I carried on cutting little blocks of lockdown text today, with Sparta Puss overseeing the work. She’s tough on me.
From Paper To Block
Yesterday I showed the a page of text designs I did for small lino blocks (here) so today I selected the first two that I’m going to carve. I started the process by painting the text onto paper with an Isabey watercolour brush and walnut ink, then I traced the text using 90gsm tracing paper and a 2B pencil. Then I turned the tracing I wanted to use onto a lino block and drew over the back of the lines with a 4H pencil. This is important – the original in 2B is soft and when I press on the back of the line with the 4H, the hardness of the 4H pencil presses the dust from the 2B onto the block. Once that’s done I draw over the lines on the block with a ballpoint pen because the pencil lines will rub off once I get started on the carving.
The text goes through several stages, from ink and brush, to pencil tracing, to ballpoint pen and eventually to carving. At each stage I refine the text. Once the lettering is in reverse, I sort of lose sight of the words and start to see the letters as individual pieces of design, which alters them yet again. The first one is cut, tomorrow I’ll do the second. I must work faster because there are an awful lot of these to be done. Eventually I hope to have one block for each day of UK lockdown, which is about 79 days so far.
Writing The Changes
Now that I have a fresh supply of new grey lino – smells gorgeous – I can carry on with cutting little blocks of text. I have been writing down a list of words and phrases since the pandemic started, well since lockdown I suppose, and it’s been interesting how the spirit and feeling of these words has changed over the weeks, very enthusiastic at the beginning, but things started to fray a bit after quite a few weeks, and then there’s been an explosion of anger over the weekend. To start with, I’ll be working my way through them, transferring the text to lino, cutting and printing onto fabric. It’s going to take a while, there are over 70 so far ….
‘Only’ The Cat
I try to do a drawing every day, even if it’s only the cat (she doesn’t like me describing her as ‘only’ the cat). It’s important to practice every day, sketching is like a singer practising their scales. And to be honest, after the very difficult weekend half the world has had, it’s nice to just sit and draw a cat. It might not last.
And I made more sesame seed baps….
A Tough Decision
I did something yesterday that’s made a lot of people angry. I knew it would and I knew the risks but I decided to go ahead and do it and also do my best to minimise the risks to others. I went to the #BlackLivesMatter protest in Swansea.
It wasn’t a hasty decision and I was masked, gloved, sanitised and as I’m an anti-social git anyway, kept well away from others and didn’t speak to anyone else.
It was quite large, but in a very big space and most of the people I saw had masks on – the organisers were handing out masks to the very few who arrived without. Because it’s on the flat, I couldn’t see the whole crowd, but social distancing seemed to be happening around me and not many people were moving around.
My actions upset a lot of people, and I respect their point of view, but we’ll have to agree to disagree. The event was organised with the approval of the police and local authority, the police were there and there was no trouble. I felt it was safer than any shop I’ve been in since lockdown and safer than walking through the city centre, where few people wear masks or move out of their way to keep their distance. Will it cause a spike in Covid19 cases? Time will tell.
I also finished cutting two small lino blocks, printed them onto cotton fabric and they will be made up into masks as part of a large scale ongoing pandemic art project. I’ve been waiting for a supply of lino to arrive and now it has, I hope to move quickly on this. It’s going to be big.
I’ve upset some people by allying myself with #BlackLivesMatter. Lots of arguments about this online, but I’m not going to rehash them here. The Black Lives Matter movement exists to to build local power and to intervene when violence is inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. Please click on the link if you want to make a donation. Thank you.
Some of the angry people I’ve encountered have been very vocal about the late Lee Rigby. The Lee Rigby Foundation and Lyn Rigby, Lee’s mother, have acted with dignity and grace and requested that people stop doing this and that Lee’s memory is respected. Their thoughts and support go out to George Floyd’s family. The Foundation supports military families, veterans and personnel whatever their ethnic background, creed, sexuality, gender. Please click on the link to make a donation. Thank you.
Another Faking Friday: Monet’s Japanese Bridge
Faking Friday again, copying a famous painting with the family-friendly Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook. It’s Monet’s Japanese Bridge this week. I recycled an old canvas that I’d used to play around with some paint a few years back then stuck it up the attic and forgot about it. That just about sums up my usual level of interest in painting.
The original canvas is on the left – in the middle I coated it with a thin layer of white acrylic paint. On the right, after a thin layer of orange, the first step in the Cheese and Wine Painting Club’s session.
From the left: painting the background and horizon: the bottom of the bridge and foliage on the edge of the pond: the bridge and plant details.
I’ve got a couple more hours to do on the painting, which is actually too small for the canvas. Monet’s original is almost a square, rather than rectangular, so I’m going to have to come up with something to do with the empty strips at the sides. I used Liquitex Heavy Body Acrylic paint.
Next Friday, it’s Banksy’s Balloon Girl.
A Cityscape, A Lush Loaf And A Spider Man
Earlier, before the rain started, we went to visit an elderly friend who lives high on the hill, observing social distance of course. I did a scribble into my Khadi sketchbook with some willow charcoal. It’s hard drawing a cityscape – it’s so packed with detail and charcoal is quite a blunt instrument, so I had to select the stuff I wanted to put in, rather than slavishly try to fit everything into the compostion. I’m happy with it, it flows and I like the mark-making. It was fun dashing and dotting in windows and scribbling trees.
When we got back I made a Focaccia-style bread for the first time. That turned out lovely, lush. I’m enjoying lockdown cooking.
And Husb did a painting to put into our street-facing window to entertain the neighbours, alongside the one I did the other week. Here they are, Spider Man and Sparta Puss.
Out The Back
This is the sort of subject that I really don’t like to draw, it’s way outside my comfort zone. Give me people and animals any day, or even a bit of open landscape. But. I need to challenge myself, so I had a scribble looking out of the back door into my garden. It’s a very busy space and it’s difficult to draw, especially using a soft charcoal pencil and willow charcoal onto very textured Khadi paper. But I didn’t want to use pencils because then I’d have wandered into the tech drawing zone, which is what I don’t want to do. Never mind.
Charcoal And Baps
I took my Khadi sketchbook and willow charcoal to the allotment this evening and drew from inside the allotment site, which is tucked away in a corner of the Castle park. It’s on a fairly steep hill dropping away to the coast and we’re near the top. It’s surrounded by woodland, which can be a bit of a challenge for growers, but it’s an idyllic place to hang out, especially in these pandemic times – we’ve been sanctioned to travel to allotments since day 1 of lockdown. I concentrated on mark-making again as there is such a lot of different textures crowding together in the view. I suppose I took about 10 minutes.
I also made some sesame seed baps. We gave our bread making machine away to a relative, so I’ve been trying out making bread from scratch and it’s surprisingly easy with fast acting yeast. Lush.
Nothing Much To See Here….
Today I restarted something that has been brewing for a while now, what I call my “serious” art work, my response to the Covid19 Pandemic. It’s been on hold while I’ve been waiting for materials to arrive; they’re not all here, a lot of stuff is out of stock, but I have enough to kick-start it. I spent this morning researching the different ways to make face masks, trying to find my way around official advice and research, which is scanty. But I think I’ve hit on the best combination of safety with comfort that’s out there. The photo shows the cardboard templates I made for cutting the components of the mask. It’s nothing much to see, it’s not glamorous but it’s the foundation for all the work to come.
scribblah 