#1528 theoldmortuary ponders

On By Juliet CornellIn PhotographsLeave a comment

Every picture tells a story. Yesterday any pretence that Summer was still with us slipped away. An autumnal greige day with rain and grunginess, marked that a line has finally been crossed. Another line that was crossed, was the image storage provided by my blog hosts. Time for me to take some immediate action. 10 years of images to go through, clearing out duplicates and images that had been stored, but never used. A job much more pleasant than clearing out the garage, that had held a five year archive of 18 years of my arty, but no longer relevant stuff. But clearing the garage taught me that arty clear ups are a good thing. A digital clear up involved no dirt, no trips to the tip and no spiders. Just an hour or so with a cup of coffee and some digestive biscuits, and some lovely memories, not all of them the smiley sort of memories, some were sad as memories can be. But life is a blend of happy and sad which every sentient being has to navigate. Going through the pictures was a record of where I have been, which has put me on the path of where I am now, and ultimately where I am heading off to. Although that of course is somewhat unknown and I like that about life. One picture I retrieved does accurately reflect the end point of all of our journeys.

Clearing out the garage was such a good thing. My whole creative life feels lighter without all the stuff that was, at times, essential to getting a Fine Art degree as a mature student. Sometimes I just go in,look at the empty space, and enjoy the almost nothingness of it. It also attracts envious gentleman callers who would do all sorts of things in there if they had the opportunity.

Nobody is going to stroll into my more spacious digital archive and have fantasies about sprockets, lathes and vices. But I know there is now ample space for more pondering illustration and that feels good.

Sunday’s blog will be a trip through the cleared out archive in no particular order. But if a picture of a pre-paid grave ( not mine) is a low point, then the sign outside a Chicago Church is surely a brightener for a Saturday morning.

#1527 theoldmortuary ponders

On By Juliet CornellIn Hybrid Printmaking, Serendipity1 Comment

Tell us about your morning routine.

or yesterday mornings routine.

In fact yesterdays morning routine was a monthly routine. Once a month a group of artists get together to chew the fat , plan exhibitions and share tips. We are encouraged to be creative at the same time. Multi tasking, with cake eating and coffee drinking is also integral to our decisions.

I was painting a water-colour layer to enhance a photograph that was taken two days earlier after a really lovely swim in Firestone Bay.

Water colours* combined with a photograph are how I produce my Hybrid prints. The watercolour is how I add emotion, atmosphere and vibrancy to the experience of being there in that specific moment. I also use watercolour to add the complexities of the weather and temperature of that moment.

*I mostly use a watercolour layer but the additional layer can be a monoprint,another photograph, textiles anything that can create the essence of what I am striving to capture.

The photograph this watercolour needed to enhance was good enough in its own way.

But it was bleak and chilly as is entirely normal for 5pm in mid-October. The swim one hour earlier had been unseasonably warm. We had all stayed in longer than you might expect for October. The whole experience felt like a warm summer evening, lots of chatter, a good bit of exercise.The harsh reality of the landscape felt softer and more vivid than it really was.

I trace the point where I will register the two images and then forget all about the photograph. Painting entitely from memory/imagination the sensation of the moment. Everything flows from the register point. In this case it is also the vanishing point but that is accidental

Then I just have to photograph the water colour and stick the two* images together.

*Sometimes I create three or four images to stick together. Nothing is guaranteed, the whole project can be a disaster or turn out nothing like as well as I had hoped. This one came out just as I had hoped.

The Watercolours are not wasted. I can work into them later with pen and ink.

The reason I am sharing the somewhat ponderous technique I am evolving was an on-line conversation I had yesterday with a schoolfriend.

Funny how a chat with a lovely man that I have known since we were both 11 made me distill my thoughts.

Even funnier is the realisation that only came from that conversation.

At no point in my medical imaging life did anyone accuse me of not being a ‘real’ radiographer or not giving them a ‘real’ diagnosis because I was using digital skills.

Plenty of people have exactly that opinion of using digital skills to produce art…

Plenty of people are incorrect.

The finished article.

3pm The Swim zone.

And because digital can change a mood.

5pm An early evening dog walk. Reflecting on an unexpectedly lovely swim.

#1526 theoldmortuary ponders

On By Juliet CornellIn pondering1 Comment

Moon over Millbay.*

This was the scene for my first cup of tea of the morning. A crescent moon still slumbering in the sky.* Millbay is the port that lies to the front of our house. Best known now as a ferry port and leisure harbour. But it has quite the history, one of the the lesser known events was the secret arrival of the survivors of the Titanic.

Two hours later this was the scene at Firestone Bay whilst I walked Lola and drank the last mouthful of the first cup of coffee of the day.

In between I had breakfast, a shower and sketched out an arty idea that has been taking a good old bit of pondering over the last two days.

I was even caught pondering it in the street yesterday. I had failed to notice a friend who was aware I was mulling over a gnarly old admin problem.

She thought I was deep into the gnarly old problem when in fact it was nothing more serious than arty farty ponderings. Once I had got it out of my head and onto paper there is no need to ponder it until the next stage. Did this sudden mental freedom immediately fill up with problems of the old and gnarly sort? It did not. I would say beyond the delight of a gorgeous morning and a fine cup of coffee my mind was completely blank.

#1525 theoldmortuary ponders

On By Juliet CornellIn art, Hybrid Printmaking1 Comment

I went swimming with some neighbours about an hour before I took the photo that I based this image on. It was a memorable swim because the water was crystal clear with gentle waves and still warm enough, for staying in longer to swim and chat. 17.2- 17.9 according to satellite measurements. The air temperature was about 12.3, 5 degrees lower, which made changing a little chillier than we have become used to. The weather station is not too far, as the seagull flies, from where we swim. So I am able to get my science facts to sit alongside my experiential reactions.

