stuffed

"Are you not pleased you stuck with it?"
The three-year old isn't quite sure though. Now she has looked closely at the colour of the stuffed cheetah. She has also continued - three times over - with its spots. All on her mother's encouragement.
Spot and spot again. The educational advice.


All the while gulls are circling above our heads on wire.

sketch experiments

i mentioned that i took some laminated drypoint paper with me to iceland, didn't i?
having started to put into practice my 'spending time at the print studio plan', i've begun to finalise and edition some of the plates that have accumulated but needed a printing press.

so, here are, invariably titled greetings from grimsey; otto helms, grimsey; or: opa uelzen war auch auf grimsey. titling through memorised tool: i took the swiss army knife my dad had rescued and cleaned from one of my, by then rather confused, granddads 'de-cluttering' sessions (aka: throw everything you have in the nearest nettle bushes). while the knife doesn't go everywhere, it made it to iceland and was a rather able tool of choice for some drypoint experiments. and while it's unlikely that he ever would have come along to iceland (travelling was  definitely more  his wife's thing), i very much enjoyed the thoughts the improvised tool provided for the journey and after.

four 'postcards' from the island, inked up as intaglio and printed on one sheet. each card is about 7x10cm.

mist on the river

mist on the river.

on the meadow. trees floating

& an almost full moon.

Aberfeldy to Pitlochry.

"I gonna show you paradise"
says the spider

to the fly.
"I want to make you stay".
Cerys Matthews.

(untitled)

... not really in the habit of doing that, but let's try.

I'm off for the weekend. A long overdue one with plenty of coffee with M. One of the other Ms said: what is it you want to do before you're off? I had been to the sea, I wanted a gig at Barrowlands - unfortunately missed Camera Obscura last night (sorry! M - did not manage to track a ticket down), and I wanted Loch Rannoch, the Moors and Schihallion. That's for this weekend now. With a forecast of continuous rain. So it'll be M in the car with coffee and cigarette while I do my best tourist impression of running around through the rain and the wind, with a bit of paper and a watersoluble graphite.

The last time I saw Schihallion in the distance, it was at K's birthday party in Glen Coe - a long time ago. But she and I talked about it on Wednesday. So many good things...

I did a sketch at that weekend. It's three years old and in the first sketchbook. I think this weekend's sketches will look rather different. Interesting.

Rannoch Moor towards Schihallion, graphite in Moleskine

Birch, heather, clouds and...

Yesterday, we went again to one of the heathlands nearby. We were there already on Sunday and my dad and I decided to go back with bikes, sketchbook and his friend. Them for cycling, I for drawing.

So, I had a couple of hours, inbetween rain showers and fast moving clouds for a bit of sketching and a bit of cloud gazing.

My mom when leaving: 'And you don't worry about bad people you may meet when you're on your own, Gesa?' - No, generally not, despite all the scare stories about the dark and moody heathlands, they are familiar ones.

Schmarbecker Heide,
Pastel in A4 Moleskine

But... in this case, I indeed better should. The nearest village? Gerdehaus. And Hetendorf isn't far either. Any more info you need? Try, this indymedia site here. Oh yes, the heather, the birch, the oak and our soil. And Nazi squatters.

They make me wonder if I do not misunderstand my field obsessions... looking for change and movement - it may be after all simply be about tradition, stability and something that hasn't changed all that much in over 70 years. And I have to think again of the so familiar euphemisms in use by my grandparents' generation to talk about their past.

Well: how to live among the fields, the heather and the woods?

Kieselgur Pond, Schmarbecker Heide

Sunny Sunday

... follows from Silent Saturday that was also Blistery, Rainy and Thundery Saturday aka Have a Scotland Day in Berlin.

When we sat underneath the sun cover that was temporarily (and not very well) providing rain shelter, J laughed: 'You brought your weather with you, haven't you.' - How right he was. Hehehe... and I also brought the glorious sunlight that comes with, or rather after, a rainshower. He noticed that too.

