Chickpea

2011-10-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

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THE HIGH-SENATOR OF TERRA

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TRANSCRIPT OF WITNESS RECOUNT OF THE MURDER OF
Matthew Murdock.
LOCATION: TERRA INTERROGATION CELLS, NOVA YORKA
DATE: 223.M41
I’m afraid I can tell you little more than I have done so already. I have sufficient knowledge of the extent your Law [Expletive Deleted] are willing to go to not attempt to mislead you. If you are unwilling to believe that which I have told you multiple times before it is simply due to the unwillingness of the majority of humanity to accept that which lies beyond the scope of their normal experience. I say again I did not murder Matthew Murdock. I will not deny that I was the last human to see him alive, nor will I deny my presence with him at the entrance to the deeper cities. The Nova Yorka Catacombs(mazes of the cities beneath Terra proper), upon which the metropoli of the planet where built, and beneath which the inhabitants of the dark times were trapped, those pitiable souls who were incapable of securing transport to the newer cities were trapped. Into these mazes, I will not deny, me and my friend, Murdock, descended. That fact is not in dispute, but what occurred beneath the metropoli of terra you seem unwilling to accept. I say again, we entered those dark catacombs, remnants of the barbaric times scattered around us. There was no light that filtered through the cracks of the world above to allow us to see in that place, although our other senses were not thus impaired. The area smelled of dust, and of dried up blood and rotted carcasses.
The silence was broken solely by our footsteps, which echoed throughout the caverns for minutes on end. The air felt counter-intuitively thick, as much air was blocked off from the upper levels, there was no way for it to access the caverns. Despite this the air felt so thick it was a constant pressure upon my skin. Prior to entry Murdock had forbade me to speak, so he could keep count of the steps he took, with no sensory input to give him knowledge of his location. As time went on, unable to see the end of the tunnel I began to think it infinite. While Murdock gave me the occasional instruction to turn right or left, I felt myself to be utterly isolated, alone in the darkness.
After a indeterminable time spent walking, I was startled by a sudden yell of surprise and a heavy thump. “STOP! Stop stop stop! We are here!” I heard my friend call, his deep, basso voice echoing in the cavernous, seemingly infinite catacombs, and he being the expert in ancient-earth archaeology, I did so. I heard a rustling, and strained, in vain, to see what was going on despite the lack of light. This area, more than others, the air seemed thick. The pressure upon my skin was almost painful here. The rustling abruptly stopped, and the eternal shadow was broken by a blinding light, the light caused me such pain that I reflexively covered my eyes with my hand, after a moment, I saw fit to remove my hand from my eye so I could see what has caused the light, and saw the light was not in fact bright, but my eyes had simply become so accustomed to the absolute darkness it seemed that by comparison. It came from a small trapdoor in the ground, runes I could not recognise nor describe lined the walls of the chute it led to, those runes let off a dim, sickly green flickering glow.
“Michael,” My friend said, his voice echoing so greatly after his first few words it became difficult to differentiate between his voice and the echo. “When we venture down into this portion of the catacombs, we go down into an area long since abandoned by those whom exist solely in the world of three perceivable dimensions. Even those humans of the dark times did not venture here. You will stay with me, Michael, for if you leave my sight the mortality of humanity will most likely be shown once again. Do you understand?” Murdock was never a cowardly man, quite the opposite in fact. He frequently went into places others would simply refuse to even attempt to enter due to fear, and came out unshaken. The simple fact he seemed almost scared of what is down in those tunnels unnerved me greatly. Despite this, I was unwilling to go this far into the catacombs without completing the task I came into this place to perform. And besides, without my friend, who would never consent to returning now, was the only one who could guide me back. If I attempted to venture back alone the darkness would consume me and I would be killed by the cannibals who are reputed to inhabit here. I agreed to enter those tunnels again.
