in the absence of feeling

 

Unbelievably, here we are wending our way through March.  Despite the fact that I have been largely absent from blogging, I am busy painting which was my main focus for 2011.  A week away with the laptop for company and I have been catching up with digital imagery,  playing with Photoshop and trying to gather a photo collection to use in my artwork.  This little image came from gazing out of a window and not being able to recall feelings that I'd had about a situation.

I notice that many of the blogs I follow are having a quiet time, so hopefully we are all enjoying a period of high productivity or complete relaxation.

The Gum Arabic Arrived

After a severe bout of internetitis in the last few weeks, I have finally recovered enough to get on with some serious print work.

Yesterday, I moved on with A Sense of Place project, after experimenting endlessly with the bottle in the window idea I found it kept running into a blank wall and came back to this little image of the pansy - I really like its simplicity. The initial scribbled drawing began before Christmas and has been rumbling along in various guises since. The combination with the pansy leaf seems to work well.

I am now working with hue changes in Adobe and have run off a series with subtle changes and on different papers. I will experiment with printing onto canvas this week.

And back to the title of the post. I have been meaning to get around to some gum litho lifts for ages and at long last got around to contacting the suppliers. That is the plan anyway. I think I will see what happens to this little image during gum litho lift and report back with the image - good or bad!

Fabulous New Work

I wish!...there was an inch of ice on top of a bowl of water left in the studio during the week. After attempts to heat it up and several layers of additional woollies, I managed a couple of hours in there before I gave up for the log fire - so no fabulous new work today.

I have started experimenting with the images that are accumulating for 'A sense of Place' - to mix using Adobe Photoshop - printing them out onto various supports and adding paint to see what - if anything came up as a 'good idea'. I have become quite fond of this little image and it prints out quite well. Some were disappointing when printed when they look great on screen. Lots of recycling for other projects - again.

And then I thought I might change the blogsite around a bit - huge mistake - it was not happy. The header image that I thought was a bit too large vanished and refused to re-load nicely and we had this big row. It is back but something is not right, I will let it have the last word for the evening - I give in.

Happy New Year

...and so we arrive in 2009. And thankfully, back to creative work.

The piece shown here has a working title of 'Someone to watch over me'. It has derived from the 'sense of place' project and is the combination of images - a winter walk, frost on trees, an iced cobweb on the car and statues on a building.

I am increasingly driven by the sense of time passing and how art functions as an expression of this - giving voice to what you feel about your own small place in the world, an expression of self. How you feel aesthetically, politically, emotionally etc. Otherwise there is no point to it really. Obviously, I have started the New Year with nihilistic tendencies.

Was that 2008?

I had intended to post throughout Christmas in a not to be defeated kind of way but I took a reality check and like everyone else sank under the event.

Moving along with the 'a sense of place' project, I am investigating layering images. Photographs of my sketches and paintings, images worked on computer software combined with digital images of local landscape. Trying to keep the project title in mind, with so much imagery on hand has been an exercise in self-restraint; one which I have frequently lost!

More than anything this has been a good way to look at old work with a critical eye and move it into other dimensions. Turn it upside down, find useful ways to use it with new images.

Now, what to do with it next...