Maurice's second day in Perth

Jim and I went off for our swim first thing this morning.  We left Maurice sleeping peacefully, as he had had a very long day out and about yesterday, after his long flight.  Our swimming is going well - I'm starting to feel a bit fitter, and more able to swim longer distances with less rest.  This time I did 900m in 25 minutes, whereas before it was taking 30-35 minutes.  The 50m pool is lovely - I could get used to this.  Unfortunately we don't have many 50m pools back in the UK.

On our return to the flat, Maurice and Jim went off to do the domestic shopping.  Maurice has been inspecting grocery prices and agrees with me that most of them seem expensive to us.  We discussed whether higher food prices here led to fewer people being obese than in the UK.  We both think obesity is more apparent in the UK, where food prices are lower, and the population seems to consume more processed rubbish.  However, the Perth area has high rates of pay, because mining is fuelling the economy, so food prices may be proportionate in comparison to the UK.  Maurice particularly noted that more fresh veg is sold here, and most of it is not sold in prepacked plastic containers, as we do in the UK.  Perhaps the Aussies just eat a better diet.  Maybe the UK could learn something here! 

I spent the morning working on my Drawing homework.  I've struggled with this, trying to work out how to use the techniques used in class.  I read my notes from the first class and decided to go with my feeling that I want to work with banksia leaves, and work up a scatter pattern, as preparation for a series of textile designs.  I worked freely in charcoal, and was quite content with the texture, irregularity and flow of the design.  The spacing was not quite right, but quite acceptable for a try-out.   Now I only need to do one more A1 drawing prior to class, and I'm happy that I'm on track. 

Maurice and I took the bus to Curtin University and had a walk around the campus.  Maurice said touring the textile workshop made my blog make more sense, once he had actually seen how the repeat printer works, and the space and layout of the workshop.  We walked the full length of the campus and then had a look around the library. 

Speakers Corner - where international students practice their language skills

Maurice sitting where people wanting conversations in Arabic  or Bengali position themselves

Maurice at Curtin, in his shorts on 11 January. 
How many other English people are wearing shorts today?!

We then took the 30 bus from Curtin, and rang Jim so he could jump on the same bus as it went through Salter Point, on its way to Perth.  Maurice took us out for a celebratory meal to the Brass Monkey, where they served meals that included kangeroo.  Kangeroo is a lean meat with a low fat content, which Maurice tried.  Jim and I conservatively stuck with steak, which was wonderful.  It was a treat to be taken out to dinner, and not to need to cook.

I think both Maurice and I enjoy different aspects of holiday catering.  I enjoy having friends to eat with us, as I pick different food, where it is worth buying it for two.  For example, when Maurice is here, I choose smoked mackerel for salad, as both Maurice and I enjoy it, whereas it is not worth buying it when Jim and I are together, as he does not eat it. (Jim had yesterday's left-over ham with his salad).  Maurice lives by himself, and when away, enjoys not having to do everything himself.  So when I made sandwiches for lunch, he luxuriated in the simple pleasure of someone else choosing what we were going to eat, and preparing it.

We took the 30 bus back to Salter Point and fell into bed at 9pm, as the boys were to be up at 5am to go to running club.

Simple pleasures.  A good life.

Maurice has arrived!

Our friend Maurice has come out from England for a 3 week holiday.  Maurice is one of Jim's friends from Running Club, who has travelled extensively in Europe, but who has never travelled long haul before.  So, coming to see us, was his first long flight. He flew from London-Singapore, had a 24 hour stopover in Singapore, and arrived in Perth at 0100 this morning.  Jim met him at the airport, where because of the number of incoming flights, it took about 90 minutes to clear customs. 

