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10 January: Looking the other way

10/1/2021

I’m not even going to mention the start 2021 has made already, it’s really packed a punch. Let’s just hope what comes in like a lion goes out like a lamb. As for yours truly, blame it on that and the cold weather if you will but madam has become ever more lazy and loathe to leave the snuggledom of a hot water bottle under a duvet. However, drawing bricks has become a thing again in my life after a 7 year hiatus, and here is an experiment. I’m not sure this blog goes back far enough to link to what I was doing in 2014 but if it does I will link here. (No? Maybe I’ll mention it in the next entry). I’m sure it has nothing to do with new lockdown and staring at walls. Nothing much has changed there for one like me who loves to stare into space or watch paint dry, but some may find a resonance!
This week I changed the alarm on my phone to Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. It’s a Tune!

I was talking about getting stuck a few weeks ago, and I know something that seems to work for most is the simple art of doodling. Preferably on the phone or watching TV when the brain isn’t engaged, some interesting things can come out when you’re looking the other way. They can often go into work or even lead to totally new things. I cut out my favourite doodles and paste them into a notebook.

29 December: A shining star for 2021!

29/12/2020

It's mid-festive season already, and the New Year is approaching fast. So far Christmas has been a five-day pyjama party for me, hurrah! I wonder if I can make it last a whole week? Probably. I'm not proud, and quite happy to answer the door and take in grocery deliveries wearing PJs.

It is a very peculiar time. Everyone here took the Bank Holiday in lieu of Sunday's Boxing Day very seriously, and it was so quiet here, aided by the weather which was dark, windy, freezing and brought ice and snow overnight. This morning the back garden was so snowy and icy the dog slipped down a gap by the fence and had to be rescued - no harm done, except she was very cold and I had to wash her jumper and dry it on the radiator. That's the level of excitement here, and I'm happy for it to be that way!

Can anyone imagine what Hogmanay in lockdown will be like? I'm curious to see what will happen. I'm afraid I'm rather boring, preferring a quiet night in with Jools Holland's Hootenanny (if I manage to stay up that late) and a glass of fizz to any amount of partying, so probably not so different here ...
Anyway, I hope you are finding something to make you happy and rejoice even if your plans were spoiled, and I wish you all a very happy 2021.

20 December: Time Flies

20/12/2020

It's impossible to say why I have run out of time so much that I didn't get around to a journal entry this week. We are only having a quiet Christmas, so I thought there would be nothing to do! - but never mind, I have been collecting ideas for how to move out of being stuck and will start posting again regularly in the New Year.
In the mean time, here is a picture of one of my favourite Christmas decorations - a phone box, which seems appropriate as a reminder of the way most of us are all going to stay in touch over the festive season this year. It will be FaceTime and Zooms all across the land! I hope that you have a fun-filled holiday even if it isn't what you hoped Santa would bring, and that you make all the best of it.

13 December: Getting stuck

13/12/2020

Ugh, getting stuck. Who loves that feeling. There are ghastly times when work hides behind a curtain while fire-fighting and just struggling with being alive is all you can do; it happens, and that’s okay. It takes time to heal and it’ll fade into the background. But what about those other times, when everything is apparently fine and hunky-dory - but the bogeyman comes to visit. He settles into your brain like a bleak, growly fog just when art should be proliferating, and all your efforts get scrunched up and hurled into the bin.
Take heart, that can be a project in itself.

Images, clockwise from top left:
Latifa Echakhch Globus (b) 2007
Martin Creed Work No.88 1995
Ívar Valgardsson Watercolour 2011
John Chamberlain Penthouse #50 1969

4 December: My notebooks

4/12/2020

It’s time to talk about ... Notebooks!
After a busy few weeks of card-making closely followed by Folktale Week on Instagram over at my Binky McKee Illustration account, my notebooks had become rather neglected and deranged, and I felt the need for tidying in time for the new year. I always have several books on the go at the same time which I dip in and out of for years, collecting and adding ideas. I photographed six current ones opened at random pages in my work room this morning. The oldest dates back to 2009. Over time they acquire affectionate nicknames, which I labelled above.
You might notice one small notebook is named ‘The Messy Drawer’, although most of them are pretty messy, and The Messy Drawer isn’t as messy as the Book of Materials. I think it refers mostly to my thought processes rather than its appearance, as it was the originator for my Confused Flags series for Brexit. The Book of Materials contains scraps of experiments with different media such as wax, inks, oils, metal leaf, and drawings made with unlikely instruments. All my finished works originate in these books one way or another, and there are usually two or three open in my desk with a large one on the floor as I work.