We carefully climbed down the chute, the cold stone of the walls and the sickly green glow of the runes giving a feeling of death and decay, the smell of rotting corpses (Which I recognised from a trip to Calderon... Don’t ask) only served to add to that impression. As we descended down the chute the air grew ever thicker, almost smotheringly so. Eventually we reached the bottom of the chute and found ourselves in a room lit solely by the glow from the runes of the above chute. That light cast shadows everywhere, and their occasional flickering gave an impression of movement being concealed within them. The room looked like a page from a history lesson, huge, wooden rectangular containers used to house the shells of the dead lay ordered in rows, each one individually carved with the image of an ancient torture implement. The ground was made of damp biomass, and, from what we can see, so were the walls. A huge, torture implement stood laid against the wall, green rust spread all across its surface. Murdoch looked around, amazed, moving between each container to inspect it, and spending a good half minute marvelling at the torture implement against the wall. “I’ve got to see the inside of one of these things!” He exclaimed, taking from his pack a large crowbar.
He picked a container, which upon closer inspection had runes carved below the image of the instrument of torture, shapes which were faded into illegibility. At its base and across some of its side grew small fungi, most likely poisonous, I decided. With the care of a medical man, Murdoch used the crowbar to open one container. It opened with a loud, slow creak. The smell of a rotting cadaver rose from it, and suddenly an explosion of dust erupted from its interior. I stepped back, startled at the sudden eruption, and clumsily toppled over a container behind me. I blinked no small amount of dust from my eyes and covered my mouth with my sleeve so as to not inhale any. The dust in addition to the pressure of the thick air was most uncomfortable, as particles of grit played across my already smothered skin.
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The dust made seeing anything beyond a foot before me nigh impossible, but I could quite clearly make out a form in front of me, Murdoch I reasoned. I called out to him, asking why the dust was so thick. No reply, and the form moved, no, nigh glided through the dust. I called out again, this time asking why the dust had not now settled as it logically should have. The form did not reply this time either, but it suddenly stopped, inhumanly frozen. Humans do not stop like that, they still move, still breathe. This form just stopped, as a statue would. A voice called out from behind me, “Michael, where are you?”. Murdoch. The form in front of me was not my friend, but another entity entirely.
The form glided through the dust towards me, and I froze, realising that this entity must be millennia old. I watched it, unable to move for fear that it would incite hostility in it, as it glided inhumanly, steadily, towards me. Murdoch called to me again, asking my location. The entity must have been not thirty centimetres in front of me, and I could from this distance see no substance within it. As if it were not something within the vision-obscuring dust, but the dust itself formed into an anthropomorphic form. Every instinct I had told me to bolt, but I could not move my legs to do so. It reached out what appeared to be a hand to touch me, and my instincts screamed at me to run. But frozen by terror I remained. I heard a yell of frantic warning from Murdoch, and a yell of agony, nigh-unrecognisable as having come from a human throat, and that sudden sound spurred me to action. I finally turned to move away from the entity, to run. I felt a rough surface brush against my back, and from there I have only fractions of memories to tell me what occurred. My mind twisted, and my legs must have buckled because I felt myself colliding with the floor. I recall a voice calling out, but I do not recall or could not make out what was said, I recall being dragged to the ladder and up the chute, and of walking through the blackness for another indeterminate amount of time. And I recall being here, in hospital treated for radiation burns. But despite this fracture of my memory, I know full well what occurred down here. We inadvertently released a creature from the ancient times. A creature laid dormant for millennia, and a creature not bound by the three dimensions humanity can perceive, and a creature that most certainly killed my friend.
DOCUMENT SEALED TO PUBLIC ACCEDD BY
Senator Utaron
DESTROY ALL RELATED DOCUMENTS
ELIMINATE ALL RELATED PERSONNEL
ELIMINATE WITNESS
SANITISE THE NOVA YORKA CATACOMBS

