For Goodness’ Sake Girl…Just Get Started!

The time has come to get going. After a slightly longer than anticipated break  I’m beginning the research, notes, roughs plans, and trials for my MA dissertation and the major project. Time slips by so very quickly and I have just 7 months left.

The Hortus Project
So what am I going to do? For the dissertation I am not sure but the major project has been triggered by a visit last year to the Hortus in Amsterdam, a garden started in 1635 initially as an educational medicinal garden to train apothecaries and doctors and aid them in their efforts to improve the health of 17th Century Amsterdam’s growing population.
The 17th century Dutch Republic was in the forefront of trade, exploration, science and art. It was also a busy and exciting time for doctors, surgeons and of course the accompanying herbalists and apothecaries.

This lovely map is the layout of the Hortus, published by Caspar Commelin  in 1693. from Wiki: Neth 3250.3, Houghton Library, Harvard University

The People
But although my jumping off point is the Hortus, my actual work will be much more general, looking further back, long before the Amsterdam Garden, reflecting the stories of not only the plants but the people involved in the transformation of plants into helpful (sometimes) drugs and potions. I assume without us the medicinal plants would carry on being just plants, incidentally attending to knowing animals. So the people are important and  I am looking at the botanists, the explorers, the herbalists, gardeners, apothecaries and doctors… not forgetting the patients of course.

Here is one of the Botanists….

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Jan Commelin uncle of Caspar ( above) Botanist, one of the founders of the Hortus and a rich man. Medicinal herbs were good business.

The Plants
The story of medicinal plants is very very complex. For as long as man suffered ailments he looked for remedies wherever he could find them. Trial and error, knowledge passed down by word of mouth from a lucky survivor and eventually written accounts, the earliest, a Sumerian tablet listing herbal remedies which dates back 5000 years and refers to over 250 plants
Thousands of plants were thought to have medicinal uses and few bits of animals, rocks and minerals too. In my limited time I can only look at a few so I decided to ask Hanneke Schreiber, Head of the Garden and the Collection at the Hortus to choose her favourite  medicinal  plants which were part of the original collection. That’s my starting point.

Here is one, from the British Library. The ancient and dangerous Henbane.

An Illustration from the “ Tractatus de herbis (Herbal); De Simplici Medicina by Bartholomaei Mini de Senis, Platearius, and Nicolaus of Salerno” . circa 1300

Lots to do, research, paint, print and draw..happy me.

A New Year

Happy New Year to you all. Mine begins today.
Project handed in yesterday and so now it’s on with some research for the dissertation. At the moment I don’t have a subject but I guess it will be something to do with plants, animals, us and…them. I am not looking forward to the dreary writing but I am looking forward to the research.

This year sees the end of the MA with a final project to be completed by the end of September. This is the time to draw together all the thoughts and experiments and get, at last, something finished. But happily, for the eternal experimenter, September is still a long way off! And here a trial print from the last project.
A verse from the strange and lovely Anglo Saxon Bee Charm. “Wid Ymbe”

Back soon…

Black Rabbit on the Track

On Friday morning I cycled early, up to the disused railtrack. There, very still, in the middle of the track crouched a big black rabbit.  In the quiet still early morning he seemed lost in thought, contemplative even.  It was quite something to see and had a certain mystery about it. I like to think that at some time in the past a tame rabbit has perhaps fled the confines of the cage for the great outdoors. It’s understandable. But when you stick out like a sore thumb perhaps the merry life of freedom will be a short one. There is a profound dilemma in that, isn’t there?

Over the last few years I have mentioned the black rabbits that live wild around the reservoir. I have seen them in 3 different locations. I guess on close inspection they are probably a chocolate brown but they seem very black and always mysterious. Whatever their colour if their aim is to be low key and unobtrusive, like their browny grey friends they are failing badly.

black-rabbit
A quick sketch when I got home.

I started thinking about a print, decided I wanted him facing the other and made a first quick woodcut. I have hunkered him down a bit more. On sight of me he had crouched more, ready to spring, before leaping away.

It all needs reworking/rethinking but I like the basic image.
The previous day I had visited Jeremy whose two big domesticated rabbits were grazing on the lawn in the company of a large adjustable spanner. So I have added a spanner which somehow seemed appropriate for a rabbit who lives on a disused railtrack. And of course there is a bike in the background

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The A3 block, cut and inked.

