Playing

I don't play enough in my work. I usually stick to the things I know and the things I find easy. I am determined to play more and to experiment with new ideas because I'm in danger of getting bored of myself. I was in the studio blowing bubbles with ink the other day and getting very messy. They came out looking like little planets.


I composed an 'about me' page yesterday for the Helfa Gelf open studios next month, and wrote some rather pretentious arty rubbish about what I want to work on in the future. It sounded rather far fetched (I think the word 'philosophy' was used), but it's true - I want to try something new, to explore the ideas that preoccupy me and not to just go with things in my comfort zone. Even though the fun stuff is enjoyable to make and I love making people laugh, I know that I can try other things too.

i'm here!

Well, I'm here for a few days and then we are off to vegetate for a week in Tuscany. We will be staying at Fattoria San Paolo, an agriturismo with a bio-pool, which is like swimming in a pond, only a bit less murky. I am beyond excited and definitely ready for some lazy days in the heat and a lot of good food.

Everything here has got a bit out of hand - the house is a mess, my studio roof has sprung a leak, and the garden needs attention rather badly. Progress on the house has come to a standstill.

What else has been going on? We went to an absolutely delightful wedding at the weekend where I saw some old school friends. If you happen to be in Llangollen this week for the music Eisteddfod, check out some of my work at the Helfa Gelf stand. Work is easing off at last. I will be back with some more nonsense later this week.

checking in

Hi all. Sorry things have been a bit quiet lately. I've been a bit busy/tired/distracted. Work continues to pile in. I am meant to complete 60 seconds of animation by Friday afternoon and haven't even started yet (not my fault!), but it's going to be a crazy few days. This may also coincide with the go ahead to colour another six pieces for Honda. I may pop. This could be messy. I need a holiday.

more about me

I have added a new page to the blog today - you'll find it in the side bar - it's just some more stuff about me, in case you want to know! It even includes a proper picture of me, the horror...

Two lists for today

Currently failing to:
Keep my vegetable seedlings alive
Prepare the beds for the surviving veg
Write this blog
Unpack
Make decisions about what to do with this enormous house
Do anything but work
Keep a sensible perspective on all of this!

Succeeding in:
Berating myself for these failures
Composting
Setting up the wormery
Getting worked up about my workload
Moaning a lot
Procrastinating

Hope you are doing better than me at this life business. The poor husband is racking up his brownie points, cooking and cleaning whilst I slave away at my desk. I have a short respite this afternoon and here I am wasting time writing utter drivel when I could be doing something far more useful...

a manifesto for life

Moving house and making a fresh start in a home that we hope to live in for many years (or certainly more than five :-)) gives us the opportunity to furnish, decorate and live in a way that I have been aspiring to for some years now. In our last house, we were a little restricted by space and we always knew that we would move away from it after a couple of years, so there were things that we didn't or couldn't do.

I thought I would set out here some principles and ideas by which I wish to make our home - ideas not only about how I want it to look and feel, but also about how I want to live.

I want to:
Live simply, without too many material possessions
Not be so sad that we have no money to buy expensive furniture (!)
Buy used or recycled where possible
Only buy things that I love or need, preferably both at the same time.
Make more of my own clothes and soft furnishings
Learn how to make pickles
Be better at admin
Keep up with the maintenance of the house
Recycle and compost everything that I can
Get a wormery
Keep chickens
Use fewer nasty chemicals (our septic tank will thank us)
Speak to the neighbours more
Grow more of my own food
Learn how to make sourdough bread
Not be a slave to fashion and trends (says she, talking about sourdough and wormeries...)

I believe that we could all do without mountains of gadgets and big televisions. We have too many cheap clothes, too many unwanted gifts (for the love of god, people, stop giving me idiotic, cheapo crap gifts - I just give them to charity or sell them at the car boot). I feel like I need to spend more time working with my hands, being outdoors, looking at things that aren't on my computer screen. This return to a more traditional way of life - a thrifty, humble life - is what I yearn for, even though I will still want the things that make my life better (uh... dishwasher, car, computer, books). I hope to keep these things to a minimum. I don't own an iPod, iPad, iPhone or any similar time-wasting gizmos - nor do I want one. Austere self-denial is probably a fitting description for the state I wish to live in. Sounds kinda rubbish now I've put it down, but that's just how I am.

