In progress

The moss stitch blanket I had been wanting to make for years is finally taking shape and is the easiest thing to knit, which makes it ideal for knitting while talking, but not necessarily to switch off your brain. Something more challenging would be required for that, though I do try to enter a trance of knit-purl-knit-purl, akin to a breathing exercise. I am using DMC Natura XL (cotton may not be the warmest choice for a blanket), but with size 8 needles, not the suggested 12, as it was too lacy with the latter.

The sky and the horizon in the large seascape change colour every day, as I cannot decide on the combination. Originally this was upside down and the dark blue was a beginning blurry cloud, inspired by a view from the car on our way home. Then John came in and turned it on its head, and now the sea has become the sky and the cloud is turning into who knows what, but I like it.

We watched a BBC documentary about the artist James Dickson Innes last night, and it made me realise once more how vague and shy my colours can be. I am tempted to start afresh.

Pink

 Three feet

Uncooked

Clouds

1|  Pink shoes you can walk in for miles (because they are Ecco), to the pub and back, for example

2|  Alternating cooking and eating apples from the garden in this apple frangipane tart

3|  I have photographed the view from the kitchen window in this house and in my old place so many times, always with grand plans to paint the particular colour combination of sky-land-sea, and I have done the latter four times in all those years. Sometimes we are in the car on the way to work or home, and the bay is sublime, and I make a mental note to get the morning or evening light down on paper or canvas or snap a hasty photo. One day soon those scribbled lines of 'fuzzy strip of indigo above pale blue water, flat sky' will be translated into paint.

On the easel | Three starts

 

1 |  A mini painting in preparation for a larger painting I want to do of Furbo beach

2 & 3 |  Hydrangeas (work-in-progress) for my mother-in-law, who is a wonderful gardener and was tempted by a print of pink hydrangeas a while ago, so I decided to paint some from our garden for her

4 |  A Full Table (John at the Kitchen Window), work-in-progress, though I quite like it sketchy like that

I got a commission framed this week that I cannot show yet, as it will be a gift, and while putting the finishing touches to it, I started the kitchen scene above. This is how I want to spend my time, and in these August weeks I am doing at least a little of what I thought would be my summer. Instead there were other commitments and a stream of (very welcome, I hasten to add) visitors, and together with housework, gardening and general day-to-day happenings, my time in the studio dwindled to windows of an hour or so snatched here and there.

It is so freeing to paint with no agenda, whatever takes my fancy. With all the space we have in this house, I have been thinking of going bigger and perhaps bolder. In a lovely act of synchronicity, a woman in my class gave me several large canvases she has no use for, which was so kind and generous of her. They are leaning against a wall in my studio, beckoning.

Goldfinch

I am finally reading The Goldfinch, which is serving as a reminder to always have an absorbing novel on the go, especially in periods of high anxiety, and reassurance that it is ok to take your time with projects (Tartt famously spent about a decade on each of her novels, though I would never compare the pitiful fruits of my labour with her output). It had been on my to-read list for a while, but the physical copy of the book came into my life as part of a chain of goldfinch-related occurrences that I would like to believe are more than mere coincidence.

The goldfinch - Fabritius's - has been a steady companion to my home life for years, gracing my pinboard ever since the day a friend gave me this exhibition brochure (other items on the board come and go, but the goldfinch is a constant, along with sketches and notes by my mom and sisters). I missed the exhibition and have never seen the painting in real life, but it is one of my favourite works of art. Always in my field of vision when I am working on the easel, the outline of the goldfinch inspired a painting of my own.

A few weeks ago, I was at my desk in my studio/office room when a goldfinch hit the window (I have ornaments hanging in the window, but unfortunately they weren't enough to deter birds). I ran outside, and it was on the ground, still breathing. I brought it indoors, hoping it would recover, but the poor thing died in my hands, which was very upsetting. I kept it in my house for another day or so and took photos to maybe paint it later, wanting to preserve its beauty somehow (I briefly considered taxidermy, but though I admire it from afar, I doubt I will ever attempt it), before we buried it in a compostable coffin, along with yellow flowers. [This window death was also the fate of a finch at a local artist's apartment a couple of years ago, and it was the trigger for an entire hauntingly beautiful exhibition.]

