Plimsolls … now there’s a blast from the past!

I don’t think I’ve owned a pair of plimsolls since, ooooo, forever!  If I had to make a guess then I might suggest it’s been at least 25 years, certainly not since leaving primary school!  This is something that’s been pulling at me for some time to do and, Mmmmmm, there’s nothing quite like the smell of new plimsolls is there – or does that just make me a bit weird!?

Anyway I’ve been noticing images of customised plimsolls ever since I joined up with DeviantArt a couple of years back and I’ve got to say they are something of an inspiration, even if my own initial efforts are a far cry from those featured in that link – these pictured here really are an initial effort.  If nothing else it gave me a chance to try out taking photo’s in my new light-box!

The lass has made me promise to do her a pair and I can envisage something in pink/lilac with love hearts for her and she seems happy with the idea.  Of course if I do a pair for her then no doubt the lad will want a pair too so I guess I’ll need to do two more pairs at the very least.

In the eye of the beholder …

Painting, or more specifically, what constitutes a ‘good painting’ is something that has no doubt been contested since the dawn of time when man first began daubing paint on cave walls.  You can almost discern, through the mists of time, the first critic carefully contemplating some abstract image of a hunting party bringing down a mammoth, I  wonder how long he paused before delivering his verdict with the business end of his wooden club … and creative types think the critics now can be harsh!!

Jolene and I spent the day yesterday wandering around the Kelvingrove Art Galleries and Museum, a long day with kids in tow but well worth it for the fantastic range of arts and crafts from across time from Egyptian artefacts, to Scottish pre-history through to reflections on modern society.  The Art Galleries have an extremely fine selection of paintings, not least of all one of Jolene’s favourites, Salvador Dali’s Christ of St John on the Cross, and my own personal favourite, Van Gogh’s, A Portrait of Alexander Reid, pictured below:

Jolene and I actually decided to buy a small framed reproduction of this painting from the museum shop, although we weren’t necessarily so keen to be hanging Jolene’s favourite Dali anywhere in the house!

Coming back from the galleries, and having enjoyed a quiet dinner down at the pub, we came home well fed and well motivated, if for no other reason than it can be difficult to wander around any gallery now without looking at some of the exhibits and wondering just how some of the items can be considered to be art, let alone of high enough calibre to be hung in a prestigious gallery.  Faced with paintings that you feel your three year old could produce given half the chance it’s difficult not to think, I could do that!

So we did!

Jolene started it when she began slapping red paint onto a canvas (7″ x 9.5″), and to be honest I thought that that would be that, I had already named it ‘red paint on canvas’ … a masterpiece to behold and clearly befitting of any up market gallery.  Alas there was no stopping her and she carried on initially by gluing on a foreground and then over-painting this with some actual subject matter, by this point she had already made some of the ‘modern art’ I’ve seen elsewhere look amateurish and so it was she ended up with the picture above.

Meanwhile, I wasn’t about to be outdone by Jolene and had made a grab for my own canvas (12″ x 12″) – typically for me it already had some unfinished rubbish on it – following Jolene’s lead though it wasn’t long until I too had daubed over the canvas with red, indeed I had already named this one too, ‘even more red paint on canvas’ … genius, eh?!

I was kind of perturbed when I saw that Jolene wasn’t going to be content with slapping some paint on the canvas and that I might actually have to put some thought in to what I was doing, I ruminated a some ideas many of which I had to discard as they were too involved, beyond my ability to execute or clearly plagiarised from somewhere else and instead I ended up with this (below).

It’s funny though how ones attitudes change to art as you get older, there was a time when I couldn’t understand how someone might stand and look at a painting for any more than a moment, yet when you actually see some of the true masterpieces in person there is so much to see beyond the bigger picture that it can be difficult not to look at them with a more discerning and focused eye, you don’t need to like everything you see, but you should be able to decide what you like and why.

Just from a general interest point-of-view I thought I would just upload a couple of the other paintings we have hanging around the house.

We were gifted the painting above by Jolene’s mother and father who brought it back from a trip of a lifetime to Nepal.  The one below was picked up during our Holiday last year in Wester Ross from a lady who ran a small shop out of a shed selling soap, her son was the artist and he had produced a few of these paintings featuring a central Celtic Knot design.

Papier mache wall art

It’s been commented on in the past that there are strange things going on in the dark recesses of my mind, that they seem to bleed out into the light through what I create … I think ‘they’ may have a point.

I seem to have a raft of canvasses lying around and despite repeated attempts to paint something of any worth on them I seem to fail and fail again.  The canvas here has been used so many times now that I can’t recall how many images lie beneath this final effort, perhaps it’s a furious amalgam of all that went before, a seething anger at the ineptitude slapped on the canvas below.

Whatever it is, using a canvas as a base for some wall art/sculpture is an avenue of interest to me and something I feel sure I will pursue further at some future point.  In the meantime I can think of at least two (more conventional) sculptures that deserve to be finished after well over a years worth of idling!

Mushroom bowls ~ a set of three

This is the first finished set of paper pottery bowls that I mentioned earlier (below) when I was showing the ‘little red bowl’.  The original inspiration for these bowls is obviously mushrooms, although the notion to create a set or two was borne of an earlier single bowl I made which is available in the shop, here.

