Approx. 15cm x 20cm (6″ x 8″). Rotring Rapidograph pens on cartridge paper.
Done in response to a friend’s request to do one based round mechanical things … not sure it works at all.
I own the copyright to this image and it may not be used or altered in any way without my written permission.
8″x 6″. Rotring Rapidograph pen and black ink on heavy cartridge paper.
I’m not quite sure yet what I’m going to do with this outline – colour or not to colour, texture or not to texture.
Last night I had friends visiting and a look for the drawing that I did when visiting Tewkesbury Abbey a couple of years ago led they and I to looking through some of my old sketchbooks. Suddenly, seeing all that had inspired me in the past, showed where my ‘visual vocabulary’ for my abstract art ‘doodles’ has come from. Prehistoric art, Romanesque and Gothic architecture and sculpture, La Tene art, ammonites and other fossils, microscopic formanifera, microscopic images of cells, stained glass windows, insects, shells, flowers, ‘Celtic’ manuscripts and Anglo-Saxon art to name but a few. I’d also picked up a copy of the BBC’s History magazine whilst out shopping as it had images of Anglo-Saxon artefacts which reminded me of patterns I use in my art. Yesterday seems to have been a day of making links between all the work I’ve done in the past and how it flows out of me now, and a reminder of the things that inspire me as well as giving me a sense of validation with the way that I create art.
I think subtle colours for this one, with textures added in places, and just the hints of metallic highlights perhaps – after all, my inner raven demands the sparkle!
These three little artworks have all been completed within the last week. Each measures approx 10cm x 15cm (4″ x 6″) and have been worked with black sharpie pens, inktense pencils, zig art and graphic pens, metallic/glitter pens/paints.
That’s the name of this piece of art just finished.
Approx A4 in size, various media, including permanent marker pens, Inktense pencils with a water wash, metallic inks and water colour paints on heavy cartridge paper.
Anyone for colouring?
Fine pen on cartridge paper. Approx A4 in size.
Sonja Gartner has suggested that my dream job is a doodle artist designing colouring-in sheets for adult colouring-in books … and similar. Maybe she’s right!
Sakura Micron pens on off-white cartridge paper. Approx 16cm x 12cm.
A bit of a doodle/flowful/meditative drawing relating to my feelings about the big hoo-haa on Friday evening and were I go now.
I’m off work – lost my voice again.
Approx. 6″ in diameter. Sakura glaze pen, Rotring rapidograph pens with black ink, Derwent Inktense pencils with water wash, metallic gold pens and several hours of attention.
Plucking blackberries from hedgerows bursting with the deep purple-black fruits of the bramble are memories of childhood.
Taking care not to prick fingers on the thorns, or get clothing snagged and torn upon them either. There were also the sticky burrs of goose-grass to avoid too.
It was all worth the hours of effort, however. Blackberry and apple pie, blackberry crumble, bramble jelly, and the blackberry wine my father brewed (if he could steal any away).
Blackberries were frozen by the plastic gallon re-used ice-cream tub to be used for Sunday desserts through the winter months too.
All of these things created once the blackberries had been washed in salted water to bring out any maggots that had burrowed their way into the fruits. If I caught sight of one single maggoty thing, I couldn’t eat any more of them, and eating them straight from the bramble was not an option for me. It’s no wonder I’m a vegetarian!
A free harvest that I no longer take advantage of, but may manage to do so this year if I can pluck up the courage to go by myself in to the countryside to do this.
Yes, I do mean courage, as I’ve become a bit of a recluse once again, not going out into the world where there are other human beings to encounter me. A long, personal story that is, but one I hope to change with time. The gist is I’ve allowed myself to be hurt by other people over the past few years. Things I was once involved with have gone by the by and I’ve not managed to replace these social activities with others. Oh, I do go out. I am involved in things, but the people I encounter are, generally, more acquaintances than anything else. I still seek and search for a sense of belonging in this world.
Even as I think back to childhood blackberrying, I remember that I was often alone even though the rest of the family were there, all chatting and laughing and playing amongst themselves while I was generally excluded, unless it was to be the butt of someone’s joke. Always funny for them…
Funny, the memories of blackberrying, and collecting bilberries, or whinberries as they are also called, are still ones of pleasure – the pleasure of the food produced as a result. Bilberries are small, blueberries, native to Britain.
There’s plenty of folklore surrounding the humble bramble and it’s fruits.
“Throughout much of Britain there was a widespread belief that blackberries should not be eaten after a certain date.” [Vickery]
This date may have be that of the first frost, as then they become the Devil’s fruit and are not fit for humans to eat .
Michaelmas (29 September) or Old Michaelmas (11 October) relate to the biblical tale of Lucifer being thrown out of heaven for his proud, covetous ways by Archangel Michael (Isaiah 14:12). It is said that Lucifer landed in a bramble bush and cursed it, which is why people won’t eat blackberries after Michaelmas, saying variously that:
Hallowe’en (31 October) or All Saints’ Day (1st November) are also dates given as the cut off for blackberry consumption. As well as the reasons given above, this date also relates to the following:
“From a scientific point of view, blackberries contain a high concentration of bitter tasting tannins which over time accumulate in the fruit. Old Michaelmas day falls late in the blackberry season making berries picked around this time very bitter. To make matters worse, as autumn arrives the weather becomes wetter meaning the fruit will contain more fungus spores. This will not improve the taste either.” [BBC Nature UK]
Brambles were sometimes planted, or placed, on graves, one belief being that they stopped the dead from walking. Another reason is that they kept the sheep off the grave.
A superstition in Wales was “When thorns or brambles catch or cling to a girl’s dress, they say a lover is coming.” [Roud]
BBC Nature UK, Nature folklore uncovered
Roud, Steve “The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland”, Penguin Reference, 2003
Vickery, Roy “Oxford Dictionary of Plant-lore”, Oxford Paperbacks, Oxford University Press, 1995
Approx. 13cm x13cm (5″ x 5″)
Rotring Rapidograph pens with black ink on white cartridge paper and several hours of time…
Approx. 9cm x 14cm (3.5″ x 5.25″)
Rotring Rapidograph pens with black in on white cartridge paper.
The last several days have been ‘faffy’ days where I’ve just been faffing around with art and reading and not much else.
The weather has mostly been very wet – torrential rain, high winds at time. Perfect weather for battening down the hatches and losing oneself in art and craft and reading.
For some reason the drawing pens have come out again, and I find myself lost in the fiddly fussy work that I do, enjoying it too. It also has shown me how I struggle with colour, unless the colour is purely abstract in itself.
It also allows me an escape from the sting of rejection, the loss of a dream that never ever was, and a chance to let my unconscious mind, my soul, my spirit to start the process of healing and working the way to the person I am meant to be, choose to be, want to be, with a life I’d like. A life that includes people in it – friends, a found family, and love too.
Art is the Adventure 