I don't know about you, but I have at least a thousand passwords now to everything. And I am not exaggerating. The amount of times I've locked myself out because I can't remember my own password. You know at the time, I am sure I'll remember or I promise myself to make a note of it somewhere. Yeah right. So the short of it is, you are extremely lucky (aren't you pleased?!) to be getting my newest exciting post. Volume 3 of my documentation is taking ages. For someone who got asked (along with everyone else apparently) where was all my work for the semester, I seem to be having a lot of difficulty fitting everything in. I know, if the documentation was just for marking perhaps I would be more strict and limit the number of photos, but because I selfishly want it as a record for myself to kick start me into third year, I want to put more not less in. But less is always more so they say. Here are the first egg tempera paintings I did this semester. I am relatively proud of myself that I bought pigments and mixed the paints with egg myself. Thanks to Koo Schadler's excellent manual http://www.kooschadler.com/. As you can see I'm far off Koo's level and I truly wish I could get to one of her workshops to see if I am on the right track but unfortunately she lives in the USA. So, this is strange. Well I find it strange. I like the look and feel of these first paintings (a triptych) and I think I'm getting across what I want to, but at the same time I don't like them because my egg tempera technique is not great. So I like them but I am not happy at the same time. I am happy for you to have your own thoughts of the matter of course! Oh and I should say, the people are based on a photo by John Patrick Skating, St Margaret's Loch which can be found on the National Gallery of Scotland website.
I am super excited. Today I finished my first ever slip case! I wanted a thumb tab so it was easier to pull my falconry day prints out, but think I need to find a better way to finish it off in book cloth as it looks a bit shoddy. In the end, the prints were a bit 'hey-ho' per the tutor comments at my review, but my main purpose was to try using different ways to print in colour, including jigsaw blocks, roller, addition and multiple colour prints so I am not too phased, though I do heed their comments. I think I need more development time. It is one thing to print something initially, but then I need time to figure out how to improve it to be what I want it to be. Anyway, I had a couple of friends who liked the prints. Oisin liked the lip of the older man holding the bird which I really struggled with and thought I had made a muck up of, so that was nice of him to say :). Will post a couple more of the pieces from my final review for second year soon. I am in the process of doing my documentation that I need to submit for my final grade so all in good time...
There was once a girl who asked a boy what he thought the most fragile thing in the world was. And he cupped his hands in the shape of a bird's nest and said to her that in his mind, a bird's eggs protected by a hedge of twigs was the most fragile thing in the world. And every time she looked high into the trees and saw a bird's nest made of twigs she thought of what he had said. And I wonder sometimes if we, humans, birds, fish, other animals, insects, plants aren't made up of all the same stuff. But not exactly the same stuff which is what I think makes it so perfect. I was thinking as corny as it is, that maybe it's just like a big painting with different textures and colours and lines and shapes and that with one or another part missing is just isn't going to be the same. And I know when I was a kid, I remember someone talking about weaving, and that if there was a mistake, the pattern on the rug could still be beautiful and maybe that's where I got the thought from. You can probably tell it's late at night here. I've got to print 7 lino cuts about 35 times tomorrow and I'm still cutting them. I've decided to make a little black book cloth covered square pouch with gold writing to put them in and call it The Modern Thinking Bird. Hope you think that's ok. Here is one of them, which I am going to try using chine colle on. It generally is a bit of a disaster when I do it but I'll see, you never know what might happen.
I am thinking it is time for my monthly blog contribution. It is a perfect sunny day in Edinburgh. Hopefully it signals a good Spring to come. It has been a while since I have had a cider, I don't think I particularly like drinking in winter. Red wine usually makes me sleepy, so because I am now the 'it's on special' girl, I happened upon a Rekorderlig Apple & Blackcurrent cider 49p cheaper than usual! So I am sipping on this while replying to all my emails and happily listening to a track by Ride sent to me by one of my friend's, Keith. In return I have been sending him arty stop-animation clips, since I'm not cool enough to be properly into music (only really dance/techno because it's fun to turn up loud on the headphones and pretend I'm one of the dancers in the Step Up movies ha ha). So here is Vapour Trail and the stop-animation clip I sent Keith in return - waiting for his full critical review on it...