2011-01-19T06:48:00.003-08:00

Paintings for a Facebook challenge to make 3 hand-made things and send them to friends.

For my Aunty Sue, a painting of Gandalf.

For my cousin Karen, a painting of her son.

For my friend Julia, a painting of herself.

2010-11-03T03:07:00.001-07:00

2010-11-03T02:59:00.001-07:00

like the built-in bench

2010-11-02T06:44:00.000-07:00

2010-11-02T06:43:00.001-07:00

2010-11-02T03:32:00.000-07:00

Dualit retro radios cost abut £150 new. I couldn't find any on eBay.

2010-11-02T03:27:00.000-07:00

Bush radios cost abut £60 new or about a tenner on eBay

2010-11-02T03:24:00.000-07:00

Roberts radios cost about £100 new or £40 used on eBay

2010-11-02T03:22:00.000-07:00

Retro fridge freezers such as Smeg and Gorenje cost upwards of £1000 new, but can be had on eBay for the region of £400.

2010-11-02T03:18:00.000-07:00

2010-11-02T03:07:00.000-07:00

From The Steampunk Home, where it describes how they were made:

I had to laugh at these drawer pulls -- I've been searching around for a "bin pull + label" handle for a while, and have only found one, which wasn't quite right. Jen just used her existing bin pulls and added label holders meant for scrapbooking -- 5 for $3! The labels themselves with their spidery writing are with a free font called Schoon.

2010-11-02T03:03:00.000-07:00

From Willow & Stone

2010-11-02T03:01:00.000-07:00

From Budget Hardware

2010-11-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

2010-11-01T09:13:00.001-07:00

2010-11-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

2010-11-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

2010-11-01T09:01:00.001-07:00

2010-11-01T08:59:00.001-07:00

2010-11-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

2010-11-01T08:56:00.000-07:00

2010-11-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

2010-06-22T14:32:00.000-07:00

A selection from many sketches of figures I have been doing lately, trying to get a better understanding of the underlying anatomy, so that postures and gestures look more natural.

2010-06-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

2010-06-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

2010-06-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

2010-06-17T09:36:00.000-07:00

When I get started I can really surprise myself. This in 4' square, the biggest thing I have ever done, and I finished it in about 90 minutes, on a whim.

2010-04-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

2010-04-26T13:08:00.000-07:00

2010-04-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

2010-04-26T08:21:00.000-07:00

2010-04-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

2010-04-26T08:16:00.000-07:00

2010-04-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

2010-03-22T08:02:00.000-07:00

My sister Lindsey (of Paraphernalia fame) has come up with some ingenious ideas for turning inchies into wearable/usable items. So today I have been producing dozens of inchie backgrounds, and also making prototypes of some of the product ideas. Tomorrow I'll make some more backgrounds and also glue some toppers on some of today's inchies. By the end of the week I should have lots of inchies ready to be made into keyrings, brooches, fridge magnets and so on.

2010-03-22T04:17:00.000-07:00

2010-02-20T08:50:00.000-08:00

the photo that inspired the collage bear, and a pastel study of the same bear.

2010-02-20T08:46:00.000-08:00

Bear collage

2010-02-04T08:42:00.001-08:00

Popped into one of the galleries today. The first thing the owner said after she saw me was to start moaning about how quiet things had been (gallery owner's code for "none of your paintings have sold"). But she asked me for anything with hares or ducks. Part of me bristled at being told (well, asked) what to create. But then another part of my brain ran off with the idea of mixed media hares and by the time I got home I was keen to get started.

I saw my doctor on Tuesday and got some more dried frog pills. As usual I feel better for having taken a positive step, even though the pills can't possibly have kicked in yet. I still don't want to see people but I have more motivtion to do things at home.

I'll put up pictures of the hares soon.

2010-01-31T09:13:00.000-08:00

I've not been so very well lately again. My dried frog pills (antidepressant tablets) ran out over Christmas and I was just too busy to make an appointment to get more. And anyway, I was feeling so much better I thought I didn't really need them anyway. Big mistake.

My husband handed me the phone the other day and insisted I make an appointment there and then to go and get more pills. So that will be on Tuesday. In the meantime I am not too bad as long as I keep busy but as soon as I sit down with nothing much to do (including driving in my car, or lie down to go to sleep) I feel fucking wretched. I have spent whole days just lying on the bed feeling awful.

It's ok though, I have a plan. I need to start making art again. So tomorrow morning that's what I'll do. Watch this space for the results.

2009-12-05T01:29:00.001-08:00

B5VUTWJ3KJR2

2009-11-28T15:08:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted for a couple of days but I have been making art. I made a pair of collages yesterday but they have so many layers of gel medium and PVA glue on them that they are taking a long time to dry out. I will show you them when they no longer have opaque white blobs - probably a day or two. Today I have been making another book, different to the last one. It is all constructed but I am still assembling text and images for it.

A fortnight ago I bought the book Mixed Mania in Hobbycraft in Stockport, then I went into the Starbucks next to it to read my new book over a cup of coffee. This is not unusual. But I was so grabbed by the projects in the book I left my coffee unfinished and went straight home to make a start. I began at the front of the book and worked my way through it, trying every single project. This is very unusual.

In the last two weeks I have made paper cut-out dolls, decorated paper, inchies, textured backgrounds, doodles, mini-artworks, a self portrait, a reliquary doll, a quilted clutch purse, a mixed-media doll, an art quilt, a fabric journal, as well as the textured collages and the book I can't show you yet. I invented orc stitch, non-dominant hand embroidery, drawing with a toothpick dipped in ink, and some ugly doodles of rats and seagulls which then kept cropping up with my work. I started keeping a dream diary and drawing on that for artistic inspiration, which has been very productive.

