Saturday 7 February 2009

Illustrations

I've just started to do some illustrations of plants and flowers. I like the simplicty of line that can be used to create a beautiful graphic image. The simple beauty of a colour that brings a smile to your face or a form that takes you back to a vivid memory is priceless. I'm going to go out walking, taking pictures and doing some sketches and make some more drawings and then make some into Thank you and Birthday cards, for family and friends first and then maybe who knows, watch this space...

Iran circles

I always keep coming back to my map drawings, usually involving a circle and a biro.

What is it? What do they mean? What do I want them to mean? Will they be seen as political, maybe I want it to be just seen as a circle on a piece of paper with lines and colours that also happens to be a map. But then politics comes into it, especially with war-torn, politically charged countries, countries I know nothing about. How could it be seen to be making a statement about that country? easily I guess as it's a map of that country, but what about that country?? that it has voids in it, holes in it, bullet holes? Maybe my meaning of my own work means nothing as I'm too close to it, or maybe it's everything cos that's all there is in an artwork, what the artist sees.

But this map was already chosen for me, I had the National Geographic magazine and in it was this map. I suppose it comes back to if you believe that it was pre-destined for me to find, or chosen for me so that I could find it and commit to making this drawing enough to finish it and put it on this blog?

Or is it just a biro circle (which in itself is pretty futile) on a map. Do we make art for ourselves, or for an audience, does it matter what other people say of it, how other people see it or use it? For surely as soon as it (anything whether it be art, music, literature etc..) leaves the author it starts to have a life of its own and enters the public domain.

tbc...

Paper Ball

Did this paper ball, a long while ago. Its just mulched up paper remoulded into a ball and painted with black ink. It reminds me of, what I think are moon rocks or meteorites maybe. A simple process like grinding up old unwanted paper and remaking it into something new, an object, a ball, which is just what it is a ball. Yet it has this history attached to it, destroyed yet still present in another form.

PROCESSPROCESSPROCESSPROCESSPROCESSPROCESSPROCESSPROCESSPROCESSPROCESS

1 painting, 8 lives


Started painting again, not sure if I'm going to do anymore. It's all about time at the minute and every other minute of every other day. This painting could have gone so many ways, so many journeys, its still on one as I don't think its finished yet. Its become something else, too complicated, thats why I love minimalism, simplicty is so hard to get right.
What I like about this painting though is its journey. The world is in a constant state of flux. The only constant thing in life is change. So lets keep it simple. Maybe I'll paint over it completely, back to the beginning yet with a history, a journey that's ongoing is bound to be more interesting than a stagnant one? surely.