I’m rather pleased with the outcome although with the weather being truely evil of late and in the absence of a light box I’ve really struggled to get any pictures.  I only managed to get  these photo’s during a very brief interlude in the weather that only really lasted long enough for me to set up my ’studio’.

More mushroom bowls coming soon, I’m experimenting a bit with alternative colours, so expect something a wee bit different.

Devilish abstract in watercolours and acrylics

I decided to do this after Jolene’s last post in which she was using toilet paper as a medium for her ATC’s (Artist Trading Cards).  I really liked the way her colours worked out and I saw something dark in her little pocket sized pieces of art.

I suppose some folks might consider this plagiaristic in some sense, although I don’t personally see it that way.  Certainly the image I’ve created contains elements from Jolene’s paintings, although I have used toilet paper in paintings previously (admittedly not to the same extent).  I heard this quote the other day though, and I’ve heard it before, although I can’t remember where:

… every artist is a cannibal, every poet a thief …

I suppose the notion being that there is no such thing as an original idea, only an amalgam of other ideas.  Certainly my inspiration here comes from somewhere different than Jolene’s.

The painting was done on a 12″x12″ canvas layered with loo roll and partly sculpted/molded to generate the raised area, this was overpainted with watercolours and later dry brushed with acrylics.

Simple boat painted in acrylics

I think I’ve said before that painting is little more than a diversion for me and certainly not something I have any great talent for, although I would like to improve my skills at least a little in the coming years!  Bearing this in mind I decided to make use of an online challenge, challenges are set monthly and have a time limit

I think it”l be a useful learning tool and I’ve already learned something.  Thus far I have learned that I should read the instructions more carefully as this meets none of the key requirements set, deary me!

Still, I had fun doing it and I suppose that that counts for something!

ATC Challenge Swap

Gosh!  We’ve been so busy recently, it’s hard to know what to talk about.  I’ve been feeling pretty ill this weekend so haven’t yet managed to put together the pattern for the owl brooches.  It’ll come later this week as I start to feel more like my old self again…that along with some instructions for turning magazines into paper bags, which is what we’ve done instead of buying paper bags for the upcoming craft fair we’re getting involved with.  We are so busy here that our house is starting to feel like a two man factory!

Today, I offer you the ATCs I made for the ATC Challenge Swap at SwapBot…

acrylic

watercolour, salt and seed beads

watercolour

watercolour and pencil

watercolour and pencil

Abstract tree and flower scene ~ acrylic painting

I’m not sure why, but painting seems to be something I come back to time and again.  I’ve noted previously that it can be a relaxing process and despite the obvious realisation that I’ll never create a masterpiece (it’s so passe anyway?!) I still enjoy that process.  Even when my vision comes up against that brick wall that is my talentless daubing of paint on canvas!

If nothing else it does provide me with an opportunity to practice simple decorative designs that I may begin to use as a theme on my sculptures, the flowers for example have featured previously on my Spring Time Bowl and the floral dancer and I have a feeling they will be incorporated into future pieces in the future.

Currently I have a few papier mache sculptures underway, each a demon or figurative sculpture and each temporarily on hold while I work on a couple of wood carvings, one in Elm which is nearing completion and which has already taken up over 10 hours of my time and another in Cherry which I’ve yet to start, they will however be coming soon.

some unrelated updates

Firstly, there are now felt brooches in the shop.  Each one of these is entirely handsewn by me and available for a bargain price.

I made my first Inchies this week too and am excited by the results.  The first set is for the A, B, C, D, E, F Inchie swap on ATCsforall and the second set is for the Beginners Inchie Swap on SwapBot.

Both are painted with black acrylic paint before being embellished.  The first set used dictionary pages handcut into letters that were then coloured with crayons and outlined with gold pen.  The second set used the packing tape transfer method again with various backgrounds (vintage book page, painted baby wipe, painting with kids poster paints, newspaper).

elephant ~ original acrylic painting

This elephant was inspired by the Japanese elephant fabric I purchased some time ago from Etsy seller KalenaStudio and an idea from a swap on the popular swapping site Swap-Bot.

There was a swap created on swap-bot a few weeks back inviting people to create an ATC using only and all of the primary colours.  I’m always up for a challenge so threw caution to the wind and attempted to create something credible.  I must admit to sitting for hours thinking about what I could do that wasn’t simply an abstract arrangement of colour.  It was while I was making coin purses featuring the aforementioned fabric that I was struck with an idea and so the blue elephant was ‘born’.  I’ve struggled with acrylics in the past; they either dry too fast or go in the wrong place or don’t cover the colour below effectively.  I’m pleased to say that the elephant has none of those annoying characteristics.

The original ATC I painted was ok but not big enough so I scaled it up to fit on a 6″ x 9″ piece of board.  I like this painting, it reminds me of children’s story books illustrations.  It has a very slight air of The Elephant and the Bad Baby about it, which is my all time favourite story book from my childhood.  I think this character may feature again in the future in different guises and mediums, in which case I guess I’ll need to come up with a name for it.

I’ve added the frame for illustration purposes and the original comes without a frame.  It’s available in our shop now for a bargain price considering it’s an original.