So, one of the tasks for while here is to draw and paint the rain and thunder... This is something I haven't succeeded in so far.

But: a few days ago my windows to the West promised a fantastic evening sky.

Thursday evening, westwards, 9pm
Pastel in A4 Moleskine

And guess what: they far exceeded on their promise, with this 15 minutes later.

Thursday evening, westwards, 9.15pm
Pastel in A4 Moleskine

Silent Saturday

White Room, Two views,
Ink in A4 Moleskine


White Room 1, Remix
Mixed media collage, 35x40cm


White Room, Drying Rack
Pastel and ink, A4 Moleskine

More white overlaid

Now... if individual views are combined, it may look like this

White room wide, mixed media collage,
A3 Sketchbook

There are different possibilities... about the sense of moving across the room; but also about placing different things across the room, the paper plane. I want some large tracing paper and some acrylic medium for proper collaging. But inbetween, a bit of ordinary drawing practice: perspective, attention and detail... phew... so difficult. Yet, I'm sure that will see to the development of the concept too.

All new beginnings..

... need a bit of art, don't they?

I've been looking at this room for two weeks now. Today it got freshly painted windows and I took it as a cue to get the sketchbook out...

Nothing fancy. It's Berlin tenement dailies... a radiator and a window. It's in graphite and continues the whiteness from the first picture post.

But... there's colour here too. Sunshine orange, 1970s orange and a variety of lime to apple green.

There's a hint of a domestic series coming through the window. But first it looks like another thunderstorm. Oh, how I miss summer thunderstorms, they are so rare in Glasgow. But I've had my fair share over the past fortnight already. - No, that isn't metaphorical but applied weather science :)

Saturday's Seashores

... in a shy June sun. Things to find, things to see, things to pick up.

I'm intrigued by detail. Small forms and patterns on the shoreline, in the sand or on stones. And now with my computer increasingly doing what I'd like it to, I can easily tag and organise my many beachfinds from years past. Or indeed from Saturday.

Like this,



or this,



or indeed this.



It doesn't mean I stopped looking for landscapey, or waterscapey vistas. Well... any excuse for a bit of colour really:

Seashore Whiting Bay 1
neo ii in A4 Moleskine

The swan and I

The Swan.

... could be the start of a fantastic short story. But it isnae (at least for today).


It's much more prosaic. Encountered when trying to sketch the grassy, watery, boggy inbetween land that is the bay of Lochranza on the Northern tip of Arran. This was at high tide and the swan was toddling about, munching a bit of grass here, flapping its wings there. Well... until it discovered me and my pastels.

After a standoff (yes, I know... I wouldn't have won) I got saved by a hoard of sheep moving in fast and - probably joyfully oblivious to the mighty swan - made it retreat back to the river bank.

Phew...


Did I say it was about to rain? This is what I did anyway:

Lochranza Bay, 3
Graphite and neo ii in A4 Moleskine


Lochranza Bay, 4
Soft Pastel in A4 Moleskine


Lochranza Bay, 5
Soft Pastel in A4 Moleskine

Now... what to do???

Ok, ok... I kind of outmanouvred myself with the two previous ones. It's not that I don't know where I want to go with them... but at the same time they are at the moment not much more than markers for the future. So, the blog is acting - again - as a notekeeper.

The blog as notekeeper is a rather comfortable format, I think. It's a bit more sophisticated than my talking into my recording machine (well, the latter still needs some work on how to retrieve info I record) but it's the textual with a bit of visual format nicked from elsewhere on the net that works well and easily for me.

So, the disfigured faces of abused women and the kids that get sucked into the pavement that is the UK care system are there. They are also there along with some private notes of all that won't be possible and needs to be avoided. -

Putting them in here is easier than using the sketchbook. - Recording textually comes with my job and moving into some more visual seems to take a lot of time. Though - and here's today's theme (well, the obvious one at least) - I am becoming more and more excited about my recent sketchbook acquisitions.

