Germination

Well, I went to see the RSA New Contemporaries Exhibition. Some interesting pieces and a couple I found a bit disturbing. But needless to say that is just my POV. My favourites pieces had to be those by Jonathan Richards http://www.jpfrichards.com/. I loved the way that the stretched linen (painted with acrylic) on canvas reminded me of the fragility of filo pastry, and that something folded and white could engage me to the extent that I didn't want to stop looking at it. Strongly resisted the urge to touch. This is one of his pieces, but my favourite was a smaller canvas with a lot more folds that were tucked and twisted under and through.

Duncan (2009) - Jonathan Richards

My current project is about what it feels like for me to be free of depression - moving from a place of restriction and darkness to one of openness, light and growth. I've been looking at plants pushing through fences (one of my sketches below) and open and closed doors. I've also planted some lupin seeds to watch new growth and I'm so excited, my first seed sprouted today and pushed its way up through the soil. Below is a photo of the little seedling. As an aside, one of the doors this week was one at St Triduana's Chapel. Apparently St Triduana was one of the virgins who accompanied St Regulas to Scotland in the 6th Century. The story goes that while residing in Angus, she was pursued by Nechtan, the local chieftan who was struck by the beauty of her eyes. Her response to this unwanted affection was to pluck them out and send them to him impaled on a thorn. I've been trying to figure out whether a simple "no" just wasn't working or whether she was trying to point out that admiring her solely for the beauty of her eyes was a bit shallow. Either way, it must've hurt both of them quite badly. Maybe it was for the best??

Cement

Inspired by the desire to convey strong tonal contrasts and by The Baths of Caracalla (below) by Sir David Young Cameron (1865 - 1945), I spent a few days out in a park near me with lots of overcast weather and little shadow, trying to capture some stark whites and deep blacks. But when the sun broke through the clouds it was pretty amazing! I had the usual dogs trying to eat my work and the little kids peering over my pages to see what I was doing (which I always find quite cute). Unfortunately, both dogs and kids got into trouble by owners and parents, particularly as I was standing drawing in a puddle at one stage to get a good vantage point. I also went to an Alan Davie (Scottish Prints) exhibition for inspiration. Some of his prints reminded me of Aboriginal art in Australia. What I probably found most interesting were those of his prints that used thick chunky lines and opaque black. Anyway, the sum of my inspiration are my prints above. I got asked why I printed one with purple ink and I think the answer to that is that I've discovered I find purple romantic and almost moody. This ties in nicely with my current reading of the gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe. I love all the discussion of noble sentiment and the reading aloud of great works of genius and taste. I also love Emily's repeated fainting fits. I'm planning to go see The RSA New Contemporaries Exhibition next week, see http://www.royalscottishacademy.org/pages/exhibition_frame.asp?id=242. Other than that, I'm off to the Yorkshire countryside for a few days for some exploration, laughs and R&R. 

Be Thou My Vision

Yes, guilty as charged. No post for over 2 months. Although people have been using my Titian post as some kind of weird forum and I have to keep using comment moderation to reject their comments. I don't have the heart to delete the post to get rid of the problem as I like the image of Boy with a Pipe too much. So as promised to members of my family, here are photos of my paintings inspired by the last verse of the hymn Be Thou My Vision

High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heav'ns Son!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O ruler of all.

I'm currently doing a project based on strong tonal contrasts (light and dark) on buildings/walls, but unfortunately, the sun didn't shine (well it did, but just behind the dense clouds!) this week so I'm having a few difficulties with getting a good composition. I've been messing around with etching on metal and perspex though which is fun and new for me. Other than that life alternates from being crazy out of control to being bored and not knowing what to do with myself. Well, adios my dear amigos for now. Hope your life is going sweetly and the sun is shining for you!

Snow shelter

This is a photo I took of my final interactive Shelter sculpture, with some photo tweaking by my sister (thank you!). While there was some idea of photographing it at Portobello beach, I thought the snow would also make a good setting due to the white outer of my sculpture and the contrast of the smooth shell to the crunchy snow. I've now started a new project based around the last verse of a hymn and Christian symbolism. It's at the baby stage, but I'm thinking one of the hard things will be to try to pull it all together in an original, fresh, unstilted way. I'm planning to do a painting or print this time, so it should be less blood as no planned use of sharp implements, but I am sure there will still be sweat and tears! Will keep you updated.

Shelter work in progress

Ok, so it has been forever since I last posted anything on my blog. So long in fact, that blogger have changed the way you can do things - yay for that (oh but I seem to have lost the spell check)! I've been working on the above project for the past 4 weeks. No small amount of tears have been shed, not to mention all that blood from cutting myself on wire. I dread to think what people at the gym must think on seeing all these cuts on my hands!! The main aim of the project was to convey the idea of shelter being warm, safe and surrounding via a sculpture piece that invited viewers to be active participants. I had a few fellow students who were so cosy and warm they were reluctant to get out - so that must mean success at some level :). Secondary to this was the idea of an outer protective shell protecting an inner being, inspired by Henry Moore's Helmet Head series. So the aim now is to make the outer more shell like and hopefully take photos of people around Leith using the shelter - will see how that goes. I am hoping my sculpture will be in the Leith School of Art Christmas Exhibition on Thursday 17 December (evening private view), Friday 18 December and Saturday 19 December between 10am and 4pm if you're interested.

Brown box boat

Okay, brown box cardboard is not easy to work with (in my view anyway). Pablo Picasso obviously knew what he was doing when he made his cardboard Guitar, needless to say I think his use of cardboard in the piece was very smooth and sophisticated. It's strange, cardboard boxes look quite sturdy but when I started to rip them apart I found them quite fragile, easily rippable, breakable. Anyway, Day 1 was spent drawing a fry pan and a metal/machine like object (the latter Eduardo Paolozzi had found in Leith and donated to the school and I happened to pick off the table unknowingly - how cool is that!) with the aim of integrating them into one object. Day 2 was spent designing and making maquettes, and yes, my maquette did actually look like a fry pan, well, it also kind of looked like something between a sting ray and a craft ready to embark into outer space. Day 3 was "make it big" and as doing the "big sting ray" was not working so smoothly, I modified the design, flipping the base into more of a boat like shape. Somehow, I think I succeeded in making a sculpture akin to Noah's ark. Yes I confess, the likeness to Noah's ark was unintentional, all I can think is that I had been thinking about shelter all week and maybe those thoughts had worked their way subconsciously into the sculpture.

The Shore

On a windy Monday last week, class was spent out at the Shore gathering "information" on co-existence. The days that followed were used to push the ideas further through lino prints and collage (above). For some unknown reason, I was attracted to a set of handles bolted to old wood, overlooking the water. Perhaps it was the contrast of the smoothness of the handles to the rough, graininess of the wood, or these elements co-existing against the ever-changing surface of the water. Trying to capture the quality of the water was difficult to say the least. Sometimes the wind would lap elliptical shapes into it, sometimes peaklike, sometimes short little choppy strokes. We have this saying now in class about woody wood, peoply people, watery water or one of my favourites has been the bootiness of boots. I think I managed to capture the woodiness of the wood and hopefully the wateriness of the water. This week we are looking at Visual Communication further and it's doing my head in a bit. I think the subject I've chosen is a bit troublesome - I'm trying to tie the waxing and waning of a person's life with the crescendo/decrescendo of noise, so I will see how that goes.