What kind of an artist do I want to be?

Following on from my mid-year review, it appears I need to think about what kind of an artist do I want to be? That is such a hard question. Is it something I should be asking at this early stage? Should I know when there is so much to explore? And yet, often people I meet ask me what kind of art do I do, or what do I paint - so I gather it is a very important question. However, I don't really want to do the same type of art for the rest of my life, I would like to grow and change styles or subjects. Tricky. Also room for improvement, which I wholeheartedly agree with, is getting up to date with current art practice. Going to London in a week's time should help with this, but if I say here, that I commit to start with trawling through museum websites as advised and promise to blog this weekly perhaps that will help. My flatmate once told me that if you promise to do something, you are more likely to do it, so okay, I promise to blog weekly on this. Here are my paintings from my mid-year review - some more successful than others it would appear! :) I really want to paint with tempera next semester so I promise that too, that I will experiment with that starting from day 1. Hope you are happy and well if you are reading this and that you have a fabulous New Year!

Craziness

I don't seem to have achieved an awful lot in the past few weeks. Flitting between ideas of 3D modelling (which when I see the intro scene on Game of Thrones it makes me want to give up there and then! see youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7L2PVdrb_8), print, drawing, taking photographs and short film of birds flying, I seem to have investigated to a goodly extent but actual output has been quite limited. We had a very short collagraph printing session last week, so I terrorised my A2 enviroboard with as many images I could in a crazy expression of the things I had found to date. I would have liked to have made it even crazier, but probably a good thing I didn't, as my tutor thought it was a bit overkill as it was (although today he saw the printed version and liked it much better I think!). Anyway, here is a copy of my whole sepia print, together with part of my brown/blue-black print. I have promised myself that over the next 4 weeks I am committed to painting and painting alone, together with writing my art essay which I must get to now and do some reading. Promises, promises I know! It always reminds me of the clock in Beauty and the Beast who when advising the Beast how to woo Belle, he says something along the lines of, "Flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep..."

Geese and a little bit of crows

So, well, has it been a month since I last posted? I have been quite absorbed in birds and am becoming a bit of a bird nerd. This is a good thing I guess. I went to a talk on goshawks held by the RSPB last week which was really informative, great photos and the speaker also had some funny stories to tell. He was also talking about the persecution of goshawks, which he got quite agitated about, so he had to switch to other topics every now and again to stop himself from getting angry. You know I have always associated the word persecution with religion and to have it applied to birds was quite unsettling. I was thinking, "how can birds be persecuted?" I know it sounds like a stupid thing to ask but for some reason I didn't get the concept. And then he started talking about shooting of goshawks so that game pheasants aren't hunted, about poisoning, about illegal taxidermy and felling of trees where nests are not checked for first. He made the point that because goshawks are not cute little birds (it sounds as though they eat anything, including other goshawks if dead) they are sometimes not held in high regard and perhaps not considered as worthy to be cared for/preserved. Needless to say I gushed a lot of this information at my crit on Monday. With the paintings of geese below I was thinking in some way about darkness and extinction, but I also just found sheer delight in the way their wings moved in different time to each other and how they clumped together in groups when they were flying. I used wood I had found in the off cuts bin in the wood workshop - someone had obviously been doing more creative things with wood than I would think of - and adjusted my compositions around that. I am not sure yet how I will take that idea further - if I cut into wood with a purpose will it just look artificial? Not sure. I also tried some screen printing of which most was unsuccessful, however I gleaned some ideas of how I can push it further going forward. So much more to say, but not enough room left to say it, except that I am doing 3D modelling in sepia ink next week at my botanical illustration course which I am very excited about!

