Suddenly it's time

 

He took the time with him

That moment in the stormy sea,

and all time disappeared.

Time for the future                                                                            

time for the past

Simply being in time

with no need for it

no urgency.

That all went with him

Since then there was never any time left.

How come?

In colour. Blue. 40x40cm (WIP, I think)
Soft pastel/acrylics on canvas

... that my abstracts are always ending up seascapes?

Don't have a clue!

This is in fact an abstract interior still life, in case anyone is asking.

And just to add to confusion: it's pastel on a 3D canvas, over pumice, gesso and acrylics. Oh, and its first incarnation, this hosted a rubbish landscape in oil from a few years ago.

I let it mature a bit and see if I can sort out the composition a bit more.

Let's make it a bit more transparent,

non?!

Ok - the white room is history now. A funny, very present and very, very good place to have been for two months. To sort out far more things than I thought I could, hoped I would or even knew they needed sorting.

So, we got on pretty well with each other, I soaked up some past, memories and generally a lot of empty white space. And thus offloaded some of my past, memories, and above all: plans and hopes, into the two months and into this large empty room.

Many of them will begin to properly unfold as of in eight days (and counting). But until then: a bit of art.

I played a few games with myself and this space. Was curious what would happen with this two-months short-term lease in the middle of Kreuzberg, tagged it as a research trip. And research I did.

With all the training and cpd stuff I've been doing at work, I've become a lot more experimental and daring with the contexts in which I can work well. And I generally work well in chaos: pull everything out off the cupboards, mix it up and stir and be confident that whatever is important will emerge. So: I tried deliberate confusion. And confused I was. Until, one day - well: 31 july, really, it all became crystal clear.

With the White Room as art work I tried to be pushy, determined and rather forceful - after all: time was limited and so very precious.

I was intrigued by the bareness, the emptiness and some strong colours. I was also intrigued by this room as outwith time and space. A place that somehow had become unhooked from a past and a future, it only existed as an improvised holiday flat with bare kitchen and people coming and going, leaving some notes while passing but that was all.

I wanted, and still want, to capture some of that fleetingness, something that is present, remains out of focus and I can't quite grasp it while all the time I feel its presence.

And so I tried:
- Weiss, weiss, weiss, das weiss ich
- More white overlaid

and on Matisse, specifically:
- Interior illusions
- Matisse, colour and I

And sketched:

Hahaha.... and of course that challenge made me trip up. It mirrored some of my own confusion over the past two months, but as a wee sideline art project to play with, it was far too ambitious - or, well, maybe not... I could in fact not get it into focus. What I could see in front of my eyes was clear - in white and lime and orange.

But everything else???

I was getting myself lost a bit in Matisse - and that has been very useful and exciting. There is something so intriguing about his compositions and his constructions of space. And all the same, I can see far more about what I'm not after than what I can take. But I think that's a productive tension and I will keep asking about that one in Matisse's work.

There are really two points or rather lines, I finally got to with the White Room

1. Layering of one view (today)
2. Distortions of the room floor as picture plane (next post)

The obvious approach for me seemed layering: I tried tissue paper, with acrylic inks, pastels and other assortments. And was craving for tracing paper. Something more solid, stable than the tissue paper. On the last weekend I finally got some and did a few more turns with it.

It's only a small sample in my large sketchbook. It is layered, pulled apart and flipped. It is the view that intrigued me most: an old-fashioned window, with some strong colours and reflections. The layering in itself was not enough. It needed to be spread out and distorted this way. And I think, that idea can go a bit further: onto larger sheets and possibly some other media.

The White Room, study
mixed media collage, 25x20cm

It's the space, some definite lines and still it isn't. You think you can see it clearly and yet you can't. The shapes look familiar and yet they aren't.

What do you think?

Landscape, fields and abstraction

Hahaha.... I didn't post the two paintings central to the previous post on de Stael, did I?

