The moose, with it's strange burden, charged into the lake

These are my newest paintings and you don't need to tell me, they are not sooo good. I don't know what's happening. I have lost my will to live and paint!

I had a meeting with my tutor about this new semester and showed him my new deer paintings (see a couple of posts ago) he didn't like them at all, he said they were too 'sentimental' (yes art tutors actually say those kinds of things, how a painting of a deer is sentimental god only knows.) So we had a discussion about bringing a new subject matter into the project. He came up with a lot of ideas, and then I went home and ignored them all or so it seems! He mentioned painting hunters, or buildings, or trees, or car crashes, or landscapes, but using my distinctive, fluid, watery, drippy, style to depict these new things.

I thought that these things might be pretty hard to convey in this style, especially something like buildings or landscapes, it would just be a black inky mess. I quite liked the idea of hunters though but I twisted it, and for some reason got 'cowboys and indians' into my head. So I went out to one of my little treasure trove shops and bought some old fashioned childrens books, for boys.

I got an ANCIENT old book called 'Rovers Book for Boys' and I loved that inside it says 'to stanley, from mum, 1932' but anyway enough of that. I also got a book called 'tales from long ago' or something which is basically bible stories for children, and a book about cowboys, also a book about horse riding but a really old one that has anatomical drawings of horses and other interesting things in, and I got 'the man in the iron mask'. (phew.)

So basically I've been working on a small scale on these drawings, still working in black drawing ink and some limited use of watercolours in the first sketch, and I've tried to pick quite weird and bizarre illustrations from the books like a man fighting with a giant crab for example? I like how odd the images are, but I cannot seem to adapt them to my own style of painting. Which is the whole point of the excercise!

I've drawn up a plan in my personal diary for this week, it's pretty extensive! I really need to get on it otherwise my degree show is going to end up a shambles! I am terrified.
Would really love some feedback/opinions on these drawings.

oh ps. I'm also working on another project at the moment that I can't show I don't think for reasons of copyright probably but it's quite exciting and I'm hoping so much it will lead somewhere in the end, but it's stressing me out so much to be working on it alongside the degree show. It could NOT be more different from this work! Just hope it's worth it.

Vienna

Vienna you are beautiful!
I think I want to come and live with you.

I just visited Vienna to see my fella. That place is amazing, such a nice atmosphere. You can take puppy dogs anywhere, in cafes or in restaurants, the snowglobe (aka the most great invention ever) hails from Vienna, there are lots of amazing things to see, they have a zoo that has two yes TWO giant pandas, there are quaint little cafes everywhere full of glamoures people smoking and drinking cofee (and that sell yummyummyyy cake) and they have an entire 'quarter' dedicated to museums and art gallerys. amazing. Definately my kind of city.
I had a fab time sightseeing and spending lots of time with Richard.
I miss it.
Ps How gorgeous is my boyfriend.

Hello My Deer (New work)

I've started work for this semester, and, my degree show (arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) and of course it's all going terribly! I don't know whether I am coming or going, I'm trying to balance research, journal, painting, degree show, trying to find work experience, and a project outside of uni all at once. It's a nightmare. And all of it's going wrong!

I started off painting deers for this new body of work, because I ended with them at Christmas, so it seemed like the obvious place to start off. Except at Christmas they were going so well, and NOW I've forgotten how to paint or draw anything, two things which are paramount in me passing my degree! In times of stress I find I can't relax enough to actually paint anything good. Not good at all.

Also I really love deers because they are so spindly and delicate and fragile looking. They have really slender but akward body shapes which are interesting to draw, especially when they have curled themselves up to sleep. I also think they have beautiful little faces, with big doe eyes which are full of expression and so interesting to try and capture in paint.

These are my first lot of paintings, I feel like they started off well but deteriorated rapidly. The only one I reallyreally like is the deer that is facing away (painting number 2) because me and my friend though it looked like a heart. I also kinda like the one lying down (number 3), because I tried out a different way of painting here and it seemed to work pretty well until, I tried to do it again!

Anyway I probably will continue with deers for this week trying to perfect them and get back to the standard I was working at before Christmas, then move back on to more animals again, like birds, foxes, wolves etc.

There's more to life than books y'know.

But not much more!

Or so it would seem to the lowly art student when you're trying to make every page of your sketchbook into a full blown work of art (whilst also trying to make several ACTUAL works of art, all at the same time.)

Some people actually make sketchbooks as their art, 'Book Art' it's called. I became obsessed with book art for a term at college, and I aspired to make all my sketchbooks a beautiful object. I used to love sketchbooking so much, I would spend hours taking care over my journal, treating it with undivded love and attention, as if I was nursing a pet or a plant. Now I just don't have time for them, I got a boyfriend, a job, a facebook and just decided there were better things to do!

As I grew older I began to enjoy painting so much more, than the research/sketchbook side of my work. This has to change! I don't think I neglect my journals really, they just aren't as beautiful as they used to be. This is saddening! Especially when I look over my old journals and see how much effort I used to put in.