Fortunately I have a well-stocked art and craft stash and I have hardly bought any materials for all this. In fact, I can't think of anything I bought just for this. I either already had the materials required, or I was able to improvise and substitute.

I feel no urge to slow down. I am keen to continue and probably complete all the projects in the book. I already have a few other books lined up I would like to attempt projects from, although there aren't any other books I want to work through cover-to-cover as I have with Mixed Mania.

I'm interested in doing more exciting things with textiles. I'm interested in altered objects (altered books, altered clocks, furniture etc.) I want to make more 3d objects. More assemblage. Diptychs/triptychs. Boxes. Drawers. I want to work bigger. I want to make an altered long case clock!

I said all this was going somewhere. I still don't know where. But the journey is very exciting.

2009-11-26T02:58:00.000-08:00

Fabric-covered journal. I have never done any bookbinding before, although it is something I have always wanted to try. I really enjoyed making this book and I am sure I will make more.

I dreamed about the woman, and I woke up with the song lyric going through my head. Sometimes, one of the hardest things about making art is deciding on a subject. My inner critic tries to have her say, telling me that the subjects I choose are too hard, or too lame, or hackneyed, or just plain wrong. By using images from my dreams, I take control away from my conscious thought where my inner critic speaks, and hand control over to my unconscious thought. My unconscious thought is a much better artist than my inner critic anyway, and a lot more fun to be with.

2009-11-25T02:11:00.000-08:00

I've just got to share this wonderful poem/incantation my sister Stephanie wrote for banishing that poisonous toad, the inner critic:

Inner critic,

negative spirit,

be quiet!

You're a pest,

and I have bested you.

I see you for what you are;

an attention-seeking, jealous, spiteful sprite.

I will listen to my well-wishers,

who bless me with kisses

and hugs and warmth.

Boo,

Shoo,

Off with you now.

From A Roker Artist.

2009-11-24T06:48:00.000-08:00

Art quilt, based on a dream I had about a wolf (who was also a woman) and her two cubs running away from something.

I had particular fun doing the rats (the triangles around the edges of the quilt). I wanted to hand-stitch them on with jagged, rough-looking stitches. I called this stitch "orc stitch". But I am an experienced seamstress, and when I am not paying close attention I automatically produce tiny, neat, even stitches. To prevent this I developed the technique of "non-dominant hand embroidery". Non-dominant drawing and painting is so last week, darlings!

2009-11-23T04:14:00.000-08:00

I'm working on my next mixed-media project - a 2' square art quilt. It will be based on a dream I had about a wolf (who was also a woman) running away from something with her two cubs. I have started out by drawing the wolf and the cubs with my new favourite method - a toothpick dipped in ink. Toothpicks are horrible drawing implements. They are messy and scratchy and blotchy and unpredictable. Scraping them across paper is a sensation similar to running your fingernails down a blackboard. But the results seem to match the tenor of my dreams lately in a way that no other medium can.

Anyway, I am quite pleased with the drawings so far. These will be scanned and copied onto fabric which will be stitched to the quilt. But I might also do something-or-other with the drawings themselves because they have something about them.

2009-11-22T09:58:00.000-08:00

Mixed media doll. I had a wonderful dream a few days ago in which I was in a sort of "Pirates of the Caribbean" type adventure. I was boarding galleons and seizing treasure, beaing chased through wharfs full of half-naked stevedores and escaping by jumping into the sea and swimming for my life. It was thrilling, but never scary. I made a note of it in my diary when I woke up.

When I saw this project in Mixed Mania, the doll's locks and beads reminded me of Johnny Depp in "Pirates", and I decided to theme the doll after my dream. My son Sam looked at her and asked "Is it Calypso?", who is also a character in the same movie. So I have named her Calypso.

2009-11-21T12:24:00.000-08:00

A quilted clutch purse covered with objects, images and words that boost my self-esteem, e.g. running medals and ribbons, compliments that really boosted me and my graduation photo.

2009-11-21T12:12:00.000-08:00

Beautiful wire-wrapped and beaded glasses by my sister Lindsey. View her bespoke jewellery on her website Paraphernalia.

