It is a good day when some bright colours arrive to join the pencil case gang. I’ve not had a chance to give them a good run out yet . Just a quick check for colour. Not all coloured water colour pencils are created equal. Some like to dominate and others are more timid.
They have all had a gentle first outing as pale washes of themselves and two have gone in a little stronger. I never know who the dominant personalities will be with any different brand or type of art materials. I always create an organic colour chart, just letting them flow over each other or just sit side by side. A deep red called Shiraz, a mustard and Leaf green are the early strong personalities. But who can guess what tomorrow’s tinkering will bring. I am heading to some vibrant places very soon so I need to know who to rely on in vivid corners of the world.
I discovered the word raineth last year when I visited an art gallery in Penzance.
The Rain it Raineth Every Day. 1889 Norman Garstin
Shakespeare is credited with the first use of the word.
Raineth absolutely described yesterday. Every outdoor task was served with a side order of precipitation. In the morning, light but penetrating, to-the-bone drizzle. And later in the day, great big plops of the stuff, that seemed to sit on my raincoat in a thick layer of wetmess that then cascaded onto the lower quarter of my trousered legs and boots. Then the fabric of my trousers wicked the water upwards. I was a one woman circular economy of moisture.
Beyond the domestic and the rain I worked on my collage, in the rather pathetic daylight that oozed weakly through the cloud cover.
I sliced up a colour chart made during a course run by-
I completely forgot to photograph the colour chart before I chopped it up. It was half of a colour wheel created from a colour mixing lesson she was teaching. After I had finished it I noticed that I had almost created a birds head which I embellished for no particular reason. After slicing, I planned to leave the birds head on my cutting room floor because I was creating a cityscape and this is meant to be a wholly abstract collage. But his little beady eye kept looking at me so I wove him in.
Today is another round of sticking and cutting before I create the river, which is another Tansy Hargan test piece. This time I remembered to photograph it before I sliced.
I chose this one because my very wet evening walk reflected light on cobbles reminded me of this technique of woven collage.
Who knows where the river will take me later today…
I have been a bit of a ‘natural’ light pedant this weekend. I am creating a woven collage abstract of the tidal pool.
Natural light because I am weaving and colour matching.
Early weaving placement.
Glueing, weaving and moving strips is curiously time consuming.
Close up.
I am slightly obsessed by the colours of the sea in Firestone Bay and the way the rocks and concrete collect lichens and marginal seaweed.
Close up.
I am about a quarter of the way through the sticking and moving process and daylight is in short supply. I am loving this new process . I quite fancy doing something similar as a flower meadow in pastel colours that would be completely out of my comfort zone.
History in general fascinates me. In many ways it is the imperfection and biased recollection of facts and events that makes history all the more intriguing. Academia strives hard to nail down historical facts. While human memory throughout history differs in subtle and monumental ways. Humans involved or indeed uninvolved in historic events have an opinion on how or why something happened depending on their own prejudices or expectations.
Someone writes or records in some way their viewpoint on an occurrence and that becomes a fact which others might question. And then more research is done and another book/paper/ theory is let loose.
For this reason alone my choice of fascinating historical event is the Covid Pandemic. Because I experienced it first hand and that only 5 years down the line there is swirling abiguity about some of the facts and outcomes of the virus that stopped the world.
My earlier daily blog, Pandemic Ponderings, records the event as it impacted my small space in history. Do I remember things the way they actually were. Would reading them again surprise me?
200 years down the line on 2225 how will the Covid Pandemic have altered the world?
On reflection my family and friends were relatively lucky and yet we experienced huge grief and sadness. The harm of that period lives on within each of us.
Almost every human in the world felt something similar and many were so much more badly damaged than us. How will all that unhappiness in a whole population have shifted the shape of our world for ever?
Out of bad experiences good things rise, different paths are taken. Enforced choices become the lived experience.
I am capable of swimming every day in the sea, with friends I would never have met had it not been for the Pandemic. I moved house to be next to the sea so swimming was easier and then a whole other, quite bonkers world opened up.
For a whole worldful of people to have a single event that changed them is unprecedented.
Yesterday’s hunt for a particular sketch threw up a huge pile of unfinished paintings. Of course it did not throw up the piece I was looking for.But I found a missing stache of unused paper. The big summer tidy up was effective but not entirely logical. I had a good couple of hours weaving 2 Gelli prints together. They were prints one and two of an experimental seascape.
Not hugely interesting on their own they take a much more powerful stance as a woven collage.
I popped into a craft shop to collect some sepia ink. In a quiet corner someone had written.
“Stick it before you knock it”
A sensible woman, experimenting with paper weaving should have seen that for what it was.