It's a bit like this manifesto from The Idler, only less poetic and strident:


Or perhaps it's something like the Pedlars manifesto:

Hey, maybe I'll even edit mine and lay it out as a poster or something. One of these days when I get some time...

I hope you are all well. I will start drawing again soon, I promise.

puddled

This is a drawing of me last night. I'd say it was a fairly good representation, all in all. I'm a bit better now. A bit more pulled-together, as it were.

Have a lovely weekend!

Excuse me while I go and hide in a corner

I'm a gibbering wreck this week. As I'm typing now, my hands are shaking. They have been shaking all day and I feel like I'm on the edge of a nervous breakdown. I don't really want to talk about it here, but right now I just feel like I want the whole world to go away, and to crawl into a corner and slowly turn into a puddle of sweat and tears. Please excuse me for a few days whilst I have a mini meltdown. Meanwhile, thanks for visiting! (Don't worry, it's nothing major)

The serious artist

Client: Ikea

I'm in a bit of a maudlin mood about work at the moment. I'm returning to a topic that preoccupies me to an unhealthy degree - what it is to be a true artist. I know that a lot of people who stop by my blog are illustrators themselves, so maybe you will understand what I mean when I say that I wonder sometimes if I'm an artist at all.

Client: Tesco

Client: Fiat

You see, I draw a lot of animals and car parts, and I animate run cycles and dog silhouettes, all on demand and for clients, not myself. It's what I have to do to make a living and a lot of the time it's quite fun. A lot of time is is soul-sapping. When the work isn't coming in thick and fast I have the chance to work on personal projects. And that's when I come unstuck.

I have impulsively signed myself up for the open studios event in North Wales, Helfa Gelf, with the intention of building up a body of my own, what I call 'proper', work before September. It's not that I have to be a painter or sculptor to take part - being an illustrator is just as valid, but I have yearnings to paint and to make more things with my hands and this is a good opportunity to push myself. To this end, I have started to think about what I really want to do, but right now I'm frozen with terror. It's that blank canvas feeling, you know?

It's been a long time since I've seriously sat down and thought about doing something entirely self-directed. What do I want to do? Who am I? What do I want to say? I used to use my sketchbooks at uni as a kind of repository for my 'streams of consciousness' ranting and self-loathing. I wrote much more than I drew in those sketchbooks. It was a way of procrastinating about producing any artwork at all; I was 'thinking'. I'm procrastinating right now by blogging my insecurities rather than addressing them practically.

I look at other artists' work and am preoccupied by a few questions. What is it that compels artists to do what they do; to choose to paint humans or landscapes or whatever? How do they make choices and decisions about where to make a mark, which colour to use, how big a canvas to paint on? How do they know if what they have done is any good? Or is it the case that whatever you do, you have to believe that it's good enough or no-one else will either. Where on earth do I start?


What I do know about myself is that I am obsessed by dead, stuffed, pickled animals, deformities, notions of conservation and preservation, education and display. I like reading about sideshows and freak shows, the circus and the zoo. I am not a serious person and I should value my ability to make people laugh. It's not easy when most 'real' artists seem to take themselves so seriously - am I too flippant to ever be an artist?

I wonder if any of you also feel like this, and what you do to inspire your own work, to give yourself a kick start when the inspiration and self-belief are running a bit low? How do you know if what you are doing is any good, or does that not matter? Please share your thoughts!

need to shake things up!

OK. Things have gotten to a point now where I'm just making excuses not to do anything proper - admin, phone calls, pointless online shopping/blog-reading. This is a new year, for heaven's sake! And it's nearly the end of January! What have I achieved? NOTHING. SOD ALL. Jack s***. It's awful.

I need a plan. I want to do so many things but I can't seem to get off my arse and do them. This year I want to:

1. Start painting
2. Work on some ideas for children's picture books (and ACTUALLY do something with them!)
3. Make more stuff for myself - clothes, jewellery and things, rather than buying them.
4. Get back into gardening - I miss my veg patch so badly!
5. Learn something new - I don't know what yet...

This post over at Modish was the inspiration for this.