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A couple of first proofs. More to come after reworking/rethinking and playing around.
It’s a bit of  welcome break from the course work which takes up 99%of my time at the moment. If you are interested in what I am up to, I am keeping a blog of my final year work. HERE

Sketchbook Crickets and Grasshoppers

Earlier in the autumn there was a bright green spindly legged cricket in the wardrobe. They are strange and wonderful things. There are quite a few in the Garden in the summer, and of course grasshoppers are all around the reservoir.
I am planning a series of prints of singing, chirping, humming things for a woodland project and have been blogging these over on the blog I share with Sue.

bw-crickets-bg      crickets-1

 

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Sketchbook sketches A5 sketchbook and some more thumbnails….

G1bg_thumb1     grass3_thumb1

I have been planning a few prints and sometime soon a small booklet might appear but for now No1 lino block and proof print. I have taken quite a bit of artistic license with this “grasshopper”  but it’s fine for some more experiments and does have some of the essence of the sketches and grasshoppery-ness about it.

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4 more to come ..

The Turn of the Year.. and yes, more Moons.

Today must be one of my very favourite days, because I know that tomorrow, albeit falteringly, it will start to get lighter. Hope, spring, warmth and sun cannot be far away.

Meanwhile my first, fascinating, full-on, MA project is drawing to a close.
Not so much about finishing things this one, more about cranking up the thinking processes. And for another two weeks I will remain deeply in thrall to the lovely Moon, lost in the wonder of its science, myths, facts, fallacies, hopes and dreams.
There will be a last little sliver of a waning moon tonight before a new moon for Christmas. I have learnt enormous amounts of stuff; about book forms, monoprinting and the moon.

I have made some strange images, played with many maquettes, knitted a Clanger, read some extraordinary fiction and finally worked on a set of monoprints which, in a way, relate the story of my research. I am now just assembling them into a rather haphazard book. The learning curves have been steep but the skills will be useful. So here,  for the winter solstice, are a few of the monoprints. Out of over 60 plus I  have to whittle it down to 29 ish.  I will post the full set when I have made those tricky final decisions and also will explain a little about how and why I got there.

 

hands f_resize         man in moonf_resize

mothsf_resize         panther f_resize[4]

rabbit f _resize         running moon f_resize

snake 1 f_resize         thingf_resize  

 

tree f_resize         toadf _resize copy

Ten of the monoprints, some with relief printed additions: image size 4 x 6 inches

Somehow they seem appropriate for Christmas. I will, yes really, be back to the blogs with a bit more regularity in the New Year and I might just get one more post in before Christmas but, if not, a very Happy Christmas to all my faithful blog readers…

Many Moons

I am just 3 weeks into the MA course and I am working in a great big mess of ideas, thoughts and experiments. “Process and Practice as Research” is what it’s all about this term.
Part of what I hope to achieve through following this course is the ability to actually-get-something-finished before spaghetti brain here drifts away to something more enticing.
This current project may not help with that aim directly but it does give me the chance to develop an idea by really examining ( *A.B.  “interrogating” see footnote* ) it over and over again until something emerges, which might be a long way from where I started. But what to do?
Phases of the Moon
Sometimes, luckily, ideas just present themselves. On the 7th October, one week after the start of the course I happened to go out into the garden. It was about 8.30pm and hanging in the sky, just overhead was a fabulous moon. It was big, bright and very beautiful.
 
Grafham moon 7th oct 2014 desat
7th Oct moon, Grafham back garden. hand held Nikon

I took a hand held photo with Chris’ fairly modest Nikon and was astonished by the result. With the contrast bumped up in Photoshop it shows craters, the exquisite “rays”, and the dark “seas” figuring either a rabbit or a face or whatever your belief system might suggest. And that was it really, project decision made. My first terms work would be looking at The Depiction of the Phases of the Moon.
At the time I knew absolutely nothing about the moon, now nearly three weeks on I know much, much, more. What  I know, in particular, is that it is a huge subject and presents a gigantic number of research avenues.
Here are a few I’m considering; science, myth, discovery, emotional and psychological connotations, photographs, educational and instructional images,  associated words and meanings; moon planting, science fiction and geological structure.
Each of these could be a rich source of imagery and possibility.
Where to start?
JFDI: Advice I often give my students and sometimes take myself is the very best advice for procrastinators like me and as the course is “Book arts and Illustration” and I am interested in exploring book forms, I made lots … and lots.. of small maquettes, from map folds, squash books, concertinas, crown books, round books, fans, origami folds and more.  A day of nice therapy playing with paper.