Why?

Because they are larger and larger still. They are at least A4 - which when opened (it's a hardback rather than spiralbound) gives an A3 to work with which was exciting for the Chile sketches. But the one at home - the IDEAS book - is an A3 and when opened A2. It's fabulous, rather heavy cartridge paper which is happy with pastels, oils and printing inks so far. Being able to develop and spread out across a generous 58x42 cm is such a revelation (I know, some of you have been saying this for a long time, but now I've tried for myself, and guess what: you were right ;))

Here's a taster... But the proper stuff is coming soon when I move onto the disappearing spectres with my exploration. Before that, though, there will be one more post on seeing and classifying, and on the mysteries of some anonymous junk that ends in my inbox.

Tomorrow, or the day after (depending on how my exhibition preps are going.)

Elqui Palette in A3 sketchbook, Soft pastel and oil


Fieldlines in A3 Sketchbook, Lino prints

Going back to Elquí Valle

... I wish I was... but this has to suffice.

Pisco Elquí 1,
Pastel on Board, 35x25cm

My fellow Watermarkers have been putting up a fantastic set of posts around Water on Earth Day on our blog as well as their own blogs. So, I thought I'd join (and have excuse to bunk off early from my tedious lecture and presentation writing tasks that will bug me for the next week).

I mentioned how much I loved the day in Elquí Valle and the night spent stargazing at Mamalluca. Some of the reasons for that I hadn´t mentioned yet though. Let me make up for that.

Apart from the great clarity of the air and sky and the high contrast between hilltops and lime green valley floor it was the fact that Carlos, our guide for the day, didn`t really speak any English (well, I think he would maintain that he does, but he really didn´t) - so the day was spent in Spanish.

Secondly, the fact that one of our first stops was the tomb of Gabriela Mistral, ¿recuerdala? The great Chilean poet of earthy mysticism, romanticism and essentialism. She was born far up in the valley, in Montegrande at the end of c19 and was buried there.

So, as it is befitting for a poet, Carlos's first Spanish lesson for R and myself was ´Las tres grandes penas de Gabriela Mistral´- the three great sufferings of Gabriela Mistral: her father abandoned her family when she was three; a man who was madly in love with her committed suicide when she was 20; and her adoptive son (her brother's child, abondoned by his father at the age of six) also committed suicide when he was 18.

I hate the thought that all that much tragedy is necessary to be a good artist. But maybe it's not necessary, right?

In any case, almost two weeks later I bought a tattered copy of Mistral's Poema de Chile at a market stall in Santiago. I think many of the poems were written in the 1930s, she presented some of them at a conference on the human geography of Chile in the US in 1938. It's a patriotic and romantic attempt at nation building in poetry. It reads like an old-fashioned regional geography: covering not only different regions of the vast country but also the light, the stars, the mines, alcohol, trees, and the ocean. R and I are planning a good bit of text analysis of this - she for her lectures in environmental management, I for the problems I have with romantic landscapism. But more on that later.

I leave you with another verse found on the main square in Pisco Elquí - the village was called La Unión until 1936 when the Chilean government, in attempt to authenticate Pisco as of Chilean origin and not Peruvian - changed its name in a grand piece of economic policy. Imagine, Oban was to be changed to Whiskey Oban. How bizarre... but: here's Mistral on the sensuous qualities of Elquí Valle (suitably written on a pisco barrel).

'Since my touch has left behind these sweet and splendid pastures,
all that I am left with is the dry scent of those vines and fig trees ...'

Chile in pastel

medium - not hue, that is... distinctly too high in chroma to pass as pastelly sketches.

These are the plein air sketches (well: bar the two nocturnes which were done from memory).