Meanwhile I am trying to think of some new drawing themes.

the weekend

Hi peeps. I'm still sorry that I've not done any new drawings for the blog yet. Something seems to have gone wrong with my creativity. I think it's a thing called life - I am up to my eyeballs in paperwork and phone calls at the moment, and when I'm not doing that, I am trying to be inspired for a job I'm working on at the moment (failing horribly). How was your weekend? Mine was pleasant, quiet... we went to have a gander at our nearest farm shop on Saturday, and discovered that it is pretty amazing - we didn't bother to go to the supermarket after we'd been there. On Sunday we went to have a nose around a local auction house and to see The King's Speech at the cinema - what a lovely film it is!

That's all I have to report, I'm afraid. I'll see if I can come up with something fun later today.

A New Year

Last year was pretty crazy. The husband decided to make a career change. We sold our house, moved to Wales, and are still trying to find somewhere to settle. It was a year of upheavals and uncertainty. Our hope for this year is that we find a new place to call home. That's all I want. A proper home.

These two photographs have been taken from some properties for sale in South and West Wales (nowhere near where we are looking to buy!). Isn't the first one in a perfect state of dilapidation? Call me crazy, but I think it's gorgeous.

Distracted

You know how it is around Christmas time. I get s***loads of work in, and then I distract myself in the quieter moments with fun and games such as going to the post office, chasing estate agents, freezing my tits off in the house...

Here is a hypochondriac cat who thinks he's got every disease going. It's just his character, he can't help it.

Later today I'm off to Lidl to stock up on canned goods before this predicted snow comes in. Happy days.

My brain is fried

Good morning! I'm so sorry. I have been a bad bunny this last week or two. On the positive side, I've been away earning me some money, which is quite useful, I think you'll agree. On the negative side, I haven't got much to tell you about because I've been holed up in my desk space for days with little stimulation. Let me see...

1. My fingers are still swollen like hams.
2. I've been sneakily shopping on eBay for all sorts of wonderful things, including brown parcel paper. Yeah, it's that interesting around here.
3. We went to Manchester on Saturday to have a proper look around. What a fabulous city! It's the closest thing to a mini London I've seen yet, with great vintage clothes shops and wonderful things to eat. We had lunch at Oklahoma cafe (facebook), which was also a sweet gift shop full of quirky things like Japanese paper balloons and amusing teatowels.
4. I still haven't done Christmas cards. The picture above is one drawing I've rejected, incomplete.

Oh dear...

OMFG

Things have got really out of hand here. I'm inundated with work, panicking about lost hardware, trying to sell a flat, nursing chilblains on my fingers* whilst trying to draw, and just cold, cold, cold. Sorry I've been away. It looks like it will be like this for a while - I got less than three hours of sleep last night :-(

*my dad delicately likened my swollen fingertips to hams. It's not pretty.

Painting

I wanted to have a little dialogue with myself today about painting. I don't call what I do with watercolours 'painting' - it's more like colouring in, you know? I am a drawer more than I am a painter, if that makes sense. But I used to paint, back in the days when the whole world was still my proverbial oyster and I felt like I still could be anything that I wanted. I am sad to say that I feel that my horizons seem to have narrowed since then, entirely through my own fault and timidity, and it has been many years since I last picked up a proper paintbrush. Last time I handled acrylic paint was in 2006. Last time I handled oil paint was 2004. Yeah, that's a while.

For some reason artworks in acrylic or oil paint seem to hold more artistic gravitas than, say, watercolour in the eyes of most people. I can't really explain it - is it some kind of historical relic - that old masters used to sketch and make studies in graphite and watercolour before launching into their 'final piece' - the big, expensive canvas painted in extravagant oil paint? Is it the feeling that a watercolour is a sketch, or often executed at speed that gives it more of a 'throwaway' reputation? Do the solidity, opacity and physicality of thick paint endow it with more artistic clout? Whatever the case, I always argue that there is just as much merit in a well-executed watercolour painting, if not more. The medium of watercolour is unforgiving - you can't just paint over something you've cocked up or it goes muddy, your paper bobbles - it reveals every decision, every mistake and every success. The very best watercolour artists are my heroes.