book-forms

They are scrappy little things but so full of possibilities and ideas. Each could be taken and developed in many ways.
My notebooks are full of ideas, so far I have 18 pages like this:

skb1
skb2

I am making watercolours like this:

  w-col

I have started making some unexpectedly lovely prints:

 more trials

and am thinking about 3D possibilities and the wonderfully evocative words connected with the moon; waxing, waning, gibbous, crescent etc. And there is much more going on. It’s a big messy muddle of stuff and I am that pig in muck.. 🙂
At some point I do have to collate all this research into a coherent project report..(Yeah.. good luck with that Val..) so may be able to present it here in a neat concise form later in the year. Meanwhile it will be just sporadic and jumbled posts like this.
By the way, big thanks to all of your who sent me such lovely supportive messages and emails, encouraging me to keep blogging this stuff! I hope you are not regretting it.
* One down side of doing an MA is the necessity to return to Art Speak.. more affectionately known as Art Bollocks. The internet, provider of all things wonderful has a neat site where the struggling fine artist can generate their very own . See: http://www.artybollocks.com/  Hmmm…might prove to be very handy. Me, I just like to stick to that plain old motto: “eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation”.

A Quick Woodcut: Chris the Frog

On Friday my Easton group had a great day tackling a woodblock print. Their results were excellent, some even managing two colours which is some going for just a few hours.
As a demo I had prepared a simple two colour print of a frog. Frogs are very much on my mind as they are all over the Garden at the moment.

Roughs and Colour notes:

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Some thumbnail compositional sketches

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A decision..

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Colour roughs

The Print I had printed up a few variations of the Frog using the same very basic materials we would be using in the class, a spoon, a baren, computer paper, tissue paper, some cheap Japanese rice paper and basic acrylic printing inks.

frog plate

The woodcut plate, cut for the first colour

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The first colour proofed on thin rice paper.

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Various combinations of paper and inking with the second colour added.

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“Chris the Frog”: Woodcut on Japanese rice paper: Image A4

The frog is called Chris because I realised I had unwittingly cut a rather nice letter C in one of the spots.. it seemed fitting..

letter-c

In the garden there are still many tiny froglets around the pond fringes Mowing is a nightmare and very very slow.
I have to carefully pat the grass to alert them and help the very tiniest ones to get to safety.
The long grass must seem mountainous to them.. I rather know how they feel.

froglet

Here is one on the very tip of my grubby fingers.. I am wondering how they will survive the winter.
Summer seems to be rushing by, the days are shorter, evenings and mornings darker and I am very busy..:).. Busy is always good!

The Blue Hedgehog

On Saturday we went to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. It is so many years since I was last there and I had forgotten how rich and wide ranging is the scope of the museum.
I found many more wonderful beasts from all over the world, but the best of all was the small blue Egyptian hedgehog.
We do love our hedgehogs but I had no idea that the Egyptians revered them as symbols of regeneration. In the subdued lighting of the gallery the hedgehog has a certain mystery. The museum’s record, brightly lit and with its measuring scale and all the chips so evident is not quite so magical.


Fitzwilliam Museum photo Faience hedgehog
Tomb 655 Beni Hasan Egypt
length 6.25 cm
width 3.75 cm
Twelfth Dynasty
Middle Kingdom
Date 1976 B.C. — 1793 B.C.

After a bit of research I found quite a few other  Egyptian Hedgehogs. Most surprising is the real and long eared Middle Eastern hedgehog.

Berkah.13.Kookherd_كوخرد

This little chap is from Iran: photo Berkah.13.Kookherd from Wikipedia

A quick internet search shows that some ancient hedgehog figures do have long ears.
This little faience amulet is from the Pelizaeus Museum  Hildesheim.

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from the Global Egyptian Museum

My initial sketch of the short eared Fitzwilliam Hedgehog more as I saw it, in the tomb like low light of the museum display.

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Then some sketches :

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And then a quick reduction print:

H-hogs-

The Blue Hedgehog

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The little blue hedgehog on a windy moonlit evening with swaying palms.
Reduction Lino image 6 x4 inches

March: in like an Adder’s head..out like a Peacock’s tail.