2009-11-20T10:09:00.000-08:00

This is a reliquary doll. A reliquary is a special container for relics - bones of dead saints, pieces of the one true cross, the nails Jesus was crucified with, that kind of thing. This reliquary contains things with a different kind of meaning. Found items from around my home that I personally associate with ... well I think I'll keep that private. It only needs to be said that this doll represents someone or something to me. What it means to you (if anything) is up to you.

2009-11-19T03:40:00.000-08:00

More inchies

2009-11-18T10:41:00.000-08:00

I have now finished all the projects from the first part of the book Mixed Media. Titled "Artistic Appetisers", they were all small projects to teach techniques and build confidence. I have had a lot of fun doing them and have already started adapting some of them to my own ideas and interests.

The next section is called "Main Courses" (the book is themed as a cookery book for some reason) and involves larger projects with multiple stages which take longer to do. I have already started getting stuck into the first project which involves several stages and so cannot be completed in a single sitting. I intend to keep making small artworks and inchies every day at the same time as tackling some larger projects. What is more these "main courses" have much more leeway for self-expression, which is exciting.

2009-11-16T13:53:00.001-08:00

I've been keeping a diary of visual images from my dreams each night, to use as inspiration for art. The seagulls with oversized vivid orange beaks in the previous post come from this diary. On another occasion I dreamed of ill-intentioned rats with speech bubbles, each containing a single word. I couldn't remember the words in the speech bubbles but I knew they were something nasty. So I combined some rat doodles with some textured backgrounds and some found objects, to produce these unpleasant yet curiously cathartic little artworks.

My dreams aren't full of unpleasant images. In the last few days I also dreamed of jigsaw puzzles and pieces, of a cave with a fire in it which was definitely a safe and welcoming place, a wolf (who was also a woman) and her two cubs, and a room in which one wall was covered with acoustic guitars. I also dreamed of my nephew wearing a hat which looked like a rolled-up condom. Don't ask me. I don't actually believe dreams "mean" anything. They're just random images your brain throws out. My brain produces a pretty normal mixture of pleasant, unpleasant and downright inexplicable images, just like everybody else's.

2009-11-16T13:20:00.000-08:00

Breakthrough! Sketching with toothpicks dipped in ink. Rats and seagulls. Dirty enough for ya?

2009-11-16T05:18:00.000-08:00

I am going somewhere with all of this. Somewhere that has nothing to do with scrapbooking or card making.

I want to use authentic objects in my mixed-media work - real stamps, real photos, real postcards, real books - not just photocopies and reproductions

I want to use personal objects in my work - things that have come from my life, such as stamps that came from a letter I received, train tickets from journeys I have made, religious icons from missal cards I collected as a child

I want to say something with my work. I want to express my feelings and experiences, my wishes and desires

This stage is about research. I am gaining experience, learning techniques, gathering inspiration and collecting materials. I am building my confidence. I am on a road and it goes somewhere. I don't know where it goes, but I know a road when I see one.

2009-11-16T04:49:00.001-08:00

Backgrounds combined with doodles.

2009-11-16T04:47:00.001-08:00

Backgrounds combined with inchies to create simple small artworks.

2009-11-16T04:35:00.000-08:00

Mixed-media art seems to be closely related to scrapbooking and card-making, two very trendy crafts which I loathe on account of their excessive twee-ness. One way out of twee-ness is to avoid using the ready-made papers and trimmings and cartoon figures you can buy in craft shops. I have been drawing my own doodles. OK, they're still twee. Very, very twee.

BUT it was worth doing for a couple of reasons. First, I discovered that when I was sitting and drawing doodles, they were not only twee but also crap. My inner critic was seriously getting in the way. I was much more productive when I doodled whilst watching TV. I filled pages full of the things and afterwards I could see that the later ones were in some ways better than the early ones. Unconsciously I had been monitoring, evaluating and improving without any input from the inner critic. That's very, very interesting.

Secondly, I can see a place for cartoons in mixed media. But I'd prefer to produce edgier Ronald Searle-cum-Gerald Scarfe types of cartoons than this sub-Hallmark shite. I can probably do that if I try. I just need a drippy pen and to get into a really bad mood.

2009-11-16T04:29:00.000-08:00

Ten 4-inch-square backgrounds using acrylic structure gel painted over watercolour paper (actually cut-up old sketchbooks). Then impressed with various textures, and painted with acrylic paints using a variety of techniques including brushing, drybrushing and fingerpainting. These will be used in future mixed-media artworks, although some of them are quite pleasing in themselves.