Well... here they are. The de Stael that is currently on show at the Tate Modern is this one.

Nicolas de Stael, Composition, 1950
oil on canvas, 79x125cm
Tate Modern

There is another one with similar compositional characteristics in a blue colour scheme with stronger saturation:

Nicolas de Stael, Le parc de Sceaux, 1952

Oil on canvas, 162x114cm
Collection Phillips, Washington DC

Both of the image files are so small in size that there isn't much to see other than hue and overall composition.

Where are the marks and the texture?

Now... the final state of Elqui 1 is as this.

Elqui 1, 70x80cm
Oil on canvas

It is signed and ready to be taken to the framers. And, more importantly: it is sold! As you can see, the orientation of the painting moved back to the original - several layers later, the associations with hilltops are rather distant, yet important.

De Stael's method of working on the two paintings in this post is very different to mine: very thickly applied paint, borders that separate geometric shapes and a palette based on very similar hues.

And: still! Something doesn't leave me alone with his paintings and what I want to do with mine. Haven't figured it out yet other than a persistent gut feeling.... let's find out a bit more...

Layering across space

Elqui 2, oil on canvas, 50x50cm

... from Elqui Valle to the Scottish West Coast?

I had posted a number of work in progress updates of the three oil paintings I've been working on over the past months (e.g., here at: art? anyone?). They are finished now.

In the process a number of intriguing things took place.

(a) I lost the hill tops and managed to continue on Elqui 1 as an abstract piece at the first attempt. This was where I wanted to get to with the oil paintings but, on the basis of previous iterations required to move from representation to abstraction had not thought it would happen so quickly. But, Elqui 1 is for the next post.

Today, I want to talk about the Elqui 2 and Elqui 3. Well, they were meant to be larger - 80x70cm like Elqui 1 but somehow I very successfully have (still) mislaid my framing tools and so while I have stretchers I cannot for the life of me find the stapler nor the canvas I bought ages ago.

So, the two pieces are only 50x50cm - one on a bought deep canvas, the other one on a handstreched rough(ish) cotton canvas. One was too slick in surface, the other one far too rough.

(b) The task? Undo layer 1. The challenge: How? The palette, though very limited, is strong with the two cadmium yellows. I stuck with turpsy paint right throughout, for each layer work first with brush, then a bit with palette knives; often softening the knife marks again afterwards with brushes or rags.

Undoing - initially it was going to disappear under a white layer. But I didn't dare too... as you can see. I kept the original composition for the most part and discovered the fabulous greys in that palette. So, on went a succession of grey layers interspersed with keeping local colours and the main composition.

Elqui 3, Detail, oil on canvas, 50x50cm

Here, the rough and poorly primed canvas of Elqui 3 proved a fascinating ground for experiment. Suddenly, I ended up with a whole new series of edges, lines and half disappearing vistas. Even more bizarrely, the piece - solely designed to explore hue and markmaking was taking on some landscape element. Well, despite the name it wasn't never going to be a landscape. Even more strangely: it wasn't the arid valley of the Chilean Cordillera that was appearing but some West Coast of Scotland seascapes.

I kept working on it - something I am very pleased about. With oil paintings I have in the past closed them off far too quickly. Quickly I would no longer be able to see what to do next. Not so with these ones. Somehow I managed to keep them open for much longer, adding more layers in the process described above.

Elqui 3, oil on canvas, 50x50cm

And, what did I learn?

1. painting with oils is fabulous (well: I knew that before, but now I do with even more resolve)

2. the palette of cobalt blue, cadmium yellows and burnt siena so easily creates landscape associations, regardless what you do

3. layerings with grey build up distance (possibly also sense of time? - need to explore that further); wiping these and reworking at various stages of drying can strengthen that illusion further

4. I now know how to keep open a painting for longer

Towards the end of the painting process I deliberately played with 2. and 3. - to have a little flirt with the landscape elements in the paintings, to bring them out, muddle them up again, displace them and so on. VERY enjoyable. It was also interesting to get people commenting while I was painting. How much they enjoyed being able to see a landscape - something - emerge and how sure they were that that was what they saw. Interesting... let's think more about that...