Roll of honour

So, I have started back at uni this week. My tutor has been great so far, helpful and insightful and I like the studio I am in, so that is all good. We are currently doing a project on colour - how that will pan out I am not sure at this stage - but my initial thought was to have birds scavenging as my theme. I think this arose because I like to watch birds fly as I sit at my favourite spot at the Crags and look across at the city and the ocean. I am often envious of the freedom they have and think how fun it must be to eddy and swirl on the air currents (although on very windy days in Edinburgh I wonder if this a complete nightmare for them or whether it is like being on a roller coaster ride!). I thought of the other side last week though - the daily risk and danger of death by predators (humans included) and starvation. And today because there was a weather warning I was unable to go to the place I wanted to go to take photos of birds but went to the National Museum instead. I don't particularly like looking at stuffed animals, it makes me think of death and how these animals were once alive and the birds in particular - how they once felt the air beneath them and they felt keenly alive. I think it is good for educational purposes, but it also saddens me. Anyway, they had an extinctions role of honour from 1623 until 2010 and in the year I was born a bird became extinct - the Eiao monarch (Scientific name Pomaera fluxa). Some information on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species says "This species was endemic to the island of Eiao, French Polynesia, but is now Extinct, probably thanks to introduced predators. It was last recorded in 1977, and in 1987 a search failed to find it". I keep seeing this image in my mind of this little bird searching and not being able to find a friend, a mate, that could understand it, alone, afraid. And then one day it dies too. How horrible to have that happen. And I feel that they are voiceless - people complain about the noise that birds make - but have we made them voiceless? I don't know. Tomorrow we have a screen printing induction so we need to have a black and white image to work with. I took these today and tried to make them as dark as I could.

24/7 Prayer Room

Well, I managed to paint my map of the world on the wall, albeit in a short time of about 5 hours. I was just pretty chuffed that I managed to get it done as I had a friend visiting from Australia and wasn't going to get another chance. Work has also been a bit too hectic of late, so I didn't manage to actually make it into the 24/7 prayer room for a 1 hour prayer slot. I would have really loved to have seen how the room finally came together and I think there was an idea of stringing the different countries together on my map, like a continuous prayer chain. Of course, my map had a little bit of artistic licence I confess, and being based on a couple of 16th century maps (Typus Orbis Universalis and Typus Orbis Terrarum) had some land masses in there that are not on the current map of the world. One of which being  Terra Australis Nondum Cognita which I kind of made into Antartica, as well as putting a current Australia in. Why not? Australia deserves double credits for being my homeland. I also painted the UK bright pink so it couldn't be missed! Interestingly enough, I was doing an inventory of a flat this week (after being locked out for an hour...surprise surprise) and in one of the bedrooms there was a world map paper shade for the light. The cleaner came in with a normal paper shade in his hand and said, "I was going to change it, but it's beautiful. Should I change it?" And I said, "Nope, I think it's beautiful too, I think you should leave it". And we both stood there for a few seconds gazing at the world map lit up by the light. Kind of a bonding moment, weird eh, but good. Oh well, speaking of work, I have to go do some, but here are some photos of my world map, together with some other walls that were being set up to help inspire people to think about God's heart for the nations. 

More map ideas...

So, there is currently a moth perched above me on the ceiling. This is the moth...

I wonder what  it is like to view the world upside down. Do you get a headache after a while? I guess the moth gave up on going crazy around the spotlights after a while. It is obviously a very chilled moth, but unfortunately for it, the window is now closed so there is no escape....muhahaha. No it will be okay, I'll be nice and let it out tomorrow :). Well, re art, I went to see Thingsplace at the Superclub yesterday with a friend. John Brown was one of my tutor's at ECA in my first year and doesn't have a web site, so it was good to finally get to see some of his work. Very good, it worked very well and very humorous while making a serious (I think) critique at the same time. I liked his "Strewn Crap" and "Loon" pieces especially. It was also good to see some of Gordon Brown's work there, Head of Painting ECA, which I also liked and thought it worked in really well with John's. Liam Walker, recently graduated ECA student, also had these great matchboxes there. I really admire artists who can paint things small and in fine, interesting detail, which Liam seems to be able to do (not that I have ever met him so hope it's not offensive to use a first names basis). No photos of the exhibition, but here is the postcard I picked up....

I've been sick most of the week, resulting in going to sleep early with bad headaches, so my maps have not progressed well! But finally seem to be on the mend after quaffing large quantities of oranges and citrus juice. I got my antique maps book which I like so far and have just been copying some things I found interesting. I really don't know how this is going to work out and honestly if they still need me - I may have got lost on the email list! Oh well, I plan to rock up on the door step come Monday so will see what happens :D. Oh, that reminds me of Game of Thrones. I absolutely love the start when they have the map and things popping up like clock work and the music that goes with it is amazing.