2009-11-13T06:42:00.000-08:00

Inchies - tiny little 1.5" square mixed-media artworks. Quick and fun to make, they can stand in their own right or be incorporated into larger pieces.

2009-11-13T06:28:00.000-08:00

Ten sheets of hand-decorated paper for use in mixed-media projects. Food colouring, Kool-Aid, tea, water-soluble coloured pencils, acrylic paint. Wax resist, potato printing, freehand painting. Why should kindergarten children have all the fun?

2009-11-13T06:17:00.000-08:00

Two mixed-media/altered book poems. The first is by me, the second made simultaneously but independently by my sister Stephanie. After we had finished and had show-and-tell we realised they formed a call-and-response. Serendipity.

2009-11-13T06:06:00.000-08:00

Paper dolls dressed in mixed media. The idea came from a book called Mixed Mania but I didn't like the stick-thin doll template in the book, so I drew my own with my own proportions (and a cartoony-enormous head, otherwise it didn't look right).

Is it art?

No, but only because I say it isn't. If I said it was, it would be. It was fun and easy and a start at mixed media.

I could do more with it. I could stick on photos of my own face over the head. Or the faces from vintage photos, black-and-white film stars, modern celebrities, oil portraits. I could cut the clothing from newsprint text, photographs, bus tickets. I could cut the arms and legs off and rearrange them Picasso-style. I could use the figures in a collage. I could insert them into Calvin Kline adverts, catwalk photos, movie posters, porn photos, Bratz doll boxes to comment on the disparity between real female bodies and the distorted bodies we so often see. I could do stuff with it but I haven't yet.

2009-08-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

Stephanie asked for some more verbiage to go with these latest paintings so I will explain: Many of the old masters spent many years copying paintings by even-older-masters before they began painting original works. Many of them continued studying and copying other artists' work throughout their careers. I enjoy the impressionists and particularly admire the post-impressionists, so I wanted to learn more about their techniques.

This is a copy of a detail of a pastel drawing by the impressionist artist Mary Cassat. I learned about the way she smudged the flesh flesh tones to make them soft and touchable while leaving other areas of the painting rougher, to draw your eye to the faces and hands of the figures.

This is another copy of a detail of a pastel drawing by Cassat. The skin tones are less smudged in this one. I was interested in her choice of palette and the extraordinary freshness of colour she was able to achieve.

This painting is a copy of a detail from a pastel drawing by Degas. He uses pastels in a very different way than Cassat, much more vigorous and exciting in my opinion. All of these pastel drawings were done without any fixing of intermediate stages. This contrasts with my usual way of working - I am a "fixaholic", spraying my work quite frequently as I build up layers of colour.

I am enjoying studying these works by the impressionists, and I am learning a great deal about the way they used colour to capture light effects, and create a painting almost like a snapshot - a frozen moment in time. Tomorrow I will be painting again, Degas and Cezanne. I'm very excited about the Cezanne as he is "my guy" at the moment. I love his work inordinately. Later I will be doing Seurat and Van Gogh.

2009-08-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

Three more impressionist-style paintings. Top two are Renoir and bottom is Pisarro. My favourite is the Renoir legs one. Tomorrow, pastels a la Mary Cassat

2009-08-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

Two paintings in the style of Monet. I'm pleased with the haystack but the snowscene didn't really work.

2009-08-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

Rooftops in the style of Pisarro

Another Modigiani-inspired nude

2009-08-11T05:34:00.000-07:00

2009-08-10T14:53:00.000-07:00

The first linocut I ever made.

The second linocut I ever made

2009-08-10T02:34:00.000-07:00

"Nude"

"Nude after Gaugin"

2009-08-10T02:30:00.000-07:00

"Kiss"

"Face"

2009-08-10T02:25:00.000-07:00

Two of the still lifes on sale in a gallery cafe in Poynton.

2009-08-10T02:20:00.000-07:00

Three of the still lifes on sale in a gallery cafe in Poynton

2009-08-10T02:13:00.000-07:00

Three of the still lifes on sale in a gallery cafe in Poynton

2009-08-05T11:31:00.001-07:00

Exciting new developments.

First, my sister and my husband have emptied all the crud out of the garage. They have turned it into a lovely space for working instead of a spidery hell-hole. They have painted the walls and the floor, put up workbenches and shelves and storage, installed a loft ladder, loft flooring, better electrics and all kinds of improvements. It is going to be my studio.

