Not waving, drowning....in mess

It seems that the more I try to focus my attention on a single art project, the more projects I end up starting.

 I have, as you know, wide-ranging interests and limited energy. As a result, I often find myself working on one thing while I'm longing to be making something else. So I thought that as a strategy to manage this, I would try focussing on one work for a month at a time. This would allow me to make some progress wih one thing, work on something else for a while, and then return to the earlier project before so much time has passed that I've totally lost my train of thought.


Before we went on holiday to Melbourne, I was working on a book using photographs that I took in Paris. The stairway in the building where we stayed in the Marais is very atmospheric and a great example of "wabi sabi". As well as the more elaborate staircase leading up to the apartments, there is a smaller, darker set of stairs leading from the entry down to the cellar.
My idea for the book, tentatively titled "ascendre/descendre", is to use the photos going up and going down in such a way that it's not always clear which is which and where we are heading. I see it as a metaphor for our times, and even the human race.

Here's one of the photos I'm considering using. The first step is converting them to black and white and making any other digital processing changes.

When I returned from Melbourne I was scheduled to start a three week online course Drawing for Textiles with Dionne Swift. I actually met Dionne in Brighton last year at the Art Fair, and after an inspiring chat with her and seeing her work there, I had enrolled in this course immediately. I've been waiting for March to roll around with great anticipation ever since.


But inspiration doesn't necessarily strike when it's convenient, does it? I've been tossing ideas around in my head for the upcoming Personal Histories exhibition for months and months. Nothing had really felt quite right to me. I was beginning to worry that I wouldn't be able find any inspiration to suit the theme.


And then, out of nowhere really (but of course from somewhere) I knew what I wanted to do. And I wanted to make a start. Straight away. So over a week-end, just before I got cracking on Dionne's first drawing exercises, I got to work.


This book is tentatively called "About ME" and I'm going to use translucent pages and text. It sounds horribly narcissistic, I realize, but I'm reasonably confident that it isn't. The text is information about M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) the now-accepted "proper" name for chronic fatigue syndrome. I'm really delighted to say that I've been granted permission by the IACFSME to use their text in the book.
There isn't much to show you yet, as I am just cutting stencils, but here's a peek.

Next, I dragged out my lovely chunky drawing supplies and roll of cartridge paper and made a start on the tasks set by Dionne.

After a week or so of drawing it was time to try out some of the ways she showed us to translate those marks into textiles. It was all new information to me, and the results are wonderfully textural and exciting.

But you should see the state of my studio now!

(no photos, It isn't for public consumption)

With all these different projects on the go, it has just become layer upon layer of art materials and media, and quite honestly, there is not a bit of surface clear to work. I am forced to take my lap-top tray to the sofa in the living room to do anything. Of course, that's exactly what I'm doing - I can't stop now, can I?

But April really has to be the month of culling and tidying, or else by May I might not be able to get past the door.

Posted with Blogsy

Working into Ecoprints: some preliminary sketches

 Last year I made some prints using the 'welcome home' roses our lovely house-sitter Louise left after our trip.

When I took the embroidery course in August I used a couple for machine stitching, which I showed you here. 

Otherwise they have been sitting waiting my attention, while I worked on other commitments. So after finishing the first half of my BAO edition, I took a week off to play.

Having sat for so long, they have acquired rather an air of preciousness, and not being entirely confident in my drawing skills, I began by photographing a few so that I could make some preliminary sketches.

This worked well and I had fun trying out some ideas, which I may use either for "proper drawings" or for stitching. Below are four scans of my results. In the last one I haven't drawn anything, but the shading/colouring has been altered by the processes and I found that an interesting outcome.
 

I've found I really enjoy having some marks and colour on the paper to respond to in my drawing - must be the result of a childhood love affair with Mr Squiggle!

Nevertheless, I have already returned to my BAO project, printing pages, folding concertina spines etc in readiness for assembling the final copies - which I will soon share with you here.

December Rain & the Dobell Drawing Prize

 

Well the Hunters & Collectors song is about January rain, but this is December rain. Last Thursday at around 2pm, to be precise. This is the view from our patio looking across the road. Notice how dark it is?