Maps

Okay, so I have now left myself a week's deadline to do my research for the 24/7 prayer room my church is setting up. I have had a couple of months to do this and I thought it would be easy, but I think I may have been wrong! Surprise surprise. So, we are looking at God's heart and his heart connecting with us.  Obviously people are all over the globe so we ended up discussing maps as part of the set up and people being inspired to pray for things in their home countries or for people they know in other places or troubled zones. So I volunteered to paint maps of the world, one side the globe and the other Scotland and specifically Edinburgh. But the challenge is to make the maps representational, but not specific, and inspiring I think for both children and adults alike. On a personal level, I am quite inspired by ancient maps. Of course, ancient maps don't have Australia on, so while my American flatmate doesn't think this is a problem, I do! I also like the idea of painting some specific pictures on to make it interesting for children, like the ancient ships they would include in the maps or sea dragons or something. This is probably way too complicated, but it is best challenge than to take the easy route I think. I have ordered a map book Antique Maps by Carl Moreland but that won't be here for a couple of days, so I have found some initial maps on the internet and tried converting a Satellite Google Map in Photoshop using dark strokes - to give the idea of the roads, but without the need to paint specific buildings for the Edinburgh. If I post the starting point here it will hopefully mean I might have some revelation in the night about how to push it on further! I also found that the National Library of Scotland has maps of Scotland from about 1600 onwards available to order and view online which is good to know.

Source: Eyewitness Travel Guides Scotland (Maps by Ben Bowles, Rob Clynes)

Source (Accessed 12 August 2012) : http://www.giantbomb.com/news/elven-legacy-early-impressions/1082/  

Google Maps - Dark strokes Photoshop

Source (Accessed 12 August 2012): http://www.list.co.uk/article/32179-the-historical-events-that-shaped-edinburgh/

Source (Accessed 12 August 2012): http://freevintagedigistamps.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/free-vintage-image-download-ye-olde.html

Source (Accessed 12 August 2012): http://livinginpursuit.wordpress.com/travel/

Brizzle

Well, hey, it's sunny here today and it is AMAZING! So after a bit of time in the sun, and a nice pear and ginger Magner's I am listening to City and Colour on my rokit speakers. Of course, I waited till my flatmate was out of the house for her choir gig rehearsal so I can listen to my music a wee bit loud (she assures me I can listen loud anyway, but I try to be fair!!). Anyway, speaking of City and Colour, it was my good friend Sarah (aka Brizzle because she is a Bristolian) who introduced me to this song. I think it got sent to her by a good looking friend who I remember was wearing some sexy shorts in a photo she showed me of him! Anyway, my good friend (to cut a VERY long story short) was Googling me amongst others one night (think entertainment was a bit short ;)) and found my Blog and was disappointed that while I had used a photo she had taken as my main picture, there was no mention of her. Yes, disgusting on my part I know. So rightly so, she deserves a massive mention, and a zider me up me babbers! So I will stop rambling now and show some awesome Paint pictures she has made for me since we have been friend's and some dodgy ones I did in return. Really she can work paint like a pro and just to make sure so you know me babbers, I does loves you even if you are stuck out in stinky Canada having fun without me!! On the other art front, work has been very busy, so all I have managed to do in the past couple of months is to make a pop-up book. I figured out the basic functions, but still have a long way to go. I also got into the Botanical Illustration course at RBGE which starts in September, which I am very excited about. I am thinking I might want to do Illustration for children's books in the future as I have seen some amazing work, but I will see what happens. I really want to get back into printmaking too when I go back to ECA in September. Really sorry for the ramble, it has been too long since I posted.

Brizz Desert (after talking about being thirsty in the desert)

Brizz Pirate (because pirates are super cool let's face it)

Brizz Castle (because she knows I love doors, castles and flowers,  PS love the funky blue trousers Brizz)

 and now for my dodgy attempts in reply!

Auzzwuzz Treasure

Auzzwuzz Tropical

Auzzwuzz Canada

Gundagai

Another day, another dollar...well maybe not, but it is a good day all the same :). I still haven't really decided what to do regarding the Australia theme, but I am currently into sketching the buildings at Gundagai (Australia) in pencil and chalk pastels. I have been inspired by the amazing drawings by Elly Cottrill which I saw at the Edinburgh College of Art degree show at the weekend. You should check out her website at http://www.ellycottrill.com/. I want to be more patient and take more care with my drawing and colour mixing and matching, and so along these lines I have applied to RBGE to do their Botanical Illustration certificate over summer. I am really hoping the reasons I am applying to do the course stack up and they say yes! Here are a couple of sketches of what looked like to be an abandoned or run-down pub at Gundagai.

A few things....