Today's work again - I'm far too tired for 9.30 and it's bitter cold here, still: half of Glasgow is dressed exactly the same way as people in Santiago were, or even more summerly: bare tops, flipflops and plenty of blue skin on show - and that with about 15C difference in temperature. Nonetheless: my clothes drying quickly tells me that it must be fairly warm here too (the show of flipflops in Glasgow rarely indicates anything useful on my personal temperature gauge, I've found over the years).

The next week's will be busy - with work, but also with preparations for our next group exhibition - with the opening on 20 May. So, I figure: I won't drag Chile out too much longer, because I don't know what else will happen over the next four weeks. Thus: the whole lot of pastel sketches in one go. Here's the pastel kit I used - or rather: what's left of them.

Fields - Chilean ones this time

I've been spending ages with uploading photos to flickr, and I think my ISP has had enough of it, it seems to go far too slow for my liking.

On the way back to Santiago, on Thursday, we spend pretty much the full day on the top floor of yet another long-distance bus. After hour 8 on the bus, it got all a bit too boring, the air conditioning was terribly bad and the films weren't good - no guns, no kung fu and no car chases [on our early busy journeys we were amazed to find out in just how many B movies with car chases and guns Jason Statham had starred since Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels], instead US romcoms in Spanish and with Spanish subtitles...

But!!!: we were driving through fields, fields and more fields. It started with foggy meadows in autumn and finally led to the high summer, parched corn fields I had sketched on the way to Temuco before. I took plenty of photos and some sketches. I am toying with an addition to the North German fields by some from Region Araucania and Maule. I think it's a fabulous plan and it will give me a start for when painting starts again on Saturday.

Here are some of the sketches and photos.

Colour samples, Fields between Villarica and Freire,
Pastel in sketchbook


Fields near Victoria,
Graphite in sketchbook


Fields near Victoria 2,
Graphite in sketchbook

Amidst the field excitement and the coach boredom, R. and I devised a little empirical research project: What do lorries transport along the Ruta 5? Easy question, easy methods: photo snapshots of every lorry we overtook for 1hrs or so; the methodology was flawed somewhat by (a) inattention at points when bad romcom was getting interesting; and (b) inability to press the button in time to capture load instead of empty road. Our findings:



+ one lorry with red grapes... v important and it shouldn't be left out.

Otherwise... multiply these 30 seconds x2 x60 x12:

Postcard 3: Ruta 5

Ruta 5 Al Norte - also known as the Panamericana. I am constantly in awe at the names of the stuff I see: this freezing cold water is not just any old ocean, no: it´s the Pacific. This stretch of road going up north with us sitting in the front under a glaring sun is not any old road but the Panamericana. So, over all this I forget that my stomach is still angry with me for all the seafood diet I enforced much to its dislike.

So, I thought, in addition to the Pacific, I am starting a new series. Imaginatively titled: Ruta 5.

Ruta 5 (2), Los Vilos

Graphite in Sketchbook, 42x29cm

Have a few glimpses of its current state. I do need to make sure that we do reserve seats on the top floor in the front from now on though, otherwise the view would be different. Seeing that most of our next trips will go South from now on, that shouldn´t be too much of a problem (Yes: change in plan and programme, I figured that some green may be a good idea so it´ll be Lake District after our current stay in La Serena... Let me see if I can find a new Weather forecast thingy... Antofagasta, you have such a lovely name, but that won´t do it, this time. Only problem: South of Santiago, autumn has arrived, and e.g. Chiloé was covered by heavy rain and a lush 13 degrees. That is definitely too cold.

Ruta 5 (3), Mincha Sur

Graphite in Sketchbook, 42x29cm

Ruta 5 (3), 5/km264

Graphite in Sketchbook, 42x29cm

I think Torben will get this card... for the road... sorry, no street lights, but plenty of poor wiring :), and: I do know that this isn´t the kind of stuff you particularly like :)

Now: some newspaper

... no, not to wrap yesterday's cheese, but yesterday's monotype experiments.