The adders were my ongoing subject for Beautiful Beasts in March and this old weather proverb can go both ways, but we had a beautiful sunny weekend so maybe it is going out like a beautiful shimmering peacocks tail this year.
Chris and I had a walk around Woodwalton Fen yesterday which was fascinating. More of Woodwalton Fen to come, but in the early chilly morning it was beautiful. Birds, bees, a distant Marsh Harrier and the black water of the meres  reflecting a struggling sun. I thought about my adders again.

The large adder print

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The block and some of the mess, the rest is scattered on the floor and around the house.

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2 colours..9.5 x12 inches

3-col-print

3 colours… A proof print

In all I made 8 prints, each quite different, trying a variety of combinations as I cut away. They don’t call this reduction printing “suicide printing” for nothing! Once you have cut you can’t go back. I will post more stages on Print Daily soon. This is one I liked..

Fenland Adders: Keepers of Peaty Treasures.

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Four colour reduction print 9.5 x12 inches

What’s it about?
Well, in my personal, alternative reality, wild things generally have a better time than in real reality. It’s a grey breezy day with clouds bubbling up in a huge fenland sky.
My beautiful adders, keepers of the secrets buried in the peaty darkness of the fenland soils, rise up to survey their domain. One black and one patterned. They watch the distant peat cutters.
The sensible mouse keeps a safe distance. What are those things scattered in the soil? Who knows what lost treasures, bodies and bones are buried in the peat? It is a subject of enduring and delightful speculation.
It’s back to bees this week!.. then maybe eels 🙂

Catching Up: More British Museum Sketches and more adders

Last Saturday I returned to the British Museum for a couple of hours to do a bit more research and sketching.

Working on the Beautiful Beasts blog has made me wonder why we so like to make images of animals. Of course, the use of animal imagery in art, design and utilitarian objects warrants a lifetime of study, each culture having its own different beliefs, magic and symbolic systems and there is a wealth of info in the Museum.

I go to the Museum to read, as much as to look and draw and on Saturday I particularly wanted to read about the Egyptian mummified animals and then get a quick visit to the fabulous Beyond El Dorado Power and gold in ancient Colombia” exhibition of exquisite golden and ceramic artefacts.

The animal mummies in Egypt were prepared for various reasons; a favourite pet to accompany you, an offering to the appropriate animal god or as food in the afterlife. In the main animal mummy case are cats, small crocodiles, falcons, a baboon, bronze relic boxes for a snake and an eel, a beautiful ibis case and fish “coffins”. There is nowhere to sit, so it’s a matter of drawing on the move while dodging the crowds .. the lines are a bit wobbly!

Brit-M-mummies-bg

Everyone is fascinated by the cats. One in particular has a smile. One apprehensive little girl wanted reassurance that they were really dead.The linen wrappings are very beautifully executed with contrasting coloured cloths in a geometric pattern.

In another case were two forlorn bulls which don’t attract much attention, so I could wedge myself in a corner by the case to draw.

“Bulls were sacred to several gods. The famous Apis bull at Memphis was considered the earthly manifestation of Ptah, through which he issued oracles” from the British Museum Website

 

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The wisdom of the bull.. Beyond El Dorado On to the El Dorado exhibition which was packed. It was impossible to stand and draw without getting in the way of the tide of people, so I just made a few notes.

Bird_staff decoration
This is an exquisite little gold staff decoration.
From the British Museum Website.

“The exhibition will explore the complex network of societies in ancient Colombia – a hidden world of distinct and vibrant cultures spanning 1600 BC to AD 1600 ….The remarkable objects displayed across the exhibition reveal glimpses of these cultures’ spiritual lives including engagement with animal spirits though the use of gold objects, music, dancing, sunlight and hallucinogenic substances that all lead to a physical and spiritual transformation enabling communication with the supernatural.”

There were some interesting snake related items. I was particularly pleased to read that snakes were revered for their ability to move easily between the elements of earth, water and sky (through jumping) and through the shedding of their skins were linked with concepts of renewal…..Go snakes!

notes-Br-M2-bg    Brit-mus-sketches-

A few notes of the lovely little ceramic figures from Lake Guatavita. A5 sketchbook. T

here is so much material to work with and so many ideas to pursue. If you are ever in need of inspiration, a trip to the British Museum is the answer, but take a sketchbook not a camera. You will see much more.

Adder Progress…is slow… But steady and I am back to the adders for Beautiful Beasts this week. The two 2 lino prints in preparation are going to be an opportunity for more experimentation. It’s the end of March very soon and so I am concentrating on getting previous idea resolved and a few things finished. One quarter of the year already gone..how did that happen!