I seem to have a few ideas running around in my head just now, or should I just say happily sitting in the sun and having a think :). I got pretty excited by the thought of creating my own pop-up book last week thanks to the vintagepopupbooks.com website, in particular I really liked this ship http://www.vintagepopupbooks.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=K-8. So I am hoping some kind person will buy me a "how to make a pop-up" book for  my birthday ;).


I have also been looking at a book I bought last year titled Arthur Rackham: A Life With Illustration by James Hamilton. It is such a beautiful book. I have been inspired by his pen and ink and watercolour work. Rackham somehow managed to combine the thinness and thickness of lines with subtle colour perfectly. I have been looking at animals also this week, so I think the below work of his ties in quite nicely.

So, inspired by Rackham, I thought I would start trying my hand at pen and ink and water colour this week. Ha, now I appreciate Rackham even more! I am getting a better hang of varying the thickness of my lines and have started putting a bit of water colour in, but I need to be more patient than I usually am. I think I also have to leave the ink longer to dry as well, overnight didn't seem to be long enough. I also played around a bit with some of the filters on Adobe Photoshop this afternoon, so this is what I have so far.

Yass: horses

Yass: horses (conte crayon filter)

I am still thinking about Australia and trying to figure out the best way to go about what to do. I am thinking about intimate scenes (family, pets, backyard etc) but am still exploring the images I have. I am exceedingly happy though, because in huge part thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, I now have a new Sony digital camera, with 18.2 mega pixels and a 20 x optical zoom! It can also take panoramic shots and is quite a bit more shake proof. Before I forget, I also went to the 3 Harbours Arts Festival on the weekend. I went to both the Cockenzie Power Station and Cockenzie House, both of which were good. Cockenzie House also had a good cafe where I managed to score a massive piece of home-made coffee cake!! Mmmm. The festival runs from 2-10 June and the website is http://www.3harbours.co.uk/. 

Aussie East Coast

I am in my land of the sun at the moment, Australia! I had a great time on the East Coast last week with my sister and brother-in-law and their lovely menagerie of pets, including said sausage dog that found its way into my luggage one night and happily snorted and burrowed about in my clean clothes all night long! I have been thinking about doing some work on Australia, but am unsure whether it should be things specific to my family or whether it should be inside or outside locations. Here is a bit of the "inside" thinking to date, some with graphite and oil bar and one using my sister's new tablet and the sketch program. I have also put in a photo of the Canberra Glassworks, which was a really good afternoon out. Holly Grace is currently an artist-in-residence there and I found her work quite inspirational, particularly the way she expresses the Australian landscape. Her website is http://www.hollygrace.com/. Happy days, folks are coming around soon, so I best put my pics in quick! PS I don't have Adobe Photoshop here so my editing may be slightly dodgy :).

Champas

Harry

Broccoli

Canberra Glassworks

 

Color tax

I love colour (or as the Americans would spell color :)) and having studied various tax legislation over the years as an accountant, I appreciated this piece of history I came across and thought I might share it with you.

Governments can come up with lots of crazy tax ideas.  One time---a few centuries ago---an emperor was trying to come up with new and creative ways to tax the people in the empire.  It was the time of the Renaissance in the Holy Roman Empire.   And art was flourishing.  One day the emperor was sitting on his throne and he had nothing better to do than daydream about new ways to tax the citizens.  As it was, there were plenty of taxes in the Empire, but the emperor wanted to create a new one.  So he decided to pick on the artists.  (I know---what a terrible idea!) But first, he wanted to consult one of his advisers, a guy named Guiseppe.  He said, "Guiseppe, what do you think? How should I tax art?"

If Guiseppe had been an intelligent adviser, he would have told the Emperor that taxing art was a stupid idea---surely among the dumbest ideas in the Empire.  Instead, Guiseppe said, "Let's tax every painting in the Empire."

The emperor thought this was too extreme.  "That's too crazy---too extreme.  I think it would discourage artists too much.  There has to be a better way to tax art.  Something not so heavy-handed."

Then Guiseppe came up with his infamous idea---an absolutely ridiculous proposal.

Guiseppe said, "I have the perfect solution.  Let's have a color tax."

The emperor was incredulous.  "A color tax? You mean the Empire would tax colors? Just how in the world would that work!?"

Guiseppe was way too optimistic.  "Oh, it would all be very simple, sire," he said in his high-pitched, whiny voice.  "You see, every painting that is created in the realm would be tax-free as long as it only has 3 colors or less in it.  But every painting that has more than 3 colors in it would be taxed.  And we would enforce this law by creating a new bureaucracy---the Government Art Regulation Department---GARD for short.  The agents in GARD can inspect every painting and collect the taxes."