'Where the wild things live'

- that was Juanita's comment on this drawing. You have seen a small detail of it already and today is the day for all of it*, and some more details.

Where the wild things live, Detail
Pastel on Arches paper, 58x39cm

'Where the wild things live' - I was well chuffed with that title. She got the eeriness and moodiness straight away. I made it a couple of weeks ago when I took more of the handmade Arches paper to draw with pastels. The palette is again similar to the earlier one, but less limited. The marks are drawing marks with some later reworking to calm some areas and to introduce more highlights. It is less sketchy than the previous one, and - at least for me - a fair amount of time working and reworking was spent on it.

I was meaning to write-up more on Wolf Kahn's approach to landscape as subject matter along with this post. But: I left my notes on that in a notebook in Glasgow, while I am - again - in Berlin for a week. So: the WK's landscapisms have to wait a little long.

Do go and visit the wild things in the meantime, though:

Where the wild things live,
Pastel on Arches paper, 58x39cm

* oh, dear, there's a bit of stage fright going on right now:
what if the detail was so much better than the whole piece???

Rewind 4 - The art I have been making

Fields in Winter, Sketch
Pencil in Moleskine, 24x21cm

Something which started with severely cold fingers developed into my biggest series so far. It started as Winter Drawings and became Belongings. The fields around my parents’ house proved important (well, I always knew they were) and a rich source for explorations into

• sketching trees and bare fields,

• exploring light and limited palette in oil paint

• exploring the tension Nicholas de Stael built into his fantastic landscapes of the Mediterranean

The Road to the Blue Trees,
Mixed media collage on board, 64x45cm

When I finally arrived at the Road to the Blue Trees, I thought that that was it.*
But going back there this summer and just last week, I am now thinking of investing into an easel permanently installed at my parents and of venturing further afield (ouch): The Bull’s Hollow, the Night Skies, the moors and pine forests, and and and…
So, you can keep watching for more Belongings here.

At the end of 2007 I at various points complained (e.g., here) that I could neither draw trees nor people. Well, I did plenty of those in the interim. After having finished some of last week’s the December sketches, I only after realised that it was those trees that I in the past regarded as complicated. So: trees are ok now; people, too. It’s not that they look great, but I am happy enough to sketch in many locations now. In fact, I was just thinking about football matches and swimming pools as sketching locations. I think that’s not too bad.

As for life drawing, I ended up not doing any over the past year. I would have liked too, researched a couple of options but didn’t sign up for anything because of the time commitment. But, I found Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School – a Club Noir where once a month you can go and sketch from life in a cabaret setting (at the Arches, see write-up here). Still working on persuading my friend H. to come along…

Well, I am clearly not lacking ideas and plans. More problematic is the seeing them to an end. Most notably that is the case for the collage, bookmaking, involving people I know project that I started pretty much a year ago with Found Papers from Somewhere. Almost thirty people sent me some found papers for this, a few books are finished and I’ve got plans for an exhibition and a couple of other things, but still it requires more time to make the 8-10 small books I am making from these found papers. And, probably not helpful: I do feel guilty about it. I don’t suffer from too much guilt, generally, I think. But this one keeps lingering in part because it has already lingered for so long. I had initially hoped to finish it in June. Now it’s January. Oops. But, since guilt thrives in silence, this is step one of my exorcism. Here’s a glimpse of one of the books:

Found Papers Project Book 3, Detail
Mixed media collage on board, approx 20x9cm

Collage and mixed media were THE discovery of the last year. They allow me to be more focussed on process beyond a single brush. And, through these, I am getting back to use pastels more frequently again. Part of this interest in process was me signing up for a course on Printmaking with the OCA (see the write-up of the first assignment here).