Well, for all the time we were there it did not stop raining. Now, RAIN was a bit too strong a word, more a persistent drizzle and the paper put up some brave resistance. The sketching went well, preparing the acrylics with some Lascaux extreme retarder (love the title) worked well too - it remained workable for about 20mins or so, and the copper plates are nice and solid to work as plate.

But, the moment it all came tumbling down, or rather: blowing up in my face was when I tried to pull the print: too much wind blowing in my face, into the sketchbook and the assorted paper mess with which I tried to keep my hands, clothes, bags etc reasonably clean.

Ok: lesson learned: minimise on paper setup in gusty gales; acrylics mixed with retarder also means: it can leave marks on your favourite clothing a lot longer than normal. LOL.

But, these still made all of it worthwhile, don't you think so?

Wet Feet, Monotype on catridge paper
a bit of newspaper and charcoal, too
20x15cm


More Wet Feet, Monotype on catridge paper
a bit of newspaper and charcoal, too
20x15cm

Two cool moody made with dreich and Scottish wind on a March Sunday afternoon monotypes.

It's the corner of the Loch where the river opens up into it, it has some beautiful bares trees standing in water, some rather adventurous waves came rolling in and a firm breeze in your face.

It's a great spot - I'm not sure if H. fully appreciated it, but I did! It's very moody with low clouds over the distant hills; the phtalo blue was a good choice (despite the stains it left everywhere); and the acrylics/medium is good enough to work with - it'll go into my Chile bag; not sure how it will perform under heat, but I will find out.

Here's an earlier sketch with a bit more definition:

No wet feet yet, Graphite on Cartridge paper,
25x25cm

Lines across a field

Lines across a field, 37x45cm
Pastel on Japanese paper

... ok, here's the promised crit & comment bit on Saturday's studies of THE field. This should have been ready earlier in the evening but some simple editing tasks currently take ages. I even had a Photoshop Elements in my shopping trolley inbetween.

I am intending to be good-willed and patient with my new open source image editing software.

But: essentially: I don't understand it! It makes out to be intuitive and yet it asks for channels, terminals, plug-ins, for me to build its help file and suddenly I am back in year 11 trying to ignore the fact that not a single one of my scripts ever got the computer to play chess, move the cursor or whatever tasks one tried to make a computer in 1990 perform. Ach... but... I still don't understand it. The Help files aren't built and the user manual doesn't tell me how I can change colour retrospectively. So, Gesa, start again...

After a while of this, I now have something that highlights the problems in the study. It was study no 2, it followed the one I posted on Sunday. Again: the task was drawing marks and a different palette. The scene originates with last summer's sketches and I did some more in December. I am therefore back with the fields again; searching for a subject for a reductive lino print.



But before that, I tackled some highly unsuitable paper with my Terrage sticks - it's a Japanese paper, fairly thin and with a kind of felted surface - consequently: crisp marks kept evading me and it dissolved rather quickly - as the second circle from the bottom shows.

The composition looked wrong to me, but after a while I realise that it's a bit more subtle than that: the top circle shows too much contrast between sky and forest in the background; and the salmon in the second from top circle folds the space of the field against the forest in a funny way.

In many ways I love that effect: how hues make space, bend it, twist it and confuse the onlooker. I like the salmon colour a lot since I discovered it, but it doesn't work in that field.

So, for a pastel drawing study, the marks are intriguing but some of the hues are not worked out in relation to each other - I think the violet blue in the foreground is wrong too.

And, while I cannot as of yet put my finger on it, I think it got me further for a reduction linocut. There's something in the layering of different hues here - and perhaps the solidity the drawing is struggling with in the background, which could work well in print.

Good... more on that to follow.

Getting somewhere practical

Field study no 1, 45x37cm
Soft Pastel on Japanese paper,

... with this post eventually. But first off a few thoughts on group dynamics (again).

