In search of postcards

Sketchbook project 2012

2012-01-09T21:20:00.000Z

For those of you that don't know, ArtHouse Co-Op in Brooklyn, New York has been doing a yearly sketchbook project, where for a relatively small fee (compared to the usual entry fee for UK exhibitions) they send you a A5ish sized sketchbook which you can alter almost anyway you like, a project title and will then exhibit the sketchbook around the USA and store it in the Brooklyn Art Library forever for people to look at.

For 2012 the project is also getting toured overseas, so my sketchbook should be available to view not only throughout the USA but back here in Blighty as well.

Pages 6 and 7

There were a selection of topics to choose from, with my love of postcards and subverting the traditional postcard image I chose “It's Summer Where You Are”. I intentionally wanted it to be quite free flowing like a sketchbook should be, also like a journey and work with images and postcards that were from places I had travelled. I was tempted to use postcards I owned to present some kind of story from a fictional person on a journey but felt that it seemed a little forced for the idea of the sketchbook. It is after all meant to be an exploration of ideas as well as a body of work. There needs to be some experimentation. Additionally I'd tried previously to produce my painted postcards with reverses, this seemed like a good idea but in the end it just served to make my point about these paintings being postcards too bull headed. Of course there is always a exception to the rule as Greetings from the Mantelpiece showed.

Pages 8 and 9

In the end I dumped the writing idea completely leaving just a few examples on pages that were meant to be more about unformed ideas than actual semi finished work. Which in the end was just some musings on all the various ice cream trucks I had encountered on my travels over the last 5 years. The rest became a mix of small scale biro drawings, a few unusual or interesting photographs and printed on postcards.

Roughly the sketchbooks journey started with an exploration of places around the coast. I'd been to Southwold very recently on a summer holiday and as one that reminisced heavily from my childhood holidays with my parents it seemed an obvious place to start and spend some time/pages on. Moving on, the sketchbook visits Portsmouth (including Portchester), Cowes and from the boats of Cowes to the boats of Venice then through other foreign places including India and Tenerife. Returning back to London and following a route west towards my home, through Kew Gardens, Windsor and Virginia Water.

Pages 16 and 17

The inside back cover and front cover are the same image done using two different methods that both had heavy use in the sketchbook. This image of Brooklyn Bridge was taken by me when I visited New York in 2005 and is one of my favourite images from the trip. I wanted to include it as a homage to the sketchbooks final resting location and organisation that created the project. The original idea for the book was to have the book reflect the actual physical journey it would go on but I felt uncomfortable trying to reproduce images of places I had never been. Nor at that time did I know if I had postcards from each of these places. I still am unsure but thats a story for another day.

Pages 18 and 19

Many of the methods used you will recognise. The biro drawings I have been doing for a few years now. I was interested however if I could do them that small and in trying to push myself technically.

The photographs were chosen because of an inherent oddness or importance to the visit I made. For example on page 9 I have a photograph of a sunny Southwold with an obvious and somewhat ominous rainstorm on its way (No photoshop by me, this was real and I got very wet that day). On page 16 there is photograph of a pair of entertainers in Cowes week, dressed as sailors they arrived and created an utterly surreal air about the place. It was fantastic and really set the tone for the rest of the day.

Pages 20 and 21

The printed on postcards embraced a number of methods depending if I already had produced a plate for another purpose of that place. There is a postcard of Southwold beach huts that has on the reverse a print from my Southwold Beach Huts etching. There is a postcard from Tenerife that I have printed on using a solar plate of Tenerife and there are a number of postcards that I have used the polymer plate lithographic process on including Venice and the front cover showing Brooklyn Bridge.

The method of printing was fairly immaterial, polymer plate won out with the newest plates only because it was cheap, quick and very graphic. Mainly I was interested in the idea of printing imagery on the reverse rather than words. It seems subversive and can produce some aesthetically interesting combinations. While imagery, it still retains this contrast from the highly detailed photograph.

The tour starts in April in New York. http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject2012

Images are my actual sketchbook.

Pages 24 and 25

Getting into it - Photo project 2012

2012-01-05T17:38:00.002Z

So it is time again for a new photographic project. The idea that has been brewing for some time is an extension of the looking at reality of a place, however instead of trying to find an objective reality, this time I want to use photography to look at views that would be unfamiliar from a human perspective. I'm not interested in photoshopping my images beyond some gentle cropping as it is the idea of the camera as a true medium, if that makes sense, that interests me more, certainly when a photograph is the end product, rather than a painting.

Perambulation: 28th Oct 2009

One thing I do know about photographing is that an unusual angle is often more interesting than shooting from human head height. The Perambulation project reinforced that in me, early photos of fungi are from above with me standing or only leaning down, later ones might even have me spread eagled on the leaves and I think we can agree which are best.

Perambulation: 6th Oct 2010

I like the idea of manipulating reality using camera angles. Of going more extreme than that to produce images that might not be immediately known what or where they are. Predictably my life is all over the place already and it's only just 2012 so for now I either have to be flexible about when and how often I get these images or I have to be flexible about where.

Perambulation: 29th Jan 2010

So,

Option 1: a full 365, time fixed like Welcome to Simons Wood, of where ever I am that day and time. This would be looking more of a subjective reality of my life rather than a particular place. It is interesting, but why would I want to complicate it with the challenge of finding unusual angles.

Option 2: a project like Perambulation, 6 days a week not time fixed. I'd probably stick to nature as my backdrop but might find a few other ones here and there depending on what I find interesting that day. It has the potential to be interesting but feels like it might be a little unfocused and I know work will get in the way massively.

Option 3: probably a 52 although I am tempted to define it as twice a week rather than once. Not date or time sensitive but would focus on one place or one type of place. Certainly won't be objective in any way.

Perambulation : 1st June 2010

For those of you with long memories the seed for this idea has lasted over a year and was known once as Secret Project 3. (Secret Projects 1 and 4 were revealed to be my Postcassettes and my foray into Printmaking. Both now on the website. Secret project 2 ran into technical difficulties.)

I'm going to go with Option 3 although Option 1 might become it's own project one day. Mainly because after the restrictions of Welcome to Simons Wood I feel the need for a relaxed project with the potential for large creative output. I also wanted a project that would challenge me as well as not interfere to much with work.

Perambulation: 26th Aug 2010

Photos: some examples from Perambulation, plus below, the first image of the project. Find it on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noblueskies/sets/72157628733339427/

Photo Project 2012: 5th Jan 2012

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T17:29:00.000Z

Just in case I have loyal followers here that don't use Facebook or Twitter (or do and have never found me there) and also aren't on my mailing list, here is a link to whats coming up in the New Year for me.

http://www.gemmacumming.com/dec_newsletter.htm

I hope you all have a fabulous night tonight and that 2012 is your best year yet.

Happy New Year!

Balloon!

Printmaking updated

2011-12-14T17:58:00.000Z

Does anyone remember the blog post way back in February, where I explained the current series of prints? If not feel free to read it again: link

It's now December and I recently put the last of my monthly prints up on the website. An image of Cowes, it's original photograph was taken in June 2008 during Cowes week.

Sunny Cowes 2011 drypoint on tissue paper, handcoloured

Since starting printmaking at South Hill Park I've learnt a great deal. I've had to put it on hold during the last term due to financial and time pressures, but hope to get back to it in the near future.

Since last I spoke about it, the reasoning behind the prints has not changed at all. However after doing 14 different images I felt I wanted to explore other ways print could be used within my practice. Print after all has a great variety of processes, some of which suited the postcards on tissue and others that didn't but had other intriguing qualities.

As well as drypoint, I learnt how to etch plates which was one of the few processes I had done once previously at University. It worked quite nicely for the postcard prints, two plates were made using this method, a Venice and a Southwold image.

Beautiful Venice 2011 etching on tissue paper, handcoloured

The display of the tissue prints was an issue until I came across clear frameless acrylic frames from Muji that are both extremely unobtrusive and very clever. I would have them suspended in front of a window allowing the transparent qualities to shine through. Obviously in a home setting this isn't always entirely possible, after exhibiting them recently in this fashion I now understand the rate that the inks lose their colour. This can be only a matter of months for obvious discolouration, so in a home setting you might want to actually hang them out of direct sunlight, maybe even in a different sort of frame that has UV protective glass.

Southwold Beach Huts 2011 etching on tissue paper, handcoloured

There were two other print processes that while they didn't work for the postcards on tissue were very interesting nevertheless.

Solar plate is a process that uses a photo sensitive layer on a metal plate. It is then exposed to light through a transparency printed with your design. The black areas on the transparency stop the light while the pale areas let light through. When gently washed in warm water the areas that were protected from the light wash away, leaving an indentation. In many ways the process is like etching and drypoint, where it is the worn away areas that hold the ink and produce the black areas.

The results tend to be a very close to a photographic reproduction of the original image, and it was for this reason that it didn't suit the tissue paper postcards. When shrinking the original A4 drawings down to A6 size, then computer printing for the transparency, the small imperfections that make it look like a drawing are lost. When printed as a solar plate, while beautiful, they looked too much like a computer manipulation rather than a drawing. This was too close to the mass produced nature of the postcard for me.

Sunny Brighton framed at South Hill Park Student Open exhibition

Polymer Plate Lithography uses a plasticised paper that you can transfer an image onto. The action and method of transfer changes how areas of the plate react to water and oil. On the transferred image water is repelled and the oil based ink can adhere to the surface, while on the white portions the water stops the ink from sticking. (This may be a little inaccurate, I'm only just getting my head around the concept).

Like solar plate, the images are photographic transfers, rather than hand “drawn” like etching and drypoint. Unlike solar plate the images have to be far more graphic and less tonal. This method does not deal with grey areas well at all.

Beautiful Venice framed at South Hill Park Student Open exhibition

Both of these processes have some very interesting qualities, so some of my most recent prints have been looking at starting a new series that uses these photographic qualities along with the notion/subversion of the postcard. I also have another project in mind that will utilise the polymer litho but both projects are in very early stages. Another development has been the use of coloured inks as well as black.

I have however used all of the above processes in my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project, which is nearing completion and will require it's own blog entry very soon.

