Category: art

#1263 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Hybrid Printmaking, Photographs, Plymouth, Plymouth Sound, Serendipity, Stonehouse, WordsLeave a comment

Does every picture tell a story?

I think most do.

This one tells of the late summer clear up. All family guests have moved on to different holiday destinations and our home has eased back from peak occupation. The crocs belonging to three small girls are gathered in a bucket by the back door while the girls themselves are away on different holiday adventures.

Using a similar colour scheme I am trying to tell the story of a set of swimming steps that are much quieter this week now the heatwave has moved on.

I am at heart a story teller either with words or pictures.

A regular blog reader, who is familiar with these steps, said yesterday that I had made them look very posh. That was not the intention, but I agree. They may have been posh once upon a time but shabby shic is a better description now. Most of the time they are entirely tolerable and are regularly washed by incoming very high tides.

At night they can be a gathering place for  smokers of weed and men who like to do a wee. Not so posh then. Not so great as a swim destination either. Not  so great a picture.

But I don’t need to tell that story about these steps.

Years ago a little pair of discarded crocs by the back door of the actual Old Mortuary used to break my heart.   A small person and her family  had left us to live abroad. That would not have made a great story or a great picture.

3 pairs of crocs in a bucket is a much better story.

However in the interests of story telling I also wanted to show the earlier set of steps at the peak of the August heatwave. I am not interested in the crowds of people who used these steps recently just the steps as a metaphor for extreme atmospheric and radiated heat. Just too much heat.

The heat blistered out of the rocks at night. And the sea languidly lapping the steps, warmer than we have ever known. Not quite cooling enough perhaps. Oleaginous even.

A different colour scheme. A completely different story.

#1346 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn abstract photography, art, Footling About, Hybrid Printmaking, learning, Meddled Photography X Watercolour, Medical imaging, Serendipity1 Comment

Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why?

As a lifelong image maker the outdated technology I miss the most is the magic and alchemy of a photographic or radiographic darkroom. The basic skills of wet processing and later automated processing, that are enhanced by the knowledge and experience of knowing how to manipulate negative and positive images to create the best possible outcome. 

So many mental filing cabinets of know how have been stored in my brain gathering dust since the dawn of digital imaging. Until a February in Penzance when I had a lightbulb moment and decided to start using some of my old analogue knowledge alongside the digital knowledge of contemporary image making.

I am a time-hopping digital immigrant. Using skills taught to me by people called Sheila and Ron in the 70’s ,an era when a dark room technician could turn a disaster into an acceptable picture by clever thinking and the use of tricks and accuracy to make an image better.

This is the first successfully manipulated image created by overlaying three separate digital photographs to create one picture.

The feet below are my most recent  meddled image.

The others are just some of the picture journey. The acceptable part of the journey. Not the many many images that have ended up in the digital bin

#1343 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Devils Point, Firestone Bay, Hybrid PrintmakingLeave a comment

My day was hijacked , first by a sound then an image and then later again by another image that just nagged away at me until I had sketched,painted and photographed it into existence. Until I was done.

Lola and I were out walking early this morning , almost from the start we were followed by the slightly worrisome and slightly exciting sound of someone hurrying with a suitcase on wheels. At one point we were overtaken by a woman who had laden herself with everything she would need for a day on the beach. She was a woman on a mission. As she sped past me I grabbed a quick photo which I have altered to anonymise . There was no beach, we were both walking at exactly high tide. She was way ahead of us and as I looked over the wall she was patiently waiting for some beach to appear. By the time we passed again, on our way back, she had claimed her spot on a tiny ribbon of wet pebbles.

She had unloaded and set up a one woman encampment. Sun lounger, parasols, cooler box and books. She was oiled up like a sausage on a barbeque . She was not alone, the thin strip of pebbles had grown and she had neighbours, but none who had hauled quite so much stuff.  When I got home I decided to donate her my empty beach of yesterday.

It was the least I could do. I had an interesting afternoon sketching her arriving on an empty beach then watercoloured and did a pen and ink sketch before sticking them all together digitally.

The Early Firestoner ©theoldmortuary

Sometimes I just have to get an image out of my system. I hope she had a great day, she really deserved it.

#1535 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Plymouth Sound, StonehouseLeave a comment

Funny things can spark a creative patch. For me it can be a deadline, a creative itch, or a commission, but this month I am aware that my creativity is directly linked to an ‘artistic difference’

I have been mulling over my comments and the comments of others.  I am in the happy place of being content in agreeing to disagree. Now, my happy place thinking may affect decisions I make about which arts organisations I join in the future, but it may not.

But for now I am glad my painting mojo has returned with some lovely energy.