Second, I have found two local outlets for my paintings. I am very excited about the possibility of selling some of my art. I have been painting a series of still lifes, thinking they're probably more likely to sell than self portraits and portraits of my family. They're in a different style than I have worked in previously. I will put some photographs of them on this website soon.

I have some very clear ideas about the direction I want to go in, and the projects I want to work on next. I am feeling positive and optimistic and full of energy and enthusiasm for my art and for life in general.

2009-08-05T11:19:00.000-07:00

I want to use this photo of my sister as the basis for a painting.

So I made a drawing from the photo.

Too many details. Draw it again using fewer lines.

2009-08-05T11:15:00.000-07:00

Using a more jagged line.

Using a brush to make thicker lines.

2009-08-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

How much simpler can you get? How few lines can describe a face?

I like this last one best.

2009-08-02T09:38:00.000-07:00

2009-07-28T05:15:00.000-07:00

A selection of recent self-portraits

2009-07-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

2009-07-21T10:57:00.001-07:00

2009-07-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

This is my first original acrylic painting. How do you think it compares with the exercise from the book?

2009-07-17T04:38:00.001-07:00

The final stage of the painting is technically known as "fannying about". If you have a more delicate sensibility than I do you might prefer to call it "adding the final touches". I repainted various things and applied effects such as sgraffito lines in the leek leaves, pointillist dots on the broccoli, woodgrain, string and so on. It is possible I will do a little bit more fannying about as I look at it and decide to make small changes here and there. But basically this is it. Finished and signed. What do you think?

2009-07-17T02:15:00.000-07:00

The latest stage of the painting is all about creating the illusion of depth by adding shadows and highlights, and by painting in the background (the far wall, the tabletop and the dark area under the table). The painting is nearly finished now. Only one more stage to go.

2009-07-15T05:39:00.000-07:00

The next stage of the painting is to build up the colours with thicker paint. I add acrylic medium to the paint at this stage but no water. I add titanium white as needed because opacity is no longer an issue. The drawing is beginning to vanish. The paint is no longer watery and runny as it was in the previous stage, but nor is it thick enough to form ridges on the canvas.

The purpose of this stage is to put in the range of colours of the objects. So in the previous stage the carrots were a block of one-tone orange, the tomatoes were a uniform red etc. But now hopefully you can see there are a range of different values on each object, and they are starting to take on a more three-dimensional appearance.

2009-07-15T01:52:00.000-07:00

The next stage of the latest canvas - the underpainting. I put in thin washes of block colour. Brown for carrots, red for tomatoes, green for leaves and so on. Not just colours straight out of the tubes, I mix up an approximation of the colour I want. For example you can probably see a range of greens from the bright yellow green of the carrot leaves to the blue-green of the broccoli.

The paint is thinned with lots of matte acrylic medium and water. This is for a number of reasons. The thicker the paint on the canvas the harder it is to paint over it, so I want to start out thin and watery and build up thickness as I go. Also I still want to be able to see my drawing through the paint for a little while yet. For the same reason, I am not adding much titanium white to the paints yet as this always makes the paint opaque.

I need to be able to see the underdrawing because I'm looking critically at it and fiddling with it. I don't want to be simply colouring in the shapes. Instead each stage of the painting refines and improves on the last.

2009-07-15T01:46:00.000-07:00

Steph has always asked me to put up pictures of a work in progress, the stages I work in. So here is the first stage of my current canvas - the drawing. You probably can't see it very well though. The photo also shows my rather horrible working area - on top of the chest freezer in the kitchen. It's a bugger when the kids want an ice pop. I have to move everything. And the light is T E R R I B L E.

I had some difficulties with this drawing. It just wasn't coming, the negative spaces were all wrong. So I left it for a few hours. When I came back I held my pencil by the very furthest end, the blunt end. And with massive gestural arm movements I put in shapes - carrots here (I wasn't drawing carrots, just defining the area the carrots occupied), radishes here, a plant pot there, and so on. And it all came together beautifully.

2009-07-12T13:43:00.000-07:00

2009-07-12T08:40:00.000-07:00

I decided to try to fix "badly deformed onions". How is this version? Still loose, but less chimp-like, hmm?