Photos: "Summer is Coming"

2011-12-11T10:46:00.000Z

Last week I put Summer is Coming up in the window of an Empty Shop in Maiden Place shopping centre, Lower Earley, Reading. It will be there till about the beginning of January and while we were putting the work up we already got some good comments. Hopefully the shoppers will appreciate a little reminder of summer in these dark winter days.

Here is a selection of photographs from the install.

If you would like to visit this link should get you close: Link

Exhibition Update: While Things Were Good

2011-12-09T17:10:00.000Z

Another exhibition update!

I've been keeping this one a little quiet but now the brochure and other publications are out I am revealing all. Although sharp eyed readers might already know about it.

In February I will be showing a selection of my larger works at my local arts centre South Hill Park in Bracknell, in a solo exhibition entitled While Things Were Good. The exact selection of works is yet to be decided but I have been feverishly painting to try to complete 2 new, large scale, 80 x 120 cm paintings.

I am really excited as the works will be in the Atrium, the exhibition space/bar/restaurant, so should have a lot of people seeing them.

I have wanted to exhibit at South Hill Park since about 2003 when I was mired enough in the art world to realise that South Hill Park actually had exhibition spaces. Before then I'd only known its as a child seeing Shakespeare performances with my secondary school or as a place to get messy with clay one summer holiday when I was about 7. It was in fact while wandering around the Mirror Gallery, looking at the 2003 Wrexham Print International, on the verge of going away to University to study Fine Art and trying to explain contemporary art to my mother, that the thought that maybe one day I could exhibit there popped up. At that point it seemed an impossible dream, heck until about 3 months ago it still seemed improbable.

No photos of the new works, they are secret until the 10^th of February, but here is a little publicity.

By the way I'd love to see you on the 10^th 7 – 8:30 pm for the private view, as well as my own show there will be three other exhibitions opening that evening, including South Hill Park's Jeweller in Residence Bev Bartlett, winning photographs from the local councils annual amateur photography competition and some amazing prints and sculptural paper works by Jeannie Driver and Chris Lundie.

More info

There might even be free wine.

Extract from current South Hill Park Brochure

Extract from upcoming exhibitions leaflet

Welcome to Simons Wood Reflected

2011-12-08T21:07:00.000Z

So it's that time again where I try to reflect on the years photographic project.

So if you missed it, some background. I was attempting to work on a follow up to the previous years project Perambulation, looking at the reality of a place and trying to recreate it through photography. Using a strict set of rules, I tried to capture a specific view throughout the year with an aim that while it might not be possible to create a truly objectively real and complete view of a place it was possible to be more objective than the Perambulation project.

Week 1 - 20th November 2010

Rules

1. As from the previous project, there will be no post production editing of the photographs. With the exception of cropping and resizing for the internet.

2. The camera will be set to scenery mode, and the only setting on it I can change will be the white balance to the appropriate weather conditions (either cloudy or sunny)

3. I will go out when I should, no matter the weather at the time.

4. I will go to the same place and take a photo of the same view

5. I will go out weekly, Saturday at 12pm.

6. I may change the day (but not the time) if life conspires to make Saturday impossible. The day should be as close to Saturday as I can make it and I should make every effort to do it on a Saturday.

7. I will attempt to do this for a year.

Week 5 - 18th December 2010

It's been an interesting year. When I started I thought the lack of creative input would damage the project. It was very strict, almost verging on the scientific, and while that lent focus to what I was trying to achieve, it became routine and required little thought.

Routine tasks are part of life, and while my photography may have suffered from a lack of constant creative input, it did become familiar and comforting in a strange way. I would look forward to my weekly walks with intrigue as to how I would find the pond and take interest in all the smallest changes.

Week 20 - Saturday 2nd April 2011

Practically it was easier to deal with than the Perambulation project, which was good as I have been far more busy this year than last. I didn't cheat once, although I did have to change my day far more often than I would have liked.

As a realistic view of the place? Certainly it is a realistic view of that years worth of Saturdays. Any years worth of Saturdays? Maybe. As a realistic view of that place throughout the year? Probably not. I seemed to get a high proportion of grey days which, I promise you it is not indicative of where I am. The rules I set in place certainly helped to make it a more realistic view of the place it did not create an utterly realistic view. But I went into this knowing the restrictions.

Week 21 - Saturday 9th April 2011

So what to do now with the project?

This is something I will have to think on, but much like the Perambulation project I think film or a book would be the best way to show them. Obviously 53 images are easier to deal with in a gallery setting but I like better the idea of a more fluid image progression either through an AV (which you can already get through Flickr slideshow) or a book. Of course a book is still planned for the Perambulation project so hopefully I will get around to it. I'm not entirely sure who would want to buy it though, but as a record and exercise it's a good idea.

Week 32 - Sunday 26th June 2011

I'm looking potentially at two photographic based projects next year now. One will be short term if it is accepted, but I will talk more on that at a later date if it is to be realised.

As to a year long project, I feel a more creative approach is needed, to explore my photographic skills more if nothing else. So this one will probably reflect Perambulation more than this one. I might also lift all geographical restrictions, but keep a date/time one. All in all, I'm still too deeply thinking about this current one and all the other artwork I have going on to have found time to focus my thoughts, but over Christmas I will be.

Week 50 - Saturday 29th October 2011

Photos: A selection of images from Welcome to Simons Wood

Exhibition Update: Summer is Coming.

2011-11-30T17:46:00.000Z

I was asked just over a month ago if I would like to exhibit in an empty shop in a local shopping centre. I'm always keen to exhibit locally as I am a strong advocate of community engagement and the ethos of the empty shop movement in this time of economic downturn. The shop is in the Maiden Place shopping centre, a pedestrianised area in Lower Earley, Reading on a road called Maiden Place. It will be a shop window display of some recent works for the whole of December.

Press release below.

Back from the East - part 3

2011-10-31T20:26:00.000Z

After leaving the fens region I had another stop on my holiday to make.

Travelling from flat Fenland to the Suffolk/Essex borders was an interesting experience. First of all I really enjoyed the drive, even though I was constantly getting lost or being redirected due to road closures. It almost felt like the fens weren't going to let me go for a while there. Secondly I chose to drive via Theford Forest and after days of huge skies, it was a revelation to be amongst trees again.

Dedham Vale nr East Bergholt

It was really nice to see trees and hills again, apparently I had been unknowingly missing them. Though I would soon enough change my mind. After quite an extensive drive I arrived at my second home away from home, which would be mine for two nights. A Travellodge on the A12.

I had initially decided to stay in a Travellodge for this part of my trip for two reasons:
1. It was really, really near where I was going to the next day.
2. Having never stayed in a B&B before and yet knowing how many horror stories there are out there I wanted somewhere where experience told me I could be sure of a clean room, clean sheets and a decent shower.

Public footpaths East Bergholt

It was very convenient, only 5 miles from my location for the next day. However, it was also on the A12, which I had somehow forgotten was a busy road. All in all it wasn't nearly as nice as the other Travellodges I had stayed in and not as nice as where I had just come from. But enough of a grump, back to the real story.

After a passable night's sleep I went down to start my Constable adventure. I had grand plans for the day, wanting to try to spy out as many of Constable's views that became paintings as I could, hopefully with an intention to paint them myself. I certainly wanted to get a photograph of the Haywain location as well as take in one of the walks on the map.

Row boats on the River Stour, Dedham

Deciding to start in East Bergholt I had a mooch around the town and started on one of the walks from my map, one that covered as many of the painting views that I could. It was a pleasant walk, but far longer and intense than I was expecting. I got mildly lost a few times, which is often fun but by about the halfway point I was very tired and quite footsore. Unfortunately it was a circular all or nothing type of walk so I had to keep going. Right at the end of the walk, apparently within spitting distance of the end, I seemed to get very lost, which was quite scary as I'd been going for about 4 hours at this point and really needed food and a sit down. I'd almost gone very wrong a few times before then, but somehow had made the right call, this time I didn't and ended up on footpaths my map didn't know existed. Happily after a lot of reading and a lot of guessing I ended up back at the car.

Many of the painting views were possible to work out where they were but impossible to get to, due to land having become private over the intervening years or time encouraging the growth of trees and bushes. But I found and photographed a few views on my walk and saw many great modern views.

After the immense walk (which I had never expected to take that long) and fuelled by a jam doughnut I still had the main focus of the day to do. Slightly regretting that I had not done it in the morning as the sunshine of the morning had become a cloudy and cold afternoon, I headed to Flatford mill.

Footpath through grounds of Langham Hall

It was really pretty around there, it was just a shame that I was too tired and grumpy not to appreciate it more. I did get some good images, especially as this place seems to have changed little since Constable's day. Boat-building near Flatford Mill was easy to spot, even if the dock was no longer dry.

On one hand it was a good job that I was so grumpy, to top everything off the spot where Constable painted the Haywain is behind a big “Private” sign. The buildings belong to the National Trust and the Field Studies Council and are used for residential scientific study. Indeed while I was there there were many students doing research by the pond. Needless to say I ignored the sign and took the photo anyway, which I hope most people do as it seems ridiculous to have the the most famous landmark in that area behind a private sign.

Flatford Mill

My day complete I went back to the Travellodge and then headed home the next day.

A Picture Postcard World

2011-09-18T19:43:00.001+01:00

I was directed earlier this week by the always wonderful Katie Smith to the Time Shift programme on BBC 4 about postcards. Titled “The Picture Postcard world of Nigel Walmsley” it's a nice little jaunt though the history and uses of the postcard. Do forgive it's beginning and apparent grumpy old man character, it soon warms up and is filled with all sorts of nuggets of information, including some I didn't know.

Running the history of the postcard from it's heyday in 1902 to 1919 (ish), delving into the variety of cards available, talking about collecting, the resurgence of card usage in the 1960's to 1980's as well as a fair sprinkling of information about postcards as art, which is always something I enjoy (though I'll take mail art over Gilbert and George any day), it covers the social issues and changes throughout this century.

