Lindsey Carr Blog

Show postcard

Here's the details for the melt show:

 

Seems like everyone taking part was concentrating on woods as a theme...or possibly the gallery put us together knowing this? It wasn't decided upfront anyway!

Finished drawings

I love it when I finish something, all pieces for the Melt show are complete.

The last piece got a lot more unexpectedly complex than the others.

Originally the idea was simply a face in the water but it demanded fallen leaves, then lotus leaves. I was run ragged with feathers and droplets of water on leaves.

Anyway, it was incredibly enjoyable to work on. The most relaxing and absorbing thing i've done for a long time.

Finished. Again, I used the gold leaf sparingly throughout. It's quite addictive.

A scan which you can click to see a bit more detail

This is nothing compared to the dark journey of the soul which the artist Billy Pappas embarked upon. He spent approx 10 years making one drawing (a portrait). Every day, 7 hours a day. I loved watching the documentary 'Waiting for Hockney' which is actually all about Billy Pappas. UK people can watch it free on 4 On demand.

Anyway, i'm off out to sit in the rare sun with a glass of white wine.

Hoping you're all well, thanks for lovely comments on the Rooster....and for the good advice on where rooster art can be found X

Rooster

Another piece for the Melt Gallery show which i've used some gold leaf on - it worked really well with the graphite, however scanning it comes out in a weird blue colour, so i've tried to edit the scan and show some photos.

 

 

I think roosters must be the most beautiful of birds whilst not being very revered in western arts..Am I wrong in that? I don't really recall a lot of roosters in the museums. They're so common and yet their plumage is so magnificent.

I have noticed a lot of roosters in japanese art though.

Ito Jakachu

Ito Jakachu especially seems to capture that mix of the sublime and the absurd which is the hallmark of the strutting cockerel.

Anyway, all for now. Hoping you're all well X

A few things

Just a wee note, I have a couple of new things in my store. One is a wooden jumping jack with a new design pasted onto the front. He has some nice gold hand-detailing.

(NB: For those who remember my post about chinoiserie frames, this technique of pasting designs to wood and then going over them by hand was where it started...I still need to get that post done!)

The second thing in the shop is a small framed original drawing which didn't really fit into the series of drawings for the Melt show but which I was fond of.

Girl with a squint

The frame itself is an extraordinarily heavy thing which came from an inexplicable shop which turned up in the tiny village where I live. It's called 'Emporium'  and is filled with junk and wonder. It's hardly ever open which only adds to it's nose-against-the-glass mystique. The owner, an elderly scot, is always away having lunch and i've only ever managed to get inside it once...which was how I acquired this little gem of a frame plus a smaller one with the same design.

On a different note - i'm not sure if any of you use Tumblr? Well, if so i've been using it for a while to keep a note of great visual inspirations, so drop by and follow me so that I can follow you! 

Drawings

All painting has temporarily been suspended as I prepare enough work to go to Gallery Meltdown for a show opening on September 4th. There are 4 people taking part so it's slightly more work than for a group show. I decided that since I can't paint enough to fulfill my commitments, it was better to draw.

I love drawing so much, and generally I draw stuff I wouldn't tend to paint in quite the same way. Here's one piece from the set so far.

A few more to go and then they'll get packed up and shipped off to LA. Hopefully to new homes ;)

Hope you're all well X

Tiny bit more

A wee bit more progress made on that piece (Yep, still in progress hence the superstition and paranoia about in-progress shots. :)) I basically need to fill out the flowers across the trees and add a few other touches. Last bits always takes ages eh? Got a few things done today

Tried some gold leaf on the flowers - not sure? 

Anyway, while I painted and leafed (?) away feeling a bit tired and knowing I have to go back to work tomorrow I decided to get a full photo of the piece I finished the other week....just to pat myself on the back for finishing things.

It's all blurry as you can see - after a lot of faffing it was the best capture I could get plus some 'sharpening' in Photoshop. I'll need to have it scanned properly as all the wee details are really what make it up.

My very loose means of composition had problems here, it looks a bit too scattered at the bottom, I realise now that I should have kept it sparse all over the piece rather than change things at the bottom...But I still like it and what is painting but always practise?

(p.s Lilly I think your grandpa is quite right! Gold leaf is so soft and subtle (in comparison to gold paint) I think it would be perfect in your work.)

Best wishes!

A week off

I had a week off work this week to try and make some real progress on a piece. It's not finished yet and probably has several more days to go but the main body of it is there.