Fortunately the post man arrived before the rain, as he was carrying these goodies that I purchased from Lisa Engelbrecht’s site. They are a 6.0mm Pilot Parallel Pen and an ink pencil. By the way, Lisa has the parallel pens available for US$10 + $4 shipping, and with the Aussie dollar so strong, that’s quite a saving on the retail price here. I thought it was a great opportunity to try something new cheaply.

 

With Christmas so close, I haven’t had the time or energy to create lately, but I did want to mention some of the artists I discovered while I was at the Art Gallery of NSW. The Dobell Drawing Prize is currently on show (and will be till the end of January) and with my current obsession with drawing it was great timing for me.

Suzanne Archer was the winner, and you can the winning work here, but I wanted to share the works that really said something to me. I’ve tried to find images of the actual work, but if I couldn’t then I’ve chosen something with the same flavour. You can see more of each artists work by following the link attached to their name.

 

It was great to see an artists book included. The work is a beautiful collection of sea shells and creatures, very sensitively drawn.

Deborah Angus Book of the sea, pencil, pastel © the artist*

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any more about Angus online.

 

The work below by Anne Edmonds doesn’t show up well on a screen, but was a gorgeous study of light.

Anne Edmonds Climate Change: Beacons of Hope (graphite) Sydney*

 

 

Fiona Fenech Scapegoat (thread, graphite, polychrome pencil on mulberry paper)*

 

Michael Peck The land stood empty (india ink on archival paper)*

 

Catherine O’Donnell Number 19 (charcoal)*

This work was like a photo, and the idea that you could achieve such a degree of realism just with charcoal really bowled me over.

Another artist whose work really struck me was Annette Russell. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find any images of recent work by her, although the link will take you to some beautiful ethereal installation works and photographs.

Finally here is a link to a review in Australian. I note that the author and I only selected two works in common. Having not seen the previous exhibition to which he refers, I can’t comment on that comparison. However, I would say that I agree that in a prize specifically for drawing, it is good to see some examples of what is particular about the medium e.g. Michael Peck’s work. That said, I also find it impossible to disregard the technical virtuosity displayed for example by Catherine O’Donnell.

 

 

*All images of other artists works were borrowed with no mal-intent, and will be removed immediately if requested by the artist or their agent.

September catch-up

Apologies for ignoring you this past couple of weeks. I wish I could blame it all on Google, but the truth is I’ve had a couple of infections and have been struggling with extreme lethargy!

In an effort to keep my spirits up, any energy was quickly channelled into something creative.

It’s pretty hard to work on anything new requiring inspiration or courage to push the limits, but I have done a bit of “scribbling” as planned.

Below are a few examples which I think may hold some potential.

 

Ink, graphite.

 

Ink, aquarelle. This one is just a study really, but I like the idea of the ink marks floating over a hazy “moon”.

 

Ink, aquarelle

 

While I’ve been enjoying playing with these drawing materials, I’ve found the lack of a fully satisfying finished product was becoming frustrating. I’m doing these drawings primarily in the very first journal I made, the one at the bottom of the picture below, which you can also see here. It’s the very last empty journal I have, so I decided it was time to put some of the papers I’ve collected to use, and to get my binding skills back in practice.

The red journal below is the result. It’s filled with acid free cartridge paper and has a combined Celtic/Coptic binding. The two centre threads in the Celtic weaves pass through the same hole, which was an experiment, but I think it has worked well.

I find it’s a good to combine working on something with a nice concrete outcome (like a journal) while doing something exploratory and with results that are less tangible, so far.

September Scribbles Week 2

I returned to my first attempts with the pipette with a white pen, a Uniball Signo, that I bought maybe a year ago from Amazing Papers.

I really enjoy the look of the white line and devoted a lot of time this week to trying out different ideas with it.

These pages from my visual journal are posted in the order they were created.

Below: Ink, coloured pencil, pen

I bought myself an inexpensive calligraphy pen which came with three different nibs, and tested out my new sepia calligraphy ink (below)

 

Above: Calligraphy ink on vellum, monoprint on perspex, which you might recognize from here.

Above: Calligraphy ink with brushes.

How are bird poo & calligraphy connected?

It seems a little explanation is in order! I enjoyed participating in the “August Break” so much, and I realized a few things.