Richard Parkes Bonington, the short-lived landscape painter, used both watercolour and oil. The luminosity and translucence of his glowing watercolours impress me far more than his oil paintings. There is something wonderful about how an artist must edit all the choices he will make before he commits his brush to the paper, so that every wash that he lays down is the right one, in the right place. The economy and spontaneity of watercolour are qualities that take a lot of skill to master. If you ever get the chance to see Bonington's watercolours, held in the archive at the Wallace Collection in London, I urge you to go. They are breathtaking.


On a more contemporary note, did you see the winner of the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition this year? The winner, Emma Haworth, also paints in oil - the image above is the winning watercolour painting, and the image below is an oil painting titled 'The Winter Park'. What I love about the watercolour image is how the medium used is so evident in the translucent tree trunks. I think that is delightful and would like to see it in the flesh.



Anyway, what's my point here? I am no great watercolourist, but I find it comes to me more naturally than other painting media. Maybe it suits my slapdash, can't be arsed, let's get this done quickly attitude? :-) No, I devalue my work this way. I think the fussiness, the forward planning required, and the brave breath that you have to take before laying down a big wash are things that appeal to me. But all that said, I would like to take up 'proper' painting again. In fact, I just ferreted out an array of acrylic paints from our house-moving boxes and have them lined up on the husband's desk facing me like a firing squad. Paint, or die. Now I've just got to go away and think of something to paint! Oh dear.

What do you think about painting? Which medium do you find the easiest to work with? Is it a good thing to push myself to try out new things and leave the comfort zone? Why am I so crippled with fear when faced with a blank painting board, whereas I can face blank paper without similar apprehension?

stuff...

I seem to have stopped writing about things other than my drawings and work. I can't seem to do a bit of both. If I've posted a drawing onto the blog I feel like my work is done and I forget to talk about the other things in my life. Not that you are interested in those other things, but I kind of think of this place as a diary, so that maybe I can look back later on and know what I was doing and thinking at different times.

Here are a few random things I've been thinking about:

A sudden and overwhelming craving for bitter melon.

Smile for London sounds like a lot of fun.

I've not been to an auction for AGES and I miss it.

Beautiful Welsh products from Damson and Slate.

This is one of the artists in my life drawing group.

How amazing is this film? I saw it at Annecy animation festival a couple of years back and it still blows me away and I don't know why.

I have also been investigating lots of very boring things like government grants for loft insulation, the efficiency of woodburning stoves, what to do with asbestos roofing... yeah. It's all fun and games here.

the weekend

Did you have a good weekend? I went to my parents' house in Birmingham and watched my dad cook - now I am armed with two more of his amazing recipes (well, guideline recipes - he's very approximate but always seems to get it right). I can now make something approximating Chinese barbecued spare ribs and five-spice braised pork belly - it's making me hungry sitting here and writing this. There is nothing quite like the taste of food that you have grown up with. We also went walking in the beautiful Clent Hills and shopping in town. God, I love shopping! It's a good thing I don't live too near a city any more, or I would be bankrupt. No photos, I'm afraid. I did get some inspiration for a couple more drawings this week, though. See you tomorrow!

Drawn - adulthood 07

You know it's the beginning of the end when you look in the mirror one morning and you see something has drastically changed without you noticing it. Now, let me tell you something: I have never had a crease under my bum cheeks. It's just a feature (or lack thereof) of my strangely flat yet square-edged Chinese arse. Words such as 'peachy' and 'pert' have never really applied to it. It's just there, somewhere under the odd folds of my jeans (trousers have never hung quite right on my behind). But I didn't have creases under the cheeks. Not until (I admit, in my increasingly pointless vanity) I deemed to turn round and look at it in the mirror this morning. I'm not gaining weight; I'm not even nearly overweight, but there they were. They were not even the kind of normal creases that some ladies have - you know, a single, well-defined line - but were kind of dry, multiple wrinkles, like my bum's equivalent of crow's feet. I am mortified. I am not even 30 years old yet. Lord help me, I'm dying.

Monday...

Did you have a good weekend? We went to celebrate my sweet brother-in-law's 18th birthday in Leeds and officially welcome him to adulthood. The card I drew for him went along the lines of 'adulthood isn't about freedom, it's about being chained down by your neck by responsibility and shit like that'. I am busy busy this week with so many things that I can barely think. It's time I grew up and got a diary.

I was determined not to put the heating on in the house until October. Last night, the husband cracked and turned it on because neither of us could feel our feet any more, despite socks and slippers.