In the photo the onions now look much better defined than the garlic, which doesn't seem to belong to the same painting. The paint is still wet and it might look different when it is dry. If it is still a problem I can always work up the garlic a little more. This could turn into a neverending painting.

2009-07-12T08:09:00.000-07:00

Using different texture pastes. Fun. I especially like the sand texture paste on the background which makes it more interesting, although you probably can't see it in the photo. The lighting was a bit of a bugger.

2009-07-10T04:45:00.000-07:00

So what happened to "I am depressed, I can't create art"? Two things:

1) I don't tell people when I feel like shit. I lie down and hide. I only talk to people (face to face, on the phone, via my blog etc) when I am feeling better. All my recent blog posts were made on "better" days. There were horrible days in between, though I do think I am getting better.

2) Despite my flippant comment "painting as an effective, relaxing therapy for people with psychological problems. Bullshit." I have found that if I can get past the initial inability to do ANYTHING, including draw, then creating art actually does help a lot.

It ties in with the book I am reading at the moment, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I know too much about neuroscience to put much faith in the "left brain vs right brain" oversimplifications. But I can get my head around a "verbal-analytical mode of thinking vs non-verbal perceptive mode of thinking" which we can call "left mode/right mode" if you insist. My "left mode" thinking is very unhelpful at the moment. It tells me all sorts of stories all day long about how useless, ugly, incapable, lazy, worthless, despicable and foul I am. That mode wrote the I'm depressed post. But my "right mode" doesn't speak to me in words because it doesn't have words. It can see shapes and forms, light and dark, colours, relationships, and it takes delight in those things. By drawing and painting I can switch on this "right mode" of simple pleasure and simultaneously switch off the self-hating loop tape of "left mode" thinking in my head. The fact that I get something I can hang on my wall at the end of it is just a by-product. The hour or two of peace and self-acceptance is the primary benefit right now.

2009-07-10T01:39:00.000-07:00

A year ago I started drawing with the ambition of eventually being able to draw something so that other people would be able to tell what it was. I found that wasn't as hard as I expected, so I upgraded my ambition to being able to draw a person so that other people would be able to tell who it was. Turns out I can do that too. So now I need a new ambition.

I'm not interested in photo realism. When I look at other people's art, I can admire that style of painting, after all it is very technically accomplished. But I don't much enjoy looking at it. I enjoy more expressive, impressionistic art (to use those terms very loosely).

So I want to loosen up. I now want to be able to paint and draw people and things so that other people can tell something about how I feel about the subject. I want to communicate something other than a likeness. I'm deliberately painting looser and looser. How loose can you get before the work starts looking like it was done by a chimp?

When I asked Tom what he thought of this painting he said "I dunno, what is it? Pineapples? Roses? Badly deformed onions?" Perhaps that tells me what I need to know.

2009-07-10T01:28:00.000-07:00

View towards Crosby (and Wales beyond) from Formby Point

Sketch of Ed drinking beer

Sketch of Tom playing a computer game

2009-07-07T03:01:00.000-07:00

As well as learning to paint in acrylics I have also been improving my drawing using the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I am very impressed with this book and I am enjoying working through the exercises in it. I have posted a few of the drawings I have done over the last week or so.

2009-07-07T02:55:00.000-07:00

Sketch of my left hand

Self portrait in pencil

The palm of my left hand

2009-07-07T02:37:00.000-07:00

Drawing of my left hand holding a pair of scissors

Copy of Winslow Homer's drawing "Child Seated in a Wicker Chair"

The corner of my bedroom

One of my chairs

2009-07-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

Impasto radishes. Hmmm - this technique has the potential to be very loose and fun, but this is a horrible example because I was learning as I went along. About halfway through I figured out that it is nothing like painting. You don't brush the paint onto the canvas, you lay it on like plastering a hole. And you don't plan each brushstroke before you put it down, you sort of clag it on then decide if you like it. If not, you move it about a bit more until you do like it.

2009-07-06T04:58:00.000-07:00

Pots and string finished. The "glazes over grisaille" technique is interesting. It is a bit like colouring a black-and-white photo. The range of values (black-greys-white) is already there and all you have to do is wash local colour over the top. The result has the same sort of nostalgic effect as a coloured b&w photo I think, and it same strange flatness. Shadows on a terracotta pot aren't terracotta-but-a-bit-darker. They have all sorts of other colours in them, and normally I delight in using strange and unexpected colours to make a painting shimmer. I think this is dull and tight in comparison. I rather like the string, though.