And then yesterday in class one of my students brought in a set of photos from a bird calendar, and of course there was a goldfinch among them (I realise that in itself is not extraordinary, it being a bird calendar. But the timing of the bird pictures appearing seems to be yet another "sign"), now repurposed as a bookmark.

Maybe none of this means anything, but it is in my nature to look out for patterns and repetition. I cannot even say what that elusive meaning might be. All I know is that I am very fond of this little bird that keeps appearing everywhere. And I don't want the book to end.

From the West of Ireland to Wertheim

Work-in-progress in this case meant sitting-on-the-easel-untouched-for-months, a silent reproach every time I entered my studio/spare room, a reminder that I was most definitely not "getting my stuff done"(I just watched this again... my life in a nutshell). But now it is finished, I think. And it made me nostalgic for my hometown, especially when I put the lights into the windows of the houses.

This painting is for my older sister and my brother-in-law, and a recent development means that I may unwittingly have painted the new home of my younger sister and her husband. Not the castle... somewhere beside the church. Or maybe it is just beyond the frame; I haven't asked her yet (Sibylle?). But in any case, this is soon to be their neighbourhood. So this painting is linking the three sisters in an unexpected way.

As much as I love working on the illustration projects that are more active works-in-progress, I need to make space for my own personal art-making. The last two Sundays enabled me to do that, and it's the best start to my week. The Daily Drawings shall return (my discipline for turning up here has been woefully inadequate, but there is a lot of behind-the-scenes housekeeping going on).

November can be desperately bleak, but so far it has been kind, with blue-sky mornings when I walk down to work from the Park-and-Ride and pink clouds above my house. I have finally got into the mood of the season - until last week I was still in May in my head.

Last night I resisted the urge to go to bed early - my default in the colder months - and watched a Spanish movie (another neglected thing on my list: keeping my Spanish alive) while knitting a scarf. This made me nostalgic for Spain, where I lived in 2004-05 (where did those ten years go?). So all in all it has been a week of sentimental thoughts and the resolve to be better at keeping in touch with loved ones.

Colour and emotions

When teaching drawing and painting I am generally quite articulate (or so I hope): I am confident when I explain different  exercises or talk about elements of the painting/drawing process such as mark-making or perceiving with the right side of the brain. It can be more tricky to find adequate verbal descriptions for the non-verbal language that is artmaking, though there exists vocabulary that comes very close, and language stretches and can be wonderfully accommodating. I love reading books on art and the aha moments when a writer manages to convey in words what a certain arrangements of brushstokes or a line evokes.

There naturally has to be a limit to what can be said; visual art speaks for itself, and no amount of verbal description can conjure up what presents itself in lines, shapes, colour and composition.

I encounter that boundary regularly when it comes to colour combinations. This is when words fail me in class - a few weeks ago one of my students had chosen a palette that worked beautifully and that I had a strong emotional response to, but I couldn't say what that elusive quality was.

Of course there are the easier combinations such as 'autumn colours', 'candy colours', 'fresh/springlike', 'berry colours', 'retro', etc. that are familiar and that we immediately recognise. But others, when for example the perfect dusty blue is juxtaposed with a muted pale pink and naples yellow, and the atmosphere this combination creates is sublime, leave me wringing my brain for a verbal match that will do it justice. Colour is endlessly fascinating to me, and even though an intellectual understanding or analysis may well take away from the magic, I want to be able to talk about the ways colours relate to each other and learn more. Our emotional response hinges on our individual make-up, our history and preferences, but we share our humanity, so how we perceive colour is also universal.

Colour combinations are everywhere: In fashion, design, the natural world, the way someone has placed a few books together on a shelf. Created deliberately, intuitively and by accident, unintentionally, just by how and where things are in the world. I tear out corners of magazine pages in which the colours speak to me for whatever reason. While there are certain individual colours I always gravitate towards and I have my favourites (plural; I could not just pick one), the way these work with others and the endless number of combinations possible between all the colours that exist make this an area of interest that will never cease to fascinate, that will never be exhausted.

I read this piece by Andrew Marr on the artist Howard Hodgkin recently (the day after marvelling at my student's colour composition), and it was extremely rewarding, as he talks about the effect colour combinations have on the viewer:

"Layering a vivid orange across an arsenic green, crouched under a line of cobalt, sends messages to the brain; and those messages can be communicated, however inadequately, in language.
[...]
...dark greens, particularly dappled with apple greens, and strong verticals may produce a feeling of security in a hominid species that emerged relatively recently from the protection of forests."

