little art of any description. I have, however, been experimenting with different kinds of paper to see how they accept coloured pencil. I have noticed over recent months that my way of using coloured pencil requires the building up of a number of layers, and that different papers respond differently to this. So I've made some samples to see what might be my ideal drawing surface.

The subject matter wasn't really important for this exercise, but in case you're interested, it's a small part of a boat.

As you can see, I concluded that I like paper with texture. It gives me more scope to build up layers because the paper has more vertical space, and it feels more accepting to me. Bristol board was my least favourite. If you want something ultra flat it's perfect, but I like something with more scope for mixing colours. Cartridge paper was OK, and I would be happy to use a heavy weight cartridge paper. The one I used was, I think, 120gsm, and that felt a bit flimsy given all the pressure I apply (remember my comment about being able to hear the pencil on paper when drawing?). I loved the bamboo paper and am longing to put it to use, but my pad is only just over A4 size and I need a bit more space for this project. I didn't much like drawing over watercolour. The pencils show up OK, which I wasn't sure they would, but it all looks a bit too murky for my purposes. The pencil also shows up well on coloured paper, which is useful to know, but again for future projects, not this one.

Drawing the same thing over and over again was tedious, and, in the spirit of scientific investigation, I felt that I ought to keep the image and colours fairly similar across the different surfaces, but it was well worth doing. I also noticed again that when I draw repetitively my drawings become a lot more stylised. My decorative tendencies creep in where I get tired of close observation. I quite like this tendency and it's another avenue that I think is worth pursuing. The only snag is that I need to drive myself a little mad to achieve it!

2009-06-22T21:45:00.002Z

Way back when

In the last few days I've been sorting through some old stuff and I got diverted by the rediscovery of my GCSE art sketchbook. It is 19 years since I took my GCSEs so the drawings I'm showing you are probably 20 years old! It makes me feel very ancient to think of that!

This first one is s tree made out of scribbles, helpfully labelled "A tree" just in case there should be any doubt about it.

This one I rather like. It's a pencil drawing of an old coffee pot that belonged to my Mum. I wish I still had the pencil that drew it. It was s gorgeous thick and very soft dark brown one. I don't think I ever had any others like it. It reminds me that at that age I did quite a bit of drawing with eyeliner, but I don't think it was an eyeliner that I used for this.

This last one is evidence more of my talent for procrastination than art, because this is the cover of one of my Maths exercise books, covered in my rather meticulous doodling. The doodle gradually spread over a number of weeks, maybe even months, whenever the maths got a bit beyond its usual capacity to bore. But I wouldn't have done any of it when we were doing algebra because I liked algebra.

I still do this sort of doodling even now, and at one time I was commissioned by a number of people to make such doodles in the shapes of their favourite animals. I was actually offered money for them but never took it as it was at a time when I was in hospital for several months and my fellow patients had, like me, had their benefits drastically reduced as they are when you're in hospital more than 6 weeks, with absolutely no regard to the ongoing nature of rent and bills to be paid. So I gave away the doodle pictures because at the time it was about all I had to give.

2009-06-19T21:33:00.002Z

Where I am and where I'm going

Firstly, here is the cover for my new sketchbook.

It is to be a loose-leaf sketchbook. I have worked in all manner of sketchbooks but never one that is in essence a ringbinder. I thought this would be a good way to be able to incorporate different kinds of paper, fabric, objects, without the endless cropping and sticking that I usually do. I've been printing things onto cartridge paper and hole-punching them. I've been hole-punching fabric. It's fun. I have good associations with ringbinders, all those years of school and college and university, making notes, writing essays, photocopying articles, hole-punching them all. I loved it. If I could make a living writing essays I'd be happy for the rest of my working life. So for all these reasons it's a ringbinder sketchbook.

So anyway, I've been having a bit of a look back and a look forward.

I ended up leaving my footprint prints at college this week so can't show them yet. I'll pick them up next week. But I aim to have some things to show for my new project before that.

2009-06-12T15:05:00.002Z

The Shrine - at last!

This is it, deadline day, and the work is all in to be assessed. It didn't seem like a lot to represent a year's work, but given the circumstances I am glad to be able to feel that I have done the best I can. So this would be the last Walking Shrine post, if it wasn't for the fact that printmaking always runs a week behind schedule while the ink dries. So there will be a post about my footprint collagraph and then onto pastures new.

So I've been making this shrine for weeks on and off. It always takes me a long period of time to get this sort of thing made. Partly that's due to practical reasons - things need to dry for ages at a time. Also it's because the idea changes, adapts, along the way.

It's a walking boot shrine, the book from my previous post is there tucked into the boot. It's made from foam core board, polyfilla, maps and acrylics and wool tops and treasure gold and nightlights and glue and glue and glue.
Here's a side view. I like the texture on the outside almost more than the inside. Here's a detail.

Here you can see the book nestling in the boot, it's tied on with the lace, which also passes through all those tags I've attached. More setting of eyelets there!

Here they are in more detail. I wanted the lettering to match that in the book.

I have to say it's been a bit of a nightmare constructing this shrine, and it's not all that much like I envisioned it - originally it was going to have pyrography and people with halos. Most of the time I've been making it I've hated it, it seemed to be near impossible to make it come good. In the end I quite liked it, especially right at the end when I added the nightlights.

It's all about worship, in a secular way, to give worth and honour to the things I value. I can see from the comments that I have got this message across - just how important walking and my walking group, the countryside, the whole lot - is to me. So I am glad, glad for three reasons. Firstly, that the project is complete and I've done the best I can. Secondly, that my aims came to fruition, even if not quite how I planned them. Thirdly, that I have spent a fair bit of time telling people that my art doesn't tend to have a message, and I don't see why it should, and here I am proving myself wrong. :-)

2009-06-09T18:25:00.002Z

Because We Can

On Derwent Edge in Derbyshire there are a number of monoliths which look at first glance like huge stacks of stones. They are in fact each of one form, carved by ancient glacial flows. They all have odd names like Breadcakes - the local term for bread rolls -, Salt and Pepper Pots, etc. I am not sure which one this is, the names seem to me to bear so little resemblance to the forms that I can never remember which is which.

Katy, like me, is visually impaired, with a similar degree of sight to mine. She sees a bit better at distance, I see a bit better close to. Neither of us do very well with depth of field - how steeply something slopes or how fast something is coming towards us. I thought this image of her standing on top of this structure, on top of a big hill, would form a powerful statement of what we do anyway, regardless of the limitations on our sight. That is why I've called it Because We Can.

It's pastel pencils and soft pastels on A2 paper. My whole house now seems to be covered in chalk dust of various colours! There is also a pervasive smell of fixative!

I am becoming less stressed as I get things finished. My shrine is still proving perplexing but I'll keep trying to make it into something I like. The deadline is Friday, then I can think about something else.

2009-06-08T22:11:00.005Z

Walking Shrine - Altered Book

Here's a little altered book I've made for my walking shrine. As you can see it really is little, roughly 3"x4". I plan for it to nestle inside the walking boot in the shrine.

Here's a tour of the book. SVIWG stands for Sheffield Visually Impaired Walking Group.

As ever, Rosie is curious!

Now I just need to complete the shrine itself. It's at the polyfilla stage at the moment. I hope to be able to show you in the next few days.

2009-06-03T19:12:00.002Z

Walking Collagraph

A few weeks ago I showed you this collagraph plate.

Now I'm back with some of the prints. I had to modify the plate a bit because some areas lacked definition due to everything being a bit too textured in the same way. The glossy paper, by the time it had been gel mediummed and shellacked, didn't repel the ink at all - so I scored back into and around that part with my drypoint tool. And the footprints were merging into the background so I sanded them back and re-shellacked them. I think I've invented at least two words in that paragraph!

Which brought me to here. I did a few like this, a few sepia too, and I decided I wanted more contrast still, so, once I'd done the whole intaglio process, I wiped out some areas with white spirit to remove the ink completely and got this.
Today I have finished a new collagraph plate, this time using Polyfilla. But I left it in the print room so can't show you yet. But it will be the last plate of my walking project...at last!

2009-06-02T20:43:00.002Z

How to ruin a drawing

Start by using the wrong kind of paper. My inspired idea - which worked out great in my sketchbook - was to use water soluble marker pens to underpaint the drawing then work over with coloured pencil. It doesn't work on Bristol board, it's not absorbent so there was nowhere for the water to go and nothing blended.