In my second year at Uni I do feel my journels were put on the back burner, but in my third year, where I am really tryingggg (emphasis on these words) to do well I am bringing the skethbook back to life, if it kills me! So if this means pain-stakingly painting every page of my sketchbook in gold, then for the love of God I'll do it!

These are some pages from my sketchbooks, from this semester, last semester and over second year and third year.




















Oh and just so you know, some of the artists you can see here are Peter Blake, Christian Boltanski (my favourite artist of allllllll time), Marcel Dzama, Christine Borland and some others.

All you knew was, you were happy. You really were.

"I held hands with her all the time, for instance. That doesn't sound like much, I realize, but she was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls if you hold hands with them, their goddamn hand dies on you, or else they think they have to keep moving their hand all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you or something. Jane was different. We'd get into a goddamn movie or something, and right away we'd start holding hands, and we wouldn't quit till the movie was over. And without changing the position or making a big deal out of it. You never even worried with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not.

One other thing I thought of. One time, in this movie, Jane did something that just about knocked me out. The newsreel was on or something, and all of a sudden I felt this hand on the back of my neck, and it was Jane's. It was a funny thing to do. I mean she was quite young and all, and most girls if you see them putting their hand on the back of somebody's neck, they're around twenty five or thirty and usually doing it to their husband or their little kid - I do it to my kid sister Pheobe once in a while, for instance. But if a girls quite young and all and she does it, it's so pretty it just about kills you."

This is just one tiny section I had dogeared in what is still the best book I have ever read in my life, 6 years and about a thousand books on from when I was 15 and I got it for my birthday. I fell head over heels for Holden Caulfield.

This is just one small tribute to the amazing work of JD Salinger, and to my first great love, Holden Caulfield.

It's a Birthday Party, Happy Birthday Darling.

I'm a blog monster this week, and I cannot leave it on unlucky thirteen. So here's a little something before the real work starts tomorow.

Today I was truely a domestic godess. I was up at 8am (on a Sunday!) I was showered dressed, in my best florals, and believe me getting dressed at all on a Sunday generally doesn't happen for me.

I was off with my Mum shopping for ingredients and I made far too many little chocolate cakes for the little party we had today. I also made Jelly. I am Nigella Lawson (is that her name?), I'm Delia freakin' Smith today. When I get older I'll have beautiful blonde curly haired children and we'll bake every Sunday and Richard will get fat from eating all our wares. (I hope.)

Anyway, we had a party. My beautiful niece was two years old yesterday! We had a little gathering with my other niece and my two nephews. It was lovely. They all get on so well and we hardly ever all get together so it's so nice to do it once in a while. Our house was just about the loudest place in England for four hours but it was worth it. I never knew the noise of four children, equates to the noise of about a hundred!

We had a very British buffet, triangle sandwiches, crisps, sausage rolls, jelly and ice cream, and of course the creme de le creme... my cakes!

Now I'm led on my bed rubbing my little fat tummy. I've had too much fizzy pop, too much jelly and ice cream, too many sausage rolls and definately too many cakes! I'm off to bed.

I've got a meeting tomorow about my exhibition at Christmas (Now Sleeping in these Peaceful Groves.. see past posts) and I'm about to embark on my last few months of University. So expect to see manymanymany more paintings! I've also got a meeting with a 'careers advisor', thanks to my boyfriend who's making me go. Hopefully he's going to have some damn good advice!

And we'll tend the garden all day long

My Grandad had a greenhouse and in Summer we'd go down to the end of the garden and he'd show me all the things that were bursting into life. I remember it was so hot in there, the sun shone so bright on us then, and it always smelt of earth, and of growth. I used to love being allowed into that magical world, where things seemed to sprout into action before your very eyes.
Last year I remember in September time I went to see him, before he was ill, and as I left he got up and he pushed a handful of cherry tomatoes my way 'I grew those specially for you.'
When I grow up, I'm going to have a greenhouse at the end of my garden, I'm going to grow flowers, in every colour you can think of. When they grow tall and strong in the light which will shine on me there, I'll say to the clouds; 'I grew these specially for you.'






These were some polaroid photos I took of my Dad's greenhouse. My project was about traces of people and the impact a person leaves on their environment. My Grandad also had a greenhouse, and he loved to grow things. Sadly he died at Christmas and I miss him very very much.
My Dad started growing all kinds of things a couple of years ago and he loves it. Theres real pride in growing something, tending to it everyday, looking after it and guiding it into life.
When I get older I so badly want to have a Greenhouse and watch my flowers grow, and teach my children all about growing things and looking after things, and cherishing life. After all my Grandad looked after me.
I love it on a Sunday afternoon if I walk down to the bottom of my garden you can bet your life my dad will be sat in his greenhouse watching his plants grow. Sometimes he's even asleep. If I ever get one I know I'll always think of them as I sit and watch the plants bloom into life.