Also worth a look is the postcard blog from Daniel Weir which can only be described as a celebration of John Hinde and a huge nostalgia trip. Not only do I adore the aesthetic qualities in a John Hinde postcard but the subjects covered are hugely reminiscent and often downright exact to how I remember my summer holidays growing up and never stepping foot outside the UK.

http://wishingiwashere.wordpress.com/

It also finally forced me to start the process of archiving my own collection. But I'm not sure any of those will end up online for all to see. After a day of work I've scanned 60 and am currently trying to put those first 60 in a database.

Beats from the Jungle Drums

2011-09-06T17:44:00.000+01:00

Exciting times!
I woke up this morning and checked the Jungle City website to see if my Orangutan Welcome to Jungle City Edinburgh had been moved from the Botanics to it's new home in the city. Expecting that they were being moved as predicted on the 6^th and having heard the day before that many of the sculptures were packing up and being relocated I was eager to reveal where he was now located.

I knew he had been getting a good response from the photographs that were appearing around the interwebs, as well as reports coming in from friends who went up for the Fringe. From what else I've seen, the project in general has been garnering a really good response. The Botanics apparently seeing a 77% increase in visitors from this time last year. Impressive considering the weather.

Well I do wish I was up there as his new location is confusing me a little. According to the map (which can be downloaded here) Welcome to Jungle City Edinburgh is no. 64 and is located at The Meadows which is a park to the south of the City Centre. However no.64 on the visual map seems to be located somewhere on George Street near the Assembly Rooms right in the shopping centre of Edinburgh. When I know where he actually is I will be tweeting about it, so if you don't already follow me on Twitter (or Facebook if you prefer) you should. ;)

Now my Orang has moved I can reveal a few more details. He has been sponsored by Eco Movers/Matt Purdie and Sons and apparently is on the Audio Guide! So if you have an iphone you can download this app which will lead you on a tour of the 50 or so animals out of the 130 that celebrities have leant their voices to. I don't have an iphone so I've yet to hear it.

Finally if he is on George Street he is really near to Harvey Nichols, which is where you can go to find the Jungle City pop up shop. If you want a mini version of the sculptures you can order one from there as well as The Art Book with a front cover with the lovely Loz Atkinson's hornbill One for the Rock, One for the Crow, One to Die, One to Grow on it (I thought mine was a long title). Mine is on page 67. The Art Book, T-Shirts and some plain coloured mini sculptures are currently available on their online shop.

Finally you should check out the Jungle City website, it's had a redesign with all this new information including pages for all their artists.

Welcome to Jungle City Edinburgh 2011

Back from the East - part 2

2011-08-18T22:02:00.000+01:00

On the day I went to March (another of the 4) it was annoyingly grey and dull. I took a number of photos but the clouds showed no sign of breaking. March was interesting anyway with many fab buildings including a museum and a pub called the Ship Inn right by the canal. It also had a wrought iron and gaily painted memorial (I think for the queens silver jubilee) that was called the Fountain. It didn't seem very fountain like, until I found out that at some point the fountain bit that should sit in the middle of the structure had been sold many years ago to someone in a neighbouring village, and was currently sitting in their garden.

March Museum

I also went to Whittlesey (the last of the 4 major fen towns) on the same day as March. The grey day didn't help all the grey stonework. But there were many interesting things to see, including the buttercross which is used as an undercover bus stop mostly, but still seems to be a hub of town activity. Also a pair of impressive churches and a pub by the canal called the Hero of Aliwal. After Whittlesey I trekked up to Thorney to check out the abbey, or rather the remains of it, which is mostly some buildings that are now private houses, the impressive church and a big and inaccessible field. After Thorney I took decided to go even further north and check out Crowland. It had started to rain so my day was looking less and less good for photos. This was until on the horizon I saw the monster that was ruined Crowland Abbey.

St Andrews Church, Whittlesey

I was really taken aback by Crowland Abbey, I was driving along and it suddenly loomed up and proceeded to play hide and seek with me behind trees and houses. It doesn't have the most delicate of profiles either, so it was quite a shock to appear so suddenly. It didn't even look ruined until I got to it, where you can see that part of the abbey has collapsed away. This has been a theme throughout the fens, the churches and cathedrals are some of the most ornate I've ever seen. Tiny villages have churches that date way back and far outstrip churches in my locality.

Crowland Abbey

I went back to the B&B via a number of interestingly named farms, Gothic Hall Farm and Malice Farm. Other places I visited included; Welches Dam a RSPB reserve, Upwell, Outwell, Manae, Three Holes, Welney, Pymoor and Flag Fen, a Stone/Bronze Age reconstruction village.

Welches Dam RSPB reserve

All in all I had a lovely time. I can only praise Sean at Woodlands B&B in Witchford, near Ely for making my first stay in a B&B and first holiday on my own a good experience. I saw many new things, including a barn owl in the wild and many strange and interesting things. I really enjoyed being in a place where the countryside was only a stones throw away and where you often felt like the only person in the world. I also learnt how much I enjoyed just driving around, racing down empty roads, splashing puddles and getting mildly lost. I had hoped that it would sate my desire for the VW camper van and the idea of doing this on a much larger scale, in the end it only heightened it and after about 24 hours home with a good meal in me I wanted to be back out there.

Storm and sunshine

However home wasn't to be my destination for a few more days.....

Back from the East - part 1

2011-08-15T19:28:00.000+01:00

Back from my holiday a few weeks now and it was quite an experience. I didn't get the best weather, but I think I made the most of the sunshine I had. What I did get was a similar experience to last years “Summer Holiday” to Southwold, which I was kind of expecting. The Fens are hardly a great distance from Southwold and they both share some pretty flat ground. I wasn't sure that that would have the same effect on the weather and as I'm no meteorologist, I'm still not. What I do know is that on more than one occasion, I had days where it was bright sunshine with immense black clouds on the horizon. To be honest it's probably the flatness of the land that does this more than anything else. I could see the weather coming, when my usual experience is of a place with more hills and a lot more trees.

Middle of nowhere

Having the fun of driving around the M25 and the M11, I got into the borders of the fens on Thursday lunchtime. Having been sunny all the morning, it clouded over by the time I got to my destination. It was in fact so sunny on the drive that I actually got unexpectedly burnt and developed a bit of a truckers tan. This I didn't see as a particularly good sign for my weeks weather. However it soon cleared up and I got lots of photographs of Ely.

Ely Cathedral

Ely is pronounced Eelee, and named supposedly for the large quantities of eels that were once caught in the marshes around the town. Before the fens were drained, the area was mostly marshy and underwater land with a few drier islands of slightly higher ground where people lived. As such there are many depictions of eels around the town. While not one of the 4 Fenland major towns I was aiming to visit, it was very near to where my B&B accommodation was and has an amazing cathedral.

Ely eel sculpture

Wisbech (pronounced Wizbeech) is “The Capital of the Fens” and was an odd place to visit. I say odd because due to weather patterns I went on a Sunday to try to get this potential photo hotspot on a sunny day, and like many a Sunday in many a place it was dead quiet. It also meant that I stood out a lot as a tourist and got plenty of funny looks. However from an uninspiring wet and grey start, the sun came out and I got some really useful photos. Of all the tourist sights in Wisbech, the gardens of Peckover House (a NT property) were a real treat. Not only were they beautiful to look at but full of really interesting nooks and crannies, including; a cat cemetery, a tiny wooded hut with amazing stained glass windows and a Victorian Orangery. The abundance of flowers also meant there were lots of insects and I could indulge my passion for stalking butterflies. They also had a couple of honeybee hives, which were wonderfully busy if quite scary to try to get close to and take photos.

Tame Peacock butterflies at Peckover House

I visited Chatteris twice while I was away. The first time I got drenched within 5 mins of stepping out of my car. I got so wet that I just drove all the way back to the B&B to change and wait for the worst to pass. Luckily by about 3pm the rain seemed to be going away and this time, dressed in my waterproof trousers and still slightly squidgy leather jacket, I took another stab at it. By the time I got there however it was blue skies, sunshine and mid twenties temperature. Chatteris didn't seem much like your usual tourist destination even though it is one of the 4 major towns in the fens. It certainly had a small town air and I felt very out of place. However it has a gorgeous church and an interesting graveyard.

Broken Tomb in Chatteris church graveyard

Once the rain had stopped I also took a trip to Stonea Camp, which is a prehistoric camp that was at one point entirely razed for farmland. Its earthworks have since been rebuilt and was home to many grazing sheep when I got there. It also allowed some impressive views of the surrounding land and the rainstorms that were coming and going. Be warned, the road to the camp is one of the most challenging and scary I have been along. Basically single track with ditches either side, I wouldn't want to meet anything coming the other way. Much of it is not tarmaced and obviously has some heavy farm traffic moving along it. It also has some huge dips and bumps, a real adventure for my little VW polo and one that had me fearing for its underside and wishing I had a 4by4, although I was very proud of my car, managing it with no apparent issues.

Stonea Camp

Photos from my Flickr feed, more at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noblueskies/sets/72157627135849157/

Part Two: More of the Fens.

Into the East

2011-06-27T20:38:00.003+01:00

Plans are afoot!

At some point last year I found out that Flatford Mill where Constable famously painted his Haywain was mostly unchanged since Constable's time. As an artist that cites Constable and the Romantics as influences in my work (the very notion of the idyllic landscape influencing tourist memorabilia, including postcards) I was intrigued by this. The idea that this kind of place remaining unchanged seemed not only wonderful in modern Britain, that to my mind is losing much of it's heritage but also fitting to the romantics idea of celebrating the English landscape.

I decided that I wanted to recreate the Haywain and produce the same view in my own style. How exactly this will look remains to be seen but I did decide to go visit Flatford mill and see for myself.

This led to wondering how many more of the scenes in Constable's paintings have remained basically recognisable to this day. I found an amazing little map on the internet based on ordnance survey that shows not only the area of Dedham Vale with close ups of the key locations but also recommended walks to explore Constable country but also the location of where Constable stood to paint his pictures.

At the same time there are plans afoot to go to the Cambridgeshire fens region. What the reason for picking that region is I will reveal later when things are more fixed. I am however compiling a list of tourist hotspots that I should visit.

