whitneysweirdstuff

Self Portrait Photography

2012-02-02T06:23:00.000-08:00

Fooling round with the camera trying to get a picture of my new haircut . . . got two mirrors so I thought I'd try it that way first . . . . mostly what you get is your camera and not much else . . . .

a bit of positioning . . . I'm pretty short so I've got to make sure I get myself in the picture . . . changed the camera setting because the sun went in . . . a cold blueish white balance and gave the exposure a bit of a pop . . . . . defintely like this. Nothing done to these now except cropping

and then I began to be intruiged by the idea of this . . . " in the moment" as my brother Achim Friederich ( v talented photographer ) says. Can I capture a moment of truth about myself here? I can do this when photographing other people but is it possible to be open and honest enough to do this with yourself? Or will the very fact that I am trying to do this spoil it? Can you catch your shadow or a glimpse of your soul?

Maybe I didn't quite but i had a lot of fun trying . . . the one below is my favourite . . . there's mischief in that beady eye!

Then try the other mirror . . . . yes, I do know how to work the camera but I'm trying to see what I'll get while at the same time taking the picture. I love the restrictions of things like this, working within that to see what you can achieve. God, I look just like my Dad in this one . . . . I simply desaturated this one, nothing more.

A bit more tweaking with levels to bring out some contrast but actually prefer the one above . . . hmm, need to think . . . how to get better pictures, or rather more interesting pictures, how to get that honesty?

Whitney's Weird Stuff Print Giveaway.

2012-01-09T08:25:00.000-08:00

I suddenly got bored of tasteful muted colours and let rip with something a little punchier. My favourite word to describe in-your-face kind of colour. This one was built ontop of something else I did a while ago. Taking the idea of making things specially for Photoshop stamps from sewn paper bits to maybe something more 3 dimensional . . . grabbed a small box and an old roll of exposed film along with a letter from a dead keyboard ( we never throw anything away in this house!). I like the idea that I can use and reuse various components . . . expect to see these again then in different combinations.

This is called Angry Red Thing 'cos I was in a bit of a fractious, bored stroppy sort of mood. I get these restless period where I need to just be spontanous. Sod whether it works or not, sod whether I've got too much else to be starting something new. Just got to do it.

Strop over I decided that I really like that red . . . oh yes, could eat that off a spoooooon. This is all about the pain . . . . another reason why I was feeling fractious. There is, after all, only so much I can bear and be cheerful. Too much pain, too many drugs for the pain which after a while become some kind of variant of the pain because they make you feel like shit. The worst of that episode is over, thank god and I'll be back at the gym before long.

Now we could call this one 'Good Year for the Roses' or 'Splash' both of which would be crashingly obvious but then sometimes you get a title inspiration and sometimes you don't. Suggest a really good title for it and I'll send you a print, A4 or smaller . Leave me a comment and I'll pick the one I like best in about a week from now.

Oh well, here I was chucking in everything but the kitchen sink which is a great thing to do because you do end up with some pretty random combinations and you get to learn what works and what doesn't. For me this works. It is called ' I will love you forever' though with that eye it seems more like threat than a promise. I've been trying out a thicker scribble line, the black lines are just the standard round brush but thicker than normal. It works but I'm not 100 % happy with the way it looks so I think I will try and come up with something else that can make that kind of mark but not look quite so . . . . digital I guess.

The Street -Experimental Photography

2011-11-30T10:20:00.000-08:00

Sewn Collage Photoshop Brushes

2011-11-21T12:03:00.000-08:00

Now that my darling daughter has gone off to New Zealand I have been able to use her room to get some of my old collage materials out. Lord, some of them haven't seen the light of day for years. Tons of stuff, lots to be thrown out but lots to be re-aquainted with. At the same time I have been thinking about the idea of machine stitching on paper but without any real purpose in mind. I put a few pieces together, just randomly grabbing things from the pile. The first piece - a square of fabric, a piece of gessoed paper and a couple of scraps of coloured photocopies. The piece below, more coloured photocopy but scribbled into with pen.

This I scribbled with thread and then added pen. I thought the added pen would be overkill and nearly didn't add it but it does work. That's the thing with physical and not virtual stuff; make a mistake and it's not generally erasable. I've become spoilt and more than likely, lazy, from always working in digital media, being able to delete layers and erase bits.

Another photocopy and then a page from a book done years and years ago.

So I did all these little pieces and dragged some canvases out and played around with various different combinations but, while I liked them well enough, they didn't really grab me, you know? I kept thinking - so what! Little thought then goes trotting across the back of my mind . . . . so I go and scan them in, turn them into photoshop brushes ( simple tutorial here ) and BINGO! Now I like them! Here they all are on one page in my favourite combination of grey and cream . . . kind of spooky aren't they?

Then it was play time trying them out . . . . . this one below almost looks like a print of some kind.

This Cathedral one is the best piece I've done for a while, you know that feeling when something just comes together . . . I fiddled with the underneath for ages and then the last few elements just fell into place one right after the other. Sweet. Now, back to that pile of papers . . . I must have a purge.

Scribble Domain - new stuff

2011-10-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

I have, finally, got these notebooks done and listed here ( or should that be done and dusted? ). Nothing worse than a pile of stuff sitting there reminding you reproachfully that you still haven't made the time. They are satisfying to finish off though, a nice weight in the hand ( 50 sheets of nice smooth recycled paper ) and the colours have come out really well.

Add to that the print to go with the notebook . . . . .

And something new entitled 'The Moon behind the Clouds' a 10x10 print. I quite fancy this for our living room wall . . . . it just needs a nice matt black frame.

Something else I've been fooling around with, trying for a simpler line. I always start off simple but end up with something that is waaay more complicated that I planned. Like life really! This to me has Miro kind of quality to it. Not sure if I want it to actually be a print or not . . . . . gotta live with it for a while and see.

Oh yes and then this . . . . . I'd started fiddling around with a very vague pattern idea, just vertical lines to start with, trying to keep it loose, just seeing what components would look good totgether without any real thought to their placement. I have to work as spontaneously as possible or I just grind to a halt. Do it it rough ( and yes, this is very rough ) and then later work it up in best. Have also decided that I am going to do this in a half drop repeat. Which I'm not that good at doing yet. We shall see, it's going to be entertaining! Will let you know if it works out . . . . if it doesn't there will just be the sound of sobbing coming from in front of the computer . . . and not for the first time, I might add!!!

Have a good weekend whatever you are doing!

Portrait Photography - My neighbour Gill

2011-10-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

My neighbour Gill kindly agreed to sit for me . . . . it was such a lovely day, the sun was shining, we cleared a bit of space in her living room and chatted about this and that while I moved around her with the camera. I really enjoyed the session though she was quite upset by the pictures when she saw them . . . . . " I didn't know I looked like that" she said when she saw the wrinkles and lines. But this was exactly what I wanted to show . . . . that women are beautiful with and despite their lines and wrinkles. I'm so glad that I got the chance to take these pictures . . . if you knew her you'd see that I've captured something of the essence of Gill. I am sorry that they upset her so.

One of the things I'm trying to do is take pictures spontaneously, use the camera, the lighting, the setup just as is, just as I find it. Not quite sure where I'm going with this but I shall, as always, follow my nose and see where it leads me.

Ink blot Photoshop Brushes

2011-10-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

Having cleared the advancing tide of fabric so that I could do the first part of my Mandala collaboration with Shana I took advantage of the space to get some ink out and do a couple of ink blots to make into Photoshop brushes. I've been wanting to do this for ages and oooh, what fun it was to splatter . . . . . I used watercolour paper for this first one but cartridge paper for the second.

Watercolour paper again for the one above . . . .

and then with just a little ink left in the saucer I dragged a dry fan shaped brush along the paper. I wasn't going to keep this one, didn't really think it was going to give good results but so glad I did.

Once scanned in I desaturated the image and tweaked about with the levels, making a light, medium and dark version - being careful to save each version as well as the original! Pushing the dark end of the Levels takes all the midtones and most of the detail out of course but the heavier version can give some good brush results . . . . I've used all three levels of the same brush on the bottom half of the image above . . . . all on seperate levels so I can move them about if I need and then using a soft fuzzy brush at about 30% opacity as an eraser to just blend the edges together.

Here is the long streaky brush . . . looks way better than I thought especially when layered with another colour

Straightforward inkblots . . . . .

but this is what they look like all together . . . I used large dark ink brush at the top of the image layering it in black and turquoise. Gotta love the yellow though it's 'out of gamut' which is Photoshop speak for 'Holy Smokes you can't print that!!'

You can see where I've used the brushes in this piece below . . . . I used the lasso selection tool to make the tall rectangular shapes and the splatter ink blots inside that. A whole world of possibilities opens up does it not? My busy little mind is thinking of all the other paint/wet media techniques I used to use . . . . . .

In case you want to make some brushes for yourself here is my basic tutorial
on how to get started and another on building textures with brushes

In which I collaborate with Shana

2011-10-08T11:47:00.000-07:00

Something new, something really quite exciting . . . . a collaboration with Shana Goetsch on her Art that Circles the Earth project which is all about creating Mandalas . . . here is her blog post about me (gosh feels strange to be reading about myself ).

We each start a piece then send it to each other, add a bit to it then send it back. We do this twice before it's finished. I've been making virtual art for quite a while now, one reason being that with one room to work in and all the fabric for my vintage stuff ( Every Girl's Story ) in that one room there really isn't the space to get the paints out or the ink or the boxes of assemblage stuff. But this gives me an excuse to clear the table and get physical with some art. I've even splattered some ink around to make some new Photoshop brushes and boy, does that feel good! I want to try them out first but hope to share those with you during the week some time. In the meantime I've done the first part of my Mandala and it goes off in the post to Shana on monday . . . I'm going to be sitting by the letterbox waiting for the postman till hers comes winging it's way to me.

Scribble Domain - Mid Century Designs

2011-10-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, I have been busy, scribbling away, trying this, trying that. Dumping this and going with that. So, some new stuff . . . . . prints now listed in my Scribble Domain etsy shop. A new abstract ( above ), a very satisfying combination shape and line. It's not always as easy as it looks to get that balance just right.

Another print worked up from a scribble I did with a fineliner and a brush pen . . . . chopped up and reworked . . . . the one below is for a notebook cover. Paper is cut, all ready and waiting for me to print out the covers. I'm at a bit of a low ebb, energy wise so I'll have to get to that later in the week.

And my curiosity being what it is I thought I'd just see how that design looked on a mug. Only stuck on with bluetack mind, but I put it in the kitchen so I could look at it and was suprised to find that, despite being Modernist, italso looks good with pretty vintage stuff

The dark blue vase behind it has obviously been an influence . . . .

Then something completely different. Believe me when I say this happened completely by accident, it just made itself. I was only fooling round with a couple of shapes (honest guv) and before I knew it I had 'The Rialto'. Not what I was planning to do but I was so taken with it I thought I'd see if I could do something else in that vein . . . . cut paper shapes have now been added to the scribbles

The Temples . . . . . hoping these might evolve into a series.

The Rialto as a possible mug design . . . .

and lastly fooling around with The Temples as a stamp. Another notebook cover perhaps? I have all these printed out and stuck on my wall so I can live with them for a while . . . . got to let the ideas percolate for a bit, see what else happens . . . . .

Through a glass darkly

2011-09-17T07:06:00.000-07:00

The pictures I take are only ever a starting point, most end up as photoshop brushes and the rather crappy lo-fi ones from the last time are no exception. Totally unexceptional to look at just as they were they offered all kinds of possibilities once turned into brushes . . . like the one above. A few ideas . . . .

And then that rather dreary one taken the day it rained. I did add a bit of noise to this one, not something I usually do because it tends to look so obvious.

And a kind of sepia thing . . . I started with a dark brown background layer and chose a pale milky coffee colour for the stamp.

And then for good measure stick 'em all together and see what you get. Has possibilities I think don't you? Must get some more black card I'm thinking and try some more photos.

Lo-fi effects with a Digital Camera

2011-09-12T12:27:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the very Lo-Fi- DIY- Whitney-Way of messing up your photographs. Why would you want to mess up perfectly good photographs taken with your perfectly good digital camera? Because everybody is going with the Lomo-Holga- light- leaking- crappy-lens-oh-no-everything's-turned-yellow look, that's why. I can't quite commit to one of these cheap and nasty Eastern European or Chinese cameras and so I've been looking at various stuff online like how to use your SLR as a pinhole camera. Isn't that just the most exquisite joke?

Here are a couple of sites that will give you some idea of what these cameras can do -

Lomography , ephotozine article, Flickr Holga Pool,The Holga Darkroom.

I also found came across Jojo's Photostore which has lo-fi lenses for your SLR. I can only drool over the website and start saving my pennies for my bloved camera does not have a removable lens.

So, I start thinking . . . . . what if? What if I take a bit of dark card, cut a vignette kind of shape out of it and tape it over my camera lens ( being ever so careful not to scratch said lens ) ? I also played around with the exposure . . . picture above, overexposed, picture below on normal setting.

This one was taken on a really grey rainy day which worked rather well with the whole bleached out look.