Then use a really vibrant shade of green for the background in the belief that it will turn into a lovely soft green when blended, except it won't blend on Bristol board as stated above.

Do all the outlining of people before you're really sure which pen to use for it.

Make the dominant colour in the river the same as part of the foreground so that you end up scribbling over the whole lot in frustration.

Get to a reasonable point and then decide to put pen over pencil. Bad idea!

Believe that you can draw 2/3 of an A3 page of grass without going insane.

Apart from that, of course, it all went swimmingly! I found that, while in the beginning I was mostly focussed on the people, I became more and more preoccupied with the landscape, and the people became almost incidental. Just as well really because they didn't come out that well. After a frustrating day I am just glad this piece is finished and I can move on. And, as I said to my Dad, I probably would have been pleased with it a year ago, so not all bad.

2009-05-30T22:18:00.002Z

Walking icon - mixed media boots

This new piece is an act of serendipity, well, a whole series of happy accidents actually.

The other day I was chatting with Lynda about printing on silk, and, as I needed to make some birthday cards, I decided to use some printable silk to make them. That only required me to use about a third of the sheet though, and as it doesn't come cheap I cast around for something to print on the rest of it. I digitally altered a walking boots painting which you can see here, and printed that on the remaining section of silk.

The result was a translucent image on fabric, so although I had increased the saturation quite a lot, it still had a faded look. Oddly, this is what I had intended! I started putting all sorts of paper and fabric behind it to see what effect the background could have on the image. The answer is infinite. I started to make connections, going back to my idea of shrine and icon, I thought how good it would be to have a gold background shimmering through the image, especially as it's such an earthy, grubby sort of image.

Pearlescent paper looked OK, gold patterned fabric was interesting and full of possibilities, shiny things like OHP transparencies gave a great wet look, but the best thing was foil, and best of all was crumpled foil. But I wanted it gold, not silver. A series of experiments ensued to see what would colour the foil most effectively. The answer, in my opinion, was alcohol inks. I went out to meet another Linda for coffee while it all dried.

Next the foil was stuck to card and the silk was stretched over the two and stuck down. How to finish the edges? My favourite way would be whip stitching them with embroidery silk, but then I thought of eyelets, laces, ribbon. 33 eyelets later I needed a background.

I pulled out a canvas board and my folder of brown papers. I placed the piece on different papers to choose the sort of brown I wanted then started to mix paint. I started with something a bit darker than what I wanted, knocked it back with crumpled paper, let it dry. I added a coat of the same colour with more white added and knocked that back with crumpled paper too. By now I'm talking about 36 hours after I started, what with waitng for this, that and the next thing to dry! Then I added the gold map lines. Do you remember me developing this iconographic shorthand? You can see it here.

Then the bit that always flummoxes me - getting the forground stuck on the background and getting it central and straight. I didn't do too badly!

Here's a detail to show the gold foil showing through, it doesn't show up well in the scan.

I am so happy with this whole new set of techniques I've employed, and can't wait to experiment more with that silk. There seems to be so much potential to layer all sorts and make all sorts of interesting surfaces. But really I'm half way through a drawing, and I need to get on and make that shrine ... But so much fun on the way!

2009-05-24T23:53:00.003Z

Uphill

At last, today I have finished the drawing I've been working on since Thursday. It has been so nice to hold a 4B pencil in my hand and just draw. At times like these I wonder why I have all this stuff cluttering up my art room when all I need is a pencil, a putty rubber and a big sheet of drawing paper.

Being graphite I had all the usual problems with getting the photograph. It's A2 paper so no chance with the scanner. So I had to hold the paper at a weird angle so as not to get the flash flare.

I drew this from a photo from our walking holiday in the Lake District last year. I am still on my quest to improve my drawing of people. I am not sure if this is a useful quest to pursue, I think maybe I should set it aside and draw things I'm better at drawing. But I do think I've made a little progress with this one. I've been reading a book on figure drawing by a very engaging author and artist called Anthony Ryder, and am learning lots from him. But am I learning enough? Or should I go back to drawing boots?

2009-05-20T22:15:00.003Z

Recycled art journal - and whether to scan or photograph
For a few weeks now I have been in the process of making a new art journal. It shouldn't really be such a long process but I have done it in a few stages. I did begin by documenting it with photographs to do a tutorial for you all, but I only did so for the initial binding then got carried away with the cover and forgot to take photographs. I can upload the photos I did take if anyone wants to see them.

I wanted to make the journal from recycled materials so I started with a load of scrunched up brown packaging paper from a recent delivery. I flattened it out roughly and began to tear my pages. I wanted it to have a ragged look so just folded and tore quite loosely. In the book you can see that the horizontal edges tore with the grain and the vertical edges tore against it. Once I had my pages I ironed them (yep, one of those conversation stoppers again!) so they would like flat.

I sorted them into signatures, punched my holes and bound them with waxed linen thread.

That all happened quite quickly, then it sat around for a week or two while I thought about the cover. In the end I used a cut down section of an Amazon box. I folded it to give a spine and back and front, basically by laying the bound pages inside and folding it where it needed. Then it sat around for awhile more.
In the end I pulled the threads through the spine of the cover and tied them off with some African beads. I didn't have any plan for this part, just pulled out my bead box and looked through til I saw them. That gave me a colour scheme so I got out my acrylics and gave the outside of the cover a coat of terracotta paint. It looked a bit dull so I grabbed my drypoint tool and started scoring lines into the cardboard. This disrupted the paint somewhat and started to look interesting. I started to rub in Treasure Gold, intending to just catch the cracks, but it had other ideas and became a bit overwhelming.
I went over the whole lot with a couple of glazes of Azo Gold and the Tressure Gold started to float as though under water. It's hard to show this in the pictures but looks like the gold is suspended between the layers.

On the front cover I outlined the cracks with black CD marker, but I didn't do this on the back. I decided I prefered it un-outlined, but once you've done half an inch you're committed to the whole page!
The insides of the covers got a couple of coats of the original terracotta.

It is always a dilemma whether to scan or photograph things like this. Often a scan works best, and, if what I have to scan is A3 or smaller that is usually my preference, even for quite bulky things. But when something shiny or metallic is involved the scanner just doesn't pick it up so I get out the camera. The disadvantages of photographs though, are getting the alignment right so that rectangular things look rectangular, and getting colours right. Also, with anything in the least bit shiny, even the sheen on a coloured pencil drawing, the flash bounces off the sheen and whites out part of the image. The way to get round this is often to take the photo from an angle, but then you're back with the alignment issue. So I have done both for this post. The first image of the front cover is a scan, the second is a photo of the front cover.

How we suffer for our art!

And that was to be the end of the post, but I must comment on that phrase before I go. I read recently that the intended meaning of "suffer" is effort rather than pain. It made me like the phrase a lot more. I don't see the need or purpose of causing ourselves pain in the name of art, but putting effort into what we do is necessary and a joy. I am happy to suffer in that respect.

2009-05-11T17:07:00.003Z

Hot plastic

Every so often I bemuse my friends by saying things they never thought they'd hear anyone say. The other day it was about tails. I was stroking a friend's cat and said that if I had a tail I'd like it to be like her cat's. There followed an interlude of silence while my friends tried to work out an appropriate response. Trying to elucidate I said "Don't you two think about what kind of tail you'd like to have? I thought everyone did." Apparently everyone doesn't! Ah well, people are strange...

So another one of those conversations went like this: "What have you been doing?" "Ironing plastic bags." ...silence.

I am engaged in an ATC swap with the theme of plastic bags. So I placed some between waxed paper and ironed them to fuse them together. Then I had some interesting new surfaces to play with but didn't know what to do next. The bits of fused plastic sat around on my art table for awhile then I cut ATC-sized sections from them. It didn't go very well, it seems I don't have the knack of cutting fused plastic bags into regular shapes. I painted one of the pieces with alcohol inks, sat and stared at them for awhile (it was my turn to be bemused!) and left them alone for a few days.

Today I though I really must do something about finishing those ATCs so I did this.

It mainly involved copious use of the heat gun. I took my inaccurate little rectangles and started fusing cut up pieces of the other fused plastic onto them. I soon realised that my little rectangles weren't going to stay rectangular and started to enjoy myself. Freed from the need to produce rectangles I found that the joy of melting random chunks of plastic onto other plastic and watching the other plastic bubble, curl and change shape, was well worth the burnt fingers.

