… it’s cold here…
… but beautiful.
Well, I’m pleased to say that the seagulls didn’t make off with the chocolate (or the red wine!) on this last drawing in the ‘series’. I removed it from the roof on Sunday evening where it was being violently abused in the eye of a storm. It was barely secured, the masking tape having lost its tack in four days of rain. The sheet of paper had folded in on itself and, spurred on by a very heavy wind, was gamely trying to make a break for it.
I’m very glad it didn’t succeed though (and that the seagulls weren’t interested in its chocolaty goodness) because I love this one! The red wine has produced beautifully subtle shades of burgundy and purple-grey (with shadows of distant indigo) and the chocolate and candle wax have created very interesting textures, particularly where the force of the wind and rain has flaked them away to reveal the stained paper underneath.
Of course with all of these ‘drawings’ there has been plenty of intervention on my part - the conscious application of substances on the paper (although done in as automatic / mindless a way as possible), the positioning of the paper outside on the roof, the prescribed 96 hour timescale etc. - but despite the unavoidable involvement (the “intention”) I feel each one has captured some sort of elemental essence, and this last one most of all. They’re like corporeal snapshots of something wild and intangible…
A long overdue shout-out to a fellow blogger (and talented fibre artist, Melanie Testa) who, on reading my post about my first attempts at block printing fabric a while back, suggested a swap and offered to send me some pens she has found useful for temporarily marking dark fabrics. I enthusiastically agreed (who could resist the lure of fun and interesting mail to look forward to!) and was thrilled to receive the following in the post a couple of weeks ago:
In addition to the very useful pens Melanie sent a beautiful piece of her own rice paste resist, indigo dyed fabric. It’s a stunning colour - a deep, intense indigo blue (the pics below are a more accurate representation of the colour than the pic above). I love the lively, fragmented ’starburst’ motif (and Melanie’s journal page bird drawings and mixed-media/collaged envelope).
The interweb is populated by so many talented, generous people. Thanks so much Melanie!
While in Japan a couple of years ago I bought two pieces of fabric found in a ‘bargain bin’ on the Nara shotengai (they were a steal at a couple of hundred Yen!). I think they were produced using a similar method of stencilled rice paste resist and indigo over-dyeing (katazome). I have been um-ing and ah-ing about what to do with them, not wanting to destroy them through ineptitude, and so have done nothing! The arrival of Melanie’s piece of fabric has inspired me to haul them out of their storage box and give their application some serious thought. Don’t they all look lovely together?
I am finding making these ‘elemental drawings’ absolutely addictive! (Although I suppose I’m not really making them… the weather is). Here is No.3 in the series, mentioned last week and using coffee and charcoal as the raw materials. I like the clearly defined and stippled circles (made by the ‘coffeepods’) amidst all the chaos. With the introduction of specific shapes these essentially abstract ‘drawings’ open themselves up to more figurative interpretations. I see lots of things in No.3…
The image above brings to mind an aerial view of the aftermath of some kind of slash-and-burn deforestation.
And then there are Tatooine’s twin suns…
A diffuse nebula, an interstellar cloud of galactic dust?…
And something terribly important happening at a cellular level?…
I have one final (m-must… end… addiction) ‘drawing’ brewing on the roof - it includes red wine, chocolate and candle wax.
I’m (optimistically) hoping for a bit of warm(ish) sunshine between now and the end of the 96 hours so the chocolate might melt again and morph into new shapes and greasy textures - but I fear one of Amsterdam’s gigantic mean-spirited seagulls will make off with it before that can happen! (They’re rumoured to have an insatiable appetite for chocolate and never say no to a snifter of red wine).
I don’t come from a tradition of celebrating Halloween… but I do like the idea of it (with its Celtic/Gaelic pagan origins). When I was a kid I, for a time, had a bit of an obsession with smurfs. I amassed quite a vast collection of these little blue critters (which is currently safely stored in an old biscuit tin somewhere in my Mum & Dad’s house because I can’t quite bring myself to give them the ‘all clear’ to get rid of ‘em). So when I recently received a gift of the three smurfs that appear in the below ‘animation’ I was pretty thrilled (in a nostalgic kind of way) - smurfy goodness and Halloween ghoulishness all rolled in to one!
Here’s a very short (and seriously lo-fi!) Schlumpftastic stop-motion animation for those of you who do celebrate Halloween. Have a good one!
Last week I posted about a ‘drawing’ experiment I conducted on the roof with a little leftover printing ink and a lot of help from the weather. I so enjoyed the results of the first experiment that I’ve tried a few more. The second ‘drawing’ was made with the diluted dregs of the leftover ink and a used tea bag, again left outside on the roof for 96 hours. The tea bag was broken and the tea ‘dust’ spread about (thanks heavy rain!) and ‘fused’ with the ink to create a really interesting texture. The weather has been most obliging in its changeability & ferocity (I doubt four straight days of clear skies, sunshine and gentle breezes would produce such dramatic results).
I have no idea what I intend to do with these ‘drawings’ but at the moment I’m rather inclined to just enjoy them as they are. I love the way ‘No.1′ and ‘No.2′ look hanging together on the work-in-progress line in my studio - I feel like I’ve come in to possession of some ancient hides or parchments marked with secret maps.