And here are the two bits of card I was playing around with. The round hole started out as a pinhole but the camera just got confused and gave up so I gradually widened the hole and, um, got a bit impatient and ended up with a tear on one side. Was goingt to try that one again but I'd run out of dark card.

These are the pictures I got with the round ( ish ) hole . . . .

Quite fun I think, I especially like the blurring round one edge though I don't know what caused that.

Then a few days later I thought I'd try holding a glass up to the lens. Actually, I was just going to sleep when I thought of it and it was all I could do to stop myself leaping out of bed and running downstairs to try it.

My two different kinds of drinking glasses . . . . .

And this is what I got . . . . . . .

Kind of cool don't you think? I really, really enjoyed using the camera like this. Not sure where I'll go from here but it's made me think about taking pictures in a very different way

The Valley of the Shadow of Death

2011-08-27T12:38:00.000-07:00

Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy Rod and thy Staff shall comfort me. Give me the grace to go gracefully toward the unknown.

Scribble Domain - something old, something new

2011-08-22T05:43:00.000-07:00

I think it started with this or maybe even this . . . . long afternoons in bed with a fine liner and pad of paper, scribbling and doodling away. Kind of frees the mind. I've been wanting to get back to something cleaner, less fussy, more abstract. Like sorbet after a lot of rich food.

So scribbling on paper led me to start scribbling in Photoshop with the mouse. I love that slightly wobbly line and it's a fascinating and truly rewarding experience, trying to get exactly the right arrangement of lines and space. That is what all art is of course but this seems to resonate more deeply with me than anything more representional.

I wonder what happens when you take that scribble and do this . . . . .

Aha, you get one of those . . . . how interesting . . . ..

Hmmm, and now lets try this . . . . . I was very pleased with the results. In fact I was so pleased with the results that I put them altogether in an Etsy shop and called it Scribble Domain. I have already sold a print to a lady called Lisa who lives in the States and who very kindly sent me a photo of it in her living room. Tres chic, don't you think?

That was a few weeks ago but I've been playing around with some new shapes and ideas and I seemed to be getting a kind of a Mid Century / Modernist vibe coming through. Oh deep joy!!!

For these two I used oil pastel to do a shape which I then turned into a Photoshop stamp. Much cleaning of the scanner plate needed after that! I know, I know, I should have used a fixative and waited, blah, blah, blah, but I don't really do waiting. Maybe next time eh? So there we are, Scribble Domain, a new playground for me to try stuff out in. I will be trying out card and notebook designs at some point . . . . I do, in fact, have one notebook already listed and tons of ideas buzzing round my head.

The Goneness of Gone

2011-08-15T05:27:00.000-07:00

My father died a few weeks ago and I have been thinking ever since about the nature of goneness. Death is at once both very real and totally unreal. Even if you have faith, even if you believe they go to a better place it's still a pretty difficult thing to get your head around.
Somebody is there and then they're not, it's a simple as that. But it's not. Because they go on living inside you. The impact somebody has on your life becomes part of the very fabric of your being so they go on living despite not physically being there.

Great thinkers and poets and writers down through the centuries have pondered the strangeness of this . . . . I doubt if I'll come up with anything new, it's just my turn to think about, is all.

Strange Characters Indeed

2011-08-01T04:17:00.000-07:00

Hmmm . . . strange things happen when you leave them to gestate on their own . . . . .

A couple of very odd characters . . . . not sure what I'll do with them . . . I could list them as prints but would you want one of these on your wall? I wouldn't! Maybe small prints then.

This one is less disturbing than the others two . . . . more peaceful, more ethereal.

I'm out of just one or two inks again and must wait on the postman. At least with e-bay you know they will arrive pretty quickly. Still, just a teensy, weensy bit impatient . . .

Gestation

2011-07-26T05:02:00.000-07:00

At Night I Dream of Broken Teeth.

Long periods of thinking are essential to any creativity. The fallow periods are especially important; when nothing appears to be happening. We know this but forget. Winter is essential for plants to rest and store up their energies. Our natural cycles are mostly dictated by everyday life . . . work, families, shopping, cooking, socialising but there is always underneath that another pull and demand.

We home schooled our daughter for a few years in her early teens and once she had, so to speak, de-institutionalised herself, that natural pattern/cycle/flow became so much more apparent. There was an intense period of activity on a project or idea, followed by a plateau, followed by, apparently, nothing and then it would swing back round to the beginning. This was a rare privelege - for her to live like that for a few years and for us to see this happening.

I lose this perspective all too often. I need to tune myself to the right rythym, the best rythym and stop going against the flow.

Maybe this one ( above ) should just be called " Aargh!!". Too much fight, too much struggle. I find my creativity overwhelming, sometimes it's like staggering around with a mountain on my back. Sometimes I pull against it but it draws me back again.

Something gestational . . . . it's just not ready yet . . . too soon, too soon.

Nostalgia

2011-07-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

I've been working on these for a while now, slowly feeling my way, allowing the idea and the images to form themselves. I didn't want to look at it too directly in case . . . I don't know, in case it vanished perhaps.

Nostalgia . . . from the Greek nostos - to return home, and algos - pain. A form of regret, a longing, a seeking for. A sense of trying to capture the uncapturable which only serves to enhance it's bitter-sweet quality.

Not sure which of these two I prefer . . . I shall live with them for a while before deciding.

I will be listing these on Etsy in the next day or so.

Alien Barbie and other Dolls

2011-06-27T06:35:00.000-07:00

I posted this little darling, called Not-Bambi, on Facebook a while back along with a promise to dig out some pictures of some of the Altered Dolls I'd done years ago. There was a lot of other altered plastic stuff that got chucked simply because I didn't have room for it anymore but, with the exception of the picture below, these are all still with me. Not-Bambi is available as a 5x7 print as well as A4 and A3.

These characters used to stand on my desk . . . . .

This is a detail from a piece called Sacred heart II . . . . . chopping up dolls arms . . . is this any real occupation for a grown woman?

Oh, the trouble I had attaching the legs to this . . . thankfully they came from one of the cheap Barbie copies which were soft but the material of the ghastly silver handbag was hard. A hand drill to make the holes and then a curved needle and some strong fishing line did the trick. This was my daughter's idea which was unusual because she normally gets a bit freaked out by this kind of thing.

How many Barbie heads can you get in a handbag? Why would you want to? Well, why not. This has always made me laugh . . . .

Barbie as Angel? The local pound shop was selling these heart shaped bags . . . . I wish now I'd bought all they had because sadly they don't do them any more.

This is my absolute favourite . . . she sits and keeps me company while I work.

This was inspired by a bit of 1940's advertising in which the main tag line was " Who's a clever little woman then? " AAArgh!!! I used iron on transfer papers for the face and to copy the slogan from the paper to make it into a little apron.

The other favourite that keeps me company every day - I ought to find some kind of case to put her in lest she gets too dirty. She was such a labour of love . . . . I think of her as a Madonna of the Sea.

Well, this one is a kind of a St Sebastien . . . . I seem to remember this was about the worship of the body and of all things shallow and plastic. I sewed blue plastic birthday candle holders ( the kind you stick on a cake ) all the way round the edge of this with a large needle and strong fishing line. Absolute madness, looking back on it now!

I don't have a shot of this from the side but it is a bed shape with a headboard . . . a version of Sleeping Beauty and a comment on the restrictive nature of women's clothing/fashion. Lots more sewing with fishing line!

And lastly this . . . . Neon Dream . . . . I found the acrylic box somewhere - I think it must have held sample cosmetics originally . . . . all the little indentations were just begging for some plastic tat! So, there we go, a whistlestop tour round some of the stranger corners of my past work . . . . hope it amuses you as much as it did me when I made it all.

Doodling stuff

2011-06-18T06:30:00.000-07:00

It's all been happening and yet lots of nothing has been happening. I so badly needed time off, time to just play, time to take stock, to do other stuff and to get all my vintagey stuff listed on Every Girl's Story. Which proved to be a total marathon in terms of photographing, photo editing, listing etc. It's done now but then I've needed a couple of weeks in bed resting. God, I got bored! I just don't have an off switch and being idle doesn't suit me at all. One of the things I turned to was doodling. I've done this for years although I've never learnt to draw . . . . it's so soothing, the pen wanders and the mind can wander too . . . or wonder. I usually start by swirling a load of random lines on the page and then start to work into them . . . . like this first piece, just started and with lots of room to fill in.

Then I went with more boxy shapes and straight lines . . . . fun in a different kind of way.

Did this a very long time ago . . . not a very happy bunny that day, I'm thinking!

What the . . . . .? Who knows where this stuff comes from! I quite like him though . . . kind of a whale with a mustache and wavy hair.

This was doodled in Photoshop with the mouse which inevitably ends up being a much freer process because I can erase anything I don't like. On paper I use fineliner pens just so that I can't erase. It makes me commit myself to the line which is a good thing or I'd be fudging and erasing forever. So, quite productive altogether because it made me stay in bed and it generated something new ( more on that story later ). There is still lots churning around in my head but it's still a weird kind of soup . . . . will keep you posted.

Singing the Bones - Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin

2011-05-19T06:26:00.000-07:00

I meant to blog about this a while back ( apologies Phil and Hannah! ) but I've been ploughing through so much other stuff that I just lost track of the time. You might remember that I did some artwork for Phillip Henry last summer. Well, he and Hannah Martin approached me at the end of last year to do a cover for a CD they planned to do together.

We tossed a few ideas around and decided to start with a photoshoot. Don't we live in a fantastically photogenic place? Yeah, the only thing is that this was in January and while the sun may have been shining and the sky so blue, it was bleeding freezing!! There was a bit of a breeze too which was o.k when Hannah's hair wasn't being whipped across her face.

I did have an idea of the kind of shot I wanted so I just started snapping away . . . as fast as possible because I'm telling these two to relax and all the time we're all shaking with the cold.

O.K another kind of angle . . . . I love the breakwater wall along one side of the harbour here, visually there are such strong lines with the wall and the sea and the sky. After these shots we scampered back to the car as fast as we could to have a look at what we'd got; there was no way we were going to stand around in the very fresh air any longer than we had to! Some good ones but I wanted to try something else so back out into the cold and onto the little beach the other side of the breakwater.

Really like the sun flare behind them and the slightly bleached out effect in the corner there . . . . all these pictures are straight out of the camera, no tweaking at all.

Just stand and look at the sea, I said, be natural . . . .

I had to keep in mind that the final photos would be used in a square format and wanted to give myself the maximum choice when it came to cropping and using them . . . .

So, here we are, several months down the line with photographs worked into the final artwork. Let me quote Hannah on the rationale behind the title . . . . "Stories of the bone people occur in the myths and legends of cultures from all over the world. Although the details may vary, the story is always the same - scattered bones are collected, gathered together, and sung back into life again. Something that was almost lost to the world is preserved.
Many see the folk tradition in this light - as a preservation of the past. But in the archetypal stories, singing over the bones requires that the singer breathe their soul over the collected fragments. So in this singing, as in resurrecting folk music, something new is also added. The tracks of this album are the fragments we have collected together, whether they tell stories of home and family, myths, legends, or the bones of the land. We hope to sing the ghosts of the past into the present."
One of the songs on the album ( Lulle Me Beyond Thee ) is about a maritime disaster that struck Brixham in 1866 . . . again, let me quote the sleeve notes: " On the night of 10th January 1866, the fishing port of Brixham was devastated by what became known as The Great Storm. Over 100 men were lost at sea, despite their wives burning makeshift beacons on the quay to guide the ships back in." It was because of this storm that the breakwater wall was built. These are the elements that influenced what I put together for the cover; the photograph taken in the present day but with ghostly elements of the past . . . . any disaster at sea proundly affects the community here and the Great Storm still lives on in the consciousness of the place and the people.

My favourite picture made it onto the back of the sleevenotes booklet.

I chickened out of putting a design on the CD itself . . . I didn't want it to be too fussy and I didn't want to stick more stuff in for the sake of it though in hindsight I would have/could have added something on the inside of the cover . . . . ah, well, we are so very wise in hindsight. I finally got to hear Phil and Hannah play a month or so back. I felt terribly moved because I've known Hannah since she was 10 and here she was on stage, looking so beautiful and being so talented. And I got to hear Phil's voice. That sounds strange but he's not a man who says very much and when he does it's very quiet. I had heard his acoustic work but had no idea that he sang as well. It was a memorable evening for me. They are currently on tour, supporting Show of Hands and probably coming to a festival near you some time this summer. Check out their dates or buy the CD from their website philliphenryandhannahmartin.co.uk and get to see them if you can. I'll leave you with my favourite track of theirs . . . .

Fooling with the F Stops

2011-04-17T08:50:00.000-07:00

I've had this book from our local library for a few weeks now but it's so good that I think I shall buy it . . . it's on my Amazon wish list anyway. It covers how to photograph star trails, time lapse photography, creating your own bokeh, how to make your own lighting gear/accessories as well as some photoshop manipulation. There's also a chapter on toy cameras, Holgas, etc. A good book to get you to experiment with your camera then once you've learned the basics. I've read it cover to cover several times but only got round to trying anything out last sunday.