I liked my odd little fabrications but they needed a base. I grabbed some cards from the vague heap that is my ATC blank stash and they included some painted-on playing cards which were rejects from a previous project. I glued the plastic pieces on with gel medium. They came off. I glued them on with diamond glaze. They came off again. The first ever time diamond glaze has failed me! Back out came the heat gun. I figured that melted plastic would fuse itself to anything and I was right - well, it stuck itself to my ATC blanks and cutting mat anyway!

I wanted the word "fusion" on them but they were kinda full up. I decided to write it on OHP transparency with a permanent pen and secure it with brads. That completed the ATCs.

Now I just need to grow that cat's tail!

2009-05-09T10:10:00.004Z

Walking Shrine - Pilgrimage

I am not sure now whether or not I'm going to manage the whole shrine as I first envisaged it, but I am carrying on as planned for now. If you've followed my blog for any length of time you'll know that as a rule I don't tend to draw people, buildings or landscapes. Here is a piece where I have attempted all three. Not only that, but I have drawn them on Bristol board, a surface I've never used before. Given all those mitigating factors I'm quite happy with what I've produced, though all three elements of the subject matter could certainly do with improvement.

I also decided that I would make a point of taking photographs of my progress at regular intervals during the drawing process. When Mum was here we did some art together and she chose to work with coloured pencils. She is still teasing me because I kept telling her she hadn't finished when she thought she had, and I told her that I should be able to hear the pencils on the paper as she was drawing. I hope I wasn't quite as strict as she makes out! And I do know that some white showing through is quite acceptable - but I wanted to show her how to build up layers of colour. This prompted me to think I ought to show my layering process, so here it is.

This is after 3/4 hour of work. I started by drawing outlines of the main features and putting down an initial layer of colour.

After two hours I was already seeing what a menace all those windows are! And starting to see that Bristol board is not all I'd hoped it would be.

Three hours. I've worked more on the people and foreground, put in the background hills and the trees.

After four hours I've finished the foreground landscape and started to block in the shadow areas of the tower.

After five hours it's almost finished. I've worked a bit more on the people and put more tone into the tower.

After six hours it's finished. I've worked more on the trees and the tower details and come to the conclusion that the remaining mistakes can't be rectified, so I decide to call it a day.

As I see it the people are the main weak area, although I was quite pleased when I showed it to a friend just now and she identified two of the five without prompting. I want to do some more work on figure drawing to develop this area.

The other problems are mostly due to my unfamiliarity with the surface. The very smooth surface of Bristol board does really speed things up, which is a good thing in general, but it took me a bit by surprise. It fills up much more quickly than more textured surfaces so I found myself wanting to add extra layers in some areas and finding that is was impossible. I wanted, for example, to re-emphasize the branches as they cross the tower, but it was physically impossible to lay any more colour down. On paper it would have taken another few layers before I reached that point. Now that I know that, I can plan better and be more thoughtful about my layering. The time factor is quite amazing though, so I will definitely persist. I had estimated that this drawing would take me ten hours to complete and it actually took six.

2009-05-05T17:10:00.004Z

See how my garden grows

I don't think I have ever blogged about a garden, mine or anyone else's. I am so much better at killing plants than growing them. However, when I moved here in June a sizeable weed patch came with the property, and, true to Yorkshire custom, the entrance to the house is at the back. Not only that, but the gardens of my three neighbours are pretty much tacked onto mine. Clearly action had to be taken!

I enlisted the help of my Mum, who, unlike me, is a very creative and competent gardener. She did the vast majority of pulling out the weeds for me, and then proceeded to make many lovely but high maintenance suggestions as to how to fill the gap. If I could keep my Mum up here to garden for me I would have taken up many of them, but as my talents are considerably lacking in this department I decided I needed things that would grow themselves without too much intervention from me. I also realised that the former weed patch was rather bigger than my horticultural ability, and needed ruthless action. Words like "weed membrane", "ground cover" and "hardy perennials" entered my vocabulary.

Last summer no one appeared to be selling weed membrane, apparently you're meant to buy it in autumn. The weeds weren't going to wait that long! Ebay came up with the goods, and while I was there I ordered 25 big chunks of sandstone from a man in Chesterfield. I figured they would take up some of the space. At this point my garden was looking quite like a building site and my neighbours were becoming intrigued. I managed to get a few plants in, then depression took over.

Enter Mum to the rescue. She came up again a month ago and we went on a plant-buying mission. In the afternoon we set to and planted them. It was starting to look like a garden. I grew in enthusiasm and bought and planted more plants. I am even now Growing On some plug plants! I am ridiculously proud of myself! Then Dad and Anne arrived and off we went to buy stone chippings which I have been scattering over the membrane. I need to get more stones but it's almost done.

My beautiful lilies are almost over so I took some pictures before they go.

Here's where the stones ran out.

I forgot to mention the solar lights. There are 10 of them and they cast a ghostly light over the white stones at night.

Pretty spotty laurel leaves.

My favourite red robin.

My tiny willow tree. It has suddenly come into leaf since the rain.

I have inherited 4 bluebells, the ones in my garden are the first ones I've seen this year.

Here's Rosie inspecting it all.

Now I just have to grow those stripey ones on and sort out the weed patch at the front!

2009-05-01T21:34:00.003Z

Walking Collagraph

So at last I am back to my walking project, and the collagraph that I started some time ago. When I say "started" I had actually cut the cardboard and stuck the string on, dividing the plate into three areas. The rest I have done in the last few days.

The central section has swirls worked in gel medium with the sticks superimposed on them. I am not sure yet whether the swirls will press through the sticks, I'm hoping they won't. The sticks I printed out from an altered photo and cut from their background. I printed them on photo paper. Again, this is an experiment. I am hoping that the shiny surface will repel the ink. I have scratched into the photo paper on the dark sections to give the ink somewhere to bite.

The bottom section is three types of handmade paper formed into vaguely landscape-ish forms. The sky area I left blank so it's only had the top layer of gel medium (applied in horizontal lines) and shellac.

On the side panel I drew the footprints and scored into them with an etching tool, then dabbed gel medium around them in quick finger movements to create spikes. I hope it will look like snow and/or mud.

At the end I thought the top right area needed something extra so I cut into the board with scissors. I liked the way this worked on my last collagraph so thought it was worth repeating.

I am now waiting for Wednesday so I can see how it prints. The more I do printmaking the more mysterious it becomes. The current mystery is that I have this feeling that I know what I'm doing. In each technique it's possible to build up some degree of expertise, but in the end it's still subject to a great deal of unpredictability and variation. I think that's what keeps me fascinated and keeps me doing more.

2009-04-28T19:34:00.003Z

Collart

Ages ago, before I was in hospital, I posted about this piece, and now that it's finished I can finally show it. At the time I started it I had very little concentration or focus and couldn't sit still or quietly to draw. I needed to do something that could be made in a series of moments and without much need for thought. In that state of mind connections and conclusions come rapidly and numerously and it can be hard to get to the point of achieving any one of them before the next takes over, and the next, and the next. The idea behind this piece was to work big so that detail didn't matter, so that I could work standing up, the idea was to make rather than plan. I thought I could grab a big canvas and proceed as if I were making a collagraph, but then paint it, thus creating a textured painting.

This is the collage stage.

The sky area is just primed canvas. The hedges intersecting the fields are string, the foreground hilly areas are paper doilies. The path has a texture too but I can't now remember what I used for it, the stones are formed with modelling paste.

And thus is remained while I did other things.

I have now finished (I think, but I keep thinking that and doing a bit more) the painting, and this is how it turned out. The reservoir got an interim coating of diamond glaze, the rest is acrylic.

I can't decide whether or not I like it. I like the process and may well use that again. I do like the colour scheme too, but I'm not sure about the overall piece. It's not really like what I usually do, but that's partly because it's an experiment, so not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe it just has too many associations with being ill. Do you like it?

2009-04-28T18:43:00.003Z

"A Companion of Diana"

I recently came across a blog called Different Strokes from Different Folks where Karin Jurick hosts a mass image interpretation extravoganza. Every two weeks she uploads an image, then everyone who wants to can produce a piece of art inspired by that image. And loads of people do! The current cycle ends tomorrow and so far 88 images have been uploaded! It's fascinating to see the variety of styles and techniques, colours, settings, composition, used by so many people tackling the same subject.