Despite only arriving here at 0230, Maurice was awake at 4am, and we all got up about 6.30.  Maurice was delighted to have obtained a top seat to go to the WACA on Sunday 15 January for the game between Australia and India.  He thought the seat price was expensive, but a whole day of international cricket is cheaper than one (90 minute) Premier League football seat in the UK, so Jim and I thought it was incredibly good value - a bargain in fact.  His seat is toward the back of the seating under one of the shaded stands. We took a walk to the WACA ground to see whether it was short enough to walk from the town centre, or not, on match day.  It was about a 20 minute walk from the bus station - just the right sort of distance to get your circulation going, before settling down for a whole day's cricket!  While we wandered around, Maurice identified a wide variety of architectural styles - from Victorian, to art deco to modern office blocks.

Maurice is now planning what we might want to do together while he is here for 3 weeks.  The list includes - Fremantle prison; Kings Park and botanic gardens; Rottnest Island; boat tour to Fremantle; Bell tower; Maritime Museum; Perth Art Gallery; river cruises; tour around Curtin University; Perth Mint.  I have to say I'd like to do most of them.  Jim is a less enthusiastic tourist, so I can forsee Maurice and me doing the tourist ventures while Jim sits drinking tea and reading the paper in the nearest cafe.    Maurice also has great plans for adventurous eating - he wants to try kangaroo and crocodile, so has been peering in various restaurant windows to see which ones have the more adventurous menus. So tomorrow we are going out to eat, to celebrate Maurice's arrival.

Fast Art -v- Slow Art

I was coming back from Perth this morning, on the bus, thinking about Fast Art/Slow Art as a concept comparable to fast food and slow food.  In the UK the concept of slow food has developed over the last 10 years.  We all know that fast food is convenient when you are hungry, but that it is usually rubbish, high fat and sugar, and often promoted as a cheap, quick fix, by manipulative marketing.  At present there is an advertising campaign on Australian TV that promotes fast food chicken (yuk) and every time the battered product is shown, the word "fresh" appears on the screen.  The deceitful advertisers are using subliminal messaging to give us the idea that a heavily processed product is "fresh" (which is linked with healthy in our minds) when what the image shows is a freshly fried, fast food product, which is not "fresh" at all.  Anyway I'll get off my soapbox.

As a contrast, slow food is often artisan produced, high quality craftsman food - like slow matured cheese, organic products, hand-made slow risen bread, local home grown vegetables.  These products are often more expensive and mean that you need to eat less volume as it is more sustaining.

I think of how I produce my art in the same way.  The images I produce need time to mature.  My first images on a theme could easily be the ones I decide to utilise.  Last semester, I was learning how to create a repeat pattern.  I produced a 6m length of fabric of eucalyptus leaves and gum nuts, with which I was quite pleased.  But looking back now, I had developed the concept reasonably well, linking australian plants and my father's Alzheimers' disease, but I failed dismally to develop the artistic style which I used to produce it.  I used the first interpretation of the repeat design and the first interpretation of filling the shapes with flat colour. 

Now I am in the Drawing Summer School, I can see so many more ways of creating an exciting design from that concept.  I'm not going to rework it, but use the reflection to progress my future work in other ways. It is about 24 hours since I finished class yesterday, and I seem to have spent hours thinking about how to use the line exercise to develop my printmaking skills.  I have read the class specification and we have our first assessment after the second class!  The line exercise is one that is worth experimenting with - using charcoal, and maybe oil marker.  I want a product that will give a textured variable mark, because the line that I use for my prints is often required to define the edge and surrounding area to create a shape.  I don't want just a thin line (which is what I used in my Pattern & Meaning class). This is my artistic equivalent of fast food - it was quick and available. I want a line that varies in thickness and texture to give depth in an overlaid pattern.  And looking at my sketchbook work with banksia leaves, I often use cross-hatching to give definition to the edge of a shape, but I am overusing this technique.  There are more interesting ways of doing it.

The oil marker that I have is a clear one.  Other people in the Pattern & Meaning class were given the coloured or black markers.  But the clear oil marker has other qualities.  I enjoy using ink and bleach to get positive and negative effects, and I think that if I try the clear oil marker for the line exercise, and apply either Quink ink (water soluble) or indian ink (permanent) over the top, it might make for interesting negative effects. 