He warns against using these ideas as a "handy visual grammar", but says there must be some truth in these colour-coded evolutionary messages. "Hodgkin uses colour in ways that may be at times highly personal and autobiographical but are more often in a long tradition, fully alive today."

Marr's article also captures something of the essence of Hodgkin's art. The first painting of his I saw (only in reproduction, but still powerful) was of a crowded hall (the audience at a concert or in the theatre - I can't find it online). It was almost abstract, but you could make out heads and the venue and how the figures filled the space, and you felt you were there with them. With just a few brushstrokes he had made the atmosphere of a crowded space palpable.

P.S.: The Howard Hodgkin page on Artsy.net is a brilliant resource.

Blue-green-blue-green

Seagulls

Signs of change (at Portumna Castle)

 Illuminated

Drinking tea that tastes of grass* (in a good way) on the grass

Colours are on my mind a lot right now, mainly due to something I am working on.

Ireland has been blessed with an extended summer - two weeks ago the weather forecast had seven sun symbols in a row for the week ahead, and it came true and then continued for another week. We are doing our best to keep up the swimming. Last week at Ladies' Beach there was an older woman in the water who had her long grey hair up in an elegant braided bun. She wore a necklace and earrings with her polka dot swimsuit and a smile on her face and spent a lot of time keeping herself afloat on her back (one of my favourite ways of being in the sea, and, incidentally, a great core exercise). I want to be that lady when I am older. Like in so many seaside towns there is a community of septua-, octo- and even nonagenarians here who go swimming in the sea regularly, some daily, throughout the year. They always have a cheerful welcome for us, and last week someone said "See you tomorrow!", as if it were understood that we'd all be there again the next day.

Parts of my life feel like a neverending holiday (the current combination of the weather, the swimming, half-day trips to places I had never been before, my house, the food, the company), and juxtaposed to that I am overwhelmed by how much I have to do. Taking my cue from our neighbour at home, I am banning the word 'stressed', though I am not sure 'overwhelmed' is a good substitute. Whenever I feel that way, I remind myself how lucky I am to be doing what I am doing.

So many things are in the work-in-progress state at the moment, but I am finally getting the hang of working on various projects and not losing sight of any individual one. It has only taken me about a decade to figure this out... I know it is a recurring theme here, but this time it does feel like a mini breakthrough. A lot of it is thanks to a version of the Pomodoro Technique and breaking down that barrier in my head that always seemed to dictate that if I had to be somewhere later in the day there was no point starting anything, even if I had a window of several hours. Now I think, wow, I have an hour to do some work! And I set my alarm. I shall report back next week.


* Kukicha

Cats, cake, colour

 

“Just do it. You’re gonna feel so great all afternoon if you get your work done today. You get to not do it, but then you’re gonna feel really sad; you’re gonna really feel regretful, and that begins to speak for a whole life: if you’ve wanted to write, if you’ve wanted to dance, if you’ve wanted to join a chorus, if you want to get back to playing piano, [which] you were very good at until other people found it very inconvenient for you to get so lost in your music. And you say ‘I don’t know how long I’m gonna live, but I will be playing piano the day I die!’ And I do that with my writing. I say, ‘it’s quarter of nine’... I was getting picked up for the airport at 12; I had three hours fifteen minutes, and I’d say I spent two hours and twenty of them writing, and I got something that was a really bad first draft into better shape, better shape, and that’s all I can do on any given day.” ~ Anne Lamott 

“All freedom comes from discipline [...] that's what meditation is about.” ~ Anne Lamott

These quotes are from this video, a conversation with writer Anne Lamott. If anyone reading this who works freelance or wants to make time for their art is in need of motivation, watch this video! 

I am one of Anne Lamott's many many fans, and I listened to this while working on illustrations the other day (the third picture above is a detail from one of them; two more are here on my website) - in a nice display of synchronicity it turned into one of the most productive days I have had recently, and I did feel great all afternoon, and all evening, and the feeling carried on into the following day... Then it stopped - or it would surely have turned into complacency and thus inactivity. Every day is a new day. Start again.