So the current image is something I would never normally stop to look at, let alone draw. Here is is. It's a statue, presumably of a goddess but I don't really know. It's in black and white. It's on a plinth. It is so not my thing. The one redeeming factor as far as I am concerned is the great tonal qualities created by it being three-dimensional.

But I wanted to join in. I feel a bit out of the loop at the moment, I wanted to do something which would connect me with other artists. I decided I'd be a lot happier with the subject matter if I threw in some colour and made it look a whole lot less classical. Also I have new pastel pencils and I wanted an excuse to use them.

I got a bit lost with that dog. I am finding it very hard to portray things I don't like at the moment, and I don't like dogs. They make loud scary barking noises and have a distasteful tendency to lick people. So this one lost its face. It wasn't intentional, I just seemingly couldn't include it however much I tried. I like those pastel pencils though.

2009-04-16T14:45:00.003Z

Love Your Body Sketchbook - Days 6 and 7

I did it! I finished the sketchbook! It took a month instead of a week but it doesn't matter. I have a little sketchbook sat here that is entirely full of inspiration for my summer project. Here are the pages for the last 2 days.

Really the conclusion above says it all. I'm so glad I took up this challenge, it's seen me through a difficult time and rekindled my creativity at a time when I haven't been able to focus on more "finished" pieces. I hope now to get back to my other work, to get back to a workable routine, and be back here posting and reading blogs on a more regular basis.

2009-04-03T16:37:00.005Z

Body Image Sketchbook - Days 4 and 5

Here are days 4 and 5 in my sketchbook in 7 days. It has turned out to be sketchbook in about a month, but it doesn't matter. I am getting a real sense of achievement as the pages fill up. Only 2 more days to do now, and I'll be all ready to get on with my body image project later in the year.

Again I will let the pages run through without additional comment as I have written in the book. There are a couple of images that should be viewed on their side - I had to choose whether the writing or the picture should be up the right way!

That's it for now. Days 6 and 7 will follow in due course.

2009-03-25T01:15:00.004Z

Sketchbook in a Week Challenge - Days 1-3

Here is the first lot of pages from the Body Image sketchbook I mentioned yesterday. I am putting all of days 1-3 in this post and will post the other 4 days as I do them. I'm just going to run straight through without comment because I've already commented in the sketchbook on what I've been doing and what my thoughts about it are. I do tend to write a lot in my sketchbooks and this one, perhaps, has less writing than most. I am loving the process of this challenge and can see myself doing it again in the future.

OK, here we go with the first 3 days.

Come back soon for day 4 :)

2009-03-23T23:34:00.003Z

While I was gone

Well it's three weeks since I last posted and I have no collart to show you yet. I started making the collart initially because I was getting quite ill and didn't have the focus or ability to sit still to draw. I started work on a big canvas building up lots of texture and then painting into it. It's probably about 2/3 done at the moment, the stage it reached before I went into hospital. I've been back home a few days, and I did do a bit of art while I was there, but I'm still settling really and, while I am making art, I'm not yet ready to get back to my college project. In the meantime I'm engaged in a group challenge with my lovely Untamed Artisan friends whereby we undertake to fill a sketchbook in a week. I will post about that separately either later or tomorrow.

In the meantime Julie and I completed our art exchange. Here, at last, is Mr Lizard.

Julie had asked for something on a lizardy theme and I was initially undecided about how I would do this. I have done many lizard pieces before and wanted to do something different. I started with very bare and sparse curved lines. I wanted to get a feeling of movement, having come to the conclusion that the lizards I drew last year looked too static. If you look at the central black line you will see my starting point when I did the sketches. The two lines for the legs followed and I had a rudimentary lizard.

Once I had the design and composition sorted out I started to think about pattern and colour. I wanted to echo Aboriginal and African designs and once I had visualised the earth colours I knew that I wanted lizard and foliage on a red background. It's unusual for me to use so much red but I used red quite a lot in those few weeks. As the painting progressed Mr Lizard started to attain a personality and making suggestions and comments on his canvas. What could I do but try to oblige? So here he is, as close to how he wanted to be as I could make him.

Meanwhile Julie has been creating a work of beauty to swap for Mr Lizard. It's a fabulous many-layered textile piece with luscious embroidery and beading. When held up to the light there is a real watery translucence to it. I don't know how Julie accomplished this but it's truly stunning. You can see it on her blog here.

2009-03-04T01:53:00.002Z

Sea Dream

This is a small 6"x6" hanging I made for a friend who hasn't been well. I should add that the heart-felt hanging in the previous post was also 6"x6", a size I like very much. On a bit of a tangent, while we think about image size, everyone but me in my print group is working on a huge scale while I seem to work smaller and smaller. However, it must be rubbing off because my current piece, which I hope to post by the end of the week is 50x60cm!

Back to Sea Dream, I have mixed feelings because it marks a turning point. I have plans to work on a series of sea drawings/paintings when time allows, and this is something like a sketch in that direction. I am dissatisfied with my use of button images created by others, yet I do love them. In that way it's perhaps part of the last vanguard of what I used to do. In other ways it points to the future and the collart I want to develop. Collart, you may have noticed, is not a word. I intend to make it one, and will post about it soon.

I am also abrim with excitement because Julie and I are about to swap some art. We had the idea for a 1-1 art swap around New Year and it's coming to fruition. Julie requested a lizard from me, and I will put a picture of him up once she has received him. I asked Julie for a sea-themed piece and can barely wait for it to arrive! I know that having a piece of Julie's work will inspire me every day, and it might give me a gentle nudge to get on with my sea series too!

2009-03-03T04:44:00.002Z

Heart-Felt

More wedding plans are afoot - this time my Dad and his partner! So once more I wanted to make something heart-themed for their engagement. I do love the heart motif, it's a symbol I come back to again and again, and I would love to do a Heart-Felt mini series if I ever have time. This was meant to be a card when it started out, but turned itself into a hanging.

We have a heart-themed ATC swap going on my group at the moment with the theme of hearts, so I made some extra little ones.

As you can probably see, I made them on the embellisher and added stitch and little buttons to finish them. The hanging is then secured onto chipboard which I'd painted with gesso and watercolour, then I set eyelets and added the wire and beads.

Now all I have to do is go and buy 4 wedding hats!

2009-03-03T03:56:00.003Z

Rucksack

I started off my survey of walking paraphernalia by having a closer look at my rucksack. I'm aiming on doing some (basic) portraiture as the project goes on, and that will involve a lot of rucksacks, so the following drawings are research for that as well as being drawings in themselves.

I'm still enjoying these quick sketches, I find they do tune my eye in to what I'm drawing.

This one was quite fun, I do love using the soft pencils. I soon discovered just how much dark there was in my drawing though, and tried to do better with the coloured pencil version.

That odd lump in the middle is meant to be my mittens. If it wasn't for them I would be more happy with how this turned out. I also don't like the cold colours, I never do. I found it hard to keep going with the drawing because the colours were so unappealing to me. I wanted to abandon it most of the way through. I guess I learned that there's a good reason why I don't use this sort of colour scheme in general. I suppose we develop our artistic style partly by aversion to the things we don't do!

2009-02-20T05:49:00.008Z

Everyday Shrines - A New Approach

My quietness here recently has been due to the fact that I've been developing my ideas and looking at my art in a new way. I've wanted to post about this for a few weeks now, but I've been finding it hard to do. This means that, not only has this post been a long time coming, but also that I have quite a backlog of things to post about.

I think my reticence stems from lack of confidence. My new thinking has led to a big shift in the main focus of my work, and new things can often be a bit daunting. Also, there is a controversial aspect to what I want to do, and I have needed to build the confidence to feel able to defend it should that prove necessary. I'm not sure I'm at that point, but I also need to test the water, and hopefully receive more feedback. Feedback irl has been encouraging and that brings confidence in itself.

There will follow a fair amount of text. You can skip to the pictures if you want, but their context won't be obvious if you do. As this is an art blog I do tend to put some limits on my natural verbosity but some is needed here!

OK, here goes.

Some of you may remember this Creativity Shrine that I made last year. It was the first time that I'd made any kind of shrine and I loved both the process and the concept. I have followed with interest the making of mixed media shrines that has been going on recently and wanting to join in, though I've been unsure of the motivation behind them. To me a shrine denotes something holy, the physical prompt to meditate on and possibly worship something of great value. Lots of people are making shrines but is this the purpose they envisage for them?

