Well, Beltane crept up on me while I was lost down a Turneresque rabbit hole.
The picture above was created on Beltane Eve.
An accidental coincidence showing Earth and Fire!
Category: art
#1272 theoldmortuary ponders.
I can never be sure where a book will take me and this one is no different. But the project for today is unexpected.
Drum roll…
Turner did not use white paper or canvas, his whites are created by white paint. Which I am slightly averse to. True Whites in my paintings are usually gaps in the paint. Today I will be soaking paper in cold tea and drying it in the sun, for a more random 250 year old look.
These slightly mad little experiments are unlikely to make it into the public domain, even at a Turner inspired exhibition, but the way colours react in different circumstances is fascinating to me.
But none of this is where this book has taken me in the last few days.
While I was busy doing a job not involving art. I was on a parallel and self guided path of art appreciation and dabbling with watercolour. Until I decided to give art a more academic and educational space in my life by committing to many years of part-time study doing a Foundation Degree and then a Fine Art degree. While still studying the essential science stuff for my career.
Without much research I started the journey towards a degree in Fine Art, imagining that I could immerse myself in the world of artists from Turner to the Impressionists. Not to be. Without due diligence I had signed up for a Contemporary Fine Art Degree. One of life’s awkward moments, regrettable at the time, but the fees had been paid. Turner and the Impressionists slipped from view, pushed out by Rothko and Grayson Perry and many late 20th and 21st Century artists*.
*This was the best learning experience ever, so glad I made this error.Contemporary Art really stretches thinking, and thinking makes for great pondering.
This last couple of months has been the first time I have been truly back with the older generation of artists for 20 years.
The things I did not know about Turner are manifest. In the last few weeks it has been easy to find Turner locations on the Devon/ Cornwall border. But unknown to me my London life was very Turner centric. The number 3 bus from Crystal Palace to Oxford Street is like a Turner Experience. If only I had known when it was my daily commute.
I took this quite a few years ago because life was mimicking art.
https://www.saatchiart.com/poyatos?srsltid=AfmBOoqlBPpGody31sBnGfvkHpSZvIQoErt2Gd3VhHHeUw74brUQqcj2
Which brings me to a brand new-to-me artist.
Books really do take me on extraordinary journeys.
A ponder for another day, Turner and my daily commute. For now though I am tinting paper with Tea Bags…
#1268 theoldmortuary ponders.
As I lay in bed writing this blog, I realise that by chasing down references to JMW Turner’s painting and sketching exploits in the Tamar Valley I am going down some fascinating googleholes.
https://www.grahambrown.com/uk/product/turner-plymouth-dock-bespoke-mural/119027-master/
Curiously the location of Mr Turner’s position to paint Plymouth Dock is very similar to where I sometimes watch the British Firework competition, although I face more to the right.
Maybe I can paint a Turneresque Firework painting…
This week I was at Newbridge. Mr Turner did not leave much more than a blank page
Following my own Mr Turner theme of Mists and red splodges. I have done two Newbridge sketches.
But now I am thinking that my bedroom is lacking a little Turner ‘ something’. But I could put that Mural in my loo/futility* room. A mural in there would just add to our eccentric smallest room.
*the futility room is tiny and yet somehow completes all of the tasks of a utility room but not in any logical way. Hence the name futility.
#1267 theoldmortuary ponders.
Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
Now I am very much risk averse , harm averse would better describe me. But if I switch the word risk for unpredictable outcome or experimentation then I am much more comfortable with the whole concept of taking a risk. I am not a huge fan of timid or obnoxiously certain people because their place on the risk taking spectrum is so different from mine.
Arty and creative risks are my favourite things to do. A bin full of failure is the foundation of my creative practice.
I took a risk with the picture above. I had a stash of very old (20 years) but very good quality Ink Jet paper.
This image is a bit of everything, gelli printing, collage, watercolour and pastels. Under such pressure many papers would fail and this one was no different. But the failure, where the surface pulled off is almost its greatest success. The orange area above the boat got a bit too wet in the process and the surface started to lift off. Working into the area with pastels created the cloud texture.
Then a bit of photo meddling created two different images.
Each one is a risk I am happy with.
#1261 theoldmortuary ponders.
©theoldmortuary
For many, Easter is a four day weekend. Thursday evening seems just a little more relaxed than normal in anticipation. But two days of great weather have given way to a deluge. Luckily I caught sight of a group of paddleboarders at high tide and sunset. When the weather was being kinder
I took one of my ‘bad’ photographs and, inspired by my puddle photograph of yesterday. I created an image with similar bold colours but enhanced the softness of colour reflected in water.
I decided to slightly change the location and relative size of the paddleboarders. I will tinker with them some more over the next few days.
I suspect that this will be my image of Easter 2025 as I tweak it into submission, in both senses of the word, ready for an exhibition in May.
As an aside to all this, my workspace is finally finished. It has taken us 6 months to find exactly the second hand furniture we needed to store regular life and art materials. We never intended bright pink to be an accent colour but an old sari is the perfect cover up for works in progress on the table, and my lovely old typewriter is just the perfect shade of beige.
Even as I write the words ‘perfect shade of beige’ I realise that this tidy work space is another piece of great procrastination. I need to set to and get on with the work for the Turner Exhibition at the end of May. But while it was in a tidy pristine state yesterday I sat and filled in the application form on line. When I was done, not a thing was out of place.