Since both areas are relatively close to each other I decided to split a week in both locations. On the 15^th July I will be off to Ely and staying a few days in a B & B there, taking visits to the surrounding countryside and towns. Doing my usual thing of exploration, buying postcards and getting tourist imagery and photographing anything and everything. I will then be off to Constable country staying in a Travellodge for a couple of days and exploring Constable Country using my exciting new map.

Update on the Orang-utan

2011-05-24T17:52:00.000+01:00

As I said, I have been asked to paint an Orang-utan for The Elephant Family's Jungle City Edinburgh and my design, much like last years Elephant, includes both a sunny, blue-skied side and a threatening, stormy side. Any of you who know anything about my artwork will know that I am obsessed with the postcard and the tourist image, more specifically taking touristic images and removing the usual blue sky and replacing it with something more threatening and unusual to the stereotypical notion of the postcard. These themes influenced my elephant and influence my Orang-utan by making them two sided and using the different skies.

Reverse: Stormy Sky, beginnings of greenery and Hornbill

Front: Blue sky, hands and some greenery

Last years elephant was very easy to make two sided, he had almost identical sides with just a few changes. This year I didn't want to do that exact concept again and the Orang-utan is not by nature an easy animal to make two sides of. He is very much a front important animal and the concept had to recognise that. I also wanted to make a point of him being in Edinburgh.

Front: Greenery continued, Edinburgh Castle and Nelsons Monument

So I decided to have one side include a conglomeration of Edinburgh sights. I was tempted to recreate an iconic Edinburgh scene like you might see on a postcard of that place, however having never gone there I was lacking quite a bit of context that I would normally prefer to have before picking and recreating an image. After looking at Edinburgh tourist websites I settled on three possibilities, Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace and Nelsons Monument.

Reverse: Jungle scene including Tiger and Elephant

I decided to have the other side be a general jungle/densely wooded scene and incorporate all the animals in Jungle City, just as I did for the elephant. I decided that the stormy sky would be best on the jungle scene for two reasons.

While the Jungle frequently has storms and sudden downpours, by having the threatening sky over the animals it does highlight, hopefully that there are other things that threaten them, namely human changes to their habitat, something that is important to the cause.
Scotland, and so it's capital, has the stereotype that it is always raining. It seemed to make sense to put the blue sky here for no other more reason than to break stereotypes. Something I very much like doing.

Front: Greenery close to completion.

Reverse: Greenery completed, crocodile can be seen, flowers started.

Finally I decided to have the jungle scene on his back because he is such a front facing animal. For people seeing him in the streets of Edinburgh the first thing they might think about is that fact there are all these animals in Edinburgh and isn't it grand. The sights of Edinburgh being on his front reinforce this feeling but if you make the effort to look all around him you will find another deeper message. It highlights that the plight of the animals they are seeing around Edinburgh in sculptural form and in their native habitat can easily be forgotten or hidden from view. Hopefully the spectacular lightning strewn sky and slight encroachment by one or two of the animals from the back side onto the front side will encourage people to look all around him.

Jungle City Edinburgh 2011

2011-04-29T21:14:00.000+01:00

Finally I get to tell you all about this!

A few months ago I was approached by the Elephant Family, with whom, if you recall, I painted a life-size adolescent fibreglass elephant for last summers Elephant Parade in London. This time they had grand plans to turn fringe season Edinburgh into a jungle with many animals rather than just elephants.

As you may know the Elephant Family is a charity devoted to the protection and conservation of the asian elephant in the wild. The London Elephant Parade aimed to raise 2 million pounds to go towards securing corridors of land connecting current elephant habitats. In the end it managed to raise over 4 million pounds, a resounding success and a real boon towards protecting the elephant.

Jungle City Edinburgh recognises that there are many other endangered species that share the elephants habitat and that by protecting the habitat for the elephants they are also protecting it for all the other species that live there. As such, Edinburgh in August and September will abound with over 150 life-size sculptures of Elephants, Rhinoceros Horn-bills, Tigers, Crocodiles and Orang-utans.

Edinburgh will be a Jungle! More information here: http://www.jungle-city.org/index.html

Well I have been asked to paint an Orang-utan and more will be revealed on that later. Meanwhile if you have Flickr, Twitter or Facebook you can now follow his progress. I am posting photos online, 1 maybe 2 a day as he progresses. They are going up on Flickr but I tend to link to them online in other places too.

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noblueskies/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/noblueskies

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gemma-Cumming/14653030250

The blank canvas

Bracknell's Giant Postcard

2011-04-22T20:57:00.001+01:00

Been really busy over the last few months.

There is a new secret project getting started right now, a project that I fervently hope will become less secret over the next few days. I am itching to tell everyone!

The 6 weeks prior to Easter holidays were spent doing some creative partnerships work at Ashmead Combined School in Buckinghamshire. I plan to blog about that soon. It needs a separate post.

However last weekend I got involved with a community art project in Bracknell Town Centre.

It was a little last minute but so much fun!

Original constructed image of Bracknell

So the story goes:

In March a friend of mine, fellow intern at South Hill Park and all round fab arty graduate Sophie Williams spent a weekend creating and teaching others to up-cycle clothes. In this case taking old, donated and charity shop clothes and embellishing, cutting up to add to other clothes and generally making the old, dilapidated and unfashionable exciting and cool again.

The project entitled Fashion Fixers aimed to get the youth (14-18) of Bracknell to be creative and think about ways to turn old stuff they no longer like into new stuff. A really great ethos especially in this time of financial crisis.

Setting up with the Water Clock Fountain in the background

Everything made over that weekend was then exhibited and sold last Saturday in a generously donated empty shop in Bracknell Town Centre. The project was partially made possible due to an initiative called ITVFixers (yes the TV station!) along with a lot of hard work by Sophie and some really generous donations. All the proceeds from the sale of the clothes went to Project 125.

Sophie is part of South Hill Park's young producers board “Missed Out” and there were plenty of others from that group who helped both in the lead up and subsequent clean up as well as on the day.

They even got an article in this weeks Bracknell Forest Standard!

Mayor of Bracknell Forest painting

So where do I come in???

Well I'd seen all the build up to the exhibition, so knew exactly what ITV fixers were talking about when I got an email from them via ReOrsa, the Thames Valley Artists group I am a part of. They wanted to involve the community in a project on the Saturday as well as having the exhibition and were looking for a professional artist (painter) to do something. So I proposed a giant postcard of Bracknell and that's what we did.

Many young helpers

We had lots of support from both “Missed Out” and the people of Bracknell, including Bracknell Forest Mayor Cllr Ian Leake, all helping to paint the image side of the “postcard”. Everyone who painted was asked to write something about Bracknell, generally what they liked about it, which would then be added to the reverse of the “postcard”.

Final painted image

Reverse of giant postcard

More photos on my Flickr page here.

Southwold Reprise

2011-03-30T21:15:00.000+01:00

It was almost 2 months between taking the photos in Southwold and starting to paint my new paintings. It doesn't usually take me that Long to photoshop a few photos, in fact now as I write this I have no idea why it took so long, I can only assume that paperwork and admin got in the way as it continues to try to do.

Oh well, no matter! When I started the new paintings I was working fairly obsessively on them. Granted the resurgence of the cold weather and the ever present distracting paperwork continued to sap my time and enthusiasm, yet I found myself looking forward to the point in the week when I could get on with them.

I finished them a few months back in early January I thought it time to update you all on their progress. Well actually I wanted to do that months ago but the finished paintings proved very had to photograph accurately and I wanted to show you them as they grew. While painting I was uploading occasional images to Twitpic and tweeting about them.

As it stands there is no particular place they are going to when I get done. And I will admit it seems really strange to be blogging about paintings that have no specific project behind them. As most of 2010's paintings were very much project led. However Southwold has kind of taken over my practice, with many drawings already completed, 2 more paintings on the go and prints being made based on the drawings.
Below first: Greetings from Southwold

and Walberswick Ferry

Spring has sprung

2011-03-20T19:32:00.000Z

Or at least I think it has. Where I go for my weekly walks I see very few signs that spring has arrived. The largest is probably the return of the geese and while I've seen the crocuses come and go the pond seems slow to become green. However the sun is feeling stronger and the smell of spring was almost in the air the last Saturday I went out.

Week 13 - 12th February 2011

Spring may come slow to the pond but I know it well enough to know that while I don't see the snowdrops and daffs that festoon other places (places I walked around last year), there will be hordes of bluebells soon enough.

Also the biggest change, while I can't say shows for sure the return of spring, is a welcome return of sunny days. After weeks of winter and Saturdays full of dull cloud, now I have had many Saturdays with at least partial sunshine.

Week 14 - 18th Feb 2011

This is proving to be an issue currently, however. I love the sun but it seems that it is making taking my photos difficult, since for the time being I have to take my images directly into the sun. Either I get blue sky and silhouetted landscape or I get bright white sky and slightly darker than it should be landscape.

Week 15 - 25th February 2011

I knew when I started that I might have this issue but hopefully when full spring/summer comes along the sun will be overhead enough not to intrude as much. I'm afraid that I picked one of my favourite views rather than one that will always photograph fairly accurately. Maybe this just shows that to attempt to get an objective truth of a place you have to be completely objective picking your subject. But surely this would negate the other aspects of a place/view, your love of it and the emotion that it inspires, without this does it cease to be art?

Week 16 - 5th March 2011

Meanwhile enjoy a selection of the latest few weeks photos.

Week 17 - 12th March 2011

Secrets - Part Deux

2011-02-05T16:12:00.001Z

So another secret project is enough off the ground to talk about.
Secret project 4 as I have said is printmaking based. Taking inspiration from (as usual) postcards and touristic imagery and using a monoprinting process called drypoint I have recreated a selection of my drawings into black and white prints.

It took a little while to hit on drypoint as a good process for what I wanted. I tried a woodcut but the result was too blocky. Trying to recreate a fine line using a relief process is not at all easy. However, drypoint is a process where you etch lines into a sheet of perspex (or metal, but perspex is cheaper and easier) using a needle like implement. The ink then sits in the grooves you have made and is transferred to the paper when pressure is applied.

Original Photograph

So why make prints of drawings? Well I love the drawings, but sometimes I'd also like to see them with colour. Now I'd never want to colour them as they are because it would dirty the concepts and reasons for them having among other things, black skies. However I was particularly intrigued by the process of printing and it's ability to recreate images on many surfaces. So taking inspiration from my drawings I created drypoint plates from them.