I mentioned recently that I was a theologian before I was an artist, and that I would like to find a way to integrate the two. About six weeks ago, on a windy walk home from college, the way filtered into my mind. I am the sort of person who reflects on things a great deal, and therefore meditation is important to me. My two forms of meditation are walking and drawing. When the two combine I can't afford to ignore the result.

When I started my degree in theology at the age of 18 I was an evangelical Christian. By the time I finished my masters at 22 I was on my way to atheism, though I wasn't ready to embrace it at that point. I was musing on this and wondering what relevance all that theology had for me now, and why I felt so strongly motivated to integrate it with my art. I was also thinking, in a parallel thought process, about shrine-making and my desire to do more of it. I reflected upon the existence of God in my life, and how it had been so central and now so absent, almost as though God had been alive and then died. I don't believe God was ever there, but from my perspective a bereavement had still occurred due to my changing beliefs. That led me to muse on Nietzsche, who had uttered just this sentiment in the following quotation:

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?”

Nietzsche - "The Madman".

The premise is that, while religion is bad for us and we cannot keep alive the idea of God, spirituality and morality are nonetheless important. As there is no afterlife or heaven and hell, we must found our spirituality on what is here. Whilst I disagree with Nietzsche on numerous points, I couldn't agree more with this one. Many Christians used to believe, and some still do, that morality is impossible without a belief in God. This is clearly not true. It is equally untrue that spirituality is impossible without religion.

I realised that what I want to do is make a series of shrines to celebrate, commemorate, or otherwise mark the aspects of my life where my spirituality lies - the ordinary, everyday things and activities which give my life meaning and value. I was already engaged in making art related to one of them, my walking, my walking group, the countryside we walk in. So this is where I start. In secular terms, walking is my worship, the walking group is my congregation and the countryside is my church. My first shrine, therefore, is to walking. There will be other shrines later on.

I envisage making a kind of mini-installation for each shrine looking something like this.

As my posts unfold, the nature of the items indicated will become clear.

Firstly, do you remember the fabric picture of walking boots I was creating with the embellisher, and how I mentioned that it would be turning into a kneeler? Well this is what became of it. Here it is finished.

And here it is with the cushion pad inserted.

I had no idea that I was making a kneeler for my shrine when I set out on making this, but it adapted itself very nicely to the role!

Similarly, some of the pictures of walking boots I have done already may become icons. The next phase of research for this project clearly needed to be on icons, so I started to gather and study them. I discovered that there is a great wealth of iconography out there, but that the sort of icons I had been imagining are those from the Russian and Greek Orthodox tradition. In reading about them I discovered that they were mostly created by monks following a surprisingly formulaic set of instructions and symbology. I wondered how my artistic style could be combined with that of iconography and decided that my first task would be to research them visually by copying some parts of icons. Inevitably my own style would start to creep in and this may give me some direction.

Initially I thought that it may be possible to icon-ise my art by combining my style of art in the foreground with iconic symbols in the background. I began by studying the backgrounds.

As you can see, this almost drove me to distraction, and I began to wonder if I had bitten off more than I could chew. More experiments followed.

So I came to the maps. I tried the samples below and was quite taken by both the idea and the content. At this stage the bottom sample takes me as close as I can go for now to what I am looking for.

I then moved on to the foregrounds and made the following drawings based on one of my favourite icons (originals below). The first one is drawn with graphitint pencils and the second with inktense. In both cases I used water to turn the pencil into paint.

That concluded my icon research for now, though I know I'll need to return to it later in the project. I plan to be working on this shrine until sometime in May, which is not actually very long to accomplish all I want for it. So I moved swiftly on to look at the paraphernalia of walking, more of which in another post.

2009-02-05T00:23:00.010Z

Spring or Winter?

I have so much to blog and this is only a fraction of it. I've been busy and away and making things faster than I can post about them. So for starters, what's happened to the weather? OK, so it was never really looking like spring, but for January things weren't too bad, then suddenly all this snow!

However, before arctic conditions set in, I was working on two spring projects. The first one is the one I haven't been able to show. I made it for a challenge in Cloth Paper Scissors but it wasn't selected so I'm free to do what I want with it. I'm never sure about the merits of entering these competitions. I think it's good practice to do it every so-often. It's good to make myself abide by someone else's specifications and to have ideas stimulated from an outside source. It's bad in terms of deadlines and stress. I don't like deadlines, to the extent that I usually make up my own pretend deadlines so that I don't have to be anxious about the real ones. That works for things with a reasonable timescale but these competitions always require a quick (for me) response. I generally have a mulling things over time at the beginning of a project and then gather speed as I go along. Competitions don't really allow for that. And also I wonder what I'm doing, why not make the things that have a more certain audience? Blah! So I did it. The theme was "play on words" and requested a spring theme. I did Spring Cleaning, which, obviously, is the practice of cleaning one's springs.

So it's mixed media and 3D and lives in a box frame. I started with the Brasso drawing (which may have been my downfall as there are probably copyright issues) and the background. I drew the rubber gloves on separate paper and cut them out and attached them with foam pads. The written elements are my invention, printed on card which I had already printed with vintage book page images, and then distressed further with distress ink pads. These I stuck on with foam pads too, to make them 3D. The cloth and the springs are real, stuck on with gel medium. I painted the mount with acrylic and framed it. There's a bit more to the frame involving wood and glass but it doesn't scan well.

I like it and it's cheerful and makes me smile, so I will find a place to hang it and probably look at it with a mixture of pleasure and disappointment. But mostly pleasure.

So then I went to Scarborough. As I mentioned, my friends Sharon and Sharon have moved there and set up a mosaic business, Pharmo Mosaics and Arts. Last time I saw them they were waiting for the shop to become vacant and it was in its previous incarnation as a games shop. Now they're open and Sharon has made a beautiful job of decorating the shop front.

They are selling mosaics of all sorts, from small decorative items such as coasters, to mirrors, to pub signs, and that's just the mosaics. They also have lovely decorated pots and beautiful pastel paintings, all made by the Sharons. They have a section of glass art made by one of the Sharon's sister, and a section just for me :) Here is the display of the pieces I have for sale there.

And here is the gorgeous seahorse mirror I bought from them while I was there. I had my eye on it while Sharon was still making it here in Sheffield, and was very glad it hadn't already sold.

Incidentally, I completely forgot to mention that I had a couple of my sheep pictures in a local exhibition over the Christmas period. It was held at the Northern General hospital and I think about 30 artists submitted work. It was a large exhibition held in their Clock Tower gallery and there was an interesting range of work in various media. The exhibition was held to raise money for the hospital arts projects, a cause close to my heart. Unfortunately it seems that there weren't many sales, I think probably due to lack of publicity, but they plan to do more in the future so I hope they'll be more successful as they build a reputation.

Back in Scarborough a storm was brewing. I think stormy seas are one of my favourite things in the world so I was very excited to have a front row view. The weather was extremely cold and blustery and only warmed up (slightly) when the snow came. I wore increasing numbers of clothes as each day passed, even to the extent of wearing my slipper socks inside my shoes! I was still freezing. But look at the sea! Who cares about frostbite when you can see this?

When I got back to Sheffield it was like this. Three inches of snow and more to come.

Yesterday before the ice set in and made walking scary, I took my camera on a walk in the Rivelin Valley, a wooded river valley that begins ten minutes' walk from my home. One of the things I love about where I live is that I have all the advantages of the city 20 minutes away on the tram, but I can walk out of my front door (although it's at the back, being in Yorkshire!) and be in the countryside in next to no time. I go to Rivelin often on my own, and my walking group sometimes starts walks there. It's beautiful, look!

Today the snow is melting and the ice is scary, so I got to cancel things and stay home and make art. More snow is forecast for the next three days and I just know I'm going to fall over before the thaw. The only question is, how many times?

2009-01-26T22:13:00.002Z

Hearts and Flowers

Most of my art time has been devoted to the secret not-to-be-put-on-my-blog thing, and I'm stil working my way up to writing about the new direction I'm taking with my art. In the meantime here are a couple of little things I've been making.