My creativity has also been fuelled by cake and the presence of two cats. And love and nice feedback and jogs with my running buddies (my younger sister and brother-in-law), who are also staying at my mom's house (hence the cats) while I am here. Tomorrow we will be joined by our older sister and her husband, so we will all be under one roof for a few days, a rare occurrence.

Warm glow among the greys

 Crows and pale pink light

 Horses in blankets

Artwork for festival brochure/poster on the theme of  Laugh | Nourish | Love

Since returning after Christmas I have only managed one walk in my neighbourhood. I have barely been at home, as it is the lead-up to the annual arts festival we organise. I was delighted to be asked to provide the artwork again this year. (In the photo the colours didn't come out properly, and for the posters and brochures our talented graphic designer gave it all an even warmer glow.)

The theme is a nice antidote to the grey skies and raging storms and short days. But it was exhilarating to go walking in the unpredictable weather, passing horses in blankets and startling a murder of crows, with the sky a thick sheet of clouds that occasionally tore open to reveal the light behind.

This morning I finally tackled the one plant trough that had no drainage holes, where the bulbs had been sitting waterlogged. Between a corkscrew and a pair of scissors (do not attempt this at home - I had no other tools) I managed to bore two holes. Now I can step outside my house without a nagging reminder of things left undone greeting me.

There is a new soap in the shower, the laundry is done, and a semblance of order emerging (let's not go into the corridors of my brain). I am looking forward to a weekend of calm and nourishment - papers,  brunches, cleansing salt scrubs (thank you, Elly!) and good company.

Quiet dark days with bursts of sunlight and colour

It seems to have become a recurring theme here for me to announce that I am sick again and that it must be my body telling me to slow down, that I need to deal with certain issues instead of waiting for their manifestation in illness. Thankfully it has never been anything serious - the worst would have been kidney infections.

So here I am transitioning into the new year with a bad dose of sinusitis. My running gear has been sitting in the wardrobe waiting for the day I am able to hit the beautiful country roads and forest paths here. I was going to add 'patiently' to 'waiting', but Stephen King has succeeded in making me think twice before I go near an adverb. This is always among the top ten writing tips, but I tend to forget. I am reading books I gave to family members a few years ago and liked the sound of, one of them King's On Writing. Maria Popova from Brain Pickings did a post on his thoughts on 'creative sleep'.

The new issue of Happinez magazine is out (it's a Dutch magazine, but there is a German version, too) and inspiring as always. I love watching Eckhart Tolle on youtube, and his column in Happinez often serves as a timely reminder of something I might have let slip: accepting what is, for example. I will do my best in 2014.

The brevity of daylight gets to me some days, but candles help (including real candles on our tree as per tradition), and there is something nice and restful about the darkness. We have been going out for short walks in the evening, not knowing what we are stepping on and into.

Instead of bemoaning the lack of exercise and my throbbing head and aching jaw, I can see this time for the bed of roses it is: Reading for hours, being surrounded by family and cats and cosy with a fire lit, well-fed, painting, playing Tori Amos piano music... And today I received a heartwarming e-mail from a relatively new friend who feels like an old friend - one of those friendships where a closeness and connection seems to precede the first actual meeting.

~Happy New Year to everyone reading! May 2014 be filled with light and beauty!~

Daily drawings | Not drawing, but painting (and knitting)

I've been having fun with these: tiny canvases to do quick paintings on (I chose a Galway theme). If I make the Daily drawings a regular feature, I had better change the title to include painting.

I find myself using the colours of recent evening skies:

And another colour pairing: I only noticed when I started knitting with this yarn that it matched my nail polish.

My sister and I are preparing for a crafts fair this weekend, and in my usual fashion I am doing lots of last-minute projects - painting by daylight, knitting and crocheting at night.

Daily drawings | Wool

Another work-in-progress. Just playing around with Graphitint pencils, following the pattern of knit and purl on a moss stitch wrist warmer - the kind of drawing that is trance-inducing.

And noticing all the green around me moving towards a more muted palette among November's greys. 

I am wearing my green coat, knitting green socks and eating my greens. 

