Drawing No Conclusions

Recently I sold one of my watercolours at the Warranwood Art Show. I had a ceramic piece in the exhibition as well but Avis Gardner had a much more intriguing little treasure and deservedly scooped the ceramic award.

I love drawing and painting and years ago went through a crisis of confidence when I decided no one was buying 2d art so I stopped doing it. I felt that ceramics were more useful and functional and of course there would be a market for them. There is somewhere.

But I miss drawing and painting and it is a heck of a lot easier to store. I received a book on egg tempera many decades ago and fell in love with the images but felt the discipline of it was too daunting for a flibbertigibbet like me. Recently I came across a beautiful blog http://altoonsultan.blogspot.com.au/  by an egg tempera painter who also loves his garden and the food he can produce from it. I still felt overwhelmed reading through the instructions on egg tempera but there was one brief mention about milk tempera.

 I didn’t wait to find details but raced off to play in the studio and experiment.

 I think what appeals to me about it was that there was nothing to lose. I always feel a greater sense of achievement in producing something from nothing by just adding effort. Like the production of this grass basket from a grass that grows at my back door and delightfully sheds shafts with seed heads in autumn.

  A tablespoon or two full of milk and a sprinkle of 3 different food dyes will last for hours and every layer is exciting to develop. So this week I have had fun and feel inspired to keep going and experimenting.

The first experiment was just on good quality recycled printer paper and was just to see if it was possible to do. The paper warped and bubbled but a lovely sheen built up very quickly. The milk dries quickly between layers and subsequent layers can be built up without disturbing the underlying layers too much.

 Milk has fat in it which combines with the pigment to form a suspension. It also has casein in it which is an early ingredient in plastics. We have all seen milk drips spilt on tabletops dry to a sheen. What you end up with is a sort of primitive acrylic watercolour surface.

 With egg tempera it is important to have a stable surface on which to paint so wood panels have traditionally been used and gessoed with a toothy surface for the paint  to hold onto. Gesso is a mixture of whiting and a binder. Traditionally rabbit glue was used but that all started sounded complicated until I read that you could use gelatin as the binder. Gelatine, milk, whiting, pigments (especially earth) were all within my spheres of knowledge and interest. I haven’t got to the stage of gesso but that is on the agenda. I have made one experiment with clay and milk and will be on the lookout for different coloured soils to use as pigments from now on.

I have also done a preliminary test on some bisqued work to see if it has a similar effect to terra sigillata, something that I have done for some time now with my work. Terra sigillata is an application of the finest particles of clay which are applied in several thin layers. The tiny particles fill in the minute pits on the clay surface and develop a refractive sheen. I will try this on an unfired piece(greenware) and see if it is effective.

I have been happy with just experimenting on thicker quality cartridge to prevent the warping problem but will progress to gesso on Masonite for a more formal painting when I understand more of the qualities of the paint.

There is a dreamy 60s picture book texture to the images.


And my paintings are tiny. I found some old A7 sample paper pads that I bought in an art shop a few years ago and since I no longer remember the price of the bundle they have lost their overwhelming preciousness which always daunts me in experimenting.

Anachronism and Something New

1.anachronism

əˈnakrəˌnɪz(ə)m/

noun

noun: anachronism; plural noun: anachronisms

1.   1.

a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned.

                                              +

            marimba, pilates, lost trades, playgrounds

Last weekend in Kyneton  (Victoria) was the  Lost Trades Fair. I wasn’t able to go so I checked the programme online and found there  were delightful old crafts like coopering (making barrels) chairmaking, leadlighting, blacksmithing and hedgelaying. I didn't see pottery listed and  thankfully there is still interest in this craft but if we don’t move forward with the other aspects of ceramics i.e the business end we may well become an anachronism just at a time when the planet needs old fashioned alternatives to so many economic rationalisms.

During the week I listened to a great RN program about children being rescued from an educational blackhole by a creative music program using marimbas. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/tate-st-primary/5325034

The improvement in overall school performance was put down to the fact that the marimba programme involved whole body involvement in its performance and learning, from the making of the instrument as a group, to physically playing while standing and moving and echoing patterns produced visually as well as auditorily. This meant that children could experience the brain rewiring of music without needing to be able to read music first and the fidgety, kinetic learners could be imprinted with the patterns through their bodies, priming their brains for other pattern learning like decoding print.

You can watch a marimba being played here.

When we learn a physical skill our brains remember a muscle choreography and practice remapping it in our brains overnight. I remember this well from childhood, going through the motions of learning one type of high jump (the straddle) to  (scissors) to Fosbury Flop approaching the jump from another angle in a new style but also gaining insights into burgeoning philosophy as my world view literally changed.

 When I learned computing ,my thoughts flashed before me like computer files, as I settled down to sleep and I could see gardening files come into focus with embroidery techniques combined overlaid with watercolour techniques. My whole framework for thinking had done a physical shift as my brain applied what it knew to what this new world order looked like. When I took up Auslan ( Australian sign language), my other language learning accelerated because I now had a physical way of learning and filing languages -in my muscles.

 This blog has changed my way of operating in the world and in my head as I physically engage with the keyboard and I often find myself tapping out thoughts in my head .

Our bodies are not just vehicles for our brains as Ken Robinson describes here but discreet extensions of our brains and each appendage feeds our brain information to locate ourselves within the soup of our environment. If every thought connection in our brain develops synapses then every sensory experience of our world creates a sort of synaptic connection to the universe making us more securely engaged and aware. Limit the experiences and you risk the individual feeling vulnerable and hanging by a thread. Physicality matters!

The discussion about the marimba program follows closely on the heels of a research project in which children were observed in two different playground situations, one where they had standardised safe playground and sports equipment and the other, regular household items such as brooms, buckets and crates. The second group were found to be more creative, more physically active and more socially engaged than the first as they found new and interesting ways to engage with the equipment rather than the prescribed notions of standardised equipment. Everything old becomes new again. So it is important to keep in touch with those old skills and old ways of doing things. Re engage with some of the physical things you did in your childhood and wake up some of those synapses!  

I began pilates the other day to address some of my spinal issues and had to balance on half foam cylinders, something I was excellent at in my youth. It is partly what prompted this post and brought back memories. Wouldn’t it be lovely to see older people balancing on raised curbings around service stations as they try to physically rebalance their lives. Some of our politicians could do with a bit of physical alignment.

Ancient Mayan art of Pilates  gives you rock hard muscles

Autumn is here and acorns are hanging on the oak tree in the park. Sadly most lower limbs have been removed from the trees to prevent children climbing and hurting themselves. I am anxious to get out and moving around in the cooler mornings but have been applying myself to new skills ofsetting up an etsy shop. It is still crawling days but I would appreciate any advice you have so I can unstick myself from this computer.

 https://www.etsy.com/shop/CrankyCeramics?ele=shop_open

No doubt my mind will reframe the world again. I can feel it happening already as I try to apply my own practices of reduce, reuse, recycle, to the practical aspects of packaging and presentation. The initial purchase of a giant roll of bubble wrap had me in a spin trying to work out ways I could offset this hideous purchase.

The bubblewrap made a temporary desk. Printed stock list on a spread sheet streamlined the task a bit.

Every plastic container that comes into my home is now going to have at least one more use. Bubble wrap will still be employed but our office shreddings will now be part of the bubble wrap replacement in nice little recycled paper pillows. 

I have raided a few stores that sell imported Asian products and garnered some little packaging boxes that were being scrapped so my  packaging efforts are coming along. Negotiating the marketing network may take time but I am on my way.

Please take a look at my shop and share it with anyone you know. If you have success stories with etsy that you can share I am a willing student.