The emperor just stared at Guiseppe for awhile.  Finally he said, "Guiseppe, I do believe this is the most insane idea I've ever heard in my life."

From that point on, the emperor gradually came to the conclusion that taxing artists was something that he didn't want to attempt.  But the idea lived on in the mind of Guiseppe, who somehow (amazingly) eventually became second-in-line to the throne. 

One night the emperor unexpectedly died in his sleep.  The next day Guiseppe was crowned emperor.  And then Emperor Guiseppe decided to impose his infamous idea---the color tax.

And so the color tax unfortunately became the law of the land.  The Government Art Regulation Department (GARD) was created.  The Department had offices set up all across the land.  And all across the Empire, no painting with more than 3 colors could be bought or sold unless it had a little red stamp in its upper right hand corner, signifying that the painter had paid the color tax.   Artists throughout the realm were required by law to take their paintings to their local GARD office, where the colors of each painting would be counted. 

It was simply government taxation gone mad---gone cuckoo---and artists in the Empire, as you can imagine, were infuriated.  Many of them protested the color tax by painting unflattering images of Emperor Guiseppe:  They painted him with red horns & a pitchfork---a sort of caricature of the devil; they painted him wearing only underwear; they painted him naked; they painted him cavorting with lewd women; they painted him wearing women's clothing; they painted him picking his nose; they painted him looking like a crazy coconut-throwing chimpanzee; someone even painted him being burned at the stake.  And all of these paintings sold like crazy.

Emperor Guiseppe, when told of these unflattering paintings, was angry.  At first he thought all of these painters should be sent to prison.  But then, displaying a rare flash of intelligence, he realized that this was a dumb idea.  After all, painters in prison meant less color taxes!!

In the end, the color tax was a pathetic idea no matter how one looked at it.  It ended up not even being profitable for the Empire because the creation and funding of the Government Art Regulation Department ended up costing more money than the color tax raised.  Emperor Guiseppe, when confronted by his accountants, finally decided that the color tax was a stupid tax.  He rescinded the law.  And thus ended a crazy era for Renaissance painters.

Ha ha, you may have guessed by now that this story is not true, but is in fact written by my a friend of mine, Mark Rosenquist. I almost believed it was true the first time I read it! Anyway, I think it is a great story, as his usually are, and it's art related so all the better :). Luckily he didn't charge me the £8.99 ($14.53 USD), (A$14.07), (€11.00) he threatened!

Duel

Okay, well I shall try not to be too hard on myself about my piece for our final first year exhibition, but the truth is I am not completely happy. I like the concept and I like my individual Transformers, but I think I just ran out of time and to be honest, it could do with more work. I think in future I might actually paint on the canvas first and then stretch it on the canvas stretcher so I can adjust my composition. Also, I think the canvas might have been stretched too tight and the wood has warped a bit so overall, structurally it is a bit of a disaster!! Well, on the bright side, I am pleased with myself that I tried new techniques and I tried a large oil painting, so now I know how big the struggle can be and an estimate of the time needed :). And now it is summer break!!! Here are the photos of my painting so you can see for yourself. Oh and PS the exhibition is this afternoon at 4pm in Studios C8 and C9, opposite the Sculpture Court, main building Edinburgh College of Art. It is rumoured that Stephen Fry will be in the building today for the filming of a new dramatisation of one of Ian Rankin's novels. So I think everyone is pretty excited we might get to see him!

Duel 120cm x 140cm

Close-up of Duel

Close-up of Shockwave

Close-up of Optimus Prime

Back to the 80s

End of year has come all too soon. Although officially there is still more than a month and a half to go, end of year assessment was last Friday. I am a bit perplexed about what happens next but I guess that is all part of the adventure. Here are the latest in my 80s action heroes paintings, Back to the Future 3 and Astro Boy and his sister Astro Girl, both set in Portobello beach. I have also naughtily taken a photo of a fellow student's work, Rachel, as it is a brilliant painting of me wearing my shiny blue Gola sneakers. 

Back to the Future 3

Astro Boy and Astro Girl

Rachel's painting

Other than that, I watched Hugo last night, which was a very beautiful film. Also been listening to a lot of David Guetta's music as inspiration in the studio - something beautiful about this too.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRfuAukYTKg&feature=g-logo&context=G2e281ffFOAAAAAAADAA