There was knocking, of course there was, but knocking loosened up my weave, which actually improved things. But by then the dark evening was upon me and dogs needed walking.
Goodness I am a grumpy bitch about early dark evenings, but a very bright first quarter moon was out and about to improve my mood. Reflected in the tidal pool. Of course I took a picture.
Which I then superimposed over the woven prints.
Which at least gives me an idea for where this experiment can go. But for today I will be gluing like a demon.
Unknown to me until this morning the 29th of October has been an arty day often. Facebook memories reminded me of four exhibitions that I have taken part in.
Be the Flamingo in a flock of Pigeons.
Also 7 years ago I went to see Grayson Perry in Birmingham. A funny coincidence because I also went to see him 3 days ago in Truro.
Today was always going to be arty as I needed to hunt down a sketch that had been cleared away since the annual summer tidy up. Then I met a fellow artist while I was walking the dogs and we had a bit of an arty natter.
But the actual project of the day , finding the sketch has failed. Instead loads of colour exercises were dug out of files. The mess they created on the spare bed has shamed me into finding a way to use them up in collage and paper weaving projects.
I am having a bit of a creative experimentation phase using watercolour, weaving and collage. The colours of the sea around us are constantly changing and I photograph and paint them often, mostly as never to be seen ideas on paper.
This image started life as a storm picture, the colours featured are the sea, old military concrete, rust and vivid seaweed all tossed about in the sea . Then I chopped A3 paper down to A4 and used the cut off pre-painted paper to weave into the A4 and made a weaved image to collage onto the A4. Sheet. There is a curious pleasure in destroying an image to create a new and unexpected one. I like the sense of unity that my mark making on the original sheet brings to the new weaved image. I like that there are now 3 or 4 layers all telling the same story but in a very different way.
My original was just swirling wave forms but the woven piece almost tells a more accurate account. This is not an area of gentle sandy beaches and murmuring flisvos.
Waves don’t often hit our shores gently and there is more concrete than sand. This area has been a port for more than 1,000 years. Waves slap hard against cliffs and man-made structures which are built to be resilient. The collision of water and hard surfaces is the soundtrack of a walk by the sea. The sharp angles and abrupt colour changes of the woven areas are a good reflection of the sound and sensations of being at one with the sea in an area that is not completely natural and unspoilt. A little arty, digital tinkering makes me want to try this again.
But for now it is just a fabulous design for a stained glass window.
Our Autumn Equinox performed pretty well yesterday. Our 12 hours of daylight were sun-filled with just a hint of chill.
And if natural sun were not enough we popped along to Devonport Market Hall to see Helios an installation by Luke Jerram.Featuring a giant orb, representing the sun and an ambient soundtrack that represents many of the cultural, social and science impacts that the sun has on humanity around the world.
Bean bags and chairs are provided for static appreciation and the architecture of the Market Hall encourages 360 degree viewpoints.
I managed to get one of my complicated images. Which has half of my body balanced on a table and plugged into the mains via a socket extension. A dangerous position to be in, if it wasn’t just a trick of many lights.
12 hours filled with sunlight of different sorts. My final moment of sun worship was a little on the chilly side but worth the cold to spend time swimming towards the setting sun.
Helios is free to visit at the Market Hall, Devonport. Open daily until Sunday 28th September.
Friday already and a fabulous bouncy bob at high tide.
Nothing starts the day better than a challenging swim in a very well-understood and respected bay.
There is a turn in the weather so on our return I decided to do some autumn chores in the yard. I was energised for action by the splash and bounce of the sea.
Before loading the garage with summer paraphernalia I collected a stored portrait. A friend and I plan to have a good old natter about the experience of having our portraits painted. My two were painted 10 years apart and I have never before viewed them together.
I had no idea they had both chosen almost identical colour palates.
Seeing them together and again is a curious feeling.
If I posed now the hair would be grey, the black garment would be a swimming costume and the deep jewel red would be a towel or robe. Cold water swimming is my superpower, I wish those younger women had done it because it really gets me through the tough days. And those two younger versions of me had some really tough days.
Mythical creatures on a mystical night. We camped overnight under a full moon and read books about mythical creatures.
As luck would have it the mythical creature in the book was a Leviathan which we had visited earlier in the day.
Overlooking Plymouth Sound for overnight camping we were not troubled by the low sad songs of unhappy Leviathans. Instead they jumped and frolicked in the bright moonlight which was untroubled by clouds or any other weather predicament.
The Leviathan and a full moon at StonehouseThe Leviathan and Plymouth Hoe
It helps, of course, that Nana drew a Leviathan a few years ago.
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