It helped me to identify what sort of subject matter interests me most in my photography (reflections, abstraction, light and shadow and strangely perhaps, architecture). I’ve honed my skills with Photoshop so I can get closer to achieving the “look” and mood that I’m seeking.

The trouble is that photography is just a little too “hands off” for me. I enjoy the actual going out and scouting for potential photographs, and the digital processing is okay (not a negative anyway) but even when I print off the result, I don’t really get the same “buzz” as I do from the handcrafted work I’ve done. Disappointing, but knowledge is power.

It made me think about the value of concentrating on a particular medium for a while, practising regularly, daily if possible to see how I go with it and whether it might become a regular part of my skill-set.

There are a number of areas that I’m very drawn to, and have only dabbled with. I’ve bought some gear, maybe a book or two or gone to a work shop, but not really gone much further. My studio is full to over-flowing, and I think it might be time to get methodical.

So…in the interest of keep me on track, here’s a basic list:

abstraction (huh! not a medium, I know, but more of a lens through which to explore:

• drawing
• printmaking
• encaustic

I don’t see any of this taking me away from books, which is good, because it’s important to keep something constant!

So this month, it’s going to be drawing though not so much in a representational way, more in an abstract, tactile, material and maybe colour sort of way. I would see this as a way into both printmaking and encaustic.

A few months ago I stumbled across this wonderful book by Denise Lach, Calligraphy: A book of contemporary inspiration.

Suddenly I had found a book which articulated exactly the approach I’d been thinking about for the past couple of years. The book uses natural textures and forms as inspiration for what I would call “a calligraphic response”. The results are fascinating, beautiful and sublime, and even better, in the book Denise says you don’t need to study calligraphy before you try this way of working!

I’ve started exploring inks, because I love transparency and a kind-of calligraphic effect, without actually moving into text. I’m interested in the meditative qualities of repetition and the ritualistic nature of some of these practices, although I don’t particularly want to follow the traditional paths.

So here I am, and the first two days I’ve been playing with probably the easiest tool, the pipette. You saw an example in my last post, and here’s another:

At the moment I’ve only one pipette, so I’m limited in the type of line I can achieve, but I like the organic, hand-drawn quality.

I went out walking and found inspiration in the most mundane marks. In fact, I went back for my camera, so I could show you.

Yes! it’s bird poo!

Below is my first attempt:

Not as easy as it looks – this seems too “drawn”.

Hmm, this is better, but I think ink might be too thin. Paint might work better. Not really sure how much you can expect when you take your inspiration from poo!

 

So I’ll be continuing my “mark making” explorations and posting a few other posts, still catching up on exhibitions I saw while away. This month I plan to draw every day, Mon-Fri, but I may post in small batches to conserve a little energy. And hopefully you’ll witness some improvement!!!

Topic #34 - Begin

Begin=End=Begin

When I checked this week's challenge at Artwords I couldn't believe how well it fits with the art I am currently making. I have started off my month of daily paintings/collage/2D work quite well - it's the fourth of January and I am working on my third work. I have slightly altered the goal to allow for "mishaps" and am aiming for 5 works per week - I think this should be achievable and create enough focus without stressing me out.

The works have been focusing on the theme of transcience and impermanence which is the topic of my MFA. I've been collecting imagery for months now and am working with the cyclical nature of life. I have chosen two ways of depicting this: using butterflies and life-cycles and the lunar cycle.

This work incorporates a modification of Jonathon Talbot's transfer method using gloss gel medium, acrylic, wax pastel, Pitt's artists pens, sgraffito and collage. I must confess to a little digital jiggery-pokery...I wasn't happy with the composition of the original so I scanned it into Photoshop and "reorganised" the layout.

I learnt two valuable things from this work. First Talbot's method is really excellent for my purposes and secondly, I need to look at the sizing of my components. I am tending to make them medium sized - when they either need to be bigger, and fill the canvas more, or smaller. The re-working in PS basically consisted of adjusting the sizes of the different images.