At present, unusually for me, I'm not interested in working up colour options.  As a textile silkscreen printer, colour comes later in the process.  At present, I'm working on producing interesting effects where I can get the design black enough (ie not tonally varied) to produce a good silkscreen.  And I want my textiles to be my work from start to finish.  So it is my inspiration and concept; my illustrations (not photos); my utilisation of a variety of artistic techniques; my resolved design; my workshop competence that produces an exposed silkscreen; and my print skills that produce the cloth.  No wonder artists start reflecting on narcissism!

All this takes time.  When I started my degree, part time, people said 5 years was a long time to work towards an end product.  I have always said attaining my degree was not a race - I wanted to enjoy the journey.  But the more I learn, the more there is to consider.  And consequently, the more I realise that the first work I produced was "fast art".  Five years is nothing.

Slow art - taking the time to get the right wholesome ingredients to make a worthwhile sustaining product.

First day of Drawing Summer School

I had a wonderful day today.  The drawing class was published as being every Friday, from 10-4.  Being keen, I caught the 8.52 bus, and strolled up to the classroom at 9.10, only to discover the class started at 9am.  University administration being what it is, the class had been publicised to start at 9am, 9.30 and 10am to different people!

Michael, the tutor, appears excellent.  He is really into the expression of a drawing - the sense of adventure, the qualities and characteristics, honouring the medium, consciousness and habits, artistic licence, experiencing and responding, and evaluating and enriching your creative process.  This sounds like my sort of class.  There are 6 classes, where we get 6 hours of tuition and we are expected to do 6 hours homework too. 

My notes from the class say:

What do I want from a drawing?  The quality of the mark; that it expresses my feeling; that someone else gets a feeling (not necessarily the same as mine) from it.
Open mind.  Bring imaginative stuff.  Charcoal bricks
Experience and respond/ avoid judgement
Forget concept - focus on the experience of what you are doing.
Biggest hurdle is your eye and judgement
Be aware of when you work in habit; when you are frustrated; when you go into judgement mode.
Identify your habits
Identify whether you work from your head or emotion
Allow the experience to affect you and respond to it.
Find connections
Don't be a camera - include and exclude
Consider your materials and circumstances - use to your advantage
Materials are your partner - how do you honour and respect them
Be distinctive
Be accepting of what you are
Simplicity and contrast
Insecurity/confidence and courage

We did some very simple exercises that were enlightening.  We had to draw a single line in charcoal, from top to bottom of an A1 page, taking 5 minutes to draw it.  Mine meandered across the page several times, with light pressure, hard pressure, using the tip and side of the charcoal.  Other people made much more vertical lines.  There was considerable variation to the lines. Then we worked the same exercise from bottom to top, then two lines on the page.  Michael is also into dance and music, and for some reason the word "dance" stuck in my mind and my two line exercise looked like a moving dancer.

We did exercises using a still life of hard and soft objects, using charcoal, marker pens, fine line markers and ink & stick. We drew the objects, and also the negative space.  By the end of class I was absolutely exhausted. 

Michael observed that this was a strong class, that had quickly formed a positive group dynamic. I wonder whether this is because it is a summer school.  The people present are all prepared to work in the summer holidays.  This may be because, like me, they find 4 modules at once to be quite demanding, and if you want to put your all into each class, it is easier to spread it out by taking one module in summer school.  Alternatively, 4 months is just too long a break and taking one module early keeps your mind working.  I know I had forgotton how exhausting an art class could be, and was surprised to feel so spent - despite being stressed and exhausted only a few weeks ago last semester. 

Reflecting, I think my best work today was making different types of lines using the charcoal.  I made some very interesting marks which might translate very well when used as a screen print.  (Most of my still life drawings were naff).  I think for my homework I might use the line exercise as a basis for some negative space drawing, using the leaves I've been looking at in my own practice.  I might also do some work with ink and bleach. 

Roll on next class!