I took photos throughout because I try to check things by a) looking at everything through a mirror and b) taking a photo and looking at it on the computer. I thought i'd post some up even though i've become slightly superstitious about work-in-progress shots (Does anyone else have that?)

The white heron is the central character. I love these creatures, they have serious personality and I love white birds for their symbolic 'purity'.

European bee-eaters, another favourite bird with a lot of personality. They're highly sociable, live in large colonies and are very noisy and colourful. I've never seen any in real life but would love to.....I think of them as the bird equivalent of urban humans.

A classic late-night blurry shot. The bottom of the piece being more worked-in.

Great fun was had with the real gold leaf I bought - It was so fine even breathing on it sent it into flurries of uncontrollable flapping. I ended up with fingernails covered in it.

   

Another of those late night shots! Taken last night. It should give a sense of scale though and the general composition. I was working from the bottom to the top - so the top is being worked on today and all the flowers need definition etc. Lots of things but I feel like it's going in the right general direction - I just need to make sure I don't spill paint all over it.

Thanks so much for kind comments on my last post - I just thought i'd put it out there - i'm not sure if other folk go through similar feelings. For me it was the switch in mediums, the attempt at moving bigger, the change in direction colour-wise eventually overwhelmed me.

I won't jinx myself by saying it's all better now ;) but I do feel like my problems are manageable and I can do things to solve them to a certain degree.

All for now anyway, here's just a wee photo of a 'scottish bouquet' I collected from a walk in the rain this week.

Bits of sheep wool, feathers, and some of the tiny flowers that characterise Scottish flora.

Progression

I've probably hinted in the last few months that working has been slow and i've had trouble with my switch in materials. Occasionally seeing the light only to fall back into problems. Well, now that I feel like i'm out of the worst of it I can say the last few months have been at times - horrible. I was so crippled by self-doubt a few months ago that I hated every second of sitting down to paint.

I knew I wanted to incorporate various different influences into my work and increase in size but my natural propensity both in terms of colour and ways of painting fought against it. I had to find out how big I could go before it broke down. I've thrown out so much work and lain staring at my ceiling feeling useless.

But the last wee while there has been a ray of light. I feel like I have a more comfortable size to work at. There's a move toward greater saturation in colours - away from my usual approach of harmonizing hues by mixing with a common colour (always desaturating) which fought against the direction I wanted to move in.

 

A lot more individual watercolour sketches before painting has helped to work out problems. Also, I avoid - like the plague - any detailed composition beforehand. This became so problematic for me it was frustrating, but there's no sense in arguing with yourself. Now - I have an idea, I have a broad notion of placements and that's all.

Anyway, hoping the next few months will see some more work finished which I can post (and that post about frames is coming soon as my framing supplies have arrived!)...Everything has picked up as I figured it out mentally and started putting the hours in. Self-doubt is very useful for cleaning, eating, drinking, reading books, and all kinds of stuff but no use at all for painting ;)

First frame attempt: Trying to figure out how to do float-mounting to preserve the deckled edges of the paper

Limited Editions of Morpheus

Paper Tiger store have been kind enough to produce a limited edition set of Morpheus prints at full size on beautiful paper of the highest quality.

All of the prints are signed and numbered (there are only 25 in the edition).

Also, for anyone who might be interested in wee dibs and dabs of what i've been doing recently - Meighan over at My Love For You is a Stampede of Horses kindly did a wee post on my progress.

I'm really enjoying work much much more these days, it feels like the worst of the struggle to come to terms with new materials and simultaneously produce a cohesive body of work is easing up....I hope I don't speak too soon and curse myself there!

My post on chinoiserie frames will be coming soon! My wonderful nana helped me to raise the money to have my work framed and rather than pay a framer for a couple of frames i've invested in some frame making equipment. This could either be brilliant ..or a big mess :) I'm not patient with wrenches...we'll soon see eh?

Hope you're all well X

ML4U's Art Auction

The Gulf Art fundraiser is going live very soon - in about 10 mins to be precise  - it'll be right here: http://myloveforyou.bigcartel.com/.

There are now 87+ artists taking part and over 100 art works. Some art works will be uploaded later since Big Cartel only allows 100 items apparently (bit weird eh?). If one's not really interested in buying art then direct contributions can be made here.

Hoping you've all had good weekends, I feel like i've barely managed to paint a thing - I have however found a really excellent way to create faux Chinoiserie frames without paying a fortune for antique ones....My next post will be all about how to do it and give some downloads so you can do it yourself if you fancy. X