I thought I'd try panning. It's a technique that is usually used to capture moving subjects so that the subject is in focus and the background is blurred. Chris Gatcum, the author, however, uses it in a more experimental way. He reccomends using a tripod and looking for subjects that already have strong horizontal or vertical lines. In the interests of satisfying my immediate curiosity I thought I'd try just holding the camera. The idea is that you pan the camera during that long exposure while the shutter is open. I fiddled about with different shutter speeds taking it down to the very slowest my camera would do. The aperture settings are the f stops and confusingly the lower the number the wider the aperture . . . I've never gotten the hang of it properly. But then Justin de Villeneuve once said in an interview that he still didn't know what an f stop was and he seems to have managed all right. The aperture controls how much light is let in but then so does the shutter speed . . . . confused? Yep, me too. If in doubt try everything and again I fiddled about with various combinations . . . . .

These steps have a really strong shape to begin with , both horizontally and vertically. Wonderfully spooky looking isn't it?

Some ivy outside the house . . . . love the way the different greens take on an Impressionist sort of blur.

O.K. one F stop too far, way too much light and all the definition disapears. Shit photo eh? Well. let me tell you it makes for a very interesting Photoshop brush!

Back inside . . . the bookshelves . . . .

a corner of the living room . . . . I can't get over the ghostliness of it.

Ghost Cat has just entered the room on the left there . . . typically he was under my feet the whole time! In the end I found I had to swing the camera quite bit . . . . it kept trying to compensate for the movement. It was lots of fun, I'm going to get loads of new brushes out of this and I've learned that little bit more about aperture settings and shutter speeds. Get out there with your camera nd shake it up a bit!

Bird on a Wire

2011-04-06T04:35:00.000-07:00

I did the bottom piece some time last week. It is called Fear of Pain. Without realising it the top piece, though ostensibly quite different, is about the same thing. Is the bird falling down or is it going to swoop up and away from danger? Long term pain or illness generates fear and it's so easy to get stuck in a certain mindset which keeps you within the bounds of what you feel you can do. Unfortunately this only draws the boundaries tighter and tighter. Got to step out of that, got to fly.

Salvador Dali Tarot Cards

2011-04-03T05:09:00.001-07:00

I promised ( some time ago now ) to show you a few of my Salavador Dali Tarot cards. Even if you don't care for the tarot thing they are worth looking at just for the art work alone. They are quite big; 3" wide by 5.5" long with gold edges. What looks like a kind of brown border is also gold and the colours are sumptous. You really need to make a visual connection with any pack of cards and these are stunning. But weird. As you would expect from the master of weirdness himself. He plays fast and loose with the usual symbols that go with each card and really only seems to use them when it suits him. Like with the Magician card below. The Magician symbolises the mastery of oneself, the drawing together of higher and lower forces, the powers of the spiritual linked to those of the temporal world. Dali has cast himself in this role which is consistent with his towering ego. Of course it's all about the journey of the self, the individual so he's not really out of line. I guess it seems egotistical coming from him.

Dali often used his wife Gala in his work and here she is the Empress. It's a far stronger image than most Empress cards which can be a bit blond Guinevere and to my mind a bit soppy.

I love the use of paintings and then Dali's scribbling and over painting. It shouldn't work but it does; the fact that the Emperor has a long red beard doesn't get in the way of the image or the sense of power and strength he gives off.

I know nothing about how or why Dali put these cards together. Maybe it doesn't matter though I am intruiged by why he chose certain images over others. Being a surrealist he is likely to have picked them at random. Either way you can enjoy them as images or as aids to personal development. That's enough in itself.

In which my subconcious gives me an answer . . .

2011-03-17T03:46:00.000-07:00

O.K so I've stopped for a while and had time to re-assess. I feel I've really been able to see the weaknesses in my work. This is a good thing and not easy to do because normally one can't see the wood for the trees. The next thing that struck me though was a massive crisis of confidence. Not because of any perceived weaknesses in the work because those are things to be worked on, the next challenge if you like. No, it was more that I looked at what I'd done over the last two years and found it to be shallow and flippant. Oh, yes, I can do this or that technique and that's all very clever but that's just it . . . . clever doesn't neccessarily make a good picture. It needs more than clever and this is where I really fall down.

I used to make art about stuff . . . it was about identity/ the self, spiritual ideas, so on and so forth but I haven't worked like that for a long time. Lots of things changed, I was ill for so long without being able to make any art for one and by the time I came back to it, it was different. I threw out almost all the old stuff I'd made which was lots of handmade paper and bits of textiles and started playing around in Photoshop. Don't get me wrong, it's been great fun but at this point I find myself wondering what the hell I'm doing and why. Ah, yes, deep questions. What's it all about eh? I know of course that the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is 42 but what is the answer to my dilemma? It's been doing my head in I can tell you.

I had to download some pictures from my camera and was fooling around with them in a desultory sort of way though my heart wasn't in it. Before I knew where I was I had the picture you see above. Very nice, I thought and printed it out, more out of habit than because I particularily cared about it. Sat on the sofa, had a cup of tea, relished the peace and quiet before everyone came back. Looked at the picture propped up on the sideboard. Looked at the picture again . . . not my usual style, I thought. And then the penny dropped. Look at what it says Whitney. The Heart Asks Pleasure First. Oh, silly Weasel, you've gone and got yourself all tied up in knots because you think you ought to be doing this or ought to be doing that when really you need to be playing. "Ought" and "need" are two very different words are they not?

So there we are. I still want to leave things for a while but knowing me, it won't be for very long.

Till then . . . . .

Madonnas & Angels - in which some things work and others don't.

2011-03-03T07:45:00.001-08:00

As usual this is something that happened when I was just fooling around . . . I liked the Madonna figure but had no real idea of what I wanted to do with it. The just-fooling-around method is a good way to generate new ideas and is terrific when the accidental turns out to be really quite good but you do end up with a load of nearly-but not-quite . . . which is what this is. I liked the idea of her being not quite in the picture but that is negated by her being so large . . . . she does loom a bit. All my figures loom a bit and I'm not sure what to do about that. I started out as an abstract kind of artist and I guess I don't really have any feeling for or experience of figures in a landscape or scene. Added to which when I began making art I was fascinated by religious icons which explains a lot. My daughter says that everything I do looks catholic!

This Madonna was more intentional but it prints out way too dark. I have to leave it for a while because every time I tried to lighten the sky I lost the "just before dawn" effect. In the end I was too afraid to touch it in case I blew it altogether. If in doubt, leave it the hell alone Whitney!

If one is good then two is better . . . I call these The Heavenly Sisters which I really like ( more looming, notice ). I can't quite get the proportions of this right though I have gone from an A4 to an 8x10 background. Also the red doesn't print out the way I want . . . always way too dull . . . really I need to spend some time just fiddling about with printing reds but of course there is always something more interesting than that to do isn't there? This one I will come back to and try to resolve the difficulties.

Kind of obvious but fun . . . The Madonna of the Sea . . . no trouble printing these colours out, really punchy turquoise!

And back to my boys . . . . or the one boy correctly speaking. I do love layering but it can get too dense and you just lose the detail which is what happened with this angel. Judicious use of the erasor has definitely improved it. ( Notice how he loooms over the harbour! )

My absolute favourite so far. This was so difficult to get right . . . not enough body parts really but I persisted and I'm glad I did. I realise that this whole post might sound a wee bit negative but it's not meant to. I've had some time off from the digital art now and a bit of distance is good. For the last two years I have worked pretty hard at developing my art and feel like I need a rest; some distance from it to assess how far I've come but also where I want to go with it. It is always good to recognise one's weaknesses and the thing about not fitting figures into a landscape or scene is one of them. Wether I need to change that or not is another thing altogether. We shall see. More on that story later . . . .

The Hanged Man

2011-02-03T10:09:00.000-08:00

How very apposite that I should get this Tarot card given what I wrote about in my last post. I pick up the cards very rarely these days but I do tend to get numbers in my dreams, always presented in such a way that I cannot ignore them and often I wake immediately afterwards so that I register it conciously. The cards are not meant to be taken in isolation, every reading tells a story and the meaning of any given card will depend on it's place in the layout and the other cards that surround it, but this is what I'm given so this is what I go with.

The Hanged Man . . . . . a completely different way of looking at things . . . bound hand and foot one has no choice but to turn inside oneself for answers. To turn inside oneself is to turn away from the world and all its ways, to turn inside is to turn to the stillness where gradually one can begin to hear and see and feel clearly. An inward path will open up. To follow this is to walk the spiritual path and not the one the world at large would have you follow. The Hanged Man is also about sacrifice . . . sacrificing one's old ideas and ways of doing things and putting one's trust in a higher reality. It's a compass that doesn't point North but will still take you exactly where you want to go. Stop grasping, stop pushing, let go, submit your self, aquiese, all things will come to you.

One story that accompanies this card is that Odin in order to gain wisdom pierced himself and hung from the World Tree - Yggdrasill. This is from the poem Havamal

Wounded I hung on a wind-swept gallows

For nine long nights,

Pierced by a spear, pledged to Odhinn,

Offered, myself to myself

The wisest know not from whence spring

The roots of that ancient rood

They gave me no bread,

They gave me no mead,

I looked down;

with a loud cry

I took up the runes ;

from that tree I fell.

(The Runes were the key to Wisdom )

Shamans and mystics have often placed themselves in physically difficult or even painful places in order to aid their movement away from the world and the everyday way of perceiving things . . . think of the early christian martyrs on their pillars or in tiny huts out on the western shores of Ireland. The Hanged Man is a variation on this . . . luckily we are not required to go to such extreme lengths but the point is the same, to look at things in a completely different way in order to see that there is a different way. Finally one more detail . . . . re-read the last four lines from the poem above . . . Odin freed himself . . . the answer was there all the time, all he had to do was reach out for it.

I thought I'd show you the Salvador Dali version of the Hanged Man . . . he's taken the famous portrait by Sir Nicholas Hilliard and turned it upside down! They are an interesting pack of cards, visually stunning ( the border and edges are gold ) and quite, quite bonkers. Not a straighforward tarot deck, I got better results when I stopped thinking of them as tarot and just used them as divination. If you are ever in London on the South bank there is a small Dali Museum which has a couple of the originals of these cards.

If you would like more posts about the tarot, leave a comment and if enough people are interested the I sahll give it a go . . . I make no claims for being an expert but I can share what I know.

The Holy Grail of Being Organised

2011-01-24T03:37:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, being organised, being on top of things, being efficient, being really together. Like most people I have been chasing the Holy Grail of Being Organised for some good long time now and I'm no nearer now than I was when I started. Actually that's not strictly true . . . . I have put in place lots of good working practises ( that just sounds so good doesn't it "working practises" ). But still the Ultimate Goal eludes me. I am told by others that I'm good at organisation so I tend to think I'm not being organised enough and work that much harder at it. No, still not any nearer. My husband says that in school their teacher used to tell them to work harder and they would all grip their pencils tighter which I love because that's exactly what we all tend to do.

So where does it all go wrong? Well, I'm thinking the Holy Grail is a metaphor and those who went high tailing it off round the landscape thinking they'd find something real came a cropper one way or another, pure heart or no pure heart. Being Organised is a myth. It's not a destination which is how we tend to regard it. The key to finding the Holy Grail was to ask the right question and for that you don't actually have to go anywhere. What is the Right Question I hear you ask? The wonderful, lovely, elegant nature of this is that the right question is different for everybody. What is the right question for you, that's where it's really at (man). I'm a bit rusty on this these days but I believe the question was "why do you seek the Holy Grail?" ( and sadly not "what is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?", cos you could find that on Google). Yes, why do we seek the Holy Grail? You've got to love it, both general and personal at the same time. The answer to that of course depends on what The Grail means to you. And so on and so forth. Now you know why mystics went off to Be Alone in some wilderness or other . . . because this stuff just makes your head hurt. (oops, shades of Life of Brian creeping in . . . " How shall we f**k off, Oh Lord?")

I can feel myself rambling here . . . . grip your pencil tighter Whitney . . . . my point is, why are we giving ourselves such a hard time? The real stumbling block to the Nirvana of Perfect Organisation is Life . . . and, sliding off into a kind of a Bhuddist sidetrack here, isn't Life the stumbling block to any kind of Nirvana? Ha! ha! ha! Life happens and gets in the way and is messy and troublesome and hard to pin down and f****d up and crazy though it is also those very qualities that make it worthwhile. It's mostly like trying to play Dodgeball I guess and the best we can do is just do the best we can. (I'm thinking of doing a book of Whitney's Aphorisms, like Marcus Aurelius's Meditations but not so good. ) So, I think that my question for myself right now has to be "Why am I chasing that particular Holy Grail?" And maybe my personal Holy Grail should just be to be realistic and stop giving myself a hard time.

My love and thanks to Sharmon whose e-mails on the subject of missed deadlines made me realise just how crazy I was getting about this whole thing.

My love and thanks also to Monty Python for making life so much better and funnier.

And this is what I did with them . . .

2011-01-14T05:47:00.000-08:00

This is what I've been working on . . . . I do want to do t-shirts but I'm just being too chicken about it at the moment . . . want more time to think about it. Typical bloody Capricorn . . . if in doubt, sit on the fence!

