Aliens and Knitting
I went out for a couple of drinks last night and went to bed late, pondering in the darkness the three (work in progress) painting I had hung on the wall downstairs to evaluate, some promise but all falling short of the mark. That crocodile that other thing I am after, the words to say it, that expression, response. I imagined it bursting out of my chest like the alien in the film.
This morning with the school holidays starting tomorrow family coming for Christmas etc, I am thinking more practically about how to keep some work going over the next couple of weeks. I am planning on taking the knitting approach. When I was young I remember my mum always sitting in the evenings with some knitting or sewing on her lap. So I will do the same with some small lino cuts I have been planning. I just need to get the images drawn out onto the blocks and I can whittle away tray on lap with the family, tv on, glass of wine. I have found in the past working this way even if I only get 10 mins here and there work gets done.
I just hope my alien doesn’t burst out all over the living room and make mess on Christmas day, not that anyone would probably notice!
Last week I felt compelled to do something I do about once every 10 years or so I made a self portrait. There is an idea rumbling on in my sketch book to do with fragmentation and self image and this was a kind of beginning/exercise to get into the ideas and see what came out of a traditional-ish self portrait. I have been monoprinting a lot so I did it as a monoprint. The result disturbed me I was having a bad week anyway. When my partner saw it he looked at me suspiciously and said what made you do that. Good question I thought. The fact it was a print made it disturbing, with a painting I would have gone back in corrected the fact that the eyes are doing different things tidied it up tried to make it better or just painted over it. I painted the plate and choose the point to stop and make the print; I don’t like to retouch my mono prints so that was that. Also because it was painted from the mirror then mirrored back in the print it’s a view of self I am not used to. It may or may not have palace in the work I am hoping to do but I wonder if the fact it disturbed me so much made it successful on some level.
The mono print made me think about how I wanted to be seen. I like a lot of people hate to have my photo taken but I found one I quite liked and played with it against the print. In the photo I was happy I had just been sketching and the rain had come and washed it all away. Although the sketch was lost it had been one of those precious moment s of joy and connection. That was how I wanted to be seen.
I include an image this is likely to be the only place it’s ever seen!
I have been trying to finish some paintings that I have on the go I want to push them as far as I can, to that golden point just before I kill them. I have no idea where that is at the moment, I keep falling through the floor, it’s a computer game thing but pretty much how everything is going this week!
I am finding the monoprinting is helping a great deal when I move over to canvas I can hold some of the way I handle the paint on the glass. Things are bump along; I work as much as I can but Birthday and Christmas prep, domestic crisis and a bad back are trying to stop me. I shut my eyes and see a brush stroke; I sometimes think painting occupies my thoughts more than it should.
I have also been getting a bit of a bio together for next year’s East Cheshire Art Fair it’s a big biannual event and if it’s anything like last years it should be fab. I have trouble writing things, I am dyslexic so even with spell-check these things take me longer. I have little confidence writing which does make me wonder why I blog.
I am continuing to paint on glass for monoprinting. I like the quick build up of wet paint and the stickiness the printing medium gives it. I seem to have a confidence and a directness that I am loosing when I move over to larger canvases. I am giving them a heavy ground to reduce the absorbency, although I am thinking of getting some wood or gesso panels to try, maybe a bigger brush a different painting medium. Oh I love to play with paint! So what of the subject, I often feel it is more about the seductive qualities of the paint but I want (think I want) my marks to describe something, water, sand, sky, lichen, rock, light, mood, feelings. I can’t quite believe I have got to this point and feel like I am starting out brand new. Is it the beginning of something or am I having some sort of mid life crisis. I feel like what I am trying to do is so close I could just reach out and touch it. Then the paintings would flow out of me like water from a broken dam. Think I better shush and go get that big brush.
I sat in my studio space last night….stopped, but time is precious do something! I used some old paint left over from a monoprint I had done in the afternoon and slapped it on a canvas that I may know what I am doing with…
I have started working on some monoprints from the reference I have. My thinking is that I can experiment a bit more with smaller works, the medium will keep me quite loose and stop me getting hung up on the detail before I know what it is I am trying to get at. Another reason for this is its messy painterly and I had forgotten quite how much I love working this way. I think I will continue to play with some of these images and see where it takes me. I already feel like I am loosening up. I am also interested in trying to portray the viewer (me) in some way…maybe a toe or an elbow or maybe this belongs to another project I have on the back burner.