Anticipating summer school

I'm anxiously awaiting the start of my summer school, a Drawing class.  This will mean I have something to occupy me every Friday for the next 6 weeks, and will complete one module of the four I need to complete in Semester 1.   I'm ready to get stuck into another class.  In the meantime, I will occupy the next 3 days on my visual diary.

This morning was bright, sunny and windy.  Jim and I set off at 6.45 and cycled to Riverton Pool.  I managed 900m on front/back crawl medley and Jim did 1100m on full medley.  It really makes me feel virtuous - 2 x 30 minutes cycling and 30 minutes swimming.

Then we were home by 9.30, so I decided to take myself to Kings Park to get back to drawing some plants.  I've been thinking about my next print project, and I want it to be about my Study Abroad experience.  I want the base layer to be a locked-in repeat pattern, but with hand positioned overprinting, to accentuate the handworked quality of the print.  The imagery I have in mind will combine Perth/Curtin themes, along with University of Herts ones.  So the first stage of design development will be to create hand drawn sketches/copies of documentation of:

Perth/Curtin themes:
Plants - banksia, kangaroo paw, boab, ...
Curtin logo
Curtin results
Kangaroo/emu coat of arms
Black swans
Koala
Southern Cross
Flight details
Tickets - air, theatre
Road signs
Surf signs
Latitude/longtitude

Themes from Herts:
Herts logo
Letters from home
Passport
Visa
Latitute/longtitude

The plan for this is to show where I come from, and where I've been, some things I've achieved, and things that fix this experience in time.  I'm not quite clear about how I fix the design in its time.  I might need to find a modern building, new train stock, or something else that will identify with 2012 in Perth.  Some of the imagery that I want to include comes from the postcards that I sent to Lisa.  I hope I can reproduce them as well as I did on the postcards.  I have the scrappy sketches in my visual diary of the roadtrip, but these are not as good as the postcards.  Still, I have a couple of days, if the weather is too hot to go out, I can work from photos that Jim and I took when travelling last month.

It was brilliantly sunny and breezy in Kings Park, and I spent a very happy 2 hours, sitting in shady spots, drawing the boab trees, and different forms of Banksia (there are many).  I think I'm starting to get the hang of sketching en-plein air.  I've now started working in an A4 visual diary.  This is bigger than A5 and gives me more space to work - I like working large and found A5 very restrictive.  I have learned to work in black fine line marker only.  A visual diary and a couple of pens are very portable. I find the discipline of fine line marker makes me spend more time observing structure, shape and form, which are critical in print.  Colour can be added later, from notes on the side of the page.  Reality of colours is less important in the print process, than the accuracy of observation - colour development and variable colourways are a separate set of design tools.  

Photo tomorrow - very slow uploading tonight so I've given up!
After 2 hours, I felt I had taken enough sun (even with factor 50 on) and took the 37, and 31 buses back to Salter Point, where Jim was waiting with a fresh pot of tea!

New Year's Eve reflections

There is a reason why the photos are intermittent on this blog.  Sometimes I can upload them in a few minutes.  Other times it takes forever.  Last night it took me 30 minutes to upload 2 pictures of Jim - the rotating spots went on interminably before the computer showed the image ready to apply to the blog.  Yet tonight, I managed the first half dozen in about 15 minutes.  Yippee, I thought.  Then the system seemed to encounter corporate indigestion, and took another half hour for the next 6 photos. 

I have been considering how my sketchbook informs my print process.  It is much easier, time effective and cheaper to work up variations on a design on paper, rather than creating print screens to work on fabric.  But it does need motivation and commitment to work up a sketchbook.  It has taken me a week or 10 days to really get this sketchbook off the ground, and I've had all the time and materials available.  It is as if I need the time for reflection, and more importantly, no pressure from other activities, before I get into the art zone.  I am quite pleased with the way this sketchbook is developing, even if it is only A5 and feeling a little restricted sizewise.  But I think it is important to try out different sizes and shapes and I will keep going with this one, probably until it is full.  I am very impressed with the quality of the paper - it's good robust stuff and takes water well, without cockling.