 

Recently

I was absent here for a while for various reasons - family visiting, work in the Uni starting again after my long summer off, needing time away from the computer after long sessions of teaching myself Adobe InDesign - and came back only to find Blogger stubbornly refusing to cooperate, so I have temporarily lost bits in the sidebar. While I attempt to solve this, here are some glimpses of recent happenings and be-ings:

View from the prom in Salthill. Galway Bay was eerily still for a few days - a mirror-like surface, coupled with thick warm air and people moving slowly; it felt like walking through a dream.

 

Encountered on another walk. I must emphasise I do not approve of people dumping old furniture in the landscape, but this was at least aesthetically pleasing. It also reminds me of that famous Cranberries album cover. 

My sister and I are busy preparing for crafts fairs, Christmas markets and online shops. I am trying to establish whether buttons or hooks and eyes or snap fasteners work best on crochet cuffs.

Baking. There has been a lot of baking, for birthdays, hikes, visitors and visits. I found out that liberally substituting honey for sugar is not always a good idea (banana mash instead of banana bread) and that a cake described as "really moist" in the recipe still can turn out excessively moist (pear mash instead of pear cake), to the delight of my visitors, who thankfully were all family and brave and ate it anyway.

Rab and I presented some of our collaborations at the first ever Cong Arts Festival. My sister and brother-in-law kindly helped out in various ways, from driving to filming our show. Cong is a picturesque village most famous for the film The Quiet Man. We loved this sign plus painted ducks' footprints.

Light and white

 

I am growing mint in a cup (fingers crossed) and looking forward to using these hand-printed napkins (thanks again for these beautiful gifts, Sabrina and Christoph!). Kitchen roll is banned from my kitchen - though I do use it when teaching painting -, and while I keep a packet of paper napkins in the drawer, especially for meals featuring ingredients likely to cause permanent stains, I use proper cloth napkins 90 per cent of the time.

My house has been painted white - badly needed it -, and I have added gladioli and lemon balm (both gifts as well; I am very lucky) to the potted plants outside my door. Everything feels fresh and light and adds to the lovely blank-canvas-feeling of this time of the year.

Art highlights

 In the Rivera Room at the DIA, with sunlight streaming in

This summer I was lucky to experience two art highlights:

- I got to see Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals, something that had been on my bucket list (which exists loosely in my head and across various notebooks; I have never written one as such). It was impressive, and the new audio iPad tour is worth listening to in full.

- Earlier in the summer a friend invited me to a film about the wonderful artist Pauline Bewick. It explored her creation The Yellow Man (and her Grey Man, representing a darker side, who emerged from sessions with a Gestalt psychoanalyst) and was absolutely beautiful.

Yellow Man Grey Man is available from the director Maurice Galway's website. He currently has a gorgeous picture of Pauline from the film on his home page. There is more information, including a short video, in the news section of Pauline Bewick's website. 

"It's rather sad really. I was searching for the perfect society. That's why I went to The South Pacific and that's why I invented The Yellow Man. He to me is perfection. I created The Yellow Man because if our society were made up of Yellow Men it would be a marvellous place." ~ Pauline Bewick

 ---------------------------------

On a much smaller - but personal - scale, I was delighted to come home to the second issue of Skylight 47, a poetry publication, which included one of my paintings. 

 

Wear and Read

 

 

|  My sister made me a corset. It is a thing of beauty and I can see it being part of my "uniform" when working from home, to make me sit up that bit straighter and feel more able and in control. I realise the historical connotations would be rather the opposite. But I find it does wonders for one's breathing if you don't make it so tight it squashes all your vital organs. Her online shop is here, but will be transferred to another site when she leaves Germany.

|  I am much more of a baker than a cook, so I want to learn more about cooking. The Flavour Thesaurus is not only a great resource, explaining what goes with what and why, but also entertaining (sample: "If you ever feel a bit decadent tucking into bacon and eggs at breakfast, it may help to know that in pre-revolutionary Russia the Tsar's children started the day with a dish of mashed banana and caviar.") and a beautiful book.

|  The older I get the shorter my hemlines, it seems. For a good part of my teenage years I wore long floaty skirts; in my early twenties a much older boyfriend described my mid-length skirts as "granny-style"; and now I can often be seen in 1960s minidresses and shorts, including these yellow dotty ones.

|  Stag's Leap, Sharon Olds's book of poems about the break-up of her marriage, is a revelation, haunting and powerful, and deservedly won the T.S. Eliot Prize.

[All of the above are presents given to me by real people in my life, not blog freebies!]