It’s experimental, without a press and on my kitchen counter. It’s great. It’s structured but allows plenty of development of my own ideas. Not just allows, it is actually required. I tend to think of printmaking as one element in a mixed media setting, with a preference on monotyping. Yet, as the course proceeds, and I am keeping an eye on other printmakers, I am more and more intrigued by it as a medium in its own right. I think this will stay with me as medium.

Can you see the common thread through all these: let’s have plenty of projects, plenty of ideas, plenty of different subjects, plenty of media. It’s not that that surprises me in the slightest. Yet, it means there is little time for each of them. But, looking at it over the course of a year, that’s not a problem. I think I need a range of things to choose from as I feel like and it takes on a path in the process that isn’t straightforward but mine.

Some more highlights along the way?

• Our Eldon Group exhibition last June (and there is another one coming up this May, watch out for it)
  

• An Honourable Mention for one of my Belongings paintings in the Pastel 100 competition

• The invitation to join Watermarks – despite (or maybe actually because of) my keen interest in Fields and Woods

• Some 30 odd plein air pastel sketches of fields and the sea

• Four sketchbooks filled with people, ideas, more fields, more waves

I am fairly tempted by a Rewind 5 – Things I’ve learned. But a couple of other things need to come before that. And: a (very) limited list of plans for the next year wants some publicity.

Thank you so much for reading and commenting!!!

* Of all the paintings I've done, this is my absolute favourite. I love it. It makes my heart sing, every time I look at it. It's the conclusion of something rather long and at times painful - both in terms of actual memories of the place, but also in terms of experimenting with abstraction. It is also one that the RGI rejected for its show. And I'm sure that my love of it impairs my judgment of the quality of it; but so be it :)

Watermarks

No more waiting on the sea....

Here's a splash... throw some stones across a still lake, watch some leaves float along a stream, wade in the sea at low tide or get soaked in a rainshower (wait: no, definitely too cold for that in December).

Seascape in Earth, 70x50cm
Soft pastel on board

Water does so many things...

So, we thought we'd do something with our fascination, curiosity and interest in the marks that water makes.

Watermarks is our new joint project, bringing together 9 artists from across the UK, France and North America. Vivien, Lindsay and Katherine have got this idea going and I am very excited about being part of it.

Do you want to see what we are doing? Start here to look, comment, follow etc:

http://watermarks-art.blogspot.com/

'Pick up your rejects'

... I've been waiting to write on this - something I did a few weeks ago. But while the jury was out, I thought any sustained slagging on my part would be unwise, seeing that they had my web details.

Well, so the jury's been out on a number of pieces.

Firstly the St John Art Sale - glad that part of me treated it as a piece of social experiment: how do art sales go if people are losing their pensions, worry about their homes and jobs, etc... So, while I remembered a good sale last year, I was kind of cautious when we went to pick up the paintings.
And indeed, not one of them had sold; being curious, I began to quiz people a bit about the sale, but I didn't get very far - 'oh, not too bad considering...'; 'ach, ok... we sold quite a few pieces'. Watching the pages of the entries as she was flicking through them to find mine, none of the 5-6 pages I saw had any sales recorded against them - last year they had sold about 25% of the paintings and weren't too ecstatic about that.

So, the fluffy pieces are on loan to a different friend this time...


Secondly, I got mail - I've been waiting really on two pieces of mail - one job related, one art stuff; I did get two pieces of mail, both art stuff.

One was a rejection letter from the Royal Glasgow Institute for the two collages I submitted earlier the month for their Annual Exhibition. In many ways I'm not too sad about it. It was one of the weirder experiences handing the pieces in. There was little info on the website, so we went - and rightly I had suspected that no info was communicated because the ones in the know already knew procedures, hanging mechanisms, conventions, abbreviations and much more. I didn't. So while I was battling with my nerves and tried hard to fill in forms without any mistake... 'Degree? Does my PhD count?' 'Nope: art degrees'; 'Which of the letters W O P A S etc stands for mixed media?', M. was observing.
So afterwards, as my adrenaline was returning to normal levels, she commented extensively: did you notice this, that, the other? I hadn 't clocked anything, but just felt that I was part of some art event that - if it would be something to do with academia - I would go to great lengths to avoid being part of it. So: a pretty alright outcome. And: I love my two collages! Pah!

