April Summary: Volcanos and Paintings

Since I last wrote two unguessable events have occurred, both beginning on Thursday 15th April. Firstly Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, was judged to have 'won' the televised partly leader debate, boosting the LD ratings to unprecedented levels. Brian Eno will be pleased. Secondly, an icelandic volcano called 'Eyjafjallajökull' erupted sending clouds of volcanic dust into the air, causing most of northern Europe and elsewhere to suspend all aircraft travel.


And so with the echoes of this in mind here are some photos of my most recent work to date:


Fragaria Bed


Fragaria Bed (detail)



Fragaria Scale Study

I think the above piece from the latest batch is particularly successful. It comprises strawberry pieces and liquid, salt, bicarbonate of soda, on printer paper (20.5cm x 20.5cm). Unusually, photographs don't do this piece justice (I think a lot of my work exists best as either time-based i.e. short duration paintings or derived photographs). It pulls together a lot of my interest in macro/micro worlds, references to SatNav images, geology, biology etc. while retaining a good colour balance and composition. I look at this piece and it just chimes with me.

Have made some other pieces which I will detail soon. Very refreshing to get feedback from my friends Nomi and Sarah on consecutive days.

Bought some second-hand, 'adult' joke cartoon books to feed into my mourHu bookwork (more of which later).

Carla has sent me a file for use in our new PMusic Single which I shall work on over the weekend.

I have made pages for the new invited Consembles H, I, J and K.

Currently listening to 'Dream Theory in Malaya' by Jon Hassell.

Riders

Rather appropriately, on Saturday - the day of the Grand National, I noticed another peripheral painting or two, generated by the process of working on the main canvas. I call these pieces 'Riders' and they are edits made from the newspaper underlining the recent strawberry painting.

My first thought was to mount them with a white card surround, as depicted, (which I may still do) but soon realised they won't last too long in their current form as the newspaper will yellow - so I scanned them at high resolution for possible later printing.

Lots of food for thought here.

13th Reflection

The edges of this painting again prove interesting - this time with what I term my 'icicles' forming and drying to produce mini sculptural forms: something I will develop in future work.

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By itself, I felt the composition felt rather empty thus exemplifying how I judge this type of work to operate effectively at different scales (a smaller square canvas would have enough visual interest for me using this recipe). And so after much deliberation I decided that another element needed to be introduced into this canvas and so I attached a plastic lid (a carefully chosen green) to be filled with the strawberry/salt solution.

The location of the lid was suggested by the way the mix had pooled in the last pouring giving a nicely off-centre, yet balanced position.

9th Return

Back from my hols on the 9th April - out of the taxi, up the stairs and into the kitchen, dropping my bags off on the way. Painting not completely dry but one more day with the central heating on in the evening and early morning should see it completed.



The painting is a lot more orange, and yellower around the edges where the egg white mix was applied, than when wet. This makes the colour less dramatic. Also, I'm not sure about the composition now; it seems to need more... but I don't want to 'fiddle' or over-complicate.

I'll return to it Saturday morning with fresh eyes.


P.S. Methinks I should have an exhibition called: 'Watching Paint Dry'.

4th Bridge

Painting obs just before I go away for my Easter break. You can see here the darker margin continuing to persist while the liquid in the centre of the pool has yet to dry - longer drying time often yields larger crystals.


The edges shown here provide a good example of the accidental (or hitherto incidental) places where the painting may be found. As the frame of mind in which I approached this work, in particular, was very open, it could be these edges provide the inspiration for future exploration.

3rd Layer

Bit of a flat day today so back to the painting.

> The left-hand side with the canvas is drying darker (and more purple) than the side with the printer paper, which is interesting and makes me think perhaps the canvas or its primer are more acidic or alkaline.

> I poured some more liquid strawberry/salt onto the surface of the canvas so forming a kind of pool. After having done this I wondered whether I should have as it disturbed the purplish margin of the canvas side - nevertheless the more liquid the larger the crystals. I do have an intuition that this painting is going to be successful and a move forward.

> The very edges of the painting are beginning to crystalise.