But I've had the idea to do paper dolls/figures for a while so here we are . . . all still in the experimental stage of course. Photocopies on good quality card and worked into with gold paint for these two angels. I don't want to use digital paper and inks until I'm sure I can seal them with a spray varnish . . . they fade very quickly unless behind glass. Not sure I like the black card surround for the one above but you've got to try all the variations out to find what you do like.

I haven't even done the standy-up bit for the back of this one. Unfortunately the gold detail hasn't come out to well in this photo but I had to grab what light I could. I've got to invest in some proper photography lights this year!

I'm sticking to a fairly limited palette ( using acrylic inks ). The more colours I put on the worse it looked so I binned what I'd done. While I enjoy the eye popping colours you can achieve in Photoshop, black and white is my first love. For some reason, don't ask me why, I think of this character as The Dauphin. He looks a cheeky little bugger doesn't he?

An old favourite this one . . . sadly I've lost the original but have a good photocopy to work from.

And here we have Aiko in a little collaged paper number . . . dressing paper dolls . . . that takes me back! You can see how I messed up the edges of this one . . . the card was too thick and the knife not sharp enough . . . lots of trial and lots of error.

And then a fabric version of her . . . . none of these are very big, about 7 inches. I ordered more fabric transfers which arrived in the post yesterday so I shall be able to make more of these and list them for sale pretty soon. However I'm in the middle of another CD cover design at the moment so that takes priority. But I have these characters lined up on my table to keep me company while I work.

A Strange Angel

2011-01-06T09:43:00.000-08:00

I took this photocopy of a collage done last year some time . . . . . .

and photocopied this digital print of an angel . . . .

and scanned them in together and made a photoshop brush out of the whole . . . . and ended up with this . . . .

The moral of this story is . . .NEVER THROW ANYTHING AWAY . . . it may come in useful one day

And another one . . . . . I need to print him out in black and white and take him off to be photocopied . . . . I will be back soon. I have an interesting new way of presenting these which I want to share.

Alternative Christmas Carols

2010-12-16T05:07:00.001-08:00

The tree is never decorated until two weeks before Christmas, I simply can't bear tinsel fatigue. We've had this one in a pot in the yard for a couple of years now and it will never get any taller because I pruned the top but it is getting bushier year by year.

Madeline has had horrible flu but she dragged herself and her duvet downstairs and lay on the sofa while I faffed about with baubles and whatnot. Michael got very grumpy about the whole thing and went to sit in the kitchen but as the hilarity in the living room increased he took himself off down the road to his friend's house. A good arrangement all round for it was done and tidied up by the time he got back . . . we had even come up with a couple of alternative christmas songs . . . . . there's "O, Sparkly Things of Joy" an ode to fairy lights which will fit just about any christmas carol melody especially if you tack a few Hallelujahs onto the end for good measure. We didn't really have any words as such but we felt the idea was sound. Then to the tune of Jingle Bells we have "Gringey men, grinchey men, grinchey all the way, being their own sweet grumpy selfs right up till Christmas Day . . . oh grinchey men, grinchey men, grinchey all the way, we'll leave you home on shopping day 'cos you just get in the way" which has us in fits of laughter. And my personal favourite . . " B*****ks, I've fallen off the Christmas tree" . . . this one a response to having put the sweet little bird ornament onto the tree in such a way as it looked decidely tipsy. Mind you at this point we were getting so silly that anything would have made us laugh.

My camera doesn't like artificial light but don't these look pretty?

I got the idea from a book in the Library . . . . granulated sugar as fake snow in jars . . I just added some lace and a few tealights . . . oh and lots of pretty paper doilies.

I shall probably not post again before the New Year so I will say Happy Holidays to you whatever your faith/ inclination and I will see you again in 2011!

Angel of Serenity

2010-11-13T12:17:00.000-08:00

Dancing in the Moonlight

2010-11-13T09:12:00.000-08:00

It doesn't always have to be scary . . . or weird . . .

a Light in the Darkness . . . when all other lights have gone out . . .

Threesomes . . . .

2010-11-08T06:34:00.000-08:00

Occasionally I play around with repeats and a set of three is particularily attractive for some reason. I haven't really felt like doing any art for a while, mostly because I'm working out lots of things to do with my vintage stuff. Not just creatively but lots and lots of logistics. Don't get me wrong, I love working out all the practical details but when it's that full on it leaves little room for anything else. I find myself unable to read, justsitting in front of the the television every night. It can make for some strange dreams I can tell you. I've been toying with the idea of developing some of my digital art into t-shirt designs and have been noodling around on various sites using their t-shirt designer/templates. But then we watched a dramatisation of the Battle of Gettysburg and I dreamt that all these Civil War dudes in their uniforms and big wiskers were using the t-shirt designer to make up some t-shirts. Gotta love the subconcious! Gotta love that 19th century facial hair . . . these guys were pretty serious about their wiskers!!

Anyway . . . I started fooling around with a different set of colours on night and came up with the three Not-So-Angelic-Angels above. I have to admit I was very taken with it. The following night I did another three. I felt there was something vengeful about them, that they were coming for you ( despite not having the full complement of heads). The Three Furies came to mind. The Furies were the Deities of Vengeance and here is what Wikipedia has to say about them . . . .

"When the mighty Titan Cronus castrated his father Uranus and threw his genitalia into the sea, the Erinyes emerged from the drops of blood, while Aphrodite was born from the crests of seafoam. (So much nicer don't you think? ) According to a variant account, they issued from an even more primordial level—from Nyx, "Night". Their number is usually left indeterminate. Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three: Alecto ("unceasing", who appeared in Virgil's Aeneid), Megaera ("grudging"), and Tisiphone ("avenging murder"). ( a real laugh, these three) The heads of the Erinyes were wreathed with serpents (compare Gorgon) and their eyes dripped with blood, rendering their appearance rather horrific. Other depictions show them with the wings of a bat or bird and the body of a dog. Well there you go, that's ancient mythology for you, gruesome and ridiculous all at the same time.

Thought I'd try that colour combination again . . . . this time with head. I'm even more taken with this, I kept looking at it and looking at it, wondering where it came from. There is a strong element of the Archetypal about these images . . . well, maybe not the three cherubs though now that I think of it they remind me of the chorus of three little boys in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute. They too are Archetypal in that they are guides. So, there we are, something new emerging perhaps. I shall leave you with a snippet of those three little magical guides . . .

Strange . . .

2010-10-12T10:54:00.001-07:00

I'm thinking there's a slightly different feel to these two . . . not quite as flippant as the previous ones which admitedly are meant to be fun. God, I can't get enough of this orange at the moment, I could eat and drink it, I could bathe in it and wrap it round me. I need to get back to the printers who do the photographic prints for me to see if we can get the right orange printed . . . it was more brown the last time I tried for this colour. I would love to have this A3 size on the living room wall but know that my family wouldn't want to live with it.

Into the Valley of the Dolls

2010-10-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

Oh yes . . . now we are getting strange - tonight's play in Photoshop.

And now some weird stuff

2010-10-04T06:23:00.000-07:00

So what's going on here then? Been taken over by the surreal is what . . . . there I was being all tasteful with my vintage stuff when this lot happened. Very unexpected it was too. What started out as a swirl cut from a piece of coloured paper has turned into a mad looking plant with this print here . . . I have to say I do like the mad plant so there will probably be more incarnations of this . . . .

This one is entitled Guns and Roses for obvious reasons

And this one is called Show of Hands ( also an excellent british folk band by the way ) This new stuff is very liberating I have to say . . . I'm so enjoying the colours and the randomness of the whole thing . . . . sticking all kinds of things together to see what works. Some of it works better than others of course . . . this next one is nearly but not quite. I shall keep it and come back to it another time.

This one I like though I have to print it out to see if it really works . . . what you see on the screen doesn't always work in print. Waiting on some new ink cartridges though so it'll have to wait.

The red is too insipid here and the purple could be punchier . . . . back to the drawing board.

Now this one is a cracker . . . . using a rose stamp and dragging it across the page . . . good title for it would be "Roses are the Battlefield".

And last but not least another excursion into the weird . . . a kind of plushie using some inkjet printable fabric sheets I had. I loved making this, machine stitching, hand sewing, stuffing the stuffing in, seeing it take shape and oh dear, there is that love of kitsch again. Every time I think I've weaned myself off it back it comes. It's a bit like playing Thwack-a-Mole . . . knock it on the head and it pops up somewhere else!!

Sales Pitch . . . . the first three images are available as prints and cards in My Cool and Funky Stuff ( etsy shop ). I'm hoping to do more strange plushies in the near future so stay posted.

Portrait Photography Take II - The lovely Hannah Martin

2010-09-17T04:54:00.000-07:00

Hannah asked me a while back if I'd do a CD cover for her solo work. Talented girl she plays in The Roots Union and with Phillip Henry, with whom she also lives. Photographs would be needed so we tried to set up a date for me to go to hers . . . a roomy place full of light ( always a scarce commodity here in Blighty ) but about 25 miles away. Not so far you'd think but for me like trying to get to the moon. It would have been a bus, an hour on the train then Phil picking me up from the station . . . . taking photographs and then the journey back home. I was willing to give it a go but was pretty nervous about my ability to stay on my feet for that long. The day before I was due to go it rained, the light levels dropped and the clouds came thick and fast. We cancelled it . . . bad weather and lack of nerve on my part. Just as well really because the following week I attempted my first outing alone for about 3 years and I only just made it within the limits of my stamina . . . it's taken me about 4/5 days to recover fully.

Soooo . . . ( having made a short story long ) we decided Hannah had better come to me. I'm not saying I sacrificed anything at the altar of the Weather Gods but I was wishing and keeping my fingers crossed that the light would be good. I don't have professional photography lights and even if I did we'd have nowhere to keep them . . . . tiny cottage stuffed full of fabric, art supplies, bits of old computers that the old man is working on, you get the idea.

The next most important bit was the space . . . the living room is about 12 foot square. Put in a sofa, table, sideboard, chairs, tv and lots of books and there ain't a whole lot of room left. Mike valiantly moved all the movable items across the room and we had a plain wall. Excellent. Now we could start.

Here sit on this stool, put your hands in your lap, look at the camera . . . . just relax. We're used to pictures being taken what with mobile phones and digital cameras but it must feel different when the focus ( unintended pun ) is wholly on you. Or her in this case. How not to feel self concious? There were a couple of shots where the poor girl does look a bit stiff, a couple where she looks a bit worried and one or two she looks amused . . . this was probably where I was clambering all over the sofa and trying to keep my balance while keeping the shot in focus. Dignity, always dignity!

I didn't tell her to look at the camera and I didn't tell her to relax but we chatted away the whole time I was taking pictures. It's up to me to make the sitter feel comfortable and I've been lucky enough to photograph two people that I know well. The results exceeded my expectations and I have exactly what I want for the CD cover. Here are just a few . . . from about 35 taken in all.

This is my absolute favourite, such a clear gaze, such a direct gaze. I 've got the essence of Hannah there. And below my other favourite. I think there is something classical about her looks. If I were a painter I would want to paint her portrait.

The Night-time Loneliness of the Phone Booth

2010-09-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

If you read the other blog you will know that in an effort to improve my health, get my strength back etc I go out walking at night. Something very special about being out at night. Inevitably I took my camera out with me one night with some interesting results. I only took two shots because everything came out bright orange. Disapointing I thought until I tweaked it in Photoshop. Check this out here. Another trip out gave me some interesting shots. There's something strange and lonely about the car park, the street lights, the shops silent and waiting for people to give them life the following day. So far I've only played around with these two pictures of the phone booth . . . the first one cropped quite a bit - for me anyway, I usually use the picture just as it is. Both shots desaturated and tweaked a bit in Levels to push the black and whites.

Just a double stamp of the first shot . . white on black.

Gray on black . . .

Um . . . can't remember how I got this . . .

I haven't tried printing these out yet . . . I only did these last night and Saturday is taken up with housework, laundry, shopping etc but my mind is taken up with these images and the feel of them. I can't wait to try them out. More on this story later . . . .

The Killing Dreams

2010-08-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

Building a simple abstract with texture stamps

2010-08-11T03:19:00.000-07:00

There are many different kinds of Photoshop stamps/brushes, have a look round on the net, lots are offered free. Creating your own is easy . . .here is a basic tutorial of mine and then this one, more technical but well worth learning from Magpie Magic.

Take your camera everywhere . . . . even the most unprepossesing of objects can be transformed . . . . this is just to show how scale can make all the difference.

I started out with quite a small 'canvas' . . . . 300dpi as always . . . . . 5x5 inches square, a strong mid blue for the background. Often it's a case of pick a colour any colour and take it from there, chuck different combinations together and see what happens . . . don't think about it too consciously

Then in a really strong saturated red . . . . this stamp/brush . . . . I just love the effect of this

And this is what it was . . . . . . just a portion of the radiator grille of a car . . . . here the scale of it is everything. If I was using a bigger canvas I would use the transform tools to stretch it. Keep in mind you can't always get away with this . . it depends on the quality of your brush. Low resolution images do not lend themselves to enlargement! The original photograph of this car was taken in a high format so I can get away with stretching it quite a bit. Because I like the way this abstract worked out I shall experiment on just how large I can make this.