But: the second art letter was unexpected. And it was handwritten on the outside... from the Pastel Journal.

Remember my struggles to find a painting that consisted of 80% pastel back in September? It is going to be printed in the April 2009 Pastel Journal. - As an Honourable Mention in the Abstract/Non-objective category, they chose Three Three One as one of 100 pastels to feature in the magazine. They claim they get about 4000 submissions. That is pretty cool. I like it. What a good thing to do. And did I say: they will print one of my paintings! A painting in print! Now I need to figure out how to get a good transparency done of it.

Three Three One (Detail)
Pastel and Acrylics on Board, 47x32cm

So, I happily pick up my rejects on 3/4 November.

Recyclings

I've been spending part of the day with a bit of framing DIY - the four fields in oil are getting ready for an art sale later on this week. Hanging mechanisms need to be different and I wanted to make the floater frames a bit more secure at the back - last year some of the frames came back damaged and I don't want anybody accidentally piercing my canvas. While I tend to get a bit impatient with these kind of things, it's all the same a nice way of generally doing something with the canvasses.

Glasgow School of Art, Evening Class Annual Exhibition 2007

In the process, I noticed pencilled addresses, phone numbers and details on the back of my favourite painting in the lot. And remembered, that it is already in its third incarnation: firstly, a rather shortlived attempt at a cityscape in acrylics; that got whitened out, acquired some raw umber oil underpainting and a rather unfinished male torso for last year's GSA evening class exhibition - well: mine is the most unfinished, unframed one at the far end, bottom row.

I just couldn't get myself to spending several weeks at painting one shoulder, and was indeed a bit upset that they chose that painting - which was clearly so far from finished - as part of the exhibition. But never mind.

The painting didn't survive long after the exhibition: whitened out again it became part of my winter fields in oil series. I like it a lot better that way. The nice thing of this recycling however is that the surface by now feels very rich and dense. Nice to the touch, so to speak, really: the whole point of any painting, don't you think?

Primaries, Oil on canvas, 80x70cm

Here are the details for looking at it (and the other three); possibly even touching it? If nobody else is looking, that is.

St John Art Sale
Friday 17 Oct 4-8.30pm
Saturday 18 Oct 10-5pm
Sunday 19 Oct 11-4.15pm

Pollokshields Burgh Hall
Maxwell Park
Glencairn Drive,
Glasgow

BTW: there's a coffee shop with home baking, says the flyer... and you can of course buy the paintings :)

The repitition of agricultural produce

The produce in question: of course the cornfield.

While the last attempt yielded long grasses, it was far too wild and rugged for good German, intensively fertilised corn. So, rather than pursuing Brian's good advice for variation, I veered intensively into the opposite direction: repetition, repitition, repetition (which figures as another point on his list).

So much so that I felt I was doing a caricature rather than a pastel painting. That wasn't a bad feeling, though: I'd love to be able to do them, but again: a lack of illustration skills gets in the way.

Just for memory purposes:

The first attempt at something bigger cornfieldish is here

Cornfields, Acrylics/Pastel on board 35x25cm

This, then is Cornfields # 2

Cornfields #2
Pastels/Acrylics on board, 35x25cm

And? Enough repetitive intensity?

Cornfields #2 Detail
Pastels/Acrylics on board, 35x25cm

I think so. But all the same, I notice something majorly wrong with this. Do you see it?

