Pendennis and the Summer Solstice

I saw the sunset last night over the estuary where I live, with wine in hand and the boys by my side. I saw the sun rise this morning over the headland, on the beach with friends. A good start to the mid summer. I went sketching in the day and found a couple of new spots I hadn't seen before. Basked in sunshine I stopped and did these sketches. I loved it and will be doing more while the weather lasts. This is definitely the kind of work that represents me most, so maybe enough of the 'trying to find a style for commercial work' and sticking to what comes very naturally and see what comes of it. Watch this space!

New bits in progress

This is my Mum as a little girl

Some new bits in progress for a project I am working on in Falmouth. More details to follow when I have a stronger idea of how it's going to end up. At the moment my children's book head is getting in the way, mainly because I am sketching my family when they were younger, so the work is lending itself to a softer gaze. I will go with it and work through it,so watch this space for more soon.

This is me as a little girl. The photo I used was feeding a jackdaw that used to visit us all the time at home.

..and another variation

Work in Progress with some of my favourite things

Sketchbook pages

Sketchbook page

Sketchbook pages

 Although I am very proud of the books I have created and really enjoy the whole process when I am given the time to relax and enjoy painting, but I am constantly thinking, looking and working hard on creating a style for my commercial illustration that I can earn money from, that is not such a huge compromise when under pressure from tight deadlines.

My natural style of working is painterly and quick, with as few brushstrokes as possible, using the right colours, tones and textures first off, rather than building loads of layers, and work with minimal, translucent layers.
From the beginning of my career I have been pushed into styles by time pressures and by my previous portfolio of commercial work. So everything tightening up, painting with my shoulders raised around my ears and my strokes stiff and laboured. This is not enjoyable, and although (after 16 years on the job) I know compromises have to be made, but not at this level, not any more, so I have working hard behind the scenes on a daily basis, where I can, to find somewhere in the middle.

Some of my favourite things around the house

I love my garden

I love lots of space and have realised I like graphic work, where there is contrast between painterly free strokes or a lighter painted touch, with graphic structures and composition.
I wanted to build a library of images of all sorts of different items, objects and things I had in my life that I liked, so this is something along that idea, a feeling of what I want to achieve with my children's books, more development of a new stream of work that could be for prints, retail, cards etc etc..

All in progress but I definitely enjoyed doing them all. I started with my favourite things around the house, something I have a connection with and enjoy. I then thought they looked too real and stiff, so I did them from memory and composed them into the Home Sweet Home image. I'm beginning to love my house and the feeling of satisfaction that I get from 'my things' and that satisfaction in my mind is coming out in the work.

An attempt at putting them in to context

Again just work in progress but it feels nice to lighten the load a little.

Alice in Wonderland and how it changed her life.

Some of my old children's books. Well used!

I am currently waiting for stories to come in so I'm working out my next creative movements. I'm fooling myself into thinking that because I have worked solidly for months, with a few weekends and evenings of working too, that I can have a slow day today, hoping that one story will arrive later today. So although I'm tempted to go for a long walk and have coffee in the sun, I feel inclined to work out my next project.

I am hoping to do a residency locally and although yet to confirm dates, my space has been agreed and I'm very excited to have the opportunity to work somewhere other than my current studio at home. While also being in a hub of creativity, inspiration and support.

I have decided to create a book and an exhibition of the work from the residency and want it to be using all the bits of my work that don't get used in anything because they are the odd ones out. The work that I really like but doesn't fit in. The misfits...

Using Alice in Wonderland as inspiration, I want to nod to my love of children's books and how the books I read as a child have a huge influence on my work today as a children's book illustrator, while also acknowledging how they are important to us as a nation.

I revisited a new copy of Alice, along with  The Looking Glass. The intros are by Will Self and Zadie Smith and are really interestingly. They talk about how important the books they read as children helped mould their belief systems and how they interact with the world and all in it today.

The last part of Zadies Smith's intro gave me goose bumps and it reiterated how important my childhood was to who I am now. Something that seems to be more and more apparent as my practice evolves and how important the books and stories of our childhood are and they influence us as adults.

