The Book, Chapter 2

First page completed of the next chapter in The Book.

The Joy of Technology

I love technology. It can do so much for us. Look what I did with it.

One

Two

I've not really animated anything before. I always thought it was far too difficult and time consuming to do it. Plus I didn't think I had the drawing skills needed. Ha! Little did I know!

New Prints

I've been running 2 projects concurrently. I've not really got the time to do it, but I do it nonetheless.

The 1st project was highlighted in my last post, and that is moving along nicely, I spent 5 hours today working on that one.

The 2nd project is a printing project. I'm putting a print portfolio together, to tout around universities and anywhere else that seems like a good idea at the time.

Here are some of the prints I have been making recently.

Dry point on acrylic plate.

Lino print onto preprinted waste paper.

Lino print with scrim resist onto cartridge paper.

Reductive lino print onto print above.

Reductive lino print.

Reductive lino print onto pre-inked cartridge paper.

The First Chapter

I have finally finished the first chapter of my long altered book project, The Book.

The aim of the project is to retell the stories that are held in common between Judeo/Christian and Islamic stories from their holy books, most notably the Bible, but from other religious and spiritual perspectives.

So the first story is the creation story.

The one I chose to tell was that given to us by the Haida Native Americans. Look here for the full story.

Here are the illustrations. Please don't forget, however, that I am not an illustrator, and so I'll hope you are kind about the first book illustration project I have done.

Crows

Everyone who knows me knows that I am almost obsessed with corvids. Crows, ravens, jackdaws, magpies and rooks. Love them and they appear in my work regularly.

I see them all over the place, greet them and have a good day when I see lots of them, but today is the best day ever for crows because on my way to the studio I saw one of the rarest sights corvid spotters ever see. A leucistic crow.

The image attached to here is a photo taken in July of the crow I saw today, by Pete Mella.

Leucism is caused by a reduction of the pigment in the skin, feathers and fur of the animals and differs from Albinism because pigment id present whereas in albinism the melanin pigments are not there at all.

To say I was amazed to see this bird is an understatement. I love to find wildlife in city settings, I love catching sight of urban foxes and hedgehogs and have always looked carefully for badgers and rabbits whenever I am driving on country roads at dusk, but to see such an unusual bird in a city setting has made me feel so blessed.

He looked fit and well fed, strong and so so alive in his surroundings.

To see such a rare creature this early in the year makes me feel positive for the year ahead and I hope his blessing stays with me and keeps him safe throughout the year.

The Closing of the Year

I'm not normally one who ponders the changing of the year and the people who have come and gone through the year, but this year I seem to be feeling it.

This year has seen so many changes in my life.

I've gone from working full time, owning my own home, feeling secure and knowing what I want to do with my life through the whole gamut of losing almost everything.

I lost my home, first because in order to be safe from harassment and violence.

I lost my job because all of the stress involved with the harassment left me a nervous and emotional wreck.

i lost my security because I am always looking over my shoulder wondering if the people who had threatened me and my darling son were following me, had found me. I became paranoid and anxious, almost agoraphobic.

Now, because I had to change my plans, because I couldn't keep up the payments on my house, because all I had worked for and put money into was gone, I am facing the prospect of not being able to go to university to complete my degree. I've applied, but I have no idea how I will pay for it.

This is not to say I'm going to give up. I'm not the sort to just sit back and let the world walk all over me and not try to pick myself up and move on. I am more determined than ever to do what I planned to do. Finish my degree at Glasgow, to go on to do a Therapy MA and become an Art Therapist, helping people find comfort and growth in art, to use art and the creative process as a healing tool. If it works for me, it will work for anyone, because if there is one thing that this year really has taught me is that art is my saviour, my passion, my reason for being. Without it I would not have survived this year, and I certainly wouldn't be looking forward to all the positive things that are going to come my way next year.

2011 here i come, stronger, brighter and more powerful than ever before, because I have only one direction to go. UP!

Christmas Presents

I am having a home made Christmas.

There are 2 good reasons for making everything yourself.

1. People really really like handmade stuff

2. I really don't like to waste money on presents that people simply don't want, need or appreciate.

Now its not that i don't like my friends and family, its that i don't like the commercialisation of the winter holidays, be they Chanukah, Diwali, Christmas or the Solstice.

To this end I am struggling to make presents for my loved ones.

Presently I am battling with a cross stitch pattern based on one of my paintings. The software is just not happy with the colours I have picked and is insisting on picking dull browns and greys instead of the vivid yellows and blues of the original painting. I'm now resorting to picking each colour and stitch individually.

Thankfully the other presents have been fairly straight forward.

So here is wishing you a very merry festive season, and a happy healthy and prosperous new year.

Personal Statement

I am applying to university.

This involves filling out a very large form, making choices and decisions about where to go and what courses to take, and then completing personal statement.

Ah yes, the personal statement. 47 lines about why a university would be foolish enough to accept me. Lots of things to talk about, lots of things to say, easy on the jokes and try to be grammatically correct and spell everything in ENGLISH please. No special characters and try not to sound like an idiot.

Yeah, OK. Let me just ponder it for a while.

So I'm this really talented, only slightly bonkers artist who until 4 years ago hadn't done any drawing since the first week at secondary school. Really honestly I am, look I can make pretty pictures, weird pictures, textiles and books. I do great things with books, totally cool.

Perhaps that wasn't the right pitch.

What do I say and how do I say it?

Here's what I got so far.

I cannot imagine my life without art, despite it only having been part of my life for the past 4 years. I have crafted continually all my life, and for me art is an extension of what I learned and developed growing up in a crafting home. My life revolves around the creation of art and crafts, and I work constantly on new projects, challenging myself to try new techniques and media, and to keep working with media that I have found difficult. At the same time art is therapy for me, it has helped me deal with the challenges that life has presented me with over the years.

My hobbies revolve around my family, home and art, and I try to combine these hobbies together. I have 2 dogs and spend hours drawing and sketching them. I always have a sketch book with me and I love to sketch people and their dogs whenever I am out and about. Don’t let this love of dogs fool you into thinking my work is twee, whimsical or cute. Far from it. I have an eye for the unusual, difficult and painful. I like to see the rough edges, to look beyond the varnished image presented to the world, and many of my projects during the Foundation Degree have involved looking at the discomforting truth.

Over the past 4 years my confidence and skills have grown, and I have done more than I thought myself capable of. Consequently I want to do more, present myself with greater challenges and see how far I can go. Going to University is the next step in the great journey art can take me on.

Opinions? Please?