Yesterday was the first time since early May that I had to hunt out a pair of socks to go for a dog walk after my swim. I may also have been feeling cooler because, after the domestic admin of the day I had been working on the painted layer of one of my hybrid images. Trying to represent the different energies of drinking mint tea in the garden of a bookshop. Located in the Gulf of Morbihan, 200 miles south of Plymouth 10 days ago.

We had anticipated cooler days but Brittany was experiencing a glorious Indian Summer which had us hunting out shady spots.

How will we remember the glorious, extended summer of 2026?

#1524 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By Juliet CornellIn Hybrid Printmaking1 Comment

What’s the most underrated life skill?

I am uncertain if being kind is the most underated life skill, or the most easily forgotten. Many people view it as a weakness or something that need not apply to them. Others think it is a selective skill used sparingly at times and then gushingly like an incontinent water main. I find this sort of person somewhat awkward to interact with.

That being said I do possess some unkind bones in my body , everyone needs just a few for protection or good comedic moments. But a whole skeleton of them is not a good thing in my opinion.

People with full skeletons of unkind bones see kindness as a weakness. I think of it as a bit of a superpower. Kindness brings warmth into most situations.

Humans are funny old things we tend to remember the bad stuff or the sad stuff: the unkind words and deeds much more readily for some reason. Which is why kindness is just so important, used effectively it can make the sad and bad stuff just a little bit more tolerable and balance, where possible its nemesis, unkindness.

#1523 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By Juliet CornellIn art, Hybrid PrintmakingLeave a comment

I’ve been playing around a bit, with colour temperatures for prints created using photographs and digital manipulation as my practice place. This cool hued image above represents the early morning of a day that turned out to be the most delicious Indian Summer day in early October. But I stood in the exact same place searching for a breeze in the midst of the summer heatwaves. Looking at the actual photographs there is not a huge amount of difference but by changing the colour of a future print version I can get the essence of oppressive heat in an open space.

Similarly on a very hot day on our recent trip to Brittany. We sought refuge in a bookshop with a cafe.

This is what we got, but what we hoped for was more like the image below.

But sometimes there is no escaping extreme heat. And as October wends its ponderous way towards November I will be dreaming of those over-hot moments soon enough.

#1522 theoldmortuary ponders

On By Juliet CornellIn art, TravelsLeave a comment

What’s the best way to explore a new city?

Not ‘the’ best way to explore a city, but my way.

Without too much of a surprise I explore anywhere new with an urban environment, by heading to an area known locally for being arty and supportive of independant shops and cafes. If a visit can only ever be brief I feel closer to the heart of a place where Street Art, quirkiness and originality are the the first impressions. It is there, through conectedness, that routes into the more interesting facets of place can be identified. I am never interested in slavishly ticking off the top ten tourist destinations unless I am genuinely intrigued by something or someone connected to the top ten destination.

Somewhat more controversially I like to explore places after dark or in the really early mornings. There is nothing to beat watching a place wake up or to vicariously experience other peoples night lives.

#1521 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By Juliet CornellIn autumn, Bobbing, Urban Jungle, Yardening1 Comment

What’s a moment in your life that made you feel truly alive?

Waking up in the morning, needing a wee and a cup of tea and having the good fortune to be able to achieve both with ease. I have no need for fireworks or sequins to feel alive. Just being it is enough.

Our yard has largely been put to bed for the winter but last night she was quite gorgeous for an October night . The studio light was on, the washing was drying on the line and the sculptural plants were being sculptural throwing extravagant shadows onto the laundry. Everything has sprung back from being baked to a crisp in the hottest summer on record. The yard is feeling truly alive too.

Boring as it may be, but October the second was a day of being truly alive. Something I will always be until I am not.

I went swimming with some of the bobbers, the sun was out, the tide was high and really very bouncy.

The water was warmish and swirled us around like grubby clothes in a washing machine. One of those days when it was tempting to stay in too long.

One of those days of many moments of feeling truly alive.

#1520 theoldmortuary ponders

On By Juliet CornellIn Meddled Photography X Watercolour, Serendipity1 Comment

Part of the pleasure of swimming with these old wooden boats last week was watching their resting bones change character as the tide rose up around them. The higher the tide the more swimming could be done, considerably closer to them. They looked like lumbering sea creatures suddenly freed by the buoyancy of water

With the help of my travelling art box I was able to transform them.

Although as the setting is my home office at the Tennis Club before a swim in home territory it seemed too good a chance not to relocate a sea creature into Tranquility Bay.

Which would have been quite the shock for my swimming companions, Julia and Tim who can just be seen swimming between the sea creatures tail and spine.

#1519 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By Juliet CornellIn autumn1 Comment

So long September. There was a lot of different arty strands pulling together in September. I just created a quick grid to remind myself of the many ways my head and hands were pushing different ideas. There was also a fiendishly long and ultimately, unsuccessful,proposal to bid for a grant for a year long art project. I suppose I can say my words failed me. Althoug there is every chance my maths failed me as there was also a budget to set.

September was also a holiday and yesterday we bade the month farewell with lunch on a farm, where we ate food that had all the colour of my September paintings and photographs.

September has also set quite the workload for October. There are fantastical sea creatures to be created out of discarded wooden ships.

And, as always in October, pumpkins and probably Storm Maidens and Men. Busy days ahead @theoldmortuary.

Clearly without any common denominator beyond me. September had a colour scheme all of its own.