The third in the series is currently being ‘made’, transmogrifying on the roof - it has been up there for approximately 36 hours and ‘materials’ include lumps of charcoal, used coffeepods (um, yeah, that does indeed seem to be what they’re called) and… hail!
When I went up on to the roof this morning to check on the progress of this third ‘drawing’ I was treated to this view…
Tuesday 28 October, 07h54
I wonder if the influence of ‘rainbow’ will be evident in this third drawing when its 96 hours have passed?
Haarlem is a mere 15 minute train ride from Amsterdam Centraal Station… so it’s ridiculous that I haven’t visited this charmingly picturesque town until now (OK, there’ve been one or two gigs attended in Haarlem but night time gigging visits to a town don’t count - it’s dark and you have a singular purpose, so there’s not much opportunity to get to know a place).
What struck me most about Haarlem was the abundance of ancient mellow brick work (in a wonderful range of glowing oranges, warm russets and ochres), and lots of pleasing architectural lines and angles.
For someone whose favourite complementary colour pairing is orange and blue visiting Haarlem on a sunny, bright-blue-sky day (Thursday… not today which has been a monotonous shade of dark grey from sunrise to sunset) was a real visual treat!
17h30, 17.10.2008 (top) | 12h30, 18.10.2008 (bottom)
Last Friday, while I was marvelling at the autumn sunset, I decided to enlist the assistance of the elements in using up some mixed ink I had leftover from several days of unsuccessful screenprinting attempts. I more-or-less randomly applied the leftover ink to a sheet of watercolour paper taped to a flat surface on the roof… and then left it out there from 5.30pm on Friday to 5.30pm yesterday. The weather has been pretty changeable in those ninety-six hours ranging from bright (but not warm) sunshine to dark heavy rain, and winds in several different speeds and directions (I think there might have even been a touch of hail).
The result is something unexpectedly mysterious and archaic looking:
I’m so intrigued by what ‘the elements’ have made of my leftover ink dribbles that I’ve set them to work again on some similar ink dribbles (the diluted leftover leftovers!) and the teabag from the last cuppa I drank…
Have at ‘em elements!
17h25, 17.10.2008
OK, I think I’ve finished taking a photographic trip down memory lane and paying homage to my ‘new’ hometown. I haven’t had much time recently to work on any of my personal creative projects and selecting a few old photos is about as ‘creative’ as I’ve managed to be - I’ve been mired beneath a suffocatingly squelchy bog (thicker than snert !) of ‘admin tasks’ for what is starting to feel like an eternity. Important stuff like getting to grips with the rules & regulations of registering as (and being) a self-employed person in the Netherlands (with lots of ‘jargon’ in a language I’m still very much a beginner in - the Nederlands/Engels dictionary and I have spent a lot of time in each other’s company recently); trying to concurrently complete UK and Dutch self-employed tax returns (always ‘ugh’, but especially so now) with overlapping ‘country of residence’ issues, without incurring the wrath of some or other bean-counter somewhere; dealing endlessly with inefficient bureaucracy (the biggest time-waster of all!); preparing to start a course of language lessons at the UvA; and house-hunting (not the best time for it if the world’s collapsing markets are anything to go by, but you gotta live somewhere)… amongst a host of other small, but necessary, tasks.
I guess if you like to make things you’ll be familiar with the slightly panicky feeling that lodges itself behind the sternum and grows progressively more intense when your making time is curtailed. At some point or other ‘cranky’ joins ‘panicky’… and they’re both currently partying like it’s 1999 in that small space behind my sternum. It’s an unpleasant sensation (and, I fear, quite counter-productive!).
And so, moving on to the bit about that little bird up at the top of this post (who may very well have bitten off more than he can chew)…
We attended our first Dutch wedding recently and the dress-code requested that all ladies should wear a hat. I have nothing against hats per se, just hats on my head. So after agonising for weeks about possibly letting the bride and groom down, and trying on feathery fake-flowered monstrosities (I did try on one awesome hat… but quickly removed it when the milliner informed me of its €695 price tag!), I gave up and decided instead that a handmade card would have to (hopefully!) make-up for my complete and utter lack of proper wedding etiquette.
So this wedding card is the only piece of arty-craftiness I’ve managed to complete in the past several weeks. In fact it was touch and go that I’d get it done at all - I was blowing on the paint in a desperate attempt to dry it as we were putting on our coats to head out to the wedding.
watercolour, ink & gouache on Fabriano paper
The card’s design is very similar to a wedding card I made for some friends a few years ago (those pesky time-constraints again!) and I initially felt guilty about this… and then I came to my senses and decided I could rehash, repeat and remix any of my own ‘designs’ to my heart’s content. Not everything has to be absolutely brand new… and, let’s face it, nothing ever really is. New ideas are not ‘new’, they are simply a new combination of old elements or a transformation of existing ideas.
(In fact, most of the birds on this card were ‘inspired’ by a 1913 fabric pattern entitled ‘Primeval Forest’ by Austrian designer Ludwig Heinrich Jungnickel!)