Ride - Vapour Trail
Graffiti Stop Motion - by Blu
Art wise...stressing out a bit as usual. The time has come for me to decide upon my final composition for my Botanical Illustration course. The problem is I have to decide this week before the flowers die on my cyclamen persicum. And I am meant to paint the flowers now before anything else and what if I put them in the wrong spot and then trying to paint in the leaves and seed pods after looks a bit knaff? I guess I just have to go for it. My Aunty, Lynda Strahan, sent me a CD of some of her Australian botanical drawings which are pretty delightful. She says she is not professionally trained in botanical illustration so I can show her how the 'real' thing is done once I finish my course but seriously, if I could come up with anything as good as her pieces I would be very pleased. I have asked her permission to put some of her drawings on my blog, but I am going to be a bit sneaky and put three up now and then if she says no (she is very nice so I am sure she won't) I will take them down. How is that? Okay and I guess I actually better put up something by me - so I will put my initial cyclamen persicum flower workpaper here also. Not that exciting but it's something...Okay must go and work on a story I'm writing for my pa.
I am a bit late on my promise to deliver weekly research on contemporary art practice, but I have been working hard. My research so far is on the wall of my studio, ranging from inspiration from my London trip, to artists found in art journals, to artists suggested in my mid-year feedback. Firstly to say, London was fun! I had a really good time seeing a very good Australian friend and her entourage, together with another one of my friend's who now lives in London. I got picked on by the Aussies for having a quote 'fake posh Kylie Minogue accent and can I stop putting it on and speak in my real Australian voice now...?!'. To which my friend responded, 'that is her real Australian voice'. Not sure what to think of that but needless to say I gave as good as I got. Regardless of the 'fake' accent I think my ability to hassle and make wisecracks to Aussies I had only just met did the trick in proving my authentic Australianness! (They were of course, for all their hassling, pretty nice Aussies to hang out with :)). Okay, so enough of the Australian talk and to serious business... I made it to the Tate Modern with my Aussie friend and I think we were both huge fans of the eight-channel video installation in the Tanks I am not me, the horse is not mine by William Kentridge http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern-tanks/exhibition/william-kentridge-i-am-not-me-horse-not-mine. From the write-up in the Tanks, I understand this was a common saying among Russian peasants who were found stealing a horse (pretty clever don't you think). I also found just now a stop-motion animation of Kentridge's called Tide Table (video below) which is done in a very different way to the one in the Tate exhibition, but is really worth watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-c4N2njwg
I also went to the Natural History Museum, which apparently has an amazing blue whale you should see, but I completely forgot about it because I became ensconced in the bird section and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition www.wildlifephotographeroftheyear.com. The exhibition was truly wonderful and made me quite emotional because of the section on raising awareness of threatened species. I think that sometimes humans, including myself, really can be such lousy and self-centred creatures with respect to looking after what we have been given. But on the other hand, I know that humans can also be pretty caring and wonderful too. Anyway, in order that I didn't sit down and begin to cry at the bad state of the world, I escaped to the Victoria and Albert museum where I completely, absolutely and devotedly fell in love with the Medieval section (to be honest I have always been in love with things Medieval, but this just took it to a new level!). The Illuminated Book of Hours were by far my favourite (if only I could have turned their luscious pages instead of being stuck with one open page behind glass!), but there were also many other enchanting, sparkly, beautiful things in the section http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/m/medieval/. When I got back to College last week I found this website where you can scroll through some Book of Hours that are for sale http://www.medievalbooksofhours.com/. Here is an open page of one of the books:
Well that is more than enough from me I think. Exciting things on the horizon though in the next couple of weeks....
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!
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..."