A hint: try to figure out time of day, direction of sun etc - usually the practicalities I don't bother with too much when I pick hues/values I want to. But with this one it struck me afterwards - too much realism gone wrong: The trees are getting full on sun from the left (south east) while the distance is almost in an evening/dust type dullness. Doesn't quite work, does it?

Will fix it, though. And then let cornfields be cornfields for a while.

And another cornfield

...

This morning I finally took out the easel again after a while. I took out one - the only red! - already prepared greyboard (acrylics and pumice powder).

The bulk of the cornfield still kept me wondering - and the comments I got to my earlier request here pretty much went along the lines: yes, something I'd like to know about also.

Ok. My rationale was to do more persistent, stronger lines rights throughout the field, and to do them in acrylics - in highlights and lowlights.

Cornfields, Pastel/Acrylics on board
35x25cm
WIP: stage 1, underpainting

I then split the field into... hm, well,... really into a side view and a top view, trying to construct it somewhat 3d. While that wasn't the view I had IRL, it still seemed an appropriate way to counter the flatness.

Cornfields, Pastel/Acrylics on board
35x25cm
WIP: stage 2, pastels go on

In went a lot of repetitive marks - lines, about an inch long, overlayed and varied across the field.

Cornfields Detail , Pastel/Acrylics on board
35x25cm
WIP: stage 2, pastels go on

For the foreground, I put in much longer lines. Then I went back in to really work on the negative space by adding a lot of dark values in the foreground - to work on the illusion that one could see into the undergrowth.

Cornfields, Pastel/Acrylics on board
35x25cm
WIP: stage 3 foreground

Well, it's not flat anymore. I did prepare two panels with a similar underpainting. With the second one I'm thinking about constructing the field much more obviously 3d in acrylics before I start with the pastels. Would that work?

Where are my pastels?

... 80% of the medium has to be (not oil) pastel - that's one of the requirements to enter any painting into the Pastel 100 Competition.

I timed it rather tight with the submission deadline being today. I had this in my diary for a while but the way things turned out, I was in Germany sifting through the murky depths of my rather confused computer to find pictures of what to enter. And I discovered two things

(a) I am a lousy photographer of my own work. Most of the pics are poor snapshots of various Work in Progress stages; and then there's nothing until it's framed. Incredibly useful.

(b) I was running up against the 80% pastel requirement with all the mixed media stuff I was doing. Most of it figures pastel but some rather sparingly so.

Well: there were two likely candidates but no useful photos. So I took my tripod out yesterday and came up - despite the greyest day in Glasgow since about 20 January or thereabouts (or maybe I just luckily missed six weeks of grey?) - with a reasonable setup for taking pictures. My favourite choice was this one from the Colored Sands series.

Colored Sands Series #1
Mixed media (acrylics, gouache, graphite, pastel) on board
33x33cm

Do you see the problem???

Exactly: far too many other things on the surface than pastel, notably gouache, bare paper and acrylics. I think even with a 50% requirement this would have been rejected. That only left this one here:

Three three one*
Mixed media (acrylics, pastel) on board
47x32cm

So, the only one I submitted is this one here. It has some acrylic unterpainting which does some nice things in terms of texture. It's the only 80%+ pastel I have. I'm a bit hesitant - even ambivalent - about it. I loved the composition when I finally got to it (see the Study Plains for some talk about it); I also love the lemon yellow and some of the lush marks across the blue fields and the skies.

And still.... I dunno.

Well: it's submitted in the abstract/non-objective category. Having seen the previous years landscape entries, I figured that the judges are firmly with my Dad on the unconditional need for landscapist realism, and seeing that I'm not, I better leave that one alone...

I now also have some good shots of some of the detail in this flickr set (yes, I know, a tripod is a much better option than my shakey, impatient hands). And I need to find a mixed media thingy to submit the glorious Colored Sands #1 to.

*An attempt at a less representational title: is it a landscape? No it isn't!