‘Fairisle + Form (Ol’ Scruffy)’ is probably the one I would have to save if there was a fire. I don’t know how I would begin again if there was a fire and I lost them. I think I would dig around in the ashes, retrieving anything recognisable and make the ‘Fire Book’, resplendent with singed edges and scorch marks. I imagine it would have an unpleasant odour and get renamed ‘The Smelly Book’.

They should all probably be locked in an iron safe, but then they wouldn’t be part of my life any more. And I’d probably forget the key code.

27 November

27/11/2020

October 1st’s entry in my calendar reads: “Make Christmas cards by Hallowe’en”. There is a reason for that: although early October seems still to belong to late summer, it takes an abrupt turn half way through and Hallowe’en is definitely the gateway to winter followed by everything associated with Christmas. And I forgot Folktale Week was in November. It’s happening right now, and in spite of having had one whole month’s lead time following the prompts release I still ended up doing last minute Folktale illos this week, because I made my Christmas and birthday cards at the beginning of November instead of what my organised self told me to do in October. So, no blog this week, but I’ll be writing about my Folktales here soon, and it’s back to work on them now.

11 November: and now for something completely different!

18/11/2020

It's Christmas- and birthday-card making season, which I always enjoy. An excuse to get out all sorts of crafting materials and have fun with rubber stamps, stick things together with the hot glue gun, play with spangles, blob around with paint and generally increase the peace. I usually don't have a single idea about what I'm going to do at the beginning, and this year, being a strange one, was no exception; I began completely empty headed, but as soon as all the bits and pieces come out and I start playing with them something always happens. And it's so satisfying to see the neat rows of finished, folded cards.

10 November

10/11/2020

Benign Little Town
15 x 21cm, gouache, mapping pens and printing ink on Japanese tissue

This is the third work I submitted to the Open Eye Gallery’s On a Small Scale annual Christmas exhibition. This is just about my last work on Kozu Shi tissue paper, which ceased production about 4 years ago. When I discovered it wasn’t being made any more I rang my supplier, Lawrence Arts, who kindly dug out all their remaining sheets for me. Apart from two small pieces, these works for the Christmas exhibition have finally used it all up, but I have already found an excellent replacement from Lawrence Arts.
The entire exhibition will be available online this year, for the first time in its history, alongside selected works on show in the gallery. The gallery is open by appointment only at the moment, for details and contact details please visit the gallery here.

2 November: On a Small Scale exhibition - works submitted

2/11/2020

Star Making Machine 150x300mm
Ink, monotype and gouache on Japanese tissue

I finished three works for the On a Small Scale exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery this week. Usually I catch the train to Edinburgh to hand them into the gallery, it's a highlight of my year - the beautiful journey across the Forth Bridges followed by a warm welcome when I arrive at the Gallery. This year was different, though, due to coronavirus measures. Fife, where I live, is in tier 2 restrictions at the moment while Edinburgh is higher in tier 3, and people have been told to remain in their own health board districts and not to travel unless absolutely necessary. I decided to post my works this year.

Read on for the maelstrom (or should that be Mailstrom?) of Jobsworth which followed ...

26 October: On a Small Scale

26/10/2020

My 'honorary brother', Ian, has been in Venice for a few days. We grew up together in the same street in Scotland and did our spell in London at the same time, but now he lives in Germany so I don't see so much of him (especially these days when nobody sees much of anybody!) but we speak twice a week on the phone. Every day when he was in Venice he sent me photos of his hotel and places he had been, which I am sure unconsciously rubbed off on me because as I was deciding on a title for this one I realised there were references to canals, Renaissance buildings and motifs, the romantically scruffy and slightly broken feel of Venice, misty vague shapes, and I noticed the unreadable writing in a foreign language (asemic text) had a distinctly dangly appearance. Ian had sent me a photo of the most beautiful old Murano glass chandelier (in his bedroom!!!) which made a huge impression on me - I love it so much, I reckon without knowing it the chandelier influenced the delicacy and suspended nature of the lettering.

So, this one is titled Letter From Venice. It will be going off to the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh for inclusion in the annual Christmas Exhibition On a Small Scale along with two other works of A5 dimensions. The exhibition is going to be online for the first time in its history. It was a good move on the Gallery's part because who knows which Covid alert tier Edinburgh, or any of our cities and towns, will be in next month. If the spread of the virus doesn't slow down it could happen that non-essential businesses will be forced to close their doors again. If that does happen, the show goes on - three cheers for the internet!

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