Firstly, a friend and his partner have recently got engaged. I hadn't met his partner til last week, when I cooked dinner for them both and had a great time. I always make my own cards and I've made hundreds of birthday, Christmas cards etc, but not engagement ones. So I had to think... and also we seem to have a gap in the market on cardmaking techniques for gay engagement. I thought I should fill that gap!

I cut the heart from copper sheet and heated it to change the colours. I sewed around it adding beads, and from the loose threads I tied 2 man symbols twisted from copper wire.

Then this week, to my delight, my brother and his partner announced their engagement! So I have another card to make, but this one will be boringly heterosexual. I suppose someone has to fill the hetero quota!

Here are some ATCs I made this morning. One good thing about hosting swaps is I get to make the ATCs on deadline day and no one but me knows they're late! The theme is Signs of Spring.

I had been practicing flower forms for the secret art piece in my sketchbook, and, looking at them yesterday, I thought I could turn them into ATCs. I'd just drawn outlines in black pen, so I isolated the parts I wanted to use and decided it was time to practice my painting again. These are watercolour and I surprised myself by being able to get the paint in the right places on such a small scale. The one on the right has a little pastel added to lift the colour as it turned out a bit dark. They're quite jolly, I've become attached to them and will miss them when they go.

2009-01-21T23:25:00.004Z

Progress report

I have been beavering away in the background but not had a great deal to show for it in the last week. This is partly because I am entering a new phase of research as I expand my current work beyond the theme of walking boots to look at walking, and in particular my walking group, as a whole. At the moment this is involving me in research about shrines and icons, but I need a separate post to explain all of that, which will follow in the next few days.

For reasons that should become clear at that point, the embellished piece I've been working on is now to become a kneeler. I have changed my original design intentions a little in order to accommodate its new role, and will be adding side panels, a back, piping and tassels etc in due course. Here it is so far.

As you can see, I decided to use the "front" side as the front in the end, and added shades of gold and blue with the brown, instead of the pink that I had originally planned. These colour changes are relevant to the way I wish to present the kneeler as part of the revised project as a whole, and besides, are one of my favourite colour combinations, though I tend to use them more in interior decoration than my art. You should be able to see that I have placed brads in the fabric to represent the lace hooks. I like the finishing touch they provide, and the introduction of something hard into the softness of the piece so far. I plan to work on the side panels in the coming week so will be back with more photos then.

Meanwhile in printmaking things have been moving in a less satisfactory manner. The viscosity plate I showed a couple of weeks ago produced prints that discouraged me so much that I decided to abandon the whole enterprise and do something else instead. The prints are not really worth scanning. I think the problem was that I tried to combine the packing tape areas with some areas of dry point on the aluminium, and the different parts could have done with different etching times. As they were on the same plate they got an indiscriminate 4 minutes in the copper sulphate, which seemed to be a bit long for the tape and a bit short for the dry point. The problem was compounded by the fact that I found the plate quite difficult to ink. The tape areas were very bumpy and it was hard to work the ink in, whereas it kept wanting to skim off the aluminium. The first print showed that I had wiped off too much ink, the second print showed that I had wiped off too little. The third print convinced me that, having got the inking as good as I could, the plate itself was not worth the trouble.

This week I moved on to printing from the second experimental plate I had created. As ever, pictures follow a week behind in printmaking so I can show these next week. This is a collagraph which I had sliced into and to which I had glued various permutations of scrunched tissue paper. It printed very nicely and I was particularly pleased with one where I had used a mixture of brown and black ink applied in a manner I made up myself. Having answered the questions I had sought answers for, I stopped printing from the collagraph and moved on to a new dry point.

For this I traced a drawing I did a couple of weeks ago and transferred the design, in reverse, to the dry point card by running it through the press. I then scored the image and set about inking. It printed beautifully except for a dotted line that appeared in the vertical in a position that should have been devoid of marks. Clearly there had been some damage to the card before I used it. So now I have to perform some faux-aquatint on the background either by cutting off the surface or sanding it down. Either way is tricky so I will have to build up to it! Again, pictures next week.

Finally, I have been engaged in a mini project that has involved me in drawing a can of brasso and some rubber gloves, but I intend to remain mysterious about that one for now! But I can say that 3 weeks in, I have been creative every day this year so far.

2009-01-14T05:07:00.003Z

Mixed Media Boots Painting

I've been quiet the last few days, partly because I've been busy, and partly because I didn't have much confidence in what I was doing and didn't want to show it til it was finished. I was thinking about my lack of confidence in painting as I worked, because actually I was really pleased with how it was going. I used to paint at least as much as draw when I was younger, mostly in acrylics. I think the problem stemmed from my first paintings when I started my HND. I hadn't painted much in the intervening years, then I was very unhappy with those I produced. I wasn't all that well the two times I tried, and they just didn't turn out well. I think that made me lose my confidence in the whole medium. With this piece, and a couple recently, I felt my confidence return, and I'm not scared of it anymore. I think that made it a lot easier just in itself.

Here's the background. It's glazes of Azo Gold acrylic overlaid with Stazon ink on a texture stamp, randomly applied.

I did a similar background in my sketchbook to test the theory, then proceded to use this to try out colours and approaches throughout the painting. I found this incredibly useful and will definitely be doing it again.

While I waited for the background to dry I did a sketch of the boots in position. I wanted to sort out my conposition before committing it to the painting. All good so far, then I got scared. I decided to leave it and go to the library and look at books about shrines.

I came back to the painting the next day, dithered for awhile, then decided I had to just grit my teeth and commit the drawing to the background. Of course, as always, it was fine once I got going. I don't know why I have this fear every time. I decided I wanted outlines so I went over my pencil drawing with permanent black fine liner.

The finished painting. I worked on it in layers like I would with drawing. The paint is watercolour, a medium I used to fear beyond all others, but fell in love with once I had my White Nights vibrant paints. I was thinking that painting is both similar to and different from drawing, and maybe I hadn't realised the nuances before and that was the problem. Anyway I feel cured now!

2009-01-08T01:38:00.003Z

Printmaking at last

It's the start of the new term, and, having missed last term almost entirely, I had to cast my mind back to sometime in October and try to remember what I was doing in printmaking. A search through the HND drawer brought forth 3 prints of my boot lace collagraph, of which my favourite is this.

I had also started an experimental piece to try out the new technique of viscosity inking. This had involved preparing an aluminium plate as for etching, sticking a load of parcel tape on it and carving into the tape. I also drypointed into the untaped parts to see what would happen, and what effect the inking process will have on the differently made incisions.

Today I continued preparing the plate, taping the back and etching it, then putting 2 coats of shellac over the taped areas. This is the resultant plate, I'll begin to print from it next week.

Here's a detail of the etched parcel tape.

As ever in print I have to have a few things in process so that I have something to do other than wait around for things to dry, etch etc, so I started a new collagraph. My support worker and I mistakenly cut a huge slice into a bit of board so I decided to take advantage of the situation and experiment with a collagraph with slices cut into it. It was very gluey when I left so pictures next week.

While I was out, Rosie cat had a project of her own going on. When I came home I saw that the kitchen towel was no longer on its holder and the holder itself was lying on its side on the worktop. Further investigations revealed some very chewed and scratched pieces (very neatly perforated!) in a trail going up the stairs. On the landing there were a couple more sheets, then a further trail going up the next flight of stairs into the bedroom, where I found Rosie curled up asleep with a decimated kitchen towel by her side. She does have a tendency to move things around when I'm not here, but really, this is virtually the same size as she is!

Maybe she'll start a career in sculpture!

2009-01-06T08:15:00.003Z

Red chillies

Here is something different. In the current round of ATC swaps I am hosting one with the theme of Red. As I've said on previous posts, I'm currently on a drive to use only images that are created by me, so here are some coloured pencil drawings of chillies.

It's surprising how many non-red pencils you have to use to create red!

Meanwhile I've been working on the felted piece and will be back with more on that later.

2009-01-03T22:11:00.005Z

Embellished samples

Making all those images really helped to clarify things. I decided that I didn't like the dark patch in the top left corner, the one that doesn't reach the edge of the base fabric. Also placing the sketch on the fabric in photoshop showed me that the fabric could be narrower. I decided to cut a couple of inches from the left hand side, and this gave me the opportunity to make samples. I still couldn't decide which side to use, and also wanted to check out whether I could follow a line well enough on the embellisher. I haven't really used the embellisher for linear work before so I had to work out how to do it. Here are the samples.

