A week in Spain

It's taken me a bit of time to appreciate all that we saw in a week. The inland plateau of Spain is so very different from anywhere else in Europe I've been to. It reminded me of Australia - the dry red earth, sparse vegetation, big blue skies - or the mid West of the USA - wind eroded rocks, empty roads, ramshackle half abandoned villages. Then as we got further south, there were olives as far as the eye could see, making mathematically precise patterns across the hillsides. I did a few Doodles on my iPod Touch:

The last doodle is my impression of our last day - we had a long drive back, but within 15 mins of setting off we hit quite heavy snow, crossing a high plateau on small country roads, the car started to skid and I thought we were lost!

The highlight of the visit was the Alhambra in Granada. The workmanship in the Nasrid Palace was just awesome! Every surface was decorated, with intricate carvings in plaster or stone, and tessellated ceramics on the floors and lower walls.

 

I was a bit confused to read that originally all this decoration was coloured red, yellow and blue. That would have made it overpoweringly sombre, whereas now, the pale ivory walls give texture and light. The busyness of the incredibly complex patterns is calmed by the uniform colour of the  plaster.

Aparently a British architect called Owen Jones studied the decoration of the Alhambra palaces in detail in the 1880s and was very influential in persuading Victorian interior decorators to adopt the Moorish colour schemes.  

I was interested to find patterns in the pebbled courtyard which reminded me of Celtic patterns: 

I want to do something similar on our terrace now, but I need to find some good pebbles...

red roses - week 2

Back to Maureen's garden with plans to tone down the ochre and create a more wintry feel to the whole canvas. Also working on modelling the branches etc and creating greater depth. It's still not finished, but it's going in the right direction (I think).

And I added the roses in, as the last thing I did, but they need to be brighter. Roses in January....I've also got a strawberry ripening in my garden....it must be global warming. But today we've got snow, so I think that will finish off the roses and the strawberry....we'll have to wait till later in the year.

Wickerwork bird feeder

Sometimes it's good just to get the fingers working...I went to a workshop to learn how to make a bird feeder using traditional basketmaking techniques.And here's the result:

We started with 7 thick hazel twigs to make the structure of the base, weaving lengths of willow through them to create a circular platform, then adding and bending up finer hazel twigs for the sides, tied at the top, and with a central ring of woven willow to keep the shape of the 'cage'. I'm not sure how much the bird's appreciate the design; they're more interested in the fat ball hanging inside.

Out of practice

It's been months since I took a brush in my hands, but a new year, and new intentions, plus the enthusiastic encouragement of Maureen, and here's my first very quick attempt to get paint on canvas...

I'd been struck by the small bright red roses still blooming in Maureen's garden, against the greens of the hedge and the otherwise wintry feel of the weather. With little more than an hour's worth of time, in bad light, with no preparation, the result is an overly complicated composition, lack of tonal range, and any number of other issues. And I didn't even get to the red roses!

There's not much to be proud of here, but I stick it up to make me work on improving it, so that there'll be a 'before' and 'after', and hopefully the latter will be more interesting than the former...

Doodles

I'm trying to keep up with technology. A great excuse to buy an iPod Touch, and to find a free App called Doodle Buddy. It's got a very restricted palette, the screen is quite small and you have to use your fingers to 'paint' so before you even start you know that we're talking rough marks and approximations. But hey! It's not called Doodle for nothing!

I've found it great for a spare 5 mins, when the sketchbook and pencils are somewhere upstairs, and it's just a quick visual memo of what we've been doing. Here's a few of the results:

Gerhard Richter

A quick visit to Tate Modern to catch the Gerhard Richter exhibition. What a painter! I had no idea that he covered such a variety of styles and techniques. Indeed, it left me wondering if he had multiple personalities: how can someone paint this one day:

Orchid Orchidee

and this another?:

Cage 4

The curation of the exhibition deliberately makes just such contrasts, and helpfully explains some of Richter's motivations: repudiating the statement that painting is dead. But if it is alive, what is it doing? I've also found his website which includes some really interesting videos.

Above all I was enthralled by his large abstract pieces, often referred to as the squeegee works, because he uses that tool extensively. I was encouraged by his attitude to chance - allowing the process to determine the outcome, rather than planning in advance. There's so much to look at in these works, I could stand there for hours finding layers under layers under layers. And such amazing colour combinations...

An earlier work, but created with a similar philosophy was this grey painting:



Grau 1970



Aparently he put blobs of black and white paint randomly around the canvas, then took a brush and joined them up, moving it around until all the canvas was covered by paint. It fascinates me how much depth he's achieved, and how distinct each pass of the brush is. And then it's also inspirational...I want to get out the paint and see what I can do with a similarly restricted methodology...but maybe not black and white...maybe a bit of colour?

Christmas lino cuts

There's no better excuse for getting out the lino and the cutters to make something festive for some Christmas cards. But what image to use? I tried a simple tree, but it didn't look right, then I found a 5 pointed star which is kind of chunky and friendly - that'll do. Here it is in various trials with ultramarine ink - such a lovely rich colour!



I masked the star shape on the top two prints with some plastic sheet, cut to shape, and then I embellished three of the prints with yellow felt tip, to add a bit of contrast.....

But somehow these weren't coming alive enough...so another, more complicated, block was born, which made prints like this:

I tried it first with flat colour, but it just looked flat! Here I've used the (I think) Japanese technique of getting the roller to blend two colours. I think it gives depth to the design. I also tried it from blue to red:

It's more sombre, but has a certain rich velvety quality.

Then the combination of blue star below and dual-colour block on top:

Not easy to get the registration right....I'm pleased with the result! I can't seem to get even colour without a press, but the blotchiness adds another dimension - a bit like an old, worn out cushion.

And when I used yellow tissue paper as chine colle, I got this:

I've really enjoyed myself! And I've got some cards to send out as well....