Exhibition inhibitions

The road to the blue trees, 64x45cm
Acrylic and paper on board

This will be the most recent piece for the exhibition. I finished it last Saturday, and will drop it off at the framer tomorrow morning. I'm just waiting on a friend to drop all the small paintings off at my house tonight after she picked them up from the framer earlier today. All this coming and going... it's a nice set of tasks to prepare for the exhibition: quite clearly circumscribed, ticking off items on the list.

All the time I'm getting rather giddy. Giddy at the thought of what it'll be like to look at all these things that I did over the past months. They are usually stashed away in different places, happy to be pulled out into daylight once in a while. But all of them up against a white wall?? That'll be exciting, a bit scary, and rather exhibitionist. Well: it's called exhibition after all, isn't it? Hadn't thought of that one before.

Somebody had asked whether I was scared or anxious. That I'm most definitely not. It's a funny one: for my job I do a fair bit of public speaking, and if someone had told 17-year old Gesa that she would have to talk in public regularly for her job, she would have surely hidden behind the sofa (any sofa) and never surfaced again. So, that kind of publicity took me a long time to get used to (and it still scares me from time to time). But this one feels very different.

Maybe that's because it's about something that is finished, done. It's ready. Whereas public speaking is always in the making, there and then. But maybe, more simply, it's not something I have to worry about as my livelihood depends on it? I don't know. It definitely feels like a lot of fun. And that's good enough, I s'pose.

BTW, I think this is a painting I'm not quite finished with: still feels too precious to let go off, and I doubt that will have receded by next week... so it'll possible have a Not for sale sticker on it.

And just to clarify any confusions over dates and times for the exhibition which have kept changing (to do with changing messages over opening times after everything seemed clear for a long time)

The Opening will be on Friday 13 June 4-6pm

From then onwards, the exhibition will be
open Monday to Friday 10-5pm (last entry at 5);
It will not be open at any point during the weekend.

The exhibition will close on Friday 27 June 5pm

The location is St Andrew's Gallery, Level 5, St Andrew's Building, University of Glasgow,
11 Eldon St, Glasgow, G3 6NH (off Woodlands Roundabout)

The website http://eldongroup.ghelms.com is being kept uptodate.

Which one for a postcard?

I thought I'd ask you for your thoughts on this one:

With the exhibition coming closer, I'm trying to decide which scene to take for a promo postcard.

I've had a couple of cards made a while back, but I want to have one of the pieces in the exhibition to feature on the postcard and none of the previous motifs will go to the exhibition. I also want something that gives a sense of the work I've been doing recently (and that I want to do).

Here are a few examples - and I'd appreciate your thoughts and preferences on these.


A detail of one of the mixed media collages such as this one:


Sunny, cheery gouache and pastels on paper - and a definite landscape:

Another definite landscape - less cheery, a bit more recent:


Or a bit less recent again, less landscape, still mixed media, no glue and limited palette?


Well... I think I've got my favourite - which is yours?

Found papers update: Prototype

The actual book with cover

I've got a prototype for my found papers project. It took me a while and several iterations to come up with a format that I felt would work and would reflect the idea of found papers from different place and people - if you want to check back to the start of the project, read this first post, and check out the tag Found Paper project.

The whole collage: Top row is the back, bottom is the front,
each side measuring 39x9cm
[Click on the photo to see more detail...
Blogger wasn't playing ball with this one]

So, after roadtesting a variety of glues, sealings and varnishes, here is Found Papers Book #1.
I will say a bit more about format, cover and general craftiness involved in one of the next posts, but it's too late for that tonight.

Found Papers Project Book #1, Card 1
6.5x9cm

Thus, only briefly: a couple of snapshots, and a lazy link to some more in this Flickr set.

And inside: the palm leaf book form - though not terribly neatly laid out

Eerily does it...

Eerily, oil on canvas,
60x65cm

... it lures, unsettles and seems to offer something behind those trees. Doesn't it?