After thought, I hit on the idea of taking my postcard imagery back to it's roots. This meant creating postcard sized prints of drawings that were originally created to subvert the postcard image. The size aspect of my work has always been part of the subversion, the paintings are giant postcards and while the drawings probably take more from tourist posters and their scale is less of an issue, they also have links with postcards and as such are also far too large to be realistically postcards. But it was important that they really resembled postcards because I had found another way other than size to subvert the postcard.

Drawing version

My initial idea took some time to pull off. I knew that I wanted to play with the postcard itself rather than the associated imagery. I already had the imagery, but what else was there to subvert that would also fit in with the desire to take them back to postcard size. The answer seemed obvious when it hit me, material, however while printing on normal paper was no issue and produced some really interesting results printing on anything else I had in mind was fraught with difficulties. However in the end I managed to produce a good result printing onto tissue paper.

So why tissue paper? Well most importantly was the aspect of fragility inherent with it. Tissue is so easy to tear and crumple, and doesn't stand up well to damage of any kind. It would not cope with being posted, transported, put through machines or any or all weathers. It is also quite transparent and so trying to write on the back would obscure and alter the image.

Drypoint Plate

As I said I wanted to colour these images as well. I really wanted to see what effect reintroducing colour into an initially monochromatic drawing would have. It also seemed natural to add colour and make it resemble traditional postcards even more. Initially I have chosen to hand colour as I could control the colour better than I could using printing processes (I am a painter after all). I wanted to use drawing inks to maintain transparency and depth/clarity of colour however it also meant that the inks were not light fast At first I thought this was a problem but actually it added another dimension of fragility to the postcard print. I did know that I wanted the colouring to be as much as possible block colour, tone and line being defined by the print. As such the colour of the sky was an issue, do I have it black or do I introduce a stormy apocalyptic sky? However I realised that strangely these skies should be blue, unlike all my other works. Blue skies meant that block colour was easy and they looked even more like traditional postcards.

Print onto paper

Like all traditional printing techniques you don't get exactly the same print twice. With drypoint I have been getting quite a variation in strength of line. Each time you print you need to reapply the ink and prepare the plate. As such the surface sometimes has more ink left and sometimes less. No prints are the same, especially so when you also start to hand colour them.

The first attempt at hand colouring was almost disastrous as I didn't realise that the shellac based ink would dry and stick to the paper underneath the print. As such I had to very carefully peel the print off the paper. Since then I paint sections fast, move the image frequently and dry them hanging on a rudimentary washing line.

Millennium Dome Print on Tissue

So why have I only started doing prints? Well the last time I had access to a good print studio was back at university (2003-06). Back then, while I picked up a few techniques, I was also only just understanding what this obsession with postcards was and was concentrating on getting the paintings right. I can do this now because I have found the wonderful resource that is the Printmaking Studio at South Hill Park Arts Centre in Bracknell, Berkshire. I signed up to a course because I needed the experience of full time printmakers to assist me. Currently the Artist Printmakers in Residence are Chris Smith and Holly Drewett but I've mainly been working with Holly, who is a star even if she keeps trying to get me to print in colour :P

So future plans for the prints.

Well as you may have seen from the website already I have prints on there right now. I plan to release a new one every month so stay tuned. I need to look further at ways to frame and exhibit them and I am thinking about other print process other than drypoint that I might use. These would have to be processes like drypoint to achieve anything a finish that is anything like the original drawing, but could be etching or solarplate.

Final Coloured Version

Happy New Year - New Photo Project update

2011-01-01T16:04:00.000Z

It seemed appropriate to post this update on the new perambulation project in New Year.

Well, first of all I have recently made a decision about its name. Maybe predictably I have chosen a variation on “Welcome to....”. In this case the currently “Unnamed Project (perambulation v.2)” will now be known as Welcome to Simons Wood.

Week 1 - 20th November 2010

Since starting the project I've been glad there has been as much change between weeks as I've had. The snow and ice so far has subtly altered the view, which is welcome to a project that I expected might show unnoticeable change between some weeks, especially in the winter.

I still worry that later in the winter, when the ice goes and is replaced with grey damp February days, it will start to look very similar week to week. However this is part of the experience and just as important with regards to the “truth” of the place.

Week 2 - 27th November 2010

While I think so far it has been successful, considering it has so far followed the rules I set, it is missing things that the previous project had. It makes my walks almost more of a chore doing it once a week than doing it everyday and this is not because so far all my Saturday's have been grey.

Week 3 - 4th December 2010

The main issue seems to be motivation and enjoyment of the process. With the new project all the creativity of finding the photo was over in the first week. Going out with the prime purpose of getting the same view as the week before has it's own challenges but they are nothing compared to the challenges of finding a new one everyday in a variety of places.

Week 4 - 11th December 2010

While I go on a walk after getting that photo and look for other images, I don't have that pressure of finding a shot to put up everyday. As such I find it harder to see photos or find the enthusiasm to do something like find an unusual angle or go off the beaten track. As such this current project is not helping me to improve my photography either.

Granted I do enjoy seeing how the view has changed week to week, but it's like I want instant gratification. Maybe this is because I know exactly where that days photo will come from, rather than having no idea. As such the walk down to the view is not as enjoyable.

Week 5- 18th December 2010

I am also going on less walks than before (walks in addition to Saturdays expeditions), especially now it is greyer and colder than before. I am also generally really busy and since I need not upload a photo everyday.... well there is a distinct lack of motivation.

Week 6 - 25th December 2010

All in all I don't think this will impinge too much on the current project but there is a loss of enjoyment around the whole process which I miss and in the New Year may have to try to get back somehow.

Week 7 - 1st January 2011

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T22:33:00.000Z

Sound

2010-12-23T16:17:00.001Z

So a little more about my sound art foray.

Before I start, I need to name the project. Please feel free to leave comments or tweet me with your ideas ( @noblueskies ). Currently running around my mind is some variation of Welcome to.... or Greetings from.... but all ideas are welcome. The individual tapes have names but they are pretty uninspiring and intentionally so, no need for the entire project to be like that.

So some background on what I learnt when creating the “Picture” side.
(If you've not read my previous post about this you may need to http://noblueskies.blogspot.com/2010/12/secrets.html)

I found that I was both extremely aware of every sound it was picking up and yet feeling very exposed and impotent. Not wanting to get any trace of myself on the recording meant I could say nothing, nor move and not be too near to the recording device just in case I made an inadvertent noise. I'm still not sure why I didn't want to get any of me on the tape, mostly I think it is for purely personal reasons as I can't stand to hear myself. But after listening to my first recording I realise that apparently this extends as far as occasional noises, not just speech.

When I got to Virginia Water that first day I found it was very busy so I placed myself a little off the beaten track with my recorder on a stump and me on a nearby log. I wanted to avoid having anyone too near me, in case they tried to talk to me and I wanted to record the wide variety of noises not just people chatting. Unfortunately I seemed to become a little bit of an attraction for kids and dogs as I sat there watching the world go by. I got so irrationally pissed off that there was all this really loud close noise, but really it was exactly what I wanted and I was just responding to a loss of control that I hadn't foreseen.

However I then got caught up with this family that after messing about right near me, with their children almost crawling over me to stay on the logs (being unable to say anything as the tape was on). Then one of the adults starting shouting about the boy and that he was going to pee his pants, over and over. There's freaking out about loss of control and there's 10 mins of irrelevant and in my mind (rightly or wrongly) crude and overpowering conversation. At this point I stopped the tape and attempted to start from the beginning again, I'd been going for all of 15 mins.

However I decided that I would try to record while I walked around (not realising quite how much I would cringe listening to it back, hearing myself). I rationalised that as it was autumn hearing someone walk through the leaves would be appropriate. It probably was but not for this. Listening to it back I realised that while appropriate to the season it wasn't appropriate to a “picture” side of a postcard.

The picture is taken in one place, as such the recording should be a stretch of time in the same place, not moving through a number of pictures. So I resolved to return another day, relocate myself and record for the entire time, no matter what happened. In the end I picked a well known view (well worth a postcard) at Virginia Water Lake. There are still some things to work out but it was a lot better.

Pictures in this post were all taken that day. Though none are of where the recording took place I still felt that 1 it was a really nice day photo wise and I should show off and 2. you all deserve some visual relief when reading my writing.

If you like my photography you might want to follow me on Flickr if you have an account.

http://www.flickr.com/noblueskies

Secrets

2010-12-04T21:17:00.001Z

I think I have been really blessed, since leaving University I haven't experienced any long term artists blocks. I know that for many of my peers they find they find times of utter inability to produce new work. I've not really encountered that as yet. Maybe it is because the obsession with postcards is only becoming more pronounced just when I thought it would fizzle out. From just producing my paintings and the occasional drawing I have found myself producing more and more drawings recently, devising installations and finding ideas for secret projects that are potentially all postcard related.

As many of you might have noticed on Twitter or Facebook I have been talking about secret plans again. This time last year when I was talking about secrets it was the elephant I was creating, this year I have currently 4 secret projects. I actually had to write them all down so I could remember them all!

However unlike the elephant none of my secret projects this year are dependant on an outside company so, if I wanted I could just reveal all. However for many of them they are in early stages.

But I promised to reveal one this week on Twitter, and I stick by my promises. So here's a few hints about them, in reverse order:

Secret project 4 is printmaking based. Currently nothing really at a finished state. Still many in the way of assumptions about materials and processes to get what I want. So not a lot to show but if things continue to go well there will be something to talk about in a few weeks.

Secret project 3 is photo based and very undefined. What it's relationship is to postcards is unclear right now. It probably won't get looked at further till some of the others are established or finished. Also since I currently have a photo project on the go this may be a long time secret.

Secret project 2 is a collaborative piece and online. It will only get going if I actually get on with some work for it a quit being a freeloader.

Today however it is Secret Project 1 that I will reveal.

I wanted to spend a bit more time on this project before I revealed what it was all about, however I think that I will not be able to do any more work on it until the spring/summer so I will talk about it now.