She explains how the first ever and original copy of Alice, written and illustrated by Carroll himself, was auctioned off by 'Alice' when she hit hard times. The book changed hands numerous times and eventually was decided that it should return to England. The home of it's creation. A variety of wealthy benefactors were convinced to buy the book back, and the book was hand delivered as a 'gesture of thanks' for the British people's gallantry in the Second World War. In 1948 it went on a boat with the Librarian of Congress to England. He kept it under his pillow for safety. It was accepted by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 'behalf of the nation'. He accepted it and called the gift an 'unsullied and innocent act in a distracted and sinful world'. The bit that made my goosies rise was this...

Zadie Smith: 'Now, this is a children's book we are talking about. And in 1948, it wasn't even eighty years in existence in the public domain. But my God, how we treasure the things we read and loved as a children; how we despise the critic or naysayer who would dare take one shred of honour from Aslan, or Bilbo, or the BFG or Harry Potter or Alice! Most precious Alice. We have kept her this long, and we will not lose her yet'
Zadie Smith (pg 182-3. Through the Looking Glass -Lewis Carroll & Mervin Peake. Bloomsbury London. 2001)

I would love to write something of a thesis, or a theory based document about children's books and their place within illustration, along with their impact on the world (and society), from the first story told to contemporary story books sold today. One day maybe? There is a new theory based journal focused on illustration only, called the Journal of Illustration and looks very interesting. This is one of the papers which looks interesting...here...'The folklore interpreted through illustration'.

We are also hoping to go to some illustration forums abroad in October with college, so it may be sooner than I think? For now I will concentrate on creating my own stories.

Aesthetip and the calm after the storm

Aesthetip magazine 2013-14

Aesthetip comes to an end... huge shame that after trying so hard to get funding, Steve and Em from Aesthetip couldn't get the support they needed to continue the magazine. So much goes into designing, editing and arranging contributors and work etc, so it is no longer....for now anyway??... so pop along and see all, and the final issue here. It aint over yet.

Emma and Steve of Aestheti

Insight avec moi

Lots more projects to come, including Insight which I am featured in. A great project about artists in there studios. Offering an insight in to their art practice and what makes them tick and create. A book to come and more news soon.

So after the excitement of the residency in St Ives, I came home and played around with some images and here they are. Somethings happening, not sure what though yet. I have had in my mind for some time that collage should come back into my life. I have always loved it and I think now that is time to be revisted. Along with more painting... and on a more commercial note I have started illustrating some of the book cover imagery that I have done for commercial books, in my own authorial style.  To eee how they differ and also help work towards a new folio using content that is published but the copyright is mine. Interesting to see I hope... next post maybe?

PORTHMEOR RESIDENCY, MAKING NEW WORK AND UNDERSTANDING THE PROCESS

The Bobo!

Ben Nicholson and Patrick Heron

Ben Nicholson's hand writing

The boys at TAap have hired studio no.5 at St Ives School of Painting. So I volunteered myself as a resident for 10 days or so, and have been driving to St Ives from Falmouth to work there. Because of it being Easter, parking and generally moving about is tricky, but once I'm in the studio, there are no distractions other than myself and Bobo, which has been great. Lots of space to get messy, although I've squeezed myself onto a small table in the corner where it feels safe and cosy. There are marks in the room that were made by two of it's former residents, Ben Nicolson and Patrick Heron. One note says Dalai Lama 3.30 Drill Hall... which I'm guessing means that maybe he was on tour in Cornwall back in the 60's-70's??!

 I was hoping the experience would start me off on the right road for a show I have at Newlyn gallery later in the year. I was right it would, but after a visit from a friend and an uncomfortable feeling of  misfiring with what I had achieved on the first day, I somehow dug a little deeper and started painting for me, rather than a gallery and something happened.