So, here's the difficult child of the four... With the least distance between fore- and background, that tree line calls out. It's wintery, blurred, cold and yet somewhat... something... Don't know quite what it is.

But it makes it not easily likeable like beautiful haze and groovy primaries.

Over the past few weeks I've written down associations and memories to all these images. Funny, I think it would be difficult for me to get any scene, landscape, impression on paper or canvas which has more association and memories that these four, five scenes in the series of winter drawings and paintings.

And still, I struggle to trace back the uncanny in this one. I like it, though, maybe because of it's recalcitrant and diffident attitude to beauty.

Eerily, oil on canvas, 60x65cm, detail

More wintery siblings

Primaries WIP, oil on canvas,
80x70cm

... to the earlier posted Haze. These two are not quite finished, they are slightly larger in scale (80x70cm) but worked with the same palette.

Little to say about them just now, so: Hello to the Works In Progress of Alongside and Primaries (I even used the thesaurus for some online playtime with titles).

Alongside WIP, oil on canvas,
80x70 cm

The canvas of Primaries was in an earlier life a very mishapen life painting in oil, so I am liking it already much better. These canvasses are not that much larger to the previous ones (80x70 to 65x60) but that extra bit of space is making a huge difference to how it feels - well, both in lugging the canvasses around, but more importantly to the painting process itself.

There's one more of this series - the outsider, ugly duckling and difficult child... will introduce it shortly...

On beauty...

Haze, Oil on canvas, 65x60cm

Yesterday I finished (?) one of the oil paintings I've been working on for a while. It's the one where haziness was the challenge: how to work with light, atmosphere and mood.
This is where I got to.

Looking at it from the far end of the corridor - our usual spot for a good viewing and critting I felt a bit lost for words. I kind of gathered where I was heading with this one when my friend to whom I showed the first WIP picture from a while back got all dreamy eyes and loved it.

Hm - it is dreamy, beautiful and really rather romantic. Think Caspar David Friedrich, romantic - German Sturm und Drang in painting. And that from the drab field/forest round the corner from my parents' place. Hm...

It's kind of nice to know that I can do beautiful paintings - I think. But what is it really in there that makes it so romantic?

Palette, light and the filling in of associations?

These set of oil paintings are turning out FAR more representational than what I was trying to get it. The task for them was all about light, light and more light. - Hence the liberal use of white.

So, there is plenty of light.

But also - thanks to the raw siena, red earth, lemon yellow and cobalt blue - I've ended up with a very organic palette: It's easy to mix the most beautiful greens, earthy browns, and plenty of light and dark variations of these.

Thirdly, the field and the haze at the line between fields and trees is rather organic in marks and lines also: I was trying - as indeed with the exaggerated line in the mixed media drawing of the same view (here) to abstract this line - it's been the bit in the scene that really got me, the one I was trying to capture and play with - but: it just integrates, neatly becomes a part of it and helps again at making it dreamy.

Good - next attempt: a good painting with less beauty and romanticism ;)

The Eldon Group. Exhibition 16-30 June 2008

Kelvinbridge Roofs, Acrylics on Canvas,
45x60cm, Gesa Helms 2006

The Eldon Group. Exhibition 16-30 June 2008
Paintings and works on paper in acrylics, oil and mixed media.
St Andrews Building, University of Glasgow.

That is what we will do in summer - a group exhibition with my favourite painting group. It looks funny spelled out that way - suddenly there is name. It's been Tom's suggestion: to name after the street where we meet - very traditional. And it's nice to know that Tom had been thinking about this name and this project for a long time before the group constellation became one where a joint exhibition became possible. Today, he brought some fantastic books with font types - he had trained as a graphic designer in London in the 1950s and does the most amazing modernist plays with colour and form.

So, contacts are collected, plans are made and all the time, I'm very excited about this.

There will be more detail to follow in due course. But the painting above is a first taster. It's the view from our studio space right in the heart of Glasgow's West End.

.