Ok, so I've got the beginnings of something but I've got some streaks of red at the top of the image here which I decided I didn't want so I switched to the eraser tool.

Using the eraser at 100% can be useful for taking out great chunks of colour but it leaves harsh ugly lines and I wanted something more subtle. I chose a soft fuzzy brush from the brush palette, set the opacity of the eraser to 20% and took out the red streaks in repeated sweeps of the eraser brush. Much better, no sign of the dreaded Eraser VPL!

And here we have a lemon . . . not even a very good picture of a lemon and certainly NOT a good selection of said lemon . . . I was in a hurry to try it out really . . . . thought I'd go back and do it properly once I'd seen what it was like.

BUT . . . . due to the transformative powers of Photoshop . . I give you a strange glowing planet hovering above a harsh barren landscape or not as the case may be. The dimples of the lemon allow the blue of the background to show through which gives the 'planet' depth and three dimensionality

Next up one of my favourite stamp/brushes - Clouds, this time in a pale green. This layer went underneath the red.

And again I softened the hard edge of it with a soft brush eraser set at about 20% which makes the green layer fade nicely into the blue. Red Planet with toxic gases rising from the surface.

This looks better in print . . . . like sheets of rain moving across the landscape . . . . I would probably go back and erase the shoulder of the vase on the right hand side of the image . . . see vase below for the stamp/brush used. I could have tried to get the lighting exactly the same on both sides for the photograph I took of this but I'd probably still be there now!

No, I like the accidental, taking shots and using them just how they are. Iwas looking at a black and white Henri Cartier-Bresson poster the other day and I found myself thinking, if someone had taken that now they'd have cloned that lamp post out and bumped up the contrast and done this, that and the other with it and totally ruined it. The accidental always has that element of suprise which in the end gives life and character.

And last but definitely least, because I don't like it, I tried the vase stamp/brush in a very pale blue. Having said that the pale does make nice swirly bits on the planet . . . . if that's what you're going for . . . which I'm not 'cos it's an abstract right?

Colour Layering - a bit of a tutorial

2010-08-02T08:26:00.000-07:00

I have had to have a tidy up you know . . . . image folders on my computer replicated sometimes in triplicate because I'm so paranoid about losing things and being congenitally unable to throw ANYTHING away. Going through the images I found myself looking at something I did a while back and wondering how I came by such a combination.

Everything I work on is saved as a Photoshop document which preserves the layers. When I print, I make a duplicate, flatten the layers and then print that because, yes , it has happened that I've flattened an image and then lost all sense of how it was made.

This then is the image . . . . regular readers may remember it, done in the middle of an experimenting-chuck-everything-you've-got-at-it phase. Again I'm working with Photoshop brushes/stamps. These are transparent which in the case of colour layering works to your advantage.

Years ago when I very first got Photoshop I hated the way everything looked so flat and digital and airbrushed. In fact I abandoned it altogether. I think finding out about the brushes/stamps was the key to my taking it up again. This kind of colour layering has a more satisfying depth to it and of course the possibilites are endless.

So lets work backwards then . . . .

I started with a sumptous tomato red as my first layer . . . . .

The went for a punchy turqoise for the steps . . . . as always this is a case of what shape works best rather than what the brush/ stamp image represents.

The next layer is black . . . this one with a bit of a gradient to it.

This is where, to my mind, it got interesting . . . . a stamp of green clouds just slightly overlapping the black . . . . . the bottom portion of the steps now takes on a deeper colour which helps to anchor the whole thing, the top half of the steps going to a lovely mottled green. You'd expect the sky part of the image to be greyer as red and green are colour complimentaries but somehow it's o.k . . . . bit dull though.

Then finally a pale yellow stamp of clouds on top of the black which lifts the whole thing and turns the 'sky' a faded orange.

Lastly I added a rectangle of green to the bottom to ground it again. Looking at it now I might just duplicate that green rectangle layer to make it even stronger. The moth I added later just for fun, because I like the Moth . . . the first time I used the Moth stamp I forgot to resize it and it filled the screen . . . . my daughter who was sat behind me on the bed recoiled and said "My god! it's Mothra!!" so this piece is nominally called Mothra Lives. Fans of 50's science fiction films will need no explanation, for those who have not seen this ( unintentionally ) hilarious film check this Wikepedia link or even better find a copy and watch it. I will be putting together some more posts over the next week or so on colour layering, stamps and textures so stay tuned . . . .

The Next Step along the Road

2010-07-22T12:47:00.000-07:00

I have been not-thinking and thinking about this through the week. The not-thinking takes place at a subliminal level but I've also been thinking about it in more obvious ways . . . . Jacob's ladder is what came to mind. I do remember a Victorian book of Bible stories when I was about twelve with a picture of Jacob wrestling the Angel which made a deep impression on me, and one of the ladder going up to heaven. I have these two mixed up in my mind, they actually take place in different parts of the Old Testament. I looked it up last night out of curiosity. There doesn't seem to be any explanation for why Jacob wrestled the Angel but the ladder connects heaven and earth and lo, there are a couple of angelic beings making sure I bloody well travel this road ( again) and that I don't slope off to do something that looks easier or more attractive. You might have to look carefully to see them but believe me they are there.

Anyway I am going to slope off now to watch some silly telly. Till the next time . . . .

My Cool & Funky Stuff - the new Etsy shop

2010-07-21T06:10:00.001-07:00

O.K here we are then, the new Etsy shop . . . . My Cool & Funky Stuff!

(Check out the previous post if you haven't seen the pictures yet.)

I've been working on two strands of my stuff for a while now - my art and then the pretty vintage stuff which is what the other blog has been all about. The vintage stuff I'd decided to call Every Girls's Story. All very well and good, the art is now listed in an Etsy shop of it's own, time to move Every Girl's Story forward to the same point.

BUT . . . but . . . there was something about it I was not happy with. Every new set of designs for cards, prints, notebooks etc would be printed out and stuck up on the wall for me to live with for a while and every time I found myself thinking it's nearly but not quite. Down they'd all come and I'd start again. Very frustrating but I couldn't ignore the instinct that made me do it. Never ignore your creative instinct!

So, what to do? I went back to the drawing board literally and metaphorically and took a long hard look at what I'd got; a folder on the computer with hundreds of designs. And what a mishmash it all was once I really looked at it! I think I'd gotten so carried away with being able to do all this stuff in Photoshop that I just chucked in EVERYTHING and my original idea/look/premise for Every Girl's Story just got lost. I don't regret having spent the time doing it because it's vital for creativity to develop and how the hell is it going to do that if you don't PLAY? I've had the most fun with it and I love Photoshop more than ever!!

Time to be ruthless I thought and began to weed out the sacharine and the silly . . . . back to my original premise. I knew I had it right because I felt it and felt a sense of relief. At last the niggle inside was satisfied. I was feeling wrung out but it was all looking much more tasteful.

So that should have been that right? BUT . . . . (oh gawd, here comes another 'but') . . . . I need to play!! I have likened my creativity before to a bunch of stroppy weasels. Girls may just want to have fun but WEASELS JUST NEED TO PLAY!!! So I decided to do something spontaneous and go with the Weasel playing . . . . hence the new and very unscheduled Etsy shop. If I run out of ideas or get tired of it or it doesn't work I can shut up shop. This is the joy of Etsy . . . it's just no biggie. I am going to be as silly and fun and playful with this new stuff as ever I want to be. Should have called it Whitney's Playpen but thought My Cool & Funky Stuff sounded better. I have a grand total of six items listed so far but mini cards and notebooks are coming up soon. I'll be blogging about it on the other site and setting up a Facebook fanpage so you can keep up with ALL my work, artistic, tasteful and kitsch! Do sign up!!

More on this Story later . . . .

2010-07-19T11:09:00.001-07:00

Just a taster . . . some new stuff obviously . . . and a new Etsy shop. Will be back tomorrow to tell you all about it . . . till then . . . .

The Dark Road Home

2010-07-18T13:23:00.000-07:00

Where does this lead and what is there in the darkness? This is the first component of this piece . . . I have no idea what comes next but will work on it through the week . . . .

Then this happened . . . .

2010-07-03T13:48:00.000-07:00

This is too much for me, these two pieces are tapping something very deep . . . I feel this viscerally . . . . it almost hurts physically.

Figure in the Landscape

2010-07-03T13:25:00.000-07:00

This just happened.

CD artwork & Glastonbury

2010-06-17T11:28:00.000-07:00

Fingers crossed everybody - we're hoping these stickers will be done in time for Glastonbury. Apparently everybody sticks them on the back of the loo doors! The instrument used for the design is a dobro - it's a special kind of guitar that has a single inverted cone resonator in it. I know, I don't understand what that is either but you can read all the wordy bits about it here What I do know is that it sounds wonderful especially the way Phillip Henry (multi- talented musician and all round good bloke) plays it. Just have a listen to some of his tracks on his Myspace page. He's going to be at Glastonbury on the Small World Stage on Sunday 27th June. If you're going to be there do go and see him - he is exceptional.

Then there's The Roots Union for whom I recently did some artwork for an EP they are putting out soon. I'd not designed a CD cover before but there were templates to follow and I happened to have exactly the right collage for it. A provisional title was 'From the Gutter to the Stars' . O.k it does look like the sun but we reckoned that it had a kind of supernova look and feel to it which fitted. The moth ( which we ended up calling Mothra ) was originally in a different position on the collage and he had to be very carefully pried off and scanned in seperately. Then I needed gutters and was out with my camera an hour before Hannah came looking for decent pictures of gutters. Do you know there are no more decent gutters anymore. Lots of double yellow lines of course. Oh, where are the gutters of yesteryear? Now that's a good title - maybe that could be the follow up CD.

Hannah Martin the violinist and backing vocalist with the band is my daughters best friend and it was she who came and sat by my shoulder ( most unnerving to work with someone watching you ) and helped me work out the details. There was a bit of a tight deadline . . . she phoned me on the monday afternoon and they wanted it by wednesday! I got it e-mailed off to the printers on thursday morning!!!
So this is the front cover and then there was the usual blurby bits, track listing etc on the back.

And then this image went on the inside and formed the pocket for the CD ( cardboard cover not plastic ) The background colour was this blue throughout - god, I hope it printed alright! Either way it was fun to do something different. Anyone else want a Cd cover designed?

The Roots Union are also going to be at Glastonbury on the Small World Stage on thursday 24th June and you can have a listen to a couple of their tracks on their Myspace page here

ACEO Collages - Mini Art

2010-06-14T07:34:00.000-07:00

Look what I discovered this weekend. It may be possible to work smaller than this but isn't this perfect? ACEOs (which I always tend to think means Almight Chief Executive Officer) stands for Artists Cards, Editions and Originals. They are small pieces of art - always 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches - which are sold or swapped. Swapping them makes the Artist's Trading Cards. It's not really confusing. After weeks of computer generated stuff I needed some cutting out and sticking down and so I thought I'd have a go at this. Deep joy - I love working this small, it's just so soooothing.

The first two sets I did on good quality card but these bottom two I did on mount/ mat board which I think works better - you can apply paint without it buckling. Each of these two below will generate a seperate set I think. This was just playing around. God, the mess I made! Even by my standards it was impressive.

Then I thought I'd go mad and do a 4"x4" collage also on mount board. The two ACEO sets I will list in Etsy just as soon as I can take some better pictures of them. I've already listed the new set of A3 prints and it took FOREVER. I've got computer lag now and need a rest.

While I was playing with all of this I thought why not make some pretty ones and having found some tiny envelopes that fitted just right I have decided they will be mini notecards with envelopes for the other etsy shop when that is up and running. Have a quick look here.

Decisions, decisions, decisions

2010-06-07T06:24:00.000-07:00

O.K so after a certain amount of doing nothing and a certain amount of pratting about I have actually made a decision with regard to this set of images. And because I couldn't decide which I liked better, the orange or the turqoise I have decided to go with both. What the hell, lets go mad. I can of course make the background any colour at all and I've toyed with the idea of offering more colourways and or even trying just black and white. Another idea for another day. This is hard enough without introducing yet more choices.

I have also chosen these three prints - the top one you've seen before . . . . the bottom two have a kind of ghost in the machine feel to them which is good because the title is done for me. I really really hate having to make up titles for work I've done. They always end up sounding poncy and pretentious to me. Occasionally the piece names itself and I am mighty relieved when it does because the folders on my computer are filled with things called 'Blue one' or Another blue thing'. Maybe I should just number them.

I'm hoping to offer these as A4 and A3 prints but just need to have some proof prints done first before listing them in my Etsy shop.

The Art of Procrastination

2010-06-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

Procrastination is a very important thing . . . . . indeed it is necessary to life. We need to give ourself space in which to do nothing but because very few people are able to actually do this we have developed procrastination techniques to compensate. My daughter reckons that smoking is a good way to just stand and watch the world go by, just take time out to think, especially now that people stand outside and smoke.

Meditation is an excellent way to do nothing as is having that second cup of tea before getting dressed. Staring out of windows is also good though it works best if the weather is either spectacularily lovely or pouring down with rain - it's kind of accepted then otherwise it's too obvious that you are doing nothing. Women in particular are not allowed to be seen to be doing nothing. One can always specialise in a particular kind of picking-things-up-and-putting-them-down-somewhere-else type of activity which is the art of true procrastination because it appears important and busy and is not. Alan Bennet, the writer, once said in an interview that he'd been known to clean the nozzle of the hand cream dispenser rather than get down to work.

