Category: art

#1082 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Interior Design, SerendipityLeave a comment

As the dark mornings stealthily shorten daylight hours I am more and more thrilled by the cloud  of crumpled paper that has replaced the ghastly chandelier in the bedroom. The wonder that is IKEA’s imaginative  design for a mass produced item.

We are in the midst of our own Octoberfest. No beers or cutesy German themed servers wearing  lederhosen and low cut shirts. Our Octoberfest is all about ‘Spring’ cleaning the house and some redecorating.

The studio has also had its chandelier replaced by a paper cloud. So much more conducive to creativity. The parchment-coloured wall is new; the blue one will change to dark teal. We want to reflect the colour of our local sea.  Oktoberfesting the studio is a mammoth task.  There are still materials left over from my Fine Arts degree 16 years ago. I have moved them around the country in case random things were ever needed. I have promised myself a proper sort out and rationalisation of art materials. My fabric stache took the hit yesterday. I need a full day of recovery before I tackle paints.

#1067 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity1 Comment
Lin Deacon

Lin Deacon

Who are your favorite artists?

My favourite artists are my friends who happen to be artists. And artists who I meet and like, whose work interests me.

I realise this may be a poorly written question trying to probe which are my favourite works of art, but just as I would in an exam I will answer the question, not what I think the question is.

Clare Law

https://www.clarelaw.co.uk/

Obviously this only works for contemporary artists or artists who I feel I know through reading biographies, autobiographies or watching documentaries.

Jill Coughman

Jill Coughman RIP

I am far too much of a diplomat to write about artists and their art that I dislike, but I can say that I love the work of Rothko but I rather doubt if I would have liked him one bit.

#1032 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Greece1 Comment
Self-Portrait on an Athenian Street

So far our road trip is mostly about walking the streets of Athens. 16,000 steps in 30 degree heat today. Starting with an early morning trip to an art supplies store to buy more watercolour paper but also because the owner makes his own artisanal wax pastels. His store was fabulous and his work station at the back of the store was a riot of colour.

Handmade oil pastels.

Batis Art Supplies

https://batisart.gr/

I’ve never used oil pastels but these were sorely tempting. For the sake of luggage I bought a small tube of watercolour named Olive just to celebrate its Greekness.

Getting to the store was a fabulous trip of street graffitti and a ridiculously named Vinyl and CD store.

My self-portrait was taken on a tree that had been painted blue and decorated with shards of broken mirrors.

Thank goodness for red lippy.

#1031 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, SerendipityLeave a comment

Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.

Not a story about the furthest but a story about our current road trip before it even started. The only motorway that links us with our local airport was closed. An easy two hour journey became a tense four hour journey via A and B roads in Devon. Our flight was at 5:15 and we arrived at the airport at 5:05. Never were we so grateful for a delayed flight but regardless of the delay, check-in for luggage was very firmly closed. Thankfully we met some fabulous people and we were processed with kindness and expediency.

We arrived at 2 am and can reveal the start of our roadtrip.

Our first day was an odysea of coffee shops and nattering and a museum of  Greek culture where I met this splendid fellow.

Man in a Fez by an unknown artist.

Goodness how I love this face painted in about 1870.  A face so full of mischief I would be drawn to him at a party.

Has he just eaten the last pie?

Or farted?

Has he just heard the most salacious and delicious piece of gossip?

Is he trying really hard not to giggle?

I have no idea but he has brightened my first day in Athens. I will take his unusual portrait image with me on my road trip.

And this fabulous abstract created in a Sephora beauty product shop. Just nearby to our Airbnb.

#1028 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art2 Comments

Last night we went to see an art exhibition featuring the work of one of our bobbing friends.

https://videopress.com/v/7IZsX81n?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

She has been doing her Masters in Illustration.

We really loved her work.

But it is hard to show in a 2D format. Bobbers have played their part in her research, we sniffed our way through the olfactory part of her final project when we were very cold and damp. Glad to see our hard work paid off.

Another aspect that is impossible to share in this format. Regardless we are very proud of her and so happy to be able to give her a gentle squeeze. The poor woman has been acutely ill this week.

Not remotely linked to art, it is bobbing and Covid-19  that delivered her to us as a friend.  As we walked around to look at other students work it was surprising how many people we recognised from other sea swimming or paddle boarding groups that use the Stonehouse swimming beaches.

Small worlds that collide.

All work © Debra Parkinson. Link below to artist information.

https://aup-postgraduate.co.uk/Debra-Parkinson

#977 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity1 Comment

Are you seeking security or adventure?