For some reason they give me the feel of beach huts. No idea what that's about, except that I do love beach huts.

Following Purple Missus' most interesting comment on my last post, I have also scanned the reverse sides.

I would love to do a reversible piece...ah, but which side should be which?

*Incidentally, the embossed effect on yesterday's image was kinda by the by. However, if I did want to recreate it on the embellisher I guess I would place a white line to right and top of the dark line.

2009-01-03T00:20:00.009Z

Embellisher Interrupted

Having pulled out the image of my embellished sheep the other day I got a yearning to play with my embellisher again. I decided I wanted to lay down a background and then work with my boot sketches to draw, with the embellisher, my boots onto the background. I wanted to create a fairly muted background so my plan was to embellish various neutral fabrics onto my base fabric, then turn it over and use the "wrong" side for my background.

As I worked I began to quite like the "right" side and think about how it would be with a fairly simple line drawing of the boots embellished onto it. This is where I got to yesterday.

So today I wanted to mesh it all together a bit more then get on with the boots. But first I needed to change my needles. It having been awhile since I last used the embellisher I only had a hazy memory of how to do this. I knew I had to unscrew something to get the needle unit out, but despite unscrewing various things the needle unit stayed put. I decided that my attempt was fruitless and I might as well try to change the needles in situ. So that all took ages and two of the needles wouldn't go in. Thoroughly frustrated by now with how much this was eating into my art time I decided three needles were quite enough for my purposes (!) and got on with it.

I started by working over the whole piece, especially the fabric edges, and got to here.

Then I stopped.

I turned over to see what the back was like now, and it was like this.

After much thought I still couldn't decide which side should be the front. I could see that I wasn't going to get anywhere with it this evening so I picked up my camera and started to photograph both sides, hoping that in some unknown way that might help me decide.

Here are photos of the "front".

Here are photos of the "back".

I couldn't make much of them on my little camera screen so I came on the computer and started to edit them in photoshop, as above.

Now photoshop is like a procrastinator's dream. I can spend so much time messing with things in that huge, clunky, extravagant piece of software. It being too late to make embellishing sounds at my neighbours I decided to have a play, just a little one...

I took a few of my favourite images above and made these.

It was all lots of fun and kept me entertained for a good half hour or so. Then I had an idea. All this messing about might actually help me. I opened the image of one of my boot sketches and messed with (ahem, edited!) it and layered it over the patchwork side to get an idea of what I might end up making.

I didn't do a very neat job but you get the idea.

After some consideration it occurred to me that I ought to do the same with the other side, so here it is.

....And I'm still none the wiser. Help me! Which side do the boots go?

2009-01-01T16:33:00.003Z

The challenge of the new

So it's 2009 at last. Time to reveal my word for this year. I spent a long time mulling over what my word would be... essence, clarity, integrity, eccentricity, wholeness, now, courage, all of these were considered, definitions found, synonyms garnered. I couldn't decide. Then I thought of curiosity. After a few seconds I know I'd found my word. That's the way it seems to work, others have said the same. Once the right word grabs you it's here to stay. Curiosity.

I am curious about so many things, from wabi sabi to mathematical theory to composition to what's round that corner. This year I want to foster that curiosity, follow it and see where it takes me. I also like the sub-definition of curiosity, a curio, oddity, eccentricity. I think that defines me quite well, and this year is about being more like me and embracing my oddness.

That is a painting up there, the one of the cat. One of my major aims for this year is to improve my painting. I want to look at that picture this time next year and know I could do so much better. I had to talk to myself a lot while I did it, tell myself the only way to improve is to start, and to resist the almost overpowering temptations to grab my coloured pencils and start to draw into it. Actually I quite like how it turned out. I'm not all that happy with the composition, and, as ever, the cat's eyes are too high, but other than that it's OK.

The other big thing for this year is that I've signed up to Creative Every Day. My recent sketches have been a kind of warm-up exercise. The plan is to do something creative every day this year. I need to do this for my art practice, but also for my sanity. I think there is a definite link between creativity and health, and after 2008 I want to do all I can to keep well in 2009. I have no idea if I can do this, but if there's one thing I've learnt in recent months it's that if I'm not sure if I can do something the best thing to do is start. If I don't start how can I ever know if I can do it? I anticipate that the creative things won't always be art. Sometimes they're thinking, writing, making connections with people or ideas. Other things too. But I hope they'll mostly be art, and I hope that even if I don't manage every day, I'll manage most.

There is also a bit of news about exhibitions. I currently have three pieces (from the Sheep in the City exhibition) on display at the Northern General hospital in Sheffield, UK. I hope to get along there tomorrow to see the show before it closes on Wednesday. The exhibition has been running for about a month but, with one thing and another, I haven't been to see it yet. 25% of the proceeds will go to fund hospital art projects for the patients of the Northern General. I'm very happy to support it as I have gained so much from doing art in hospital in the past. The other news is that I have pieces for sale in my friends Sharon and Sharon's new shop Pharmo Mosaics in the Market Vaults in Scarborough, UK. They are just getting going and their website isn't up yet but I will link to it once it's there. If all goes to plan I will have a small number of pieces for sale there on an ongoing basis.

Lastly, I have been thinking a good deal about what I said in my recent post on map art. I have come to a decision: that it's not so much the mixed media that has to go, but the use of images and embellishments created by other people. I want my art to be really mine, and for that to happen I need to continue what has been a gradual process of moving away from bought imagery and towards my own creativity. To that end I'm having a big sort out of my art stuff. Almost everything with other people's images has to go. Today I've sorted through my stamps, Christmas stuff and also my punches and glitters. I'm keeping less than half of what I have, the rest, I hope, will find its way onto Ebay and into the hands of people who want to use it. It's a big task and I think it'll take a while to get it all sorted. I want my art room to be my creative haven, not a place too full of stuff to work in, and hiding all the things I want to use beneath layers of things I don't. If I'm going to be creative every day I need the right environment in which to do it.

2008-12-31T22:31:00.007Z

Review of 2008

What a year! There has been art and illness and friendship and isolation, love and laughter and parties and despair. Here's a flying tour of my 2008.

It all started with Freedom, my word for the year. The word has been surprisingly influential on my life and choices over the year. For the first half of the year I kept a journal about it, until the journal disappeared in the house move and I became too ill to keep up with much of anything. However, the loss of the journal was not the end of Freedom being a guide over my life. It led me to take risks which paid off, let go of some of the pressure I put on myself, take opportunities that came my way, meet and make friends with people who might otherwise pass me by. I have also been free to be lonely, free to abandon any semblance of order. Every blessing is mixed. If you're thinking of choosing a word for the year, all I can say is embrace it, I couldn't recommend it more highly, but do be careful what you wish for!

I have a new word for 2009, which I will reveal tomorrow.

2008 started with this:

Well, it was just before the new year, but it was January when I started to think about the sheep project, and February when I got going with it. Little did I know that it would lead to this:

My first solo exhibition! I'm tempted to say my first and last, but who knows. For now I'm pursuing other routes, again, more of which tomorrow.

So here is me having lost 3 1/2 stone. I lost a bit more, 4 stone 4 lb altogether this year. If I can see 2010 in at my target weight I will be delighted!

I did a lot of experimentation at the beginning of the year with trying out various combinations of art media to see what happened and how they work together. In 2009 I want to improve my painting and bring some of these techniques further into my work.

In the summer I had a fabulous holiday with 14 friends from my walking group. We went to the Lake District and walked every day. I'd never been there and was completely captivated. It was a good time for making friendships closer, challenging myself and staying in a posh hotel (maybe it's not all that posh but I'm used to a tent!). It would have been even better had I been well. I plan to go again this year and be able to enjoy it to the full.

Here's us on a walk on Derwent Edge earlier in the year. I really have lost weight! I can't remember the name of this particular stone structure, there are a number of them up there, all with improbably domesticated names.

This year I also learnt to use my embellisher. All those lovely textures are hard to resist, and however ruthless I am with my art "decluttering" I must retain the time and goodies to play with the lovely softness of needle felting. Again, this will make more sense tomorrow, but all must proceed in its pattern.

Of course, I made a lot of ATCs. I think these were my favourites. I liked learning some embroidery stitches, and making them entirely from things that normal people throw away.