These two people on the beach are not having an argument. They are inspired by the many memorial benches I pass on my daily dog walks. The combination of names on benches who have enjoyed overlooking Plymouth Sound are  not always traditional couples,sometimes they are friends, neighbours  or colleagues. Names however come and go in fashion. Some pairings may never be popular again. Were my parents to have had a memorial bench it would be dedicated to Joy and Keith. One set of grandparents would be Gladys and Leonard. Or in a different marriage Gladys and Reginald. Not pairings I expect ever to be fashionable again.

This couple sit, overlooking an unchanging seascape. I sat them on wooden deckchairs to enhance the timelessness of the scene. The figures are androgynous and could be any two people of any gender or age or race. Most importantly they could be Edith and Herbert, Sharon and Tracy or Amir and Tulip.  Just two people enjoying the view any time since 1886 when the deck chair was first patented

I needed a bit of space to add the quote. So the painting needed a good gap where not much was happening.

The artistic difference was based on a statement that ‘real artists’ don’t use digital manipulation tools that could be considered to be on the slippery slope towards AI .

As part of my creative process I use digital manipulation on occasions, but also get painty and dirty just like any other real artist.

Here my initial sketch and the subsequent watercolour have been digitally combined.

Firestone Bay at Low Tide © theoldmortuary

Later on I may work into the watercolour with pen and ink to get a similar appearance. 

I do rather love the effect a minor disagreement has had on my creative thinking and more than happy to agree to disagree with’real’ artists. Real or not I have been hard at it today.

Detail of the finished piece. I am undecided about my ultimate presentation. As above with lots of space in landscape format or tighter cropped in Portrait.

#1513 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Coffee Hunters, SerendipityLeave a comment

I am not sure how long we have owned this coffee pot. It lives in the camper van and performs the morning ritual of coffee wherever the van is. It came into the house for the post holiday wash and has not returned, so yesterday it posed on a mirror for some sketching and water colour action.

I am a one cup of coffee a day woman. Unless the day, or I, am flagging. Or being social.

Yesterday I was social, two cups of coffee were enjoyed, one with cake. Which is almost certainly why there was no post-lunch slump and I felt the urge to paint a still life. I also pruned things in the yard and gave Lola an extra walk.

Caffeine is a wonderful thing! I have wanted to paint this little coffee pot for years. Inspired by a sculpture made entirely of these pots by Robert Fabelo.

Cafédral (detail) by Robert Cavelo

Cafédral is a shed sized building made entirely of old coffee pots. Since seeing Robert Caveo’s work I have had to resist rehoming coffee pots like this when I see them in charity shops. But yesterday I got such pleasure from painting our pot and his reflection I wonder if I might collect just a few for a bigger still life moment…

#1512 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity3 Comments
June 2026

June is making herself very hard to love this year. Recent mornings she has turned up with a very November look on her face. The word greige and June have no reason to appear in the same sentence.

I thought I would share a local weather explanation.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1HDtV9JwQH/

More of the same today!

Last year our yard was vibrating with heat and colour.

It is hard to think that yesterday the weather stopped any serious yardening and the only time I crossed the yard was to take washing to the tumble dryer.

It did not look this pretty.

The day was not without some colourful excitement. One of my hybrid images from my Meddled Photographs x Watercolour project has been chosen to be printed onto glass to create a unique splash back in a recently renovated kitchen.

The full description of my project is here.

I am sure there will be a splashback reveal soon. Currently there are many blue squares of wall adhesive on the freshly delivered glass.

It is the Meddled Photograph of the same location as the glum picture at the top of this blog.

Then late in the afternoon a conversation starter was posted on one of my arty Whatsapp groups.

My comment is the green one. What I love about this brief, arty exchange of ideas is that it is timeless.

Artists of all types would have had just this type of discussion throughout history.

As someone who has always had to embrace new technology. I am used to the challenges and the.convoluted thinking that these things often require. I would be really interested in what anyone who reads this thinks.

As it turns out,  a greige day was quite the fertile place for creative thinking.

#1511 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Hybrid Printmaking, Serendipity2 Comments
©theoldmortuary

What is one way you have grown this year?

Creatively I have grown like a weed. I chose to step away from exhibiting at formal art exhibitions for a year and just let art and photography grow in their own way.

The kite surfers at St Michaels Mount were the first sign that something was  up . Goodness knows why I had never considered that the skills, both analogue and digital that I used in Medical Imaging could be transferred to photography and art.

The epiphany occurred on Mounts Bay beach during a cold winter weekend in January 2025. I could get mediocre photographs of a great location and some kite surfers but nothing particularly Zingy. Until I tried sticking three photos together and slightly altering their angles and magnification.

18 months in and I happily stick anything that I have photographed or painted together, to create an image which pleases me. Along the way I have used screen printing tricks like deregistering and sometimes registering, different renditions of the exact same subject. Altering perspectives, angles, magnifications and colours. Anything goes really. No guarantee of success, the failure rate is high, but when the serendipity goddess is in a good mood then anything can happen.