I have been very busy, I have been diligent and finished things as well as started a whole load more but all this virtous activity is getting to me and I find myself overcome with lassitude. I have needed a couple of days procrastination . . . . and I feel I have managed this quite well . . . I didn't go to Torquay shopping today though I did sit at the bus stop for over half an hour before giving up and coming back home. I have sat in the yard and thought about how much the daisies need cutting back. I have teased the cat with a long piece of string. I have continued to pile one thing after another onto my work table in the full knowledge that certain things were unlikely to ever see the light of day again without the help of the Time Team. I have not taken the curtains down and washed them on the grounds that I'd then have to iron them. We have eaten a lot of pasta this week.

And rather than get on and sort out the set of digital prints that I started some weeks ago I have arsed about and done the silly picture above. Entitled "Look out behind you!" I then did these next two . . .. another day of this and I might be ready to finish those prints.

I leave you with the ultimate ode to procrastination . . . . listen and learn

How High is your Threshold?

2010-05-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

Spent ages the other week taking photos round the town . . . . all the tourists were facing the harbour taking pictures of the boats and the sea . . . . been there done that . . . I had my nose pointed in a very different direction . . . wanted something a bit grittier to add to what I'm calling my 'Industrial' pictures.

The fishing fleet here is still a going concern and European Union money means there is going to be all new facilties to service the fleet. The new building is still mostly scaffolding and just what I was looking for.

So, the photo above is desaturated and tweaked a bit in Brightness/Contrast to give it a bit more punch. Levels gives you a more subtle effect but subtlety is not what I'm after when making brushes so I tend to use the Brightness/Contrast. Usually I whack up the contrast even more than this and then make it into a brush but I thought I'd try Threshold for a change.

This is a minimun amount of Threshold . . . . takes all the detail out but give you a really contrasty look.

Then a bit more Threshold . . . .

And then loads . . . . .

Love the change in this image . . . . it's something completely different now . . . you can do this . .

Here I've made it into a Brush so that I can layer stuff above and below it. It now has a multitude of uses. I've discovered the wonderful world of Youtube Photoshop tutorials and definitely watched one yesterday that had something to do with using threshold only I was watching so many that I can't remember any of it now!! Bit like eating an entire packet of sweets in one go and then feeling sick!! What's my motto? That's right - if one is good then more is better.

The stranger the better . . .

2010-05-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

Soviet Era Roses? Who knows? Surrealism Rules! Actually that would be the subconcious rules then wouldn't it? I can only use these soviet images in a very small format because the person who sold me the CD of images saved them all in a ridiculously low resolution . . . something I only found out a good while later . . . when it was too late. More fool me. Not that I mind working small but would someone buy small? No idea if this would look any good printed out . . it's just a late night experiment and a very rough one at that. Please do not look too closely.

Random Red Sort of Chinese Looking Thing

2010-05-04T09:05:00.000-07:00

No idea what happened here - I had a hankering for red, proper saturated red. I also had a hankering for salt and crushed black pepper crisps but I sublimated it with colour. Actually now that I've mentioned it the hankering for the crisps is back . . . it means walking down to the shops which I can't do today because I am both lazy and in pain . . . not a good combination. There is nothing chinese about this at all but somehow the combination of colours makes me think chinese. I am having a whale of a time throwing totally random things together.

Dude, where's my Head?

2010-04-27T06:45:00.000-07:00

My brain has been so full of new colours, new photographs, new ideas, new possibilities that I'm wandering around in a bit of a daze. 'Like a tit in a trance' as we british say. Not exactly walking into walls but it's close. Barely managing to get dressed, have breakfast, think of something for dinner, write the shopping list, load the washing machine, talk to anyone. Mind you, nothing wrong in living in your pyjamas . . . it was good enough for Howard Hughes.

I've got about eight versions of this blue thing here, each one a tiny variation on the last. At this point I figure I'm disapearing up my own fundament and will leave it for a while. Splitting the creative atom is not going to lead me anywhere. I'm very taken with the strong shape of this but don't have the creative conviction to just leave it as it is so I go endlessly around the houses and end up right back where I started. Is it o.k to have something that is just so very simple?

This version has substituted colour for detail

This has more detail but then I don't care for it as much though I do like the colour combination. I know I'm being pissy about it but there you are.

Strong, strong shapes and colours . . . despite the representational details I am essentially an abstract artist. These are just as strong when printed out . . . it doesn't always translate. So far have only printed small versions but would like to have these as A3 or even A2 prints.

This was just a silly thing I did at the end of a very long Photoshop session . . . that mad pink thing in the middle is an old typewriter that I decided to take apart ages ago. I ended up taking a hammer to parts of it which was great fun.

Ha, Michael's body was bound to turn up sooner rather than later. I don't like the pale blue highlighted bit but I was getting pretty tired at that point. I'm kind of saving the body photographs . . . . it's simmering somewhere in the very background. Like a good stew you've got to let it be and not go poking it till it's ready. I will be taking more shots of him and his brother for a CD cover I'm doing for them. And possibly some T-shirt designs as well.

This has been the catalyst for this recent creative change. I'm bored I said to myself a few weeks ago. Don't get me wrong, I had plenty of practical stuff to do but my wizzy wizzy brain needed something new. The photos of Michael were going to be for his birthday - I thought I'd do a series of portrait shots/prints . . . funk them up in Photshop, something like that. But once I'd looked at what I'd got I could see the possibilities for using them in my digital stuff and then we started talking about CD designs and t-shirts. This was exactly what I needed, a chance to put myself in a completely different space creatively . . . . think hip hop, think male, think younger, way younger, average age what, 25? You asked for it Whitney!

Industrial Style

2010-04-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

This is a harder edge to what I normally do but I'm liking it . . . . . inspired by my photographs of Young Michael . . . . . we may be collaborating on a CD cover and as a result I've been in a different creative space. I tried this as a 10x8" . . . . being at first a little intimidated by the large area of blank colour above the buildings but it just didn't have the same visual punch and so I took it back to an A4.

Having the use of body shots is interesting for me . . . these look abstract at first glance to me but look again and the figurative element is seen.

Not so sure about this one . . . . I think it's me working on my usual principle of " if one is good then more is better. " Still it's interesting to see what you get when just layering random stuff together. What is really satisfying now is to be using so much of my own photography in these designs/prints. I do not think of myself as a photographer; the photograph is not an end in itself but merely a jumping off point. And I don't really draw, I've never really wanted to. What I do have now is my own creative/visual language. As I say, very satisfying.

Portrait Photography

2010-04-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine agreed to 'sit' for me the other day. Never taken pictures of people before and I was a bit nervous. I needn't have worried . . this boy is so relaxed in his own skin, so totally unselfconcious that he made it easy for me. Even when I practically had the camera up his nose he wasn't bothered. Even when I asked him to take his shirt off outside ( and it wasn't warm
out that day! ) he was fine. Results were way better than I expected and, creatively, I'm still taking that in . . . .

These are just a fraction of what I got . . . about 45 in all once I'd weeded the really duff ones out. They weren't all in the best focus but I can work with that.

This is a pretty ordinary shot . . . .

Doesn't black and white make all the difference? This is turned into a Photoshop brush

And then you get something like this . . . .

Incredibly excited about the possibilities of all of it, I can feel something new bubbling away.

Am going to dive down the rabbit hole after this . . . all you'll see is my feet sticking out of the monitor as I go after it . . . . . . .

A quick p.s picture . . . done just now in Photoshop . . .

How exciting . . . blog mentions

2010-04-14T05:44:00.000-07:00

No sooner had I listed my first jar assemblages on Etsy than one was mentioned on this lovely blog here which was terribly exciting because it's the first time it's happened for me. I'm also very easily excited by things! Then this morning I find my work/blogs mentioned on this blog here. Crikey, I only found this lady a day or so ago . . . she's all the way over the other side of the world in Tasmania. How cool is that? This is one of the things I love about blogging, the connections to people all over the world.

Now I must get over so much excitement and get down to Doing Things.It's not going very well today, it's almost 2 pm and I've managed to do precisely nothing. Well, I did do the shopping list and eat enough cranberries and cashew nuts to make myself feel slightly sick and load the washing machine and look out the window at the sky. And check my e-mails, go on Facebook, read other people's blog, that kind of thing. I guess we all need days like that in between all the creativity. Till the next time then . . . .

One Door Closes . . .

2010-04-05T09:48:00.000-07:00

I made a decision . . . the Dolls, altered and otherwise, had to go. This wasn't undertaken lightly; I have a great sentimental attachment to these horrible plastic creatures, but I knew that their time had passed. This last year, since I've been able to work again, my art has gone through many changes. I've been paring down and refining so much and now I feel that I've finally arrived, not where I want to be, but where I want to begin from.

But the Dolls had to go, so with a heavy heart I began to throw out. The box of dolls and body parts under the bed was pulled out and one by one they went into the bin. I felt a bit weird while I was doing it ( god knows, I hate to throw anything away!! ) though of course it helped if I didn't look them in the eye! It represented a commitment. Which felt like a huge relief once I'd actually done it. I felt almost physically lighter. And I then felt able to move on and make something new.

The rough idea for some of these I posted last time but here are the first three to be finished. There was a fair bit of just working out the practicalities of how to put the bits together. And a fair bit of me thinking 'I must be crazy putting things in jars, a box just isn't good enough for you eh? Trust me to choose the hardest thing' etc, etc, etc. But it somehow suits what I want to do. I tried the box thing and it never really looked convincing. So here we are, little assemblages in jars. No doubt they will get more elaborate as I go along and gain confidence with what I'm doing. I am going to list them on Etsy tomorrow. I'm too weary to tackle that right now.

And then three new collaged canvases. Which would also be listed on Etsy if only the nozzle on my brand new can of spray varnish hadn't clogged. I'm so cross, it's a big can and not cheap, only been used once. Yes, I always turn it upside down once I'm done and spray out the spare varnish but it seems to have clogged anyway. I know this because I ruined a set of notebook covers with horrible blobby varnish before I noticed. C'est la vie.

I am, however, pleased with how these came out. I worked as spontaneously as I could. I absolutely have to work like this or I get bogged down. I also cannot make art 'about' anything, I've tried that and I end up as clogged as the can of varnish. Once a piece is finished it may or may not tell a story but it has to be accidental on my part.

So, one door closes and another has opened. More varnish will be bought and and LOTS more work will be made in the coming months and years. I feel like I'm on my way!

Weird Stuff - Assemblages in Jars

2010-03-07T12:02:00.000-08:00

With my penchant for Victorian taxidermy, it was only a matter of time before this happened. O.k. so no stuffed animals but it has overtones doesn't it? I tried putting stuff in boxes but it never looked convincing somehow. This manages to look quite different while only changing the container. I do so like the idea of small strange worlds. So far everything is just balanced precariously in the jars or stuck with blutack. This was just to try the idea out , proper sticking comes later.

I took a chance on photographing them with just the daylight bulb over the desk and one in the overhead light, just as a starting point. Mixed results but better than I hoped.

It's going to be entertaining working out the practical details of how to fix everything in. I already have a jar lid soaking in something on the kitchen window sill to try and get the paint off. I saw Madeline look at it askance yesterday but she didn't say anything. Probably afraid to ask!

To be continued . . . .

Mamy Rock - my new Heroine!

2010-03-05T04:39:00.001-08:00

This has absolutely made my day, possibly my week and even the year!

I'd read a short paragraph about Ruth Flowers in the back of the paper about a week or so ago and thought yeah, this sound great, but there was very little detail given. And then I found this story on her today. What an inspiration . . . she's a 69 year old english granny who has made a new career for herself as a DJ.

Going to her grandson's birthday do at a club, the doorman said to her "I don't think you want to go in there Madam." To which she replied "I rather think I do ". That just cracks me up! She loved the energy of the music and the people so much, she decided to become a D.J. Under the guidance of french producer Aurelien Simon she spent four years leaning to use the decks. How many people half her age would have said, no, I'm too old to start learning that now?

Bloody marvelous I say! It really is never too late . . I'm going to tatoo that on my forehead so that I see it in the mirror every day ( although if I don't pay attention and tatoo it backwards I'll just be looking at gobbledygook every day!! ). And I am going to stick her picture on the wall for all those days when I get discouraged by too many technical details or failures, too much pain, too much grind and not enough joy.

I leave you with a youtube promo while I go and stick some VERY LOUD MUSIC on to further remind myself that it ain't over till the old lady rocks!!

Chungking Express

2010-02-28T14:39:00.000-08:00

You know how it is, something you see or hear sparks off an association. Bleubird Vintage blog had posted pictures of Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and Papas a week or so ago. The Mamas & Papas – California Dreaming – Chungking Express. So absolutely is that song woven into the film that the two will be forever linked in my mind.

The director Wong Kar Wai had become bogged down in the editing of his epic Ashes of Time ( 1994 ) and wanted to do something more immediate to get his creative juices flowing again. It worked; after Chungking Express he was able to go back and finish editing Ashes of Time.