Secret Project 1 is a foray into the world of sound art. This is an area I know very little about, but it is also a project that has been planned for about a year and thought about probably for longer. It is also a project that will not easily be described here on the blog as it is very lo-tech and intentionally not image based. Some of you may have heard me talk about it previously but it's been a while and I now have a better understanding of what it is and why I am doing it.

Most simply it can be described as sound based postcards on cassette tapes. It came about one day while I was thinking about the Internet and the digital revolution, realising that like many things cassette tapes were going the way of the dinosaur and that saddened me. I can of course see the need for things to progress (as many of you may know I embrace and love new technology) but the first music I ever bought was on cassette and I continued to buy cassette tapes well into the 90's when CD's were at their height. I am also a fan of owning a hard copy of things. While technology like MP3 and the Kindle are great, there is no substitute for owning an actual CD, DVD or book. There is just something psychologically right about being able to touch your possessions rather than see them in a digital and disembodied form on your computer.

The digital conversion of letters and postcards is also progressing. Letters certainly are being replaced more and more with email. Even postcards have their e-counterpart. With social networking these days you need only update your twitter and facebook statuses with an image taken then and there on your iPhone and uploaded with a message. It's quite a bit easier and faster than buying a card and stamp for all your friends and family and writing a message 100 times. I hope this doesn't kill the postcard, it seems so impersonal compared to the postcard (which is if you think about it a fairly impersonal or at least open way of communication anyway) and as I said it's really nice to own a physical thing.

Finally the physical similarities between postcards and cassette tapes were not lost on me. In fact this was probably one of the prime reasons I started thinking about tapes as a medium. Both have two sides, and while postcards have a clearly defined picture and reverse there was no reason that the definition couldn't be enforced by me on the tapes.

It was really hard to find blank cassette tapes! But the other month at the tail end of the autumn after 6 months or so of aborted attempts I finally made it out and recorded the “picture” side of the postcassette. Then I had to go back the next week to rerecord. (The whole recording really requires its own blog post, to explore the event and give more depth to the project so that will have to wait for another day). While out I made notes about what the message side should read and then later when I got home recorded the message side using an open source text to speech editor. I did not want my voice on the recording and wanted something with as mechanical a sound as I could. I am still interested in subverting postcards you know! What better way than keeping the two sided quality but removing the easy visual clues and personal nature. Now if people want to imagine being at this place they have to use the text, speech and sounds and try to guess what that place looks like.

Unfortunately it does also mean that this an image light entry. Just the one below of the first cassette in, I hope, many.

Snow!

2010-12-02T11:12:00.004Z

To celebrate the snow here are a selection of my favourite snow pictures from last years Perambulation Project. More photos/info here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noblueskies/sets/72157622935946910/ and here: http://noblueskies.blogspot.com/2010/11/perambulating-my-thoughts-on.html

Further Perambulating Thoughts (Which might be becoming circular)

2010-11-27T22:02:00.000Z

About halfway in to my perambulation project I was still considering ways to show this project. Back then I was unsure how it would turn out and struggling to think of unique and innovative ways to show the results. While I like many of the photos a lot there are just as many that I am indifferent to or I don't think are really very good. There are also not in everyone's eyes Fine Art, In fact I would say that in my mind without the context of my postcard work and reasons for undertaking the project in the first place they would not be Fine Art. However this could be said of many things and is in fact a completely different, huge and highly contentious issue.

Back when I started I didn't think I wanted to show the entire project on gallery walls. There are a lot of images to show! I can't even think about the price in framing them all (and I would have to show them all), let alone find a space that could show all 300 odd. Maybe I could just show a few of the better ones but that then impinges on the truth I have created of these works and project and that upsets me.

Obviously I needed some way to be able to show them all. I've considered film or AV and I may indeed do this but with both I control the speed at which people view them. So with uniform speed images I only ever glance at are lingered on more than I would and images I would want to examine more closely are sped over. I could make the decision which images you should look at for longer and since it's my truth of this area I have that right, I just don't want it. Again it's a manipulation of the truth of the place and that truth is distorted enough.

However why not make a book? The viewer chooses how long to look (granted still messing with the truth of the place but at least it's not me this time), there is something nice in owning it on paper, I can write and contextualise the works. There is one stumbling block, keeping costs down. To keep costs down I will have to make the printed images small, maybe even putting four on a page. For some of the images this wouldn't bother me but there are some that I really feel need more size and space.

Maybe the above arguments are rubbish and I won't be able to avoid imposing my own will on what photos should be viewed differently from the rest. I will also be removing the images from further afield taken because I was on holiday, Strictly looking back on them now I have to say they are not part of this project. Maybe this is also the wrong decision and I should include all images, make a point of the distortions in the “truth” and go on from there.

Frankly until I start designing it I have no idea how it will turn out. I get the feeling that strict date ordering is going to be difficult as a mix of portrait landscape is always hard. Staying within the 80 page limit is also going to be tricky, even with the removals, 4 on a page will use up 75 pages. And I will need a page/half a page for text. I have to say I am still unsure about this, even just by writing this entry I keep finding holes in my decisions, however I'm at the point where none of these questions can be answered by postulating here. Only by starting the work and seeing how it goes will I get more the information I need.

This entries pictures are 7 of MY favourite landscape orientation images from the past year.

Perambulating my thoughts on Perambulation

2010-11-03T22:44:00.002Z

It has been a couple of weeks since my final photograph for my Perambulation Project and I have been reflecting on a years worth of imagery.

6th October 2010

Looking back through the blog posts I made about this project and the goals I set myself way back in my first post on this project (http://noblueskies.blogspot.com/2009/12/well-since-cardiff-i-have-hardly-gone.html). I have come to a number of conclusions.

Doing this as a way to improve my fitness.
Well yes, I would say that was a success. While I won't be running any marathons I did extend the length of my walks on occasion to over 2 hours (walking from Crowthorne to Wokingham) and while on my recent holiday to Southwold walked almost non stop for many of the days, covering over 6 miles a day, 4 days in a row with no worse symptoms than stiff and achy muscles. You might say that's not much, but for me it is what I wanted and what I expected from 9 months of nothing more than short relaxed walks each day.
Exploring my local area.
Well I've certainly done that, I know more about the fields and woods and other nature spots and footpaths around my area than I ever did before. I've learnt more about flora and fauna, especially with regards to butterflies and dragonflies so I can identify them for posting to Flickr. I have however left out a huge chunk with regards to the urban and suburban areas, with the simple reason being that nature interested me more and I found more things to photograph.
Creating a truthful representation of a place
Now that is a tricky one. To answer that question I have to go back to my blog post of (http://noblueskies.blogspot.com/2010/02/truth-is-out-thereunder-bush-or.html). I came to the conclusion that it was impossible to give a entirely truthful representation of a place because the photographs taken and chosen are taken and chosen through the lens of my own personal experiences, knowledge and interests. They can only create my truth of an area or subject. Many of the rules I set myself were useful to maintain a truthful representation but they were still too broad, leaving me a huge range of places to visit and images to capture. I didn't realise that this broadness would harm the initial idea at first, in fact it was really only after I had spent all autumn and winter doing it and started moving to new areas because I was finding it hard and a little boring to make the same few walks every week. I also didn't want to photograph the same things day after day, the change would not be obvious and the photos become monotonous.

On one hand I am right with that last statement and on the other I am wrong. I do think that the same image day after day would have been monotonous but as a project trying to show the truth to a place I think it would have been well, more truthful.

I think what I have done is create a representation of a place. I don't think photography can ever give a truthful representation of a place no matter how many rules and restrictions you set yourself. I think the next project as I have outlined below will give a representation of a view, I think it will be more truthful of that view than the Perambulation project was of it's place and it seems right to push the idea in that direction and see what conclusions I make from this experience.

4th October 2010

Other things I've learnt are that it is really difficult to keep these things going and find the time to go for a walk everyday. Especially when I was really busy with the elephant and most recently with my internship. Being busy has led me to have to taken walks outside of my directly local (to my home) area and have taken them nearer to work. I have also often had to shorten them to save time.

22nd October 2010

So what about the future of this and the next project.

Well I would like to create a book with the original series. I need to investigate more and see when it would cost me money to do so. But if it happens I'll let you know. Even with it's flaws in the end the Perambulation Project is still showing MY truth of the place and I do want to share that with people.

21st October 2010

I will also not be entirely giving up with my walks. I will still take them when I feel like and when I have time and I will still be taking my camera with me. One thing I have learnt is that it's really improved my photography skills just doing this project and I want to continue to get better and better. What will happen is that photographs will go up when I have them to show you, it will no longer be regular and I may not mention it. You will need to follow me on Flickr to be sure to see new ones :). I also have a few ideas for further alternative photographic and otherwise projects that will require a few walks of testing before I reveal all.

17th October 2010

Finally, as I was saying, I don't think that the idea of trying to find the truth of a place has entirely run it's course yet, as such I propose a new photographic journey!
But this time with more rules.

As before I will not edit the photographs in post production apart to crop and resize them for the internet.
I will have the camera set to Scenery Mode every time. I will use either cloudy or sunny white balance settings, whichever is appropriate for the weather conditions.
I will go out no matter the weather.
I will go to the same place every week and take a photograph of the same view.
I will go out weekly. I decided to make it weekly as daily seemed just unfeasible from a life point of view, especially with the increased restrictions. I also don't feel that the area I am thinking of using will change too much over the course of a week. There would certainly be things I would miss but that is still true if I went out daily.
I will go out on Saturdays at 12pm. I can bend this rule only if life conspires to upset me. If so then I must go on a walk as near to Saturday as I can and It must be at 12pm.
I will attempt to do this for a year

Additionally I may take extra midweek photos, as I can foresee interesting weather and events may occur but not hang around long enough to catch on a Saturday. But they might not end up in the project officially, at best they may act as added extra, appendix or special feature or something.

10th October 2010

Well that's it really, last thing to mention is that the photographs in this entry all come from the last few weeks of Perambulation. Including a very fluky shot of a double rainbow with caught lightning bolt.

Anyone got any questions?

19th October 2010

Greetings from Southwold

2010-09-06T21:28:00.004+01:00

I may have left this too long before starting but here it goes.