Like all experimental creative processes there are more duds than there are successes. But there is always some learning lurking even in the duddiest of duds.

Sometimes I flip the process and paint one of my amalgamated images as an original painting.

Yesterday’s blog featured one of my hybrid images that I was always planning to paint.

#1510 theoldmortuary ponders.

There was more flipping, flipping because the image was of a small yacht haven on the Peloponnese in Greece. Just a tiny jetty that offered overnight, safe mooring just off a shingle beach.  Double flipping because my digital image was created using three different photographs, superimposed, simplified and then overlayed  on a hand painted watercolour background.

Then flipped colour wise because everyone knows that all images of boats in Greece should be represented in shades of blue, green and turquoise. But I wanted to represent the warmth of the evening and the moment.

Painting this image yesterday I abstracted it a little further.

I also had a go at doing a digital deregistered double image. A pencil sketch overlayed on top of the watercolour.

Just like growing weeds, I never quite know what will pop up next .

Just like weeds quite a lot of these ideas end up in the bin.

One person’s weed however can be someone else’s flower.

#1510 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art2 Comments
©theoldmortuary

What is something you wish you could tell your 20-year-old self?

My advice to my 20 year old self would be significantly different from the advice I would give to my 16 year old self. To add a caveat, any advice to my younger self that would create life changing decisions would alter my here and now. My here and now is my happy place. No changes needed. People often think change is for the  better but of course change can equally bring rather negative consequences.

At 16, I would advise sticking to my artsy A level choices and fighting harder for them.

At 20 I would advise that the Science choices have worked and would continue to work. However I would suggest taking a year out, take a breath, travel a little. These delightful options were not available in the 70’s.

Lipstick

At 16 I was obsessed with No 7 Plum Beautiful.

By 20 I had moved on. It took 30 years  of experimentation to lead me back.

30 years wasted.

At 16 I felt art floating imperceptibly from my fingertips

At 20 that loss felt profound. Sometimes I can be a Drama Queen.

It turns out that Art, like Love, will find a way.

This is my project for today.

#1504 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, France, SerendipityLeave a comment

There was never a plan to paint yesterday.

#1503 theoldmortuary ponders

Tennis Club admin, rat eradication and emails were my target for the day.

Pest control took a little longer than planned and a Summer rain storm soaked me through. For reasons that I can’t quite put a finger on I decided that a rain storm was exactly the moment to paint a sea pool in a heatwave.

I am physically painting a lot less this year, and yesterday was an absolute joy. This painting is a mixture of traditional water colour and water colour pencils.

Water colour pencils are my quick/ holiday/travel medium of choice. A pencil case and a sketch book take virtually no space in a bag and water is always easy to find.

The other travel tool is my smart phone. Digital manipulation  can sometimes rescue a failing painting. The Sea Pool at Conleau did not need rescuing but I did have a little half hour of tweaking.

To be honest I dont think these digitally tweaked images have a huge amount of value. They give me the slight AI ‘ick’. But looking at them gave me some ideas on how to improve my painting. They offer a different perspective. Just one digital manipulation pleases me.

A much simpler less vivid image. Not at all Conleau in a heatwave. But certainly a nod to the 1930’s history of the emergence of Conleau as a tourist destination.

Digital dabbling is a great learning experience and I can do it on my phone whenever there are a few spare minutes in a day

But nothing beats creating art using my hands and art materials. Who could possibly pass up sharpening pencils. Such a satisfying task.

#1503 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, FranceLeave a comment
The Sea Pool at Conleau Basin

Today I am whisking you all back to France in a heatwave.

The thing about heatwaves is that they are relentlessly hot. A campervan holiday in 35 degrees is an exercise in trying really hard to keep cool when stationary. Humans are one consideration but a curly haired dog is quite another. For her sake we booked into a cool Airbnb for three days.

A heatwave is not great for art or photography. The sun makes photographs really pretty dull as deep shadows and bright sunlight drown out detail

And the baking heat dries out paints far too quickly for anything useful to be achieved. I tried. All attempts are in the bin.

Oh my arty bones were very frustrated I really wanted to show some of the beautiful places we visited.

Our day at Conleau was just one of those days.

A really fascinating scene but the magic and vibrancy is lost in bright sunlight and deep shadow.

For some inexplicable reason, after being drenched by heavy summer rain I decided today was the day to paint Conleau.

©theoldmortuary

The things you could never see on any of my photographs were the children having a school lesson on the beach.

The beautiful 1930’s changing rooms and cafe. With wrestling teenagers in the foreground.

And the yachts moored up beyond the sea pool.

I really wanted the whole scene to vibrate for the viewer. Funny that I have achieved it during a rainy day in Devon.

My aim was for vibrant and languid all in one picture.

I think I am done.