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Before we went climbing this morning I painted this little study. I'm really pleased with the cloth underneath the teapot - I've been thinking about using a Gustave Klimt-style decorative theme for the background of the large Tea Party painting. I happened upon the idea of using floral fabric when I was sketching a mock 'tea party' out on the deck a couple of days ago. By lucky chance I was drying our floral comforter on the washing line, and so it provided a natural backdrop for the compostion. I found this pink fabric in a cupboard whilst I was hunting for still life ideas - it was a curtain from my precious Matilda (the'76 Dodge Camper we travelled for 18 months or so in)
The spoon is deliberately large, and is a referance to the Mad Hatter's Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland. I'm going to play with the scale of things in the painting, partly out of the Wonderland influence, and partly because this painting will be about being young and everything seeming bigger than you. After all, little girl's tea parties are about pretending to be a grown up - mixing sloppy mud in a cup instead of tea, and wearing mum's big shoes and makeup.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Teapot & Spoon
Climbing at the Momma Cat Boulder
Taylor & I went out to the Momma Cat Boulder in Woodfords today, and as I'm still not well enough to climb, I sketched Taylor while he pulled down on familiar problems. It was bright and sunny, and a real pleasure to be outside.
What was also brilliant, was that a family was there, climbing, and we got chatting to them. Later, as I was sketching Taylor, the lady, Norah popped her head around the corner of the boulder, "were you on the radio the other day?" Yes! somebody heard it! Anyway, it turns out they'd been wanting to go climbing for ages and hearing me talking about climbing on the radio spurred them on to go out - and it was their son's first time climbing! I was so pleased that I had that effect on them, I'm still grinning! Nice to meet you Norah, Alexander and Houston (with the cool bob hat)
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Ellie Grace
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So the big painting is coming together...in my head at least. Since Ellie is in Wales and I am here in Tahoe, painting us together is going to be a challenge to say the least. I've done some preliminary sketches for the concept, which I have mentioned in previous posts. The imagery will be loosely based on the Mad Hatter's tea party/Gwen Stefani's video to 'What you waiting for?'(See below). This is partly a nosalgia piece, and will involve mud pies and all those imaginary elements little girls are so good at conjuring.
The composition is going to be tricky, but I've enlisted my sister-in-law, Emily to help, by dressing Ellie up and taking pictures of her based on my sketches. I'll then re-draw the ideas with the new photographs and take it from there. I've been taking pictures of the birds out here on our deck, and even set up a mock 'tea party' complete with soil-filled cups and peat-pellet 'fancy cakes'to sketch outside. I'm sure the neighbours think I'm off my head - but that's OK, artists aren't supposed to behave like accountants are they?
Thursday, February 28, 2008
L'Escalade - le emag de la grimpe
Wow, thankyou L'Escalade for writing an article about me! L'Escalade is a French Climbing Magazine - read the article at: http://www.escalademag.com/
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Cyclamen (ii)
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You know, I'm really enjoying painting these flowers! I'm really into pinks and warm colours, and the cropping is enjoyable, composition-wise.
I have a special place in my heart for Cyclamen for a few different reasons, and I think they are going to appear as a kind of 'motif' in future works. I don't know why I haven't painted them before, I suppose I've never been really into flower paintings in a big way.
I'm not much of a gardener, but I'm trying. My success rate with houseplants is about 2%, but not for lack of effort or headscratching. I didn't even know the name of these until recently, and I remember seeing them a lot in Italy and France. I had one many moons ago I nicknamed 'Lazarus', and that's what I call them all now, 'Lazarus plants'. Every one I've had has seemed to die, looking like a stick in a pot. For some reason I kept watering the first one, despite its sorry appearance - and months later, it just came back to life and sprouted beautiful red flowers! So now when the fake death happens I just water and wait.
I have a theory about art which is neither original nor my own, and I can't remember where it cam from, but since it explains a lot to me I'm going to share it.
When you paint or draw something, or somebody, the sense of 'otherness' just disappears. When you spend hours looking, I mean really looking at something, then processing that information through your mind and body, then making marks to express what your experiencing, your subject somehow becomes part of you. Landscapes I've painted are like old friends when I revisit them - oh, that gully, I remember that..that curve there..I remember the flick of my wrist as I mimicked that on canvas...it's not at all the same as taking a photograph, or looking through binoculars, or just staring in awe trying to commit something to memory - they are all great processes, but not the same as painting.
Why is this relevant to flower paintings? well I feel something akin to the painting process as I watch the flowers go through their life cycle. I water them every day, eagerly looking to see if there's anything new today - colours, shape and size - are they growing, dying, the same? Has the cat peed in this pot? Oh yuck, I think she has.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Cyclamen (i)
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My plans for a huge, involved painting are coming together, and it will involve not only my niece, but lots of birds and flowers too. I'm going to put in British and American birds - it turns out both Ellie and I feed the local tweety birds (on either side of the pond) and she reeled off an impressive list yesterday of birds who have been feasting on her home-made bird cake.
This painting will be part of my 'Home' series, drifting more into magical realism than the previous paintings. Working on the idea that home is not only a place you physically live in, but a place you create in your mind, I decided that if I couldn't actually be with my niece Ellie, I could paint her here with me.