This blog is supposed to be about me finishing a watercolour after four months. But then my blog host put this teasing question on my admin page . I can answer the question with this painting. After four months of doodling I thought I was done. You could say, I was secure that enough was enough. But the minute the finished photograph was taken I knew that security was never going to work for this string bag of windfall apples.  The leaves are not bold enough, the leaves are going on an adventure. The leaves are going bolder. Flakes of gold leaf are going to make the leaves sparkle.

April

There was never a plan to paint windfall apples in a string bag. I just wanted something to paint in a meditative way while talking at an artists social gathering.

May

First coloured orbs appeared.

June

Then the string bag.

The arrival of the string bag somehow turned the orbs into bruised and imperfect apples.

July

And that should have been that, but the leaves are all wrong so the August gathering of art natterers will see me possibly  adventuring too far with this picture. It could go well . It may not.

In my search for creative adventure I could be…

Gilding the Lily.

Saturday pondering, it is often a surprise to me how a blog will end and sometimes even the beginning takes me unawares.

#967 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, dog walks, Royal William Yard2 Comments
©ATM

During my morning dog walk I popped into an exhibition at Royal William Yard (RWY). It is Shark Month at Ocean Studios. There are loads of lovely Sharky images, but on a bright morning this one was the only one not glazed and not suffering from loads of reflections. The website of the artist is below.

https://atmstreetart.com/

In the cafe there was also a really cute collection of bits and pieces left at low tide near to RWY.

I particularly liked these little bits with text on.

As I regularly poke about at low tide I was quite jealous, I never find anything with words on. 

But then on my walk home I had a moment!

The tide had delivered me a cracked and grubby plectrum. With words on it.

A freebie advertising gears for Mountain bikes.

Here’s the moral dilemma of the day. Do I donate to the communal exhibition of tidal finds? Or does a grubby plectrum start my own collection of mudlarking treasures with text on.?

© ATM

Me and a shark with beady eyes. One more hazardous than the other.

#955 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Books, GreeceLeave a comment

I have completely failed to mention my Kindle book reading. Which this year is my non-fiction holiday read. I am a good deal further into it than this picture suggests. I had excellent history teachers at my school and wish I could have studied it beyond O level but I wish that about lots of subjects. I have never wished for different History teachers until now. Shalina Patel serves up history  so intriguingly she would most certainly get an apple from me everyday.

The Hotel Shelf book has been chosen. It will almost certainly be the flight home book.

I picked up a fabulous life quote from my current read, soon to be set free to roam wherever with all the other Hotel shelf paperbacks the world over.

” We can’t all live in perfect harmony with our integrity “

I will be taking that sentence home with me.

Necessity is the mother or father of invention. Overnight I remembered my dad sharpening pencils with glass paper ( sandpaper) . An Emery board has done a very good job. No pencil crisis any more.

In hotel bookshelf faux science I would say that the majority of guests here are German and they read a better standard of books than the British guests. There are some shockingly bad cover art examples in either language.  Predominantly ‘Romance’ novels that my mother was very dismissive of when I was younger. She called them pulpy kidney books, as if describing some terrible medical malady that would befall anyone reading such stuff. Not for her and her second wave feminist friends, except…

When it was time to clear my parents home following their deaths I found a surprise stash of exactly that type of novel in the back of her wardrobe. She didn’t sink to Mills and Boon but the subject matter was predominantly historical  and medical romance.

At death her kidneys were in fine form so maybe she never crossed a line or maybe she imagined pulpy kidneys.

#954 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Books, Greece, Holidays1 Comment

Book 4 of the holiday reading pile includes a lot of rape. Hardly surprising as the core of the narrative is the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong during World War 2. In this book , so far , none of the main characters are involved. The brutality of the Japanese Occupation is the background to the narrative. I can revel in knowing the location well and slotting history into well-known locations is always fascinating.

In other news two new-to -me, Greek words have cropped up this week . Thanks to my fellow bookworms.

It was too tempting not to include a book and buttocks in a beach sketch . Surrounded, as I am, by buttocks both beautiful and not.

All that buttock sketching has revealed an error on my packing. No pencil sharpener!!

The second word is Ekphrasis.

Vivid description, oh how I wish I had the words. I may no longer have a useful pencil but I do still have my paints and a camera to enable a vivid end to the holiday.

The first book from the hotel shelf has been picked up, lets see how that goes.