So these are the latest squares to be finished and I note that the scanner is more effective at showing the 3 different dark velvets than Photobooth last week . I haven’t got on as well as I might because of right thumb problems and looking for other photos which I have mislaid !
Last week I did these 2 x 8cm squares . The background colour is actually different – the right hand one being dark brown with the other dark red . They look the same under artificial light and so presumably also with the flash on Photobooth . I’ll have to do more to the right hand one – it still looks incomplete . ‘Velvet & cord squares‘ from 14 July 2012 was the last post on this project .
I haven’t died or anything dramatic , just not posted for 4 months . I note that I said that I was going to start again on Jan 7 . I’ve done no work and not had ideas either – I haven’t felt this flat and blank since I was a teenager . I had some vague hopes from joining an oil painting class – I would definitely had something to post about , and more images – but there were not enough students interested to run it .
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,300 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.
Click here to see the complete report.
The most important thing that happened this year is that my mother died on 18 December ; hence the lack of posts since then . I hope to restart my every date-divisible- by-7 posts on January 7 . Meanwhile here is the completed ‘Black Rose’ .
Well this time I missed a whole week because there was no work to show and the reasons for not doing any would have sounded whiny – the usual family , time etc . This week at last I have begun a new A3 drawing . I’m not sure if the title gave me the idea or the idea reminded me of impossible flowers in fiction like Dumas fils’ black tulip and the blue rose that is so important in the film , ‘The Thief of Baghdad’ . Or perhaps it is just a matter of contradictions ; I had been thinking of passion ( of any kind ) and why or how it is both bad and good – and does one grow out of it or just get tired ? Can I still have a passion for my work or should one be calm and into the Zen of craftsmanship ?
Here are partial scans of the drawing so far :
These are 4 x A4 pieces I completed this week using drawings & photographs I was less than satisfied with or which were no longer useful . 3 of them used interesting paper with different patterns & colours of flecks which I have exaggerated with watercolour crayon . I decided not to add any calligraphy to the 3 without it – they don’t have to match ! I’ll have to stop doing this kind of thing for December because I need to make some more cards – and I collage them too , although I use ‘found’ stuff as raw material .
Last weekend we went down to London and Habib showed us an amazing piece of work at the Science Museum in their contemporary art section . It’s called ‘ Listening Post ‘ by Mark Hansen & Ben Rubin and is not at all my sort of thing , usually . It consists of real time sampled and sorted pieces of textual data from web chatrooms and forums . Arranged in movements like music each piece of data is spoken/sung by synthesized voices at least once when it 1st appears . The 1st movement was just usernames , the 2nd ‘I am’ variants , the 3rd other texts , the 4th ads for commercial products ; at least when we were there . I haven’t given a link because the 2 videos I found simply do not give an accurate impression but there are plenty of reviews and explanations if you Google it . It is now permanently at the Science Museum so visit it if you can – before chatrooms or forums become obsolete and it falls silent as predicted .
” Two red phases ” A3 – collaged drawings , gold ink .
So I have finished it and had it scanned . In the end I got 2 gold pens of different widths because I could not find the holder for my calligraphy nibs ! I have plenty of ink of various colours . It looks a little too delicate perhaps for my original intention but that may be more appropriate – now that I think about the reason for the original 3 drawings and their arrangement in 2 layers .
I am going to do some more A4 collages because I have found a few background sheets that I like . And since the cat is spending more time indoors I should be able to do more drawing there .