I have titled my entry for Artwords "Begin=End=Begin" in recognition of the fact that beginnings are always associated with endings. To wipe the slate clean and start afresh, you have to let some things go if you going to have room for anything new. Sometimes these endings may be small and easy, and sometimes they can be massive and trigger a grief reaction. But to invert the proposition, any ending is also a beginning. We may grieve for the end of something we treasured, but at the same time we are being offered a new beginning. And a beginning should always be seen as an opportunity - so seize the day! Carpe Diem!

Voice!

This is my first drawing for a new project I'm working on for my MFA. I'm going to make an artists book about the fragility and complexity of the human body. I'm thinking of making a porcelain cover with paper pages. I have just started working on the drawings for the book and am testing out solvent transfers of my drawings to add to the sense of fragility. The drawings are developed from anatomical diagrams which I really love. The model for this one came from an old medical text entitled: Cunningham's Manual of Practical Anatomy, which was first published in 1896.

I decided to start with the "voice box", as it is colloquially known, because this week's theme on Artwords was voice and I haven't had time to create a separate work.

After 10 years of studying Speech and Drama at school, the voice and how it is created is quite familiar to me. Do you know that the vocal cords (labelled here Plica vocalis) are often called the vocal folds? That makes them seem incredibly vulnerable to me, almost as if they were a mistake, or something that might not have developed. Imagine if humans had no voice.

And it seems even more incredible that something which is simply a fold of tissue can create the range of sounds, both in speech and in song, that they do. I never stop being amazed by the human body.

Taking Up Blogging Again

Thanks to Ascenderrisesabove for my first comments! It is amazing how little encouragement can be enough to reinforce human behaviour!

I have been giving blogging quite a lot of thought since I last posted about 5 months ago. I've been trying to discern a direction for the blog. I felt I needed to be saying something that was important enough for people to want to hear and think about. That's quite a responsibility really. And I realize that is falling into an old pattern of mine.

When I was 20 years younger (oops! giving something bad away there!) I was in the habit of trying to second-guess what other people wanted all the time, and then adopting that as my preference too. I guess the theory was that conflict would be avoided and I would be liked. I'm not sure how well it worked, but one thing I do know is that over time my sense of self was hugely eroded and I built up a lot of frustration and anger. I thought this was a bad habit I had managed to curb, and I think that mostly I have, but in putting myself out there in this blog, I was falling into the same old, same old. So...

For now I have decided that I'm not going to choose a particular direction for this blog. It will be a documentation of my thoughts and life, hopefully in a coherent way, so that I might learn something about the process of living my life. There are a number of possible directions I would like to take in life and I think that documenting the process here may be helpful to me. And who knows, it may be helpful to someone else too.

I am keen to re-name the blog, but it's already had one name change (from Art Heals to Always Tired) so I'm holding back, and waiting to see what emerges. Some of what may be seen here over time includes:
my art and some documentation of my art process; how art operates as a healing force for me;
some discussion about art - what inspires me, the role of art in the individual's life and in society;
some teasing out (hopefully) of the old art and craft nexus;
documentation of life with CFS;
exploration of Insight Meditation and buddhism; and along with this no doubt, some of my responses to the complicated world we live in - as a human being, it's impossible not to worry about the state of the environment and our society, and much more. I don't know what Margaret Thatcher meant when she said "there is no society" - it's just a justification to assuage the guilt we feel when we don't respond with compassion to the plight of others. Anyway, I won't mount the soap box in this post!

To finish up this post, I'd like to promote a blog I've been participating in for a month or two called Artwords. http://artwordsclan.blogspot.com/ It is an online art journal started up by the wonderful artist Susan Tuttle.

Each week, Susan posts challenges to stimulate the many talented artists who send in their responses to the theme. It is my participation in this blog that has helped me to feel that it may be worth re-inventing my own blog. And it is over at Artwords that I first encountered Ascenderrisesabove, mentioned at the beginning of this post, as my motivator-to-action. Her blogs can be found at: http://ascenderrisesabove.blogspot.com/

The image I have posted today is an exercise in automatic drawing developed for this week's Artwords challenge, surrealism. Automatic drawing is one of the streams of surrealism that artists like Miro used as a drawing parallel to Freud's "stream of consciousness". It is a wonderfully freeing technique and has contributed to my feeling I can be just as free with this blog. I can really see this image working as a print and hope to test that vision out soon...