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Art Buffet indigestion

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I flit; two weeks ago I was obsessed with showing movement using charcoal, getting lost in the tones between light and dark, line and smudge. Now it's the photorealism of coloured pencil on drafting film and using a blade to scrape tiny highlights. I'm waiting for the days to warm up so  can get back into the shed and smell the warm beeswax and resin again and chase all my encaustic dreams. I'm in danger of not having a unique thing - have I not found it yet? I feel like an amorphous shape-shifter making a buffet of art when I should be developing my signature dish. Maybe I'm still not brave enough to make the pictures in my head? Do I need to be able to confidently and competently express what I can see before I can draw what  I only see in my head? And it photorealism really art? What do I want to convey with a close up detailed drawing of a bird's head? The rich beautiful detail in the familiar, the overlooked ordinary; the way we put our heads down and strive fo...

Purpose and process

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 January 2025 and I feel small and mute against a backdrop of Trump's aggressively backward policies and what voice do I really have when social media is controlled by fascist white boys who are proudly flaunting their agendas. I am raging - Ever shouted inside so hard that everything inside and outside starts to crack? A silent scream, because what is the point of screaming out loud? No-one wants to hear me scream and it won't help. What will help? Anything within my power? So I pick up the charcoal and hide somewhere between black dust and white paper - a running zebra, slightly out of focus, a prey animal, one of millions crossing the savanna. I can't draw it, I can only feel it - a big sky hidden above the dust. Driven by hunger and fear, the illusion of freedom and I can see something there, a reluctance to be herded, an upward glace and a barely noticeable hesitation. Then I'm back - have a cup of tea, load the dishwasher, get ready for work because a human doing ...

Art Show....

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So I carefully wrapped my pictures and they have left the premises. I've dropped them off at the bustling Bursledon village hall. I'm excited about meeting other local artists I've been following (on social media that is, I'm not that much of a stalker) There is a preview evening tomorrow night - I just have to hide socially inept Ali for the evening and re-install the version of myself that loves crowds and meeting people. They may need coaxing out with several glasses of wine.

Infrared - another dimension

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Infrared - another dimension  I realise not everyone will like the way I see things (believe me, it works both ways...;) Here are a few of my infrared local shots - I've printed and mounted a few for the upcoming local Xmas fair I'm doing. I don't think they are very Christmassy - more post-apocalyptic, but who knows what anyone may have put on their list to Santa? Warsash shore River Hamble Swanwick Lakes Holly Hill

Encaustic card workshop no.1

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  What we did: Learn the basics of encaustic ironworks; use a low temperature iron and a heated stylus and scraper tools to paint with hot pigmented wax.    Experiment with loading the iron with coloured wax and passing it gently over the paper to make backgrounds, then using the iron in different ways to add patterns and shapes.   Use the stylus like a hot pen to add lines and dots of wax and then scrape away wax to add detail and contrast. Different styles and effects demonstrated and plenty of time (and encaustic card) to experiment with. To keep us going there was flapjack..... fortunately Willow stayed out of the way and took his supervisory role very lightly..... What I learned: * Hot wax is hard to control - the beauty of it is that it will flow into beautiful shapes and textures but that can also be very frustrating if you are used to a medium where you 100% control the marks you make. * People who perceive that they are not very artistic often get the best r...

More tigers...

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 I have this reputation of being an unemotional person, I don't think it is true, I just don't wear my feelings as an outer garment. The tigers got me though - that moment I first saw a tiger in the wild; A massive cool cat strolling out of the jungle, ignoring the insignificant humans. My eyes watered so much I struggled to see.  There was very little light which made getting sharp non-noisy pictures a real challenge but here it is, casual endangered apex predator. My next challenge has been to capture that look. It shouldn't take 6 months to finish a charcoal drawing but this one did, not because I spent crazy amounts of time on it. I just got stuck, couldn't get the look, so I went off in dozens of different directions before returning to it this week. I realise now that it's OK to do that, to have 100 tabs open at once, but it's definitely satisfying to decide that's enough. This one is done. The question is, can you name the song from the photo?

Hampshire Open studios - I WILL be ready....

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 Turning the she-shed into an art gallery for open studios didn't sound like too much hard work but it's taken quite a bit of lifting and shifting to get this far.... Still go a way to go......but this was the middle of last week: but it's come a long way since '21's lock-down shed project! Come and have a look during Hampshire open Studios.