Southwold was great, I came back with over 1000 photos and while many of them have proved to be rubbish to mediocre (and quite a few can only really be called family snaps) there were some gems. Having gone through them for multiple reasons I made a selection of interesting/well crafted ones for flickr, drew off the family and silly snaps for putting on Facebook and have a few selected as potential paintings.

Southwold itself is charming and compact. It is small but I still didn't manage to explore every street and every path in the week I was there. Life is paced at a lower gear than city life and it's greatest flaw for me was the brewery in the middle of town which is only really a flaw if you don't like the smell of brewing, yeast, hops and barley. Not much of a flaw really and hardly one I'd get rid of for the benefit the brewery must bring to a town that I imagine would otherwise rely very heavily on tourism alone.
For about 4 days out of 7 I averaged walking over 6 miles a day and indeed by the latter half of the week I was aching all over. Perversely the only thing that could stop me hurting was having a little stroll.

Day one was mostly spent travelling but we were treated to a short but violent rainstorm that left behind a lovely sunset and an interesting half bow rainbow that seemed to hover just above the sea. The storm was so violent that some members of the house were expecting funnel clouds. This proved to be the standard for the week with many days starting off fine then degenerating into sunshine and showers by lunchtime and blowing itself out by the time the sun went down. This made for some lovely sunsets and some dramatic skies highly reminiscent of my paintings. It might be something about the countryside and open spaces, or the weather/climate of this part of the world, or the fact that it is so flat that lends itself to some gorgeous sunsets.

The following day it was sunny but becoming overcast and I walked north up to the pier, got some wonderful panoramic shots of the sea front and then went to see how far north I could walk before the tide came in. Of course I had forgotten how hard it is to walk on sand compared to other surfaces and got tired quickly. In the end I only went about 30 mins up the coast but this was enough to tell me that while interesting, it was too barren to make a good painting. Gave me a close up view of coastal erosion though. By the late afternoon it cleared up and I perched on the beach watching the world go by. The evening brought a walk along and up the pier and another wonderful sunset.

Further days had me walking south to Southwold Harbour, to Walberswick on multiple days and beyond into the marshes, up along the River Blyth and exploring the beaches, dunes and marsh between Southwold town and the river mouth. Highlights included Walberswick ferry, (which is a service that crosses the Blyth's mouth between the lower end of Southwold Harbour and Walberswick. The best thing about it is that it is in fact just a rowing boat run for generations by the same family.) an elusive (at least to me) Red Admiral butterfly, the many strange and fun objects on Southwold Pier including the Quantum Tunnelling Telescope, the pirate household (A house on the sea front of Southwold with it's own flagpole flying a Jolly Roger) and Walberswick itself which is a very pretty if sleepy, tiny seaside village.Probably the best, most unique and unexpected experience was on the Thursday night. Absolutely nothing to do with art nor strictly dependant on being in Southwold (and I didn't even bother to try to take any photos) but never the less I think it deserves being recorded.For many years I've been desperate to see the night sky. While at university I was living in a town far too near to Nottingham and Leicester to see anything but an orange glow at night. At home, street lights and general southern England light pollution makes it impossible to see anything beyond a handful of stars on the clearest nights. Even a recent trip to Bristol with the purpose of staying up one night and seeing the stars with a universe crazed friend gave me a better view than I have ever had before yet that too was just a handful of the brighest stars and that says something about how often I get to see the real night sky (never before in my life).
So on the 12^th it was proving to be a clear night when darkness fell and I went out with the vague hope that I would see a little more than I had ever seen before. I can't say I was expecting much, knowing that a truly clear sky is a rare commodity these days. I certainly wasn't expecting what I actually got though, STARS! Everywhere, too many for my brain to truly comprehend, it was staggering and so clear that I could even make out the Milky Way even if it was just a slight change in tone across the sky. In fact I think it was so clear that I was let down by my poor vision when dealing with light at night. There were just so many stars that I was unable to focus and take it all in. One star(/planet maybe?) was exceptionally bright, ESE and not far off the horizon. According to my sister with her binoculars it was a planet and it had moons she could see!
But you know what made it even better? Well the 12^th was apparently the best night to see this years Perseid meteor showers, Whoop! I saw about half a dozen to a dozen small shooting stars and one huge one that streaked across half the sky and literally left me breathless for a moment. I was out there for a good two hours and only came in when I grew too chilly and a bit too freaked out by the darkness and coming across unexpected people/creatures. Tell you what though, it's done nothing to sate my need to see stars, in fact I'd say it's heightened it.

So I should get back to talking about Southwold rather than hijacking this post with talk of stars.
All and all it was a very interesting place. A great variety of people, sights, habitats and weather that has given me a lot of cool photos, both from a documentary/nature perspective and from a more artistic one, either in the images themselves or in the potential paintings I can create from them. I see lots of images and paintings with beach huts, lighthouses and the ocean in my future. One part from the Victorian age, one part candy coloured playground and one part unspoilt nature with a spattering of modernity.

Photos from the Southwold set on Flickr.

Many Things

2010-08-05T18:00:00.005+01:00

It has been a long time since my last update. I hadn't realised how long it had been.

Well since that last update many things have happened and if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you may have heard something about them all.

Soon I will be jetting off to the exotic east coast. Southwold on the Suffolk coast of England to be exact. I visited once before but as I was a tiny tiny child I really don't remember it at all. All the evidence that remains is of me, a push chair and some brightly coloured beach huts in a faded photo.

I am really looking forward to it, it will be a massive change of scene with lots of photographic/artistic potential. I've been doing a little research to make the most of my week as I imagine getting hold of a computer and an internet connection might be a tricky undertaking. Places including the lighthouse, amber museum (the only one in the world!), Electric Picture Palace (with working electric organ that rises out of the floor) and Maize Maze all sound suitably intriguing and fun in a very stereotypical Britain in the 50's/60's way. I will be going with my parents and my sister and her boyfriend but I imagine I will be spending quite a lot of time on my lonesome. This I also don't mind as long as we get together in the evenings. I'm almost considering it some kind of residency, unofficial it might be and I can see myself continuing this current thing with sea related paintings.

I have been doing lots of sea related paintings recently. Since finishing the elephant (more on that later) I have completed the Cowes paintings for the ReOrsa project space installation. I have also completed another smaller work of Cowes. Additionally to that I also painted a work on Cardiff (surprisingly no sea in that one). There's also been a flurry of drawings and as always am continuing the photography. In fact things have been moving so fast that I'm no longer up to date with the website. I think it must be something to do with the themes of my work but the Summer continues to be my busiest time of year unlike, as I am given to understand, most artists.

I have recently been accepted to show my work at the Crocus Gallery in Nottingham and Atelier-East showing in the Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech.

The Crocus Gallery is a volunteer run community space. It runs using an empty shop and does a wonderful job brightening and livening up the local area. The exhibition “Summer” is running from 17^th July until the 7^th August. I'm also getting to show for the first time “London Landmarks” a four canvas work that was one of my most ambitious works in some time.

Atelier-East organises and supports local artists, putting on shows in local spaces including the Wisbech and Fenland Museum. This is also the location of the 5^th Annual Summer show (open, in my favour , to non local artists) in which my work “Greetings” is being shown from the 7^th August until the 18^th September.

As to the elephant, well he did really well. After the miniatures he is also in a book about the London Elephant parade along with all his chums and makes an appearance on t-shirts. Hopefully these links will continue to work for some time.

Book:http://shop.elephantparade.com/

T-shirts: http://elephantparadelondon.spreadshirt.co.uk/greetings-from-the-jungle-I11936293

I went to the herding when they were mostly all together in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. I say mostly because a select few were deemed too valuable or delicate to be left outside and needed to remain inside. They resided at Westfield, London for the duration. Unfortunately this meant I didn't quite get to meet all of them but I was more than happy with the ones I did.

In the end the elephant went for £12500 at auction, helping to raise money for the Elephant Family. The whole event was a huge success with the target of 2 million to be raised from the parade being absolutely smashed, in the end the parade made 4 million quid for Asian elephant conservation.

Whooooo!

In search of Elephants

2010-05-03T12:27:00.005+01:00

So the day is finally here, The elephants are all over London! There are elephants at Heathrow, Brixton and St Pancreas but in the most part they are in Central London.

They are in plazas and on streets, some are hiding inside buildings and undercover, some are happily herding in the parks and green spaces. Taking in the colours of Covent Garden Market, going shopping in Selfridge's, having a picnic in Green Park, people watching in Trafalgar Square, going to a movie in Leicester square, relaxing by the water. I could go on and on.

The map for all the events can be found on the Elephant Parade London website, or indeed here:

http://www.elephantparadelondon.org/images/elephant_parade_london_routemap.pdf

My elephant 'Greetings from the Jungle' has been sponsored by European Land and is no. 103 on the map. He can be found at 31 Harbet Road, Paddington a mere stones throw from Paddington Railway Station or Edgware tube. As far as I can tell he is in fact down near the canal in the middle of the new developments rather than right on Harbet Road.

I made an event on Facebook, please feel free to invite all your friends and contacts. Additionally I will post all the photos I get of my elephant (or if you like of you and my elephant) there on the event and on my website (either in the main body of it or here). Either post the photos yourself on the event page or send them to me at gemma@gemmacumming.com.

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/event.php?eid=113760665329125&index=1

If you want to facebook friend me, feel free to ask however I usually don't befriend just anyone, sorry but I'd rather know you in person somehow. However the event is being run through my facebook fan page and I'm always happy to have new fans. You'd get all of the important art related information there anyway rather than what I ate for breakfast this morning.

http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#!/pages/Gemma-Cumming/14653030250

Finally my elephant was one of 80 chosen to be made into a miniature. As yet no sign of it online to buy but there are pop up shops in four London locations including: Selfridge's, 36 Carnaby Street, 80 Oxford Street and Greenwich Central Market. However if it is anything like the Amsterdam miniatures they will come in a selection of sizes from about 10cm to 20cm. I will post online images of people with my miniature as well. :)

The parade goes on until the 23^rd June when all the elephants are rounded up from their sightseeing and have a week long party in the grounds of the Chelsea Royal Hospital. It is open to the public and I plan on popping down that week so I can see all the elephants together. I will be visiting my elephant before then however and there is a meet artist day on the 22^nd May, so it is all go go go. On the 3^rd is the auction (you can already express your interest in bidding for an elephant on the Elephant Parade Website!) and on the 4^th we say goodbye to them all.

