2014 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 29,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 11 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Last week I learned …
At the end of last year I began a little (?) exercise. I bought a new press and it seemed like the right time to have a thoughtful look at my methods. While I could have undertaken it while using a barren it would have taken longer and become tedious.
So, I began with reduction prints using oil based and safe wash ink and Zekhall paper. First making a reduction board from the back of a drawing book.
While using the Wash Safe ink the drying time was much quicker and the cleaning process a little easier. The oil based ink perhaps has a better finish.
The problem I had was more general and to do with the mixing the colours to get a pleasing result was a little hit and miss. Often, missing completely and wasting ink.
While I found reduction a little challenging at first; once I learned the rules, the results were pleasing even if they did go a little awry at times.
So, I am left with some skeletons of the original reduction that will lend themselves to other works, like, perhaps mixed media or chine colle? I have tried both, with poor results; the former was a little too busy and the latter a gluey mess!
It is worth noting too that I made a reduction board and it did need replacing half way through the process. I have learned that no size fits all but is vital to have a supply of board, close by to make a quick replacement.
My art teacher suggests when looking a a finished work that I consider the 3 ‘Fs’
Fact … Lino cut reduction using new press, oil based ink and Wash Safe ink.
Feeling … I am pleased!
Future … Lessons in ink mixing, Chine colle and mixed media
A successful exercise!
Silent Sunday
Saturday and a plea …
Christmas and the New Year have happened for me as planned, happily, without the hype and false and expensive generosity. Nonetheless, I am little disappointed as the parcels I sent in October to Brazil and those sent from Rio well in advance of the last recommended date have not yet arrived.
We will at some point celebrate their arrival on Skype.
It is a shame because this love/hate relationship I have with the World Wide Mail service all the year round is bearable ; in say February or any other time of the year; at the moment it hurts a lot.
So please can we speed up the service or have some realistic dates for sending to and from South America … no pressure on the Snail Mail.
So these angels send good wishes to those in the Mail Service for reasons best known to themselves are sitting on my parcels of love to my children.
Snapshot from my library …
Again I am away from the University Library and resort to my own library this time my Alphabet books. This one holds a special place not only because it is a gift from Rio; but because it celebrates some of the things I hold dear, creatively.
I have, with the use of a dictionary tried to translate the first letter of the abecedário (ABC) A is for Gratitude
Agradeço a deus por tudo
que até hoje tem dado
O brilho da poesia
que me faz sempre inspirado
Fui por este dom divino
escolhido e premiado
I thank God for everything
who has already given me the splendour of poetry
that makes me always inspired
For this divine gift I was chosen and rewarded …
Alphabe Thursday G is for Allen Ginsberg
Another notable street walker was the writer, Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). He began walking and writing poetry in San Francisco in the 1950s. It was in New York with the Beats, while the white middle class were leaving the city for the suburbs, when the passionate urbanist; wrote about the city’s harshness and beauty.
Ginsberg walked in the streets in New York, but in his poems they became something else; the sidewalk a bed, a Buddhist paradise and so on.
We are told in Howl that the best minds of his generation were “dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix” then go on to see those “who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night”
Then later they would stumble into the unemployment office and then there were those “who wandered around and around at midnight in the railway yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts …”
Wednesday’s all round Woman
Aurelia by Gerard de Nerval ; translated by Richard Aldington ; with lithographs by Pearl Binder 1904-1990) I came across the book quite by accident and was interested in Pearl not only because she a writer, illustrator, playwright, strained-glass artist, lithographer, sculptor and artist but champion of the Pearly Kings and Queens.
Pearl “Polly” Binder was born in Salford in Greater Manchester. Her father was Jacob Binderevski, a Russian-Ukrainian Jewish tailor who came to Britain in 1890 and soon after became a British citizen.
Binder moved to London 1918, and studied art at the Central School of Art and Design. Her works drawn from scenes of everyday life in London were made into lithographs. She published a series that illustrated The real East End by Thomas Burke, a popular writer who ran the a pub in Poplar at the time.
Binder’s illustrations are an intimate, first-hand portrayal of grimy London life in the early 20th century.
Weekly Photo Challenge …. Warmth
I am a skinny mortal, with little hair and low blood pressure so I feel the cold even on a sunny day. I don’t complain too much but I am usually the one wearing rather too many clothes and clutching a fine cup of tea to my bony chest!
While in Oxford on Saturday the temperature dropped to freezing; I know this not very cold by global standards but here in UK and me that’s cold enough. So, I welcomed this mint tea and refilled the pot couple times until I was thoroughly warm.
While in Brazil at the same moment by daughter was not enjoying the humid climes of Brazil.
For some reason she didn’t get my sympathy.
Monday and Happy Old Year!!
As the old year closes I look back at my accomplishments as an artist. It is a pretty much a mish mash of good, bad and indifferent. I have copious, drawings, sketches, prints and paintings; I have shown some and sold a few.
It is my dream to write and illustrate a book, also to have the opportunity to exhibit my work.
This much I have learned ‘it ain’t easy!’
The dreaming and doing is relatively easy; it is finding the space to show and showing is the hard bit.
I have begun a dedicated portfolio … I have given it a name and there is a theme …
I am hoping by this time next year I can say ‘it happened’
This is me having faith … always with a cup of tea.
Silent Sunday
Coat Hanger Doll's House 