And I altered a few objects. This was my favourite, although the beach pencil case was a close contender (or was that last year? It all merges into one). I chose this one, though, because shrines are an area I want to come back to. It is a little known fact that my background is rather academic and I am by training a theologian. I have two degrees in the subject, good degrees too. I rarely even think about it these days, but I thought it might be interesting to combine my theological musings with my art. Watch this space, but you'll probably have to scroll on a few months!

Oh, and I joined a choir. Here they are singing just before I joined. They are a fabulous group of people, full of eccentricities, which makes me feel at home. I sing with the tenors, we do four part harmony, mostly of songs from the last 30 years I think. I haven't seen much of them in recent months but I'm raring to go for the new term.

So, 2009 is here pretty much as I type. I was supposed to be partying but I wanted to be painting in my pyjamas instead of worrying about all the contingencies of trying to go out on new year's eve. 2009 is a prime number - I think I'm right in saying - so therefore must be a good one. My reasons for liking prime numbers are weird and really don't belong on an art blog...

So wishing you all joy, love, happiness and fulfilment in the year to come, and I'll be back tomorrow to fill you in on my plans for the new year.

2008-12-29T23:18:00.002Z

Handbags!

The following drawing is a response to an interesting request from Maria, who i know through one of my online groups. I am participating partly because it sounds fun, but also because I think it would be an interesting project to do myself in the future. Here’s what she said about it:

“I wondered if any of you could find time to take part in my art project. I am looking at how other people's artistic responses to my work can be used to move my work forward as I have seen a few examples of how this is used in artist's creative practice.

I am currently doing a drawing brief and I have chosen to use handbags as my topic.

What I would like from you folks is a fairly quick artistic response to my drawings- ie what you think of first when you look at my drawings. Responses can be in any media, collage, fabric, paper, photo, poetry etc etc and don’t have to be handbags as my drawings could make you think of something else. Don’t spend ages on your response (unless you want to)..."

You can see Maria's drawings here.

This is my response.

I so enjoyed this exercise. It's interesting to pick up on someone else's theme, style, colour palette and then do something of my own with it. I was particularly struck by the colours, a combination which is quite alien to what I do. I loved working with them and it's made me think about how I might use these colours again. I liked drawing a bag too. It laid a demon to rest because the last time I tried to draw a bag I was very low and it didn't go well. I have been quite apprehensive about the subject matter since then, and this drawing freed me from that. Also, it's fun to make something up out of my head with no actual object sat there in front of me. Maria's drawings were my inspiration and that's all I needed.

2008-12-29T22:53:00.002Z

More sketches

I've continued with the limited time sketches as they seem to be working for me at the moment. I went down to stay with my Mum and her partner for Christmas so started off with a 10 minute sketch of David's hat.

I was really pleased with how this went so I tried it again the next day, but with less success. The shadow was tricky as it was very extreme, so I've ended up with a hat that looks like it has a huge crater in it!

For Christmas day I thought I'd have some fun, so here is a Christmas penguin.

Lastly, my shoe, and some late night musings.

It's been a really interesting exercise, partly because it gets me drawing again. If I'm tired or busy or just don't feel like it, it's quite motivating to say to myself; "just do 10 minutes". Even if I've done other things all day I can surely fit 10 minutes in at some point. Also, I've used my graphitint pencils for the first time and had a chance to get to know them. I think - typically for me - I prefer them for drawing than painting. The colours are lovely when wet, and I think would make nice accents to drawings, but I just love those rich but muted colours, and I'm falling in love with drawing in brown.

Now here is an interesting thing. I always have a hard time trying to describe to people what I can see. Having been visually impaired since birth I don't know what everyone else can see, so it's hard to have a point of reference to say how my sight is different. One of the things I find hardest to convey is that I find it hard to see detail, yet my vision is not blurry. When I was scanning these pages just now I had an "aha" moment. I can see the pages in my sketchbook quite clearly because I can hold them close. When I scanned them and the thumbnail images came up, I could still see the images and writing sharply but not in detail, and I could see the definition of the writing, sharp as anything but not clear enough to read. That's exactly what it's like for me all the time. That is what I see!

2008-12-22T16:48:00.002Z

Five minute sketches

I am edging back towards drawing. I think it's the starting that's hard. The momentum is much easier than the starting. So I played a little trick on myself. There are lots of mental games I use to get me from one end of a day to the other, you have to when you have depression, so here is one that works sometimes, and that got me drawing again the other day. I decided to do five minute sketches. It's a good discipline in drawing to do this from time to time but that wasn't my primary concern. My main motivation was the knowledge that I was going to set my timer and five minutes after that I could stop. I can often start something if I know it won't last long. If I start and I hate it, well I can stop soon, if it feels too hard I only have to keep trying til the alarm goes. I thought, I'll do one sketch. Five minutes will be OK. If I like it I'll try to do three of them. I liked it. I did three!

Now when you look at these please bear in mind that I had strictly five minutes for each one, no more and no less. They're not meant to look like finished drawings, and each one builds on the last but uses a different approach. My aim in each was to have entirety - I could have spent five minutes drawing the heel of one boot for example, but I wanted the whole pair in each drawing. Basically what I'm saying is, don't expect them to be good. OK, here they are.

It's a start and there will be more. I have more to post but it must wait til after Christmas, so I hope you all have a good Midwinter. I'll be back before the new year as I have news and things to share.

2008-12-17T00:29:00.005Z

Hosting swaps

Things are still slow on the creative front but here is something I've been meaning to post for ages.

People often ask me about the art swaps I host and how they work, so here is an explanation. As an example I'm using a postcard swap I hosted a month or so ago on the theme of Autumn Leaves. It is usual for a swap to have a theme, and sometimes there are other stipulations too. For ATCs the only real rule is that they have to be 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches. In the case of the postcards they had to be 4 x 6 inches and it was a 3/3 swap which means that you send in 3 and you get 3 back. Some hosts design their swaps so that they get a free piece from all the participants, for example a 6/5 swap where everyone sends in 6 but only gets 5 back. I don't really think that's fair so I don't allow it on my group. Sometimes people send extras anyway, and that is very much appreciated.

So here's what I do. I set a poll on my group suggesting about 8 themes and have people vote for the ones they like the sound of. Then I host the most popular ones, usually 2 or 3 of them, depending on how popular they are. I get the themes out of my head or from a database I set up for people to suggest themes or from shameless stealing from other groups!

So then I list the swaps in the database on my group. I set a deadline usually about 6 weeks from the date I list the swap and I email the group to tell them it's happening. Then I wait for people to sign up and start thinking about making my own things to swap. I keep a list of everyone who signs up and I tick them off when their art arrives, and email them to let them know it's here.

Then the deadline comes. Around this time there are generally a few changes. Things arrive from people who haven't signed up, people find they can't keep the commitment and let me know they won't be sending anything after all. Usually it's not a problem, I am happy if my stack of envelopes matches my list. Sometimes on a quiet swap it can be a problem if someone pulls out as it leaves me with not enough cards to swap out, but that is rare now the group is established. There will inevitably be some late swappers and I often keep the swap open a week or so beyond the deadline so people have time to get their cards in the post. Sometimes I'm the one who is late so it's only fair :)

So then this is what I do.

I take the cards (it's usually cards of one kind or another so we'll go with that) out of their envelopes and arrange them in a horseshoe on the floor in front of me. I put mine in the middle. Here you can see there are 9 players, 8 in the horseshoe and mine in the middle. You can see that sometimes people make their cards all the same and sometimes they make them different.

The perks of being a host is that you get first pick. So I usually sit awhile and decide which ones I'm going to keep, then I take those out first and put them aside. I distribute my cards next, and then everyone else's. The idea is that everyone gets back a range of cards from different players. Sometimes I think about who should get which cards and swap them according to various criteria that may occur to me. Sometimes I simply work left to right. The things I always check for are: that no one gets their own art back, that the things they get back are all made by different people (different from each other and from the sender) and that what each person receives represents a range of what came in. Here is how this swap fell out. It's blurred to conceal personal details.

Then I put everyone's cards into the SAEs they have provided and tape them up for good measure. Then they go out with me next time I'm out and I put them in the post for them to find their way home. Occasionally this involves a trip to the post office for international postage but mostly I swap in the UK these days which makes it easier on the postage. The last thing I do is email the group to say the cards are on their way, and then remove the swap from the database once everyone has received their cards.

Then we start again with something new.