It didn’t last.
#1260 theoldmortuary ponders.
Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.
Sometimes the prompts from my blog hosts are interesting and can feed into an interesting ponder. Most of the time they are just of no interest to me, so are swiftly scrolled past. Occasionally one like this holds no interest but there is a glimmer of interest in the irritation I feel at the absurdity of the question.
Surely the result of every decision made,big or small, good or bad creates learning and growth. This is why we only tend to stub our baby toes once in a given location.
I took this picture yesterday not for the graffiti particularly but because of the softness of the vivid colours in the puddle.
Puddle pictures are one of my favourite things when they are beautiful. It is just that muddy/dirty puddles are the norm.
I wanted to get this vibrancy into one of my seascapes for the upcoming Turner exhibition. This puddle set me thinking, the results of that thinking might appear any time soon. Or perhaps they won’t.
Decisions, decisions, learning and growing…
Or maybe not.
#1253 theoldmortuary ponders.
I have had a few bubbling ideas for an upcoming exhibition. Ideas are one thing but they can be tricksy things, soon enough something will come along to whip the ideas into shape. I have known for a while that an exhibition to celebrate JMW Turners birth, 250 years ago was coming up.
As I have lived, off and on, in the Tamar Valley for 35 years. I have always been aware of the artist’s relationship with this location.
Taking Turner and the Tamar Valley as inspiration is quite a daunting thought. Last week I narrowed down my thinking to two Turner Tropes. Mist and red daubs.
This week I received the information sheet.
Some of my ideas fit the brief, others don’t.
A sensible woman would write down everything important and only allow her creative thoughts to meander along the paths set out by the information sheet.
On this occasion the sensible woman will prevail.
Some of my creative time will be spent creating a schedule, a work list and some deadlines. Oh how drear!
For now though, turquoise sea/ river mist and some red daubs.
#1252 theoldmortuary ponders
This peaceful picture was the product of concatenation. So much unrelated stuff came together. There were flurries of noisy activity, to-do lists and then a sailboat with red sails.
No sooner had one art exhibition finished than the next one peeped over the horizon.
Yesterday was actually an admin day with lists and agenda’s to be compiled and emails written. Alongside some being on hand to give access to some tree surgeons at a tennis club I do some work for.
So while my head was full of mundane stuff my other head wanted to create art in homage to Turner!
There was a cacophony of garden hardware, mowers, scarifiers and arboricultural machines, chainsaws and branch shredders. And just like that a small sailboat sailed past wearing red sails.
The noise and niff naff of the day wasn’t silenced but just moved out of focus for the few minutes this sweet little boat sailed past.
Whenever I look out over this patch of sea I think about the 600 known shipwrecks that are under this stretch of water and the floral tributes and ashes that are regularly set free on this coast.
All of this fed into my current, since yesterday, work in progress.
The location has been anonymised and the reality significantly altered but this will be the foundation of a picture called Crossing the Bar
Which led, of course to Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
And then with the serendipity of Dr Google to The Spooky Men.
https://spookymen.com/a-history-of-the-spooky-men/?v=7885444af42e
And that my friends is how a day that started with paperwork and chainsaws ended with deep and sonorous harmonies.
If you never click on any links I share on these blogs just do it this one time. Your ears will thank you for it. Meanwhile back to the work in progress.
And I am back to a Spookyman playlist.
#1214 theoldmortuary ponders
Starting with my palm tree I drew a simple sketch on watercolour paper.Then traced it and made a copy on more water colour paper.
Then I photographed the first painting as each colour was applied.
And finally made lines and cross hatch to improve the depth.
The second painting was much simpler and quicker. I just painted everything in its corresponding complimentary colour.
Then the fun of using all the techniques I have been practicing this month double and sometimes treble exposing photographs. But this time the photographs are of quickly rendered water colour paintings.
Two clear favourites emerged after an afternoon’s digital tinkering.
So much serendipity is built into these images. #1 narrowly wins because I love the sharp shadows that have been created by being off-registered. The image suggests a hot summers day.
#2 more perfectly aligned is like a different time of day.
I have two painting days scheduled for this week. I think the next one will be spent doing either a portrait or a nude. All that from a potted palm in February.
And saving the most exciting fact until last. The sunshine made its way into the studio for several hours today. That is certainly a sign of the ‘S’ word creeping up behind late winter.
#1213 theoldmortuary ponders.
Far too late in February I have realised that I usually enroll on a creative course of some sort. Three years ago it was a mindful watercolour course with Tansy Horgan which really shook up my way of working with colour.
https://tansyhargan.bigcartel.com/category/in-person-courses
At the time I was working at an art gallery showing an amazing exhibition called Songlines featuring the work of Indigenous First Nation artists from Australia.
https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/songlines-touring
This was an abstract image inspired by my last day stewarding at the exhibition, created to express what I had learnt and felt about the experience of being submerged in the art of a significantly different culture.
I realised this morning that both learning mindful colour mixing with Tansy Horgan and being drenched in the colours and mark making of Indiginous Australians has informed my recent hobby of digitally altering deliberately dull and uninteresting photographs
So much so that I have not painted since Christmas.
I have had a painting project bubbling in my head for some time.
It’s too late now to register for a course in what is left of February. Time to get my bubbling project down on paper and resolve to be better organised next Winter.
For now the Songlines painting combined with the rainy palm tree in my back yard.
theoldmortuary.design 