I mentioned a few times before how my Saturday group has been changing from the exhibition last June onwards. This term, it is even more different. The group runs as an adult education class, so people register for it - and for the past few years, the group always consisted of about 8 people who had gone for a long time and about 4 new people who would change from term to term.

Not so this term: it's pretty much the other way round and it's intriguing to see how that changed the dynamics from an open group very much into something much more structured and tutored. We would turn up some time after 10 am and usually Tom, Irene and myself are the last to leave at about half one. I tended to be one of the early ones there, just at the back of ten.

Yesterday I turned up at 10.08 am and I was the last one. That has consequences: the room is generally cramped; with poor lighting, there are about four places close to the windows and the sinks - I would always try to get easy access to the sinks because of the water-based, frequent handwashing mix-fest that much of my work is.

But: there has never been a space close to the window. Bummer. So, it's somewhere in the middle of the room, taking up some of the flexible and improvised corridors that form throughout the morning.

So, in the middle of the room, it was busy - so many people, so many projects, so much busieness. I could feel myself getting all worked up within five minutes. Oh dear, - it often takes me some time beforehand to figure out what I'd like to do. And it was all clear: I wanted to do pastel drawings of some new scenes. But instead I was quickly developing hectic spots all over my face, crunching up my forehead and breathing far too fast.

And then I remembered: I packed up my sketchbooks, took my box of pastels and some pens and left. Went out to the corridor with a great view across the West end and sat on the floor.

So: their projects aren't mine, their worries over how to mix that paint weren't mine, either; instead I wrote pages upon pages with the ideas kicking around in my head. Very good ideas, but they need to get out of my head. So, they went onto paper.

But where do they go? I've begun to use an A4 wire-bound sketchbook to record ideas, work out prices, and collect stuff. - All done verbally, in text.



Immediate and urgent plan:

To move my writing into something more visual. Work out my ideas more in sketch/drawing/visual form.

This means I need to rearrange my sketchbook scenario again: not so long ago I decided to just work in one at a time - the large-sized Sketchbook Moleskine. I like the smooth paper and the format. Yet: it's is just not large enough for my ideas - so I find it easier to write them out rather than to try them out [and I know that some of you will say: yes, we told you so ;)]

Thus: a sketchbook order is called for: Katherine has a good post [here] with lots of comments on what sketchbooks, and I took note:

I want a smooth, perferably Hot Press, relatively heavy paper - for dry media but the occasionally oil/gouache/acrylics; it needs to lie flat when open (but hardbound so that I can easily work across the pages) and it needs to be LARGE.

In addition, I want a smaller one [A4 or square?], wire-bound with similar paper to carry with me - for bigger sketches and experiments when outside.

People also mentioned cutting, redrawing or pasting work from the portable sketchbooks into the main one. Sounds good to me. Will try that.

I think I will order a couple of books from Green and Stone, and try them out.

As for the painting class, I eventually did some pastel skecthes, as you can see at the start of this post There's a crit & comment to follow soon, along with some further ideas for where this may go.

All new beginnings

... are also so exciting.

So, if we stick with my new sketching location, take a look at its possibilities: an undulating river, moored boats in various states of decay, sandy shores, grassy shores, trees with exposed roots, little waves, bigger waves, hills in the distance, mist in the distance, ducks, swans, the air filled with the sound of gulls and the faint smell of the sea.

And, to keep my tree intrigue in motion: look at the birch trees against a winter sky.

I need to go again, rather urgently, I feel. The last two times I was there with other people - the first visit worked well with time for sketching - and me asking for that time; the second one was a bit more difficult: too much movement, someone I didn't know well enough, and some confusions over the purpose of a weekend (mine: doing art and having fun; his: working).

That clearly tells me: Gesa, go on your own next time :) But for tomorrow, the forecast is full of hail, snow and rain... and: the fog I had already once before:

Loch Lomond in fog,
pastel on board, 35x25