My 'natural gait' at the moment is somewhere between harmony and a sense of misalignment or discomfort. My whole life I have seemed to reject perfection or at least the idea of perfection. Anything that is too new and shiny or too pretty is rejected in favour of those things that have a rough edge or something broken about them. I find beauty in the discarded and unwanted. I believe this is something that came from being at school and that vulnerable time of finding your place in or outside the groups that were formed there.

I now love that I like imperfections and believe my outlook on life is more honest, accepting and therefore more enjoyable, because of this.

But back to the work.... I have a love for colours, especially those that exist in nature. A more grounded, natural palette where harmony and contrast sit on the same plane. The colours are obviously from the same palette but contrast in their tone, shape and composition. I have always had a love of collage too, starting at college in my early 20's being influenced by Joseph Cornell, Jake Tilson, Vaughan Oliver, Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Hoch, Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton and many others more recent that have escaped my memory! So playing around with found pieces of paper here and from my travels abroad. 

It keys in with my preference for the antique, vintage, lived in look. Something I strive for in my work and my life, that the results look lived in, as if they own the space they exist within and look comfortable in their own placing, being at ease.

By being in a studio that has 'serious' artistic history and now being part of that history is such a privilege that I understand I may not have earned within the St Ives culture, but I do believe I have earned within the context of the artistic process and the life I lead as an artist. I feel comfortable along side the artists before me because I share the exact experiences they had and have, as an artist. Facing failure on a daily basis, fighting through the failures to the immense highs of self belief, through to doubt and crashing to the depths of giving up, while going back for more, day after day, into weeks, months and years and decades of the same process. This sense of self belief has been nurtured by being surrounded by fellow artists who have nothing other than a strong sense of practice.

So after the first 'happening' I went back after an Easter break of two days and got to it. The majority of the day was preparing myself and making unsatisfying marks, muddy paint brushes filled with uncontrollable paint until I decided to go home a bit early and cut my losses. It seems that when I make that decision I do my better work! These below were the results which I like a lot and will be investigating into more. It's a movement forward that I am enjoying so my current gait is going with the flow. I have two more days to go, with today feeling like an assessment, research day. So back to it tomorrow early.

WEST BRITON MASTHEAD DSIGN FOR TRURO ARTS FESTIVAL 2014

I was asked recently to be part of a project with Truro Arts Festival, and the West Briton. Four artists including me were asked to create a new mast head for the West Briton. The artists I am in great company with are Nick Brennan who illustrates for the Dandy and the Beano, Keith Sparrow-local illustrator and Cosmic-local graffiti artist.

Here they are together and also my own design. You can vote here for your favourite, but if you can please vote for mine, no.3 or for all 4 of us.

just scroll down to the right to the poll and click no.3

Something is happening...

After going out sketching the other day I spent some time working on them in the studio and came up with these. I really like these as contenders for landscapes for books, to accompany a character and storyline I am working on. These are just mock sketches and a bit clunky in places but the essence is there. The trees aren't right, so more playing and sketching to be done.

Also after using very natural more somber colours (my natural palette), I will start introducing a brighter colour palette, when I am more confident in the style and process.

Sketching from life...

I went sketching while I walked the dog at the weekend, it was time. I left it too late and had to rush in the end but I got out there and did a few sketches... I prepared the pages before hand, but in the mud and the cold it really was a fiddle, with all my pencils etc.. I realised I like using all sorts of pencils, pens and paints, which means it's all a bit tricky. I don't have one favourite pencil or pen, so I use all that I have. With cold sticky fingers, holding them all at once and drawing is hard. But I still enjoyed it and will go again when it stops raining! I was being drawn to the houses hidden in the trees and the structures that offered lines and blocks of texture. I love the shapes and textures that the trees make from a distance. I realised that my better drawings worked when my intention was to make the scene my own rather than to replicate what I see. If I want to replicate it I take a photo, and if I am inspired to paint and make something different using that reference, I already know what pencils and colours I want to use, so I get the sketchbook out.

So here are some sketches above and I have singled out three of my favourite pages, which were done at home before I went, thinking of landscapes for my narrative work. I look over these and already see the core of something I can take into my own children's books... slowly feeding the new work, and making sense of it so I can replicate it in the studio.