Chungking Express is a film of two stories that connect by the finest of threads; mere degrees of separation between people.

In the first story Cop 223 ( Takeshi Kaneshiro ) pining for the girl that dumped him tries desperately to find someone to spend the night of his birthday with, phoning everyone he can think of, comfort eating, obsessing superstitiously about the sell-by dates of tinned pineapple, and in the end swearing that he’ll fall in love with the next girl he sees. In parallel Brigitte Lin in blonde wig, dark sunglasses and belted raincoat hustles a group of Indian drug mules. For the briefest time their paths connect.

The camera work in this first half is fast and atmospheric, the feeling often urgent. Set mostly at night, it takes place along cramped alleyways and market stalls, tiny kitchens and sweatshops with the wonderful Dennis Brown track “Things in Life” pumping along over the top of it all. Here is a clip from that first half . . . I'm afraid that I could only find one dubbed in spanish but it really doesn't matter.

The film turns from the first story to the second with just one line of dialogue. Cop 223 goes for a takeaway coffee and literally bumps in to Faye ( Faye Wong ) who is working there.
“At the closest point of our intimacy we were just 1 cm apart from each other. Six hours later she fell in love with another man."
Cue Tony Leung as Cop 663 strolling into view as California Dreaming starts to play. Sounds corny? It could be but it’s not. It’s just perfect.

Cop 663 is also pining for a woman who left him. In his apartment he confides in his shirt, his soap, the towel, convinced that they miss her as much as he does. Again, what could be smaltzy is done so naturally and so well that it’s believable and tender and humorous.

Every night Cop 663 turns up at the fast food takeaway where Faye works and orders the same thing while every night Faye is blasting California Dreaming from the stereo. Every exchange between them is awkward, tentative.You wonder how on earth these two are going to get together. So much in this film is about the things that nearly happen and the difficulty people have in making connections with each other.

If I tell you more I’ll spoil the plot which I would hate to do. Suffice to say that when Tony Leung’s ex-girlfriend leaves a letter and the key to his apartment at the takeaway for him, Faye decides to take advantage of this.

It is a slight film in many ways but full of subtle humour, very, very stylish and not easily forgotten. I don’t care for Wong Kar Wai’s other films which tend to be portentious but this is in my list of Top 10 favourite films. I'll leave you with this clip from the second half of the film . . . enjoy.

Meanwhile . . . .

2010-02-20T15:35:00.000-08:00

On the other side of the tracks . . . . . .

Another strange interior

2010-02-20T14:59:00.000-08:00

Another strange interior from another strange day. What sort of world is this anyway?

Black Heart

2010-02-20T07:32:00.000-08:00

A variation on the Dodgy Valentine idea from the other day

Notebooks

2010-02-19T06:21:00.000-08:00

I have some new toys which I have posted about on the other blog . . . stuff I can make notebooks with. And while I was trying them out I thought I'd make some for the Etsy shop. They are A5 size with 50 pages of recycled paper. Hopefully that's a good journal size.

I have in fact messed up the wire binding for this one and will have to take it off and start with a new one and I was way too tired yesterday to finish this one. Anyway, hope you like . . . . .

Heart of Mine

2010-02-17T14:10:00.000-08:00

A Dodgy Valentine . . . . this Heart of Mine.

MY NEW ETSY SHOP!!

2010-02-10T06:30:00.000-08:00

Cue the Halleluja chorus . . . . I've finally done it and am totally worn out from sitting in front of the computer for the last two days listing all my stuff. One thing I learned very quickly was to cut and paste the info into a Word document as I went along! I was working between five windows at one point; the pictures I was loading, the Word document, Etsy, the Royal Mail price list and a currency converter. Serious multi-tasking there. I'm never too sure about prices . . . .somebody says " How much? ". I say "ooh, I don't know, a fruit cake and two cows?". Mostly I'm just really happy if someone likes a piece of work. Do go and have a look and do let me know if you think the prices are outrageous.

Goodies to give away!!

2010-02-02T03:39:00.000-08:00

This is for the first anniversary of my other blog . . . . these goodies to be won . . . . check it out on What Whitney Made Next

ALIEN VS. WHITNEY

2010-01-31T12:29:00.000-08:00

In front of the Monitor no-one can hear you scream!

This strange device is a Spyder - a monitor calibration device to give me more accurate colours for all my digital stuff. I love the way it just hangs there and flashes it's little blue light. . . but just a little creepy too!

The good news is that Cable Man ( my husband ) finally managed to get this straightened out for me. I was going nuts with all this techno stuff. For heaven's sakes, all I want to do is CREATE!!

I've not done anything really creative in a while and seem to be affected by SAD. No, that's not Seasonal Whatsit Disorder, it just means I'm being a sad bastard and drifting round being bored, frustrated, unfocused, irritated, irritating, whiney and generally a pain in the arse. Oh and I've got a long list of things that I need to be doing. But need and should and ought to aren't really doing it for me at the moment. Probably what I need is to chuck some paint around.

The Field

2010-01-27T13:08:00.000-08:00

On the inside looking out? Or through the frame into somewhere else all together? There seem to be alternative worlds/realities cropping up here and there. This is first rough draft.

Night Boats - modified

2010-01-25T12:33:00.000-08:00

This first one was way too wiggly; kind of made you feel dizyy looking at it. There was just too much information in the original photo so I went back to my desaturated version and cloned a few details out. I'm not very good at this I have to say but there was enough texture going on in the picture to cover it. From this modified black and white I made a new photoshop brush/stamp and stamped it onto a new layer over the first one. Much better but now it was too plain especially on the left hand side so I used a soft erasor brush set at 15% and erased both the pale layers just a bit to allow the brown background to show through. Painting with the erasor in effect.

The colour is still a bit too pink for my liking but I'll make adjustments to that. Right now I'm waiting for my latest purchase - a monitor calibration thingy that will allow me to set the colours on my new screen properly. Till then most of what I'm doing is an approximation colour wise. This is very frustrating; all I want to do is get on and create but for weeks now I've been wading through geek sites finding out about monitor calibration and colour management and god knows what else till my brain feels like it's turned to porridge!!

What a lovely day it was

2010-01-25T04:59:00.000-08:00

I did something absolutely unheard of yesterday and WENT FOR A WALK! I've been doing exercises at home for the last year now but I've been told that I have to take it to the next level to increase my stamina which is pretty much non-existent. The sun was still shining after lunch so I picked up my camera and trotted off. It really is stunning here when the sun shines. In the background of the picture above you can see a few large tankers on the horizon. In bad weather there are loads all sheltering in the bay. I wanted to get a good shot of the little lighthouse on the end of the Breakwater but even with the zoom this was the best I could get. Tonally it's a bit flat. I shall have to do a bit of tweaking, shall have to do a bit of dodging and burning perhaps. Sounds like something you'd do during a riot doesn't it rather than something quite innocous done while sitting at the computer or in a darkroom.

I walked all the way round to Fishcombe Cove . . this is Churston Point and Cove . . . Madeline has swum with seals here in the summertime.

The camera doesn't really do justice to the colour of the water here but I love the gradation of tone. That's Paignton on the far side, a proper english sea-side town . . seedy, full of old people (all sea-side places are popular retirement areas ), houses painted in ice-cream colours, slot machines and arcades, Fish and Chip shops, shops selling garish and cheap inflatables and candy in all manner of improbable colours and shapes. And tacky postcards of course. It's a love-hate thing.

And this was Fishcombe Cove late afternoon . . . .

These steps and doorway lead up from Fishcombe beach . . . such strong shapes . . they will no doubt end up as Photoshop brushes and somewhere in one of my pictures.

As will this rock detail ( or 'wock' as my grandson calls it )

Of course my poor old knees and hips and ankles hurt like mad today ( my toenails are o.k.). I shall have to go out again this week to build up some tolerance. Keeping my fingers crossed for the weather.

Night Boat/ Night Photography

2010-01-21T08:47:00.000-08:00

Way back when I first got my camera I took it out at night, just to see what I could do with it. Follow the road right down from our house until it comes to the harbour and you find yourself looking out over the fishing fleet - such as it is. It's not much these days but we do still have one of the few working fishing fleets in the country. At night it's all lit up and I took a whole series of these pictures, fascinated by the way the lights looked on the long exposure.

I was bored the other day and decided to have another look at them.

Just a simple desaturate looks good I think. But I made it into a stamp, a very pale colour on a brown background. How weird it looks, a ghost ship perhaps. I'm really liking this and though I've made my print choices for the Etsy shop, I'm tempted to do a couple of these.

I've just had another look at this last picture, not sure if it isn't too jiggly/wiiggly for the eye. I might have to take some bits out.

Grey Landscape prints

2010-01-14T06:28:00.000-08:00

The new computer is now up and running though I had no idea you had to download so many drivers and updates and just how many cables there could be coming out of one box! Thank god for Cable Man ( my husband )! He actually knows how do all this stuff. The new monitor is awesome and the printer is just dead sexy. What can I say, I 'm a very happy girl.

My choice of prints for the Etsy shop is pretty much final, just a little bit of tweaking perhaps. These four landscapes are in . . . I decided to just keep these simple, no fancy bits added. There is always the temptation to embellish everything but sometimes you've got to have the courage to leave it alone. Let the image speak for itself. I'm hoping to have these available in an A3 format which should look really good. I'm off back to Photoshop, got an idea for something . . . .

Six Degrees of Seperation

2010-01-07T11:54:00.000-08:00

Six degrees of seperation . . . . from Karl Marx to Groucho Marx? Anyone care to try?

It started like this . . . . . we're sitting around after dinner, drinking tea, chatting, Madeline reading some piece of legalese from work. ( she's a paralegal for a firm of solicitors )

Mike: You'll have to take that in to work tomorrow and tell them there is no sanity clause.

Madeline: Most people wouldn't get that, Dad.

Mike: Everyone knows the Marx Brothers.

Madeline: No-one of my generation knows them. They probably think they're siblings of the man who wrote the communist manifesto.

That's it, you guessed it, Karl Marx and his funny brothers, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo.
Question . . . Did Karl Marx write the communist manifesto before or after his brothers emigrated to America?

The joke about the sanity clause is an old family favourite as is the film it comes from the Marx Brothers' Night at the Opera. For those of you who do not know this wonderful piece of comedy here it is.

My birthday morning

2010-01-06T09:18:00.001-08:00

To begin with it started far earlier than I'm used to. Thought I'd sneak to the loo and then back into bed for another hours snoozing. How these cold mornings bring out the dormouse in me! But Mike called up to look out of the window and once I'd seen the snow that was it, I was thoroughly awake. O.K so you've seen loads of other pictures of the snow on other peoples blogs but this is Brixham for heaven's sakes. It just doesn't snow here, it's so mild we still have jasmine blooming a few doors away. The sight of all that pristine whiteness is still as exciting as when I was a child; we lived in Bavaria (Germany) and when it snows there it can be 6 foot deep overnight. It reminds me of the Dylan Thomas book A Child's Christmas in Wales. Here is a short passage from it . . .

" 'But that was not the same snow ' I said ' Our snow was not only shaken from whitewash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely white-ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunderstorm of white torn Christmas cards.' "

Then I came down to tea and toast and we put the fairy lights on because it was still quite dark outside. We had these left over from the christmas tree and I just draped them over the stacks of books. Madeline has been doing a little origami and her Crane has found a home here on top of the pile. She reckons it looks more like a pteradactyl. There are now several of these around the house as she keeps practising.

And here on the shelf above the book stacks was a row of origami lotus flowers along with birthday cards and my first present. Madeline had arranged this before she went off to work this morning and had written Happy Birthday in japanese on a card. ( She's going through a japanese phase at the moment, watches lots of anime on her laptop )

So we sat and drank our tea and watched the snow drift down while I contemplated no longer being in my late, late forties but a full round 50. Hmm . . . I've had a whole year to get used to the idea of it coming but still not sure I've quite got my head round it. It's an age that other people are, not me. But I am. And I have a feeling it's going to be an interesting an eventful year.

A dreary old end . . .

2009-12-31T05:15:00.000-08:00

I can't stand these last few days of the year, the decorations start to look a bit droopy, the weather is grim, grey and cold and I really just want to get on with the New Year. So tomorrow the decorations come down and the tree goes back out in the yard. There's so much to look forward to this year and so much to look back on from this last 12 months. I'm working at getting my two Etsy shops going, I have my lovely new printer which makes the most beautiful prints and we're going to upgrade the computer. A new graphics card, a bigger hard drive, more memory, this thing's going to go like the clappers! And a new monitor. Mike is still thinking about the best way to do this and what bits to get and I'm hopping up and down in the background going "Can we get it now? Have you decided yet? When can we get it? When?"

But I'm also being diligent and sorting out what prints I'm going to sell. Hate making such choices but I'm trying to whittle it down from 30 to about 10 or 12. Some of the digital stuff I've done during the last year doesn't look that strong once it's printed out and I've got to be ruthless. But these two pass the test . . . part of the series on interior objects.

So, onwards and upwards . . . . I hope the coming year is a splendid one all round for all of you who have followed my progress so far and a big thanks for all your encouragements . . . Happy New Year.