Inkwashed pages ready for the next stage.

Washed pages now have imagery added

Although I love colour, I think the black and white photocopy enhances more than the colour copy.

Happy New Year (or sketchbook angst turns to serenity)

Happy New Year!  May 2012 be a fruitful year for you all.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been working on my sketchbook.  I've discovered the difference, to me, between a visual diary, and a sketchbook.  A visual diary is where I record all the things that interest me, be it shapes, colours, plants, details of how things join or are structured, or little sketches that give a feeling of place, or identify where I've been.  The sketchbook is where I develop my thoughts and compositions, using the library of images and information gathered eclectically in my visual diary.

When we returned from the roadtrip, I struggled to get the sketchbook started.  But I think this is part of my normal working practice - it takes me some time to assimilate what I have seen, and what interests me.  It takes me a long time to filter the inputs, which seem to be other people's thoughts, and link to things that I have seen, before they become outputs, which require a lot of creative play, before I get an outcome that is meaningful to me.  And creating something that is meaningful to me, is very important. How do I create things that are meaningful to me, without becoming totally narcissistic!  I want to go beyond "creating pretty things".  I want to create things with appeal to others, but it is not necessary for them to understand the motivation behind my work.

I have been thinking about how I use my work to represent my time here.  I've enjoyed drawing plants.  I've enjoyed the brighter natural light, and how it makes colours sing.  I've been thinking about linking disparate things, recording specific things that I have done or that have happened to me.  I like to have things dated, so I know when I drew them.  I've been considering why I think I want to use my experiences in my work.  For example, why would I want to use my study abroad experience to make textile art?  Does this make me self-obsessed?  Why on earth would anyone else be interested?  What would be the application of such fabric?  Why am I so interested in furnishing fabrics?  Why am I so interested in representing where I am now/the spirit of the moment/my moment?  Why does what I create, need to represent something specific to me?  And how would this be, in any way shape or form, pertinent to others?  Why am I obsessed with hand-drawn illustration?  Why do I keep thinking about Eddie Squires, Warner's textile designer?

What I have learned is that the visual diary is at the foundation to the answers to all my questions.  Spot the answers to the questions above, in the list below!

Iris Francis - How to do a self portrait without drawing yourself - draw your interests
Marina Shaw - wanted an Australia specific design language, independent of Europe
Margaret Preston - promoted the use of Australian inspiration
Picasso - "I paint the way some people write their autobiographies.  The paintings finished or not, are the pages from my diary ..."
Scott Sisters - water colour illustrations of moths and butterflies
John Russell - "I am a painter of nature, of nature's moods.  Of sunlight and changing temper of the seas". 
Margaret Preston - When is a work modern?  When it represents the age it is painted in"
William Yang - "About my Mother" photos and narrative about her life and their relationship
Fiona Wirrer-Geroge - "prints are connected to marks and marks are connected to symbolism and symbolism to identity"

So to show my work from the last day of the year, here are the photographs:

Left hand side of page

Right hand side of page

Pomegranates (from Aus) and Christmas letter (from home)

More representations of home and away

Bleach on green ink removes the yellow component and turns it turquoise

This shows the cutaway page

I've thought a bit more about applications for my work.  If I was using my study abroad experience imagery of things that were Australian and things that were personal to me, and wanted to apply this artwork to furnishing fabric, wouldn't it make great unholstery fabric for the Study Abroad office! Or a student union common room.  Or a travel agent!

It reinforces that I need to work freely on things that are important to me, then come up with ideas on how they might be applied, and to whom they might appeal.  Juxtaposing unconventional things that are fun, is important to me.  And I think that if I want a commerciality to my work (do I?), "fun" is something that sells.  But do I want comerciality?  Not sure that I do.  But I do want fun and light-heartedness.  There is enough grief in life.  I want to focus on the good, fun, forward travelling things in life.

Enough musing for New Year's Day.  Onward and upward!