A moment of peace . . .

2009-12-23T05:04:00.000-08:00

In all the rushing around, take a moment to sit and listen to this . . your spirits will be soothed.

Have a very Happy Christmas and may the New Year bring you all that you wish for . . .

Party Girls !

2009-12-22T05:55:00.000-08:00

I found this old card when I was going through my big box of pictures the other day - perhaps they could use it as a poster for the Drink Awareness campaign!!!

Iris and Bowl

2009-12-11T07:34:00.000-08:00

Sunshine,lovely sunshine

2009-12-11T06:19:00.001-08:00

The weather has been appalling even by english standards. But yesterday I woke and the sun was shining, the sky was blue and the seagulls were wheeling overhead. I grabbed my camera and headed down to the harbour. All the way down to the breakwater was a bit of a stretch for me and my joints were complaining big time by the time I got back, but I'd been out for about an hour and had sooo much fresh air. I slept like a log last night - a good 10 hours.

It really does look like this . . . .

Just keep working this Leaf thing

2009-12-09T05:24:00.000-08:00

I wasn't happy with the way the brown leaf abstracts looked when I printed them out. The very thin lines that look like stitching look very digital when printed up at A4 size. Hhmm . . . what to do next? Well, Karin left a comment that said maybe they could be preliminary studies for something that would later be handmade. O.k I thought, lets actually stitch into them. So, off I went to the local Library and photocopied the pieces I'd printed out. I'm a great fan of photocopying . . . ironically they will probably last longer than anything digital printed out. . . the toner is more like burnt into the paper. And the great thing is of course that they can be coloured and cut and glued and stitched. After a brief play I had something that looked like this. . .

This is the only one I've hand stitched but it's enough for me to see that this will work.

These have a rough watercolour paper as a base and I've used a rough indian paper that I painted ages ago. I love indian papers but always paint them because you just have to look at them the wrong way and they fade or worse, leak colour.

I cut the leaf out of the middle of this photocopy but then picked up what was left and thought 'oh yes, I like this'. This is what works so well for me and abstract work, the sheer randomness of it. Just let your hands do the cutting and your eye do the rest. The trick is, I think, simplicity. But just the right amount of simplicity and knowing when to stop.

These are only rough and I want to let the whole idea settle before starting to put together final versions. Thank you to everyone who has commented on these. . . I was ready to give up on the idea after the brown ones but your comments have spurred me on.

More abstracts . . .

2009-11-30T13:01:00.000-08:00

By George, I think she's got it!

2009-11-29T06:20:00.000-08:00

This is so strange . . . I've not done anything abstract in digital form before and I can't get over the feeling that these should have been made by hand, with paint and gesso and scraping back into the colours or handstitching the lines. It's a very peculiar feeling but I think I like these.

Now that I have some time when I'm not sewing or making jewellery etc I'm going to devote some time to this. I've got half a web site done for my art . . . how lame is that half a web site?

Well, it feels lame. Come on Whitney-Anne get your act together!!

More strange leaves

2009-11-25T06:45:00.000-08:00

Except the big round leaf now looks like the moon. It's leaves Jim, but not as we know them. This, again, is nearly but not quite; I'm feeling my way very tentatively towards something. A way for me to do abstract. I have to put up with the stomach flippy feeling but I'm prepared to go with that because I'm intruiged. I printed out quite a small 6x4 ish version and then one at 10x8 ish and got two different tones; the first was quite purplish and the second the nice dark gray I'd intended. Nothing quite like a printer with attitude eh? The older it gets the more attitude I'm getting from it. . . . but then there are people who might say the same of me. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Guess what Kate Moss . . . these taste better than thin feels

2009-11-23T12:31:00.000-08:00

In no particular order . . . .

1. A glass of cold milk and a peanut butter sandwich. ( a childhood memory that one )

2. Ice cream ( of any description ) eaten while watching a good film. Popcorn ditto.

3. Sunday dinner with your family.

4. Birthday cake, eaten with loved ones and family.

5. Cookies still warm from the oven made with your little girl while the kitchen is still covered in flour and pastry cutters.

6. My mother's cooking .

7. That first proper grown-up meal you cook for others.

8. Cold apple and pork sausages.

9. Fish and chips eaten straight out of the bag preferably while sitting looking at the sea.

10. Indian takeaway on a sunday night with a bottle of very cold beer. ( occasional family tradition usually accompanied by a Kung Fu film ).

For those of you who may have missed it, Kate Moss, Very Thin Model, Fashion Icon and role model to many a young girl was quoted as saying this week that her motto for living was that "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels." Wow. Kind of irresponsible given that she has a young daughter. Kind of irresponsible given her high public profile. Kind of irresponsible given that so many young women feel tortured about their bodies. Kind of irresponsible given the young model who died last year from starvation.

Food is about nourishment of every possible kind, emotional and physical. What makes food taste really good is the people and the context.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE FOODS OR FOOD MEMORIES ? You don't have to write a Proutian novel, just leave a comment . . . .

very strange leaves

2009-11-19T04:27:00.000-08:00

This looks far better on the screen than it does printed. I was so taken with it that I printed it out straightaway but it was way too dark and a lot of the detail was lost. However, (says the artist in search of an idea) , I think I've got something here. Not the idea about interiors that's been trickling around at the back of my mind. This is completely out of nowhere. Except I had been thinking vaguely about natural forms. Not that there's anything natural looking about these. I think I would call them ' The Sentinels ' I shall let this sit for a few days before doing anything more but it does speak very much to my love of the abstract.

Foot-Stomping-Ass-Kicking-Life-Affirming Music

2009-11-17T03:52:00.001-08:00

This is what turned up on an old party tape that Mike was playing just before he went out this morning. I waited till he shut the door, rewound the tape, turned the volume up to 11 and totally threw myself around the living room. Throwing shapes doesn't even come into it!! Hell I wasn't nearly 50, I was 15 again!! I highly reccommend it, that was my whole aerobic exercise for a week. There's a time and a place for whiney Indie songs but every now and then you have to remind yourself of why people dance in the first place and I reckon this is it. Check out the guy on guitar right behind Little Richard - this dude is really moving and the sax solo is just pure sex. No wonder stuffy parents were worried for their children's morals when this stuff came along. . . Would you want to leave your teenage daughter with Little Richard on a dark night? I don't think so . . . he's one bad looking cat.

Any other nominations for similar tracks? Let me know and we can post them/vote on them. O.k, hot and sweaty signing off and heading for the shower . . . .

Artist in search of an idea

2009-11-11T10:04:00.000-08:00

At last a little bit of time and the headspace to pootle about in Photoshop . . . my hands are stiff from so much sewing and jewellery making but it's all going off to the gallery/shop on sunday to go in the window so the end is in sight. Big sigh of relief.

I've called this picture Portrait of a Chair . . . there's an idea trickling around ( or congealing maybe? ) in the back of my mind. Something to do with interiors, the spaces inside the house, the furniture, the pieces we surround ourselves with and their uses and familiarity. I think. Not suprising really given how much time I have spent indoors over the last few years.

I took some more pictures of the chairs and some other things in the house to this end and have now lost them. I had so many photos saved as Tiff files that the hard drive was sagging a bit under the weight and Mike advised me to move them all to the second disk. I spent a whole sunday afternoon moving, saving and deleting and now, like any good tidy up. I can't find a bloody thing! The light is atrocious at the moment because the rain has set in here and when the rain sets in in the West Country it can go on for weeks without a break. So, have to wait for a reasonably bright day and then re-take all those pictures.

I'm aware of the fact that I've been playing at this digital art thing for a while now; brand new discovery, finding my style and so on but there's no real consisitency in the pictures I do. What really brought that home to me was my starting to sort out a website so that I can sell some prints. Looking at what I had so far . . well, it was rather patchy. So, in a round about way I guess I'm an artist in search of an idea. Or maybe just an artist in search of some consistency

I was also playing around with turning this necklace into a stamp and came up with this rather silly thing, just a bit of fun. I love this Dove, he's so pompous looking. I keep trying to work him into a design, perhaps for a note book or set of cards . . . . .

Some Progress . . . .

2009-10-26T05:34:00.000-07:00

Having hauled a lot of my old painted papers out and had a play about, this is what I came up with - in rough , you understand, just to see how it would fit together. The white background in this box is a piece of canvas which I'd gessoed and sanded endlessly to get as smooth a surface as I possibly could. Because of it's stiffness it curved when I stuck it into the box which I rather like. The black and white image in the middle is a photocopy of a photograph - no recollection of where it was taken. Photocopying reduces the image to very stark and contrasty black and whites, you do lose the mid tones. But I think this works, the combination of painted papers, photocopies and . . . and what? Anything else I can lay my hands on.

Then this . . . . the middle image, a photocopy of the sea at Brighton taken about 20 years ago. I stuck this on the only surface I really had. Might go for a smaller canvas but again I think it works.

There is a problem with this kind of work though. It comes from a very different place in me, somewhere very deep indeed. All of the work that comes from this deeper place has a certain extra something. I've had this canvas on the wall in the bedroom where I can look at it and I can't stop looking at it, it just draws you in. Working like this is a physical ordeal; it can make me feel almost faint because I feel it so intensely. It's always accompanied by, literally, a gut feeling; a churning of the stomach, butterflies so intense it's like electricity.
I had this one time standing in front of an abstract in the ( old ) Tate Gallery in London and had to leave before I fainted. It's just a hyper sensitivity and I haven't felt it for a long time. Being ill knocked the stuffing out of me in lots of different ways and then I did stop making work that did that to me. So it was a bit of a shock to follow the creative tugging at my sleeve and find myself right smack up against the same old feeling. Maybe all I did was go round in a circle and meet myself face to face again eh? Lord, this is a funny old game. Always challenging and forever interesting. Where I go from here I do not know but it has the inevitable feel of the Immaculate Mountain to it. I think I might just sit here and look at it for a while.

Old work . . . .

2009-10-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

Or . . . . In Which a Compromise is Effected and Peace Restored . . . actually in which I worked my butt off yesterday; mocked up a special card for my grandson's birthday, worked out a design for my mother's christmas present, prepped the best part of another three satin drawstring bags, did my accounts for the last month, worked out paper templates for three new fabric items, cut and pinned the stiffener and sorted out the fabric for said three new items, cleaned the bath, vaccummed the cat and made a huge quantity of pasta sauce. For me that's a gargantuan amount to do in one day. What it has done is buy me a bit of time and headspace today to pay a ( provisional ) amount of attention to the thing that's been tugging at my sleeve.

I love my creativity but at times it seems there's too much of it and try as I might to discipline it, it will keep overflowing. It gets a bit tidal wave sometimes. It gets a bit like trying to stuff a bunch of stroppy weasels into a pillowcase.

With the sun shining I managed to get some pictures of some of the papers I used to do. This textural kind of thing is what has been in my minds eye. But I stopped doing this years ago. I'm amazed I've still got any of it left because I pulled apart and threw away tons of old work and only kept a few personal favourites. I just don't have the room for it here. ( Note to Self - must buy very large house sometime soon before the walls burst.) What happens next I don't know. I can whinge and whine all I like but it is as it is and if it needs attention paying to it then it does. Notice I'm doing this instead of working on this problem!! Love blogging, the ultimate displacement activity!!!!! Right o.k. another cup of tea ( the english always have another cup of tea when any crisis looms) and I shall sit and have a think about this . . . . I leave you with pictures of yesteryear.

Not a Happy Bunny

2009-10-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

This is me throwing my toys out of the pram . . . . . . not very happy, very frustrated and got myself tied up in creative knots. It's not often that I allow levels of frustration to get so high, or rather to get to me but I have to admit to wanting to stamp my feet and generally throw a hissy fit. I've been getting a feel of something creative, it floats about at the corners of my mind, and superimposes on my vision at times. But I cannot follow where it is beckoning me. Trying to get stuff made for my friend Nicky's Gallery shop for Christmas ( see other blog ) to avoid the mad rush of last year so I'm up to my eyeballs in satin and threads and bits of lace and ribbons. Make more jewellery she says to me today!!!! Argh, where to find the time and or the energy. I still need time to rest each day or I burn out. God, this is turning into a right old moan isn't it? Then I find some other creative gear in me trying to shift and I just can't give it the room. All my work space is set up for sewing and all that goes with my trying to set up a creative business . . . put paint and canvases into that and you've got disaster. I have no canvases I can use and no room to store work of that kind. Added to that I am getting the urge to make something big when I've always worked small!!! Some of what I can feel and am getting the urge to do harks back to work I used to do years ago . . . . and that's got me confused. It's like the lid of Pandora's Box has creaked open just enough to feel the force of what is trying to come out and I'm sitting on top of it hoping I can keep the lid on!!

Meditation MK II

2009-10-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

This is much better and actually comes quite close to what meditation is like on the inside. It's the same picture with the figure taken out.

The Most Beautiful Song in the World

2009-10-07T03:37:00.000-07:00

Doing a bit of swopping/sharing between the two blogs . . . . put the tutorial on the other blog and thought I'd put this here. I defy you not to love it . . . I don't know wether to dance, laugh or cry hearing this . . . so beautiful . . . . thank you to my darling girl who played it for me . . . . .