And while it is far from over I would like to quickly express my thanks to the Elephant Family for the opportunity, to European Land for sponsoring my elephant (especially while there are plenty of unsponsored elephants out there in the wilds of London, seriously poke your bosses and organisations and grab one, you'll get green points if nothing else), to those crazy guys at Ecomovers who delivered my elephant in all that snow and took him away for a trip around the country before getting back to London (made him into a real postcard there) and everyone else who supported me, read my blog and answered all my questions.
(All photos are of my elephant as he progressed)

From Eyjafjallajokull with love and ashey kisses

2010-04-22T19:52:00.013+01:00

It has come to my attention that as an artist that habitually paints postcard scenes with potentially apocalyptic and occasionally natural disaster type skies in them that I should have at least some thoughts about Eyjafjallajokull the volcano that is spewing hot ash into the sky and disrupting tourism. Why it took me 5 days to realise this I don't know, I can only put it down being desensitized to the concept since I am spending much of my time painting the big canvas for the upcoming installation with it's purple and blue lightning clouds.

On that note there is little to say (a dangerous statement), It is going well, I got a lot done while my parents were away and very much enjoyed painting the sea. Without any royalty free images of Eyjafjallajokull the photos in this post are indeed of this painting, although I have included a link at the bottom of some really amazing images of it. I also have a prototype giant paper clip and a new Hat (yes it does require the capitalisation, as anyone who has experience version 1.0 of the Hat will testify) courtesy of Andalusia and my parents. Not that the Hat is in anyway connected to this post, I just really like it.

So what do I have to say on the matter of that volcano. Hmm well I doubt I'm going to come up with anything profound and certainly not anything that has not been already written about it, and boy there has been some really quite interesting things. Alain De Botton always a favourite of mine, his 'The Art of Travel' was an instrumental read for my practice and a huge part of my University days. I follow him on Twitter and while 50% of the time what he says has a tendency to make me quite depressed he also comes out with some absolute gems. His piece on the volcano was a wonderful bit of postulation on a world without air travel and I agreed with much of it. Certainly I don't think we travel so much any more, we just depart and arrive. Travelling implies a journey and I can't say stuck in the middle row of a transatlantic flight really feels like a journey, just a pause with a view of a screen and a lot of napping.

Undertaking so much more walking and exploring in the last 6 months has really taught me to look more and to appreciate the pace I want to go at. While I still very much enjoy car journeys, I don't feel the need all the time to go fast, fast, fast. Once I got used to the cruising pace of the narrowboat in December last year I really enjoyed that pace. I felt I was getting somewhere but I have the added luxury of not only seeing places along the way but actually experiencing them.

It's somewhat scary how much we seemingly rely on air travel. I know a lot of people that have been affected by the volcano. Friends of mine are stuck on holiday, others are struggling because workmates are unavailable and others have important events coming up that may prove they aren't going to get to. The country is seemingly going into meltdown with warnings of food shortages and demands for the government (busy with the upcoming election) to fix the situation. Now I certainly think that things should be done to sort out this traffic jam of people and I more than sympathise for everyone who has had their plans ruined by an inability to travel. I am not stuck (unless I get a burning desire to go overseas) and I guess I have the enviable ability to look on this current crisis with a little amusement and a little awe that a mountain thousands of miles away can cause such disruption on such a massive scale so easily.

In fact visually and aesthetically I am really enjoying the eruption, it is a thing of beauty and power. Great ash clouds, dotted with lightning because of the sheer forces unleashed by that much hot air billow into the sky. Covering the ground with this pale fine dust and filtering out the sunlight so it casts eerie shadows and smoky light across what would usually be a clear icy landscape. Like my paintings, scenes of people and places familiar to some or all are lit with bright sunlight (the ash not yet disrupting the sun) while as a backdrop great dark clouds leer towards them and down to the horizon. Itself a mere smudge, more guessed at than seen.

I've been really enjoying the news reports on the eruptions although now they are looking a little stale, really only giving us the same information again and again. I'm certainly not interested in hearing people whine and rage about the injustice of it all. I'm more interested in the people who are weathering it with grace and determination and most importantly those who are making the whole situation into a positive. Because there is one thing I wrote earlier that should come back to you..... STUCK ON HOLIDAY. When is that ever going to be a bad thing? As I understand it many holidaymakers (although not all) who are stuck because of the closure of the airspace are able to remain where they are basically having extra days of holiday on the buck of the companies they booked though or the travel insurance they have. Now for those where this isn't the case I sympathise greatly but for those who are, you lucky buggers!

Oh but it doesn't end there. There are also (and I find these the most exciting) those who are taking the opportunity to try to get home any way they can and having an adventure in the process.

I'd like to think if I was trapped in France or Spain and had to get back to blighty tout suite I'd go for this route. Screw waiting for planes, I'm going to rent or buy a cheap car and drive home. In the process seeing a hell of lot more of this country I've just spent 2 weeks in by the pool. A road trip, an adventure, an epic tale to tell the children/grandkids/drinking buddies. I'm actually hoping that some enterprising person has whipped out their video camera, swapped out the memory card containing 'the adventures of the sunbather in the costa del sol' and fired up a fresh blank one to film 'the time when air travel died and I did the crazy thing and drove the 1000 miles from Malaga to England'.

Both Bill Bailey and Jeremy Clarkson went for this option. Clarkson apparently unable to get a super car got a old decrepit VW and somehow managed to make it back. Bill Bailey (from his occasional tweets and photos) grabbed a train from Spain to France then bought a old Citreon DS (a surprisingly nice looking car) and is currently heading north. Frankly I kinda wish he was filming the adventure, not only would it be an amusing and informative piece of television but it would make a welcome change from the inevitable Channel 4 documentary about when a volcano halted half a world.

Oh well it helps that I would love to do that anyway before any of this volcano madness, all my friends know about my desire for a VW camper van and the time to explore the UK with it. Going onto the continent has always been a possibility in fact a likely next step with that plan. I will admit though that the stereotype of the holidaymaker that routinely goes to the anglicised Spanish resorts would not fit into the holidaymaker that actively craves an adventure. So I can hardly blame them when they react badly to things not going as planned.

However not all are stuck on the continent, many are stuck in further flung places whose ONLY feasible option is to fly back. I certainly wouldn't want to be in their shoes, especially if threatened with nowhere to stay and a lack of money let alone with rioting as is happening in Bangkok. And I certainly wouldn't be considering attempting other forms of transport to get home. I'd probably be curled in a corner of the airport rocking gently to and fro.

But whatever they are doing while unable to fly and whatever happens in the future while Eyjafjallajokull continues to disrupt air travel You can be sure that they will have a right royal tale to tell.

Beautiful, scary and fascinating images of the volcano and it's effects:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html

How I learnt to stop worrying about the state of my writing and love the spring

2010-03-23T17:51:00.006Z

It has been a while now for me since the onset of Spring and ever since then I have had the elements of a blog run around in my head. Getting those phrases and concepts onto 'paper' has proved difficult however, Only now am I even approaching getting back into the swing of writing which will be evidenced by this and the previous post that need writing now or never at all. I was also heavily curtailed by the elephant, it is hard to write about the onset of Spring when I have barely stepped far beyond the confines of my own road due to pressures to get him finished.

But now I am feeling more verbose and decent length, less constrained walks have become the norm once more so now I am able to write.

Spring has arrived! I noticed recently that the news spent one day arguing about when Spring arrives. The Met office officially starts Spring on the 1^st of March, yet others say the official start is the 20^th, the vernal equinox. Personally this is all bunkum, Spring starts when you first smell it and this year for me that was the 4^th March.

There had been hints of imminent Spring for a few weeks prior to that though. Snowdrops in full bloom, crocuses starting to bloom and the beginnings of daffs. Not to mention the resurgence of the insect eaters and tree creepers adding to the bird song. Most recently the geese have returned to the local pond. But for me the smell is the most potent sign that Spring is here and the Spring smell is unmistakable, one day you go outside and it hits you, subtle but unignorable.

Now Spring is blossoming in full force and since noticing the change in the air many things have happened and only in the last week or so. Only a few days after the 4^th I walked outside to find the previously weak and somewhat watery sun was noticeably brighter, stronger and it was far easier to tell where it was in the sky, even when cloudy, by it's rays striking you. Most recently over the last week I have gone out wearing fewer layers and to begin with regretting the decision to put on my coat. I was caught out twice by the sunshine and the warmth and yet even when it was cloudy and I was expecting a little chill to the air I was still far to warm. So more often than not I have relegated the coat in favour of my University fleece, far easier to take off and tie around you waist if you find you don't need it.

I have even been getting definite hints of summer in the fragrance of the air and heat to the breeze not to mention some fully bloomed and beautiful crocuses on the road side. Last week was quite surprising all told, on Monday I suddenly had to deal with bees again, Tuesday I spotted a butterfly and had a few run ins with some drowsy and silly bumblebees and Wednesday I noticed that the trees are starting to bud and reveal potential leaves.

You know I did so much better with my previous post. I can only hope that editing will clean up this ramble. All i really wanted to do was talk about the Spring and throw in my own opinions of the beginning of Spring. However I will leave with a final note. While I have been enjoying exploring the Spring outside I have also been working on the images taken all autumn and winter. Picking up those images that deserve to be seen but didn't quite make it on the day they were taken. While I have yet to decide if the autumn photos should go up now or later (Autumn being technically unfinished until later in the year) I have sorted out the Winter photos and given them their own set on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/noblueskies/sets/72157623657152834/

Any way that is all. Pictures in this entry are from post 4^th March. Enjoy Spring.

A new project - (Drink Me)

2010-03-22T18:15:00.004Z

I mentioned a while ago on Facebook and Twitter about a new project happening after the elephant. I forget how much I said then so I shall re-iterate and expand here. Please forgive me if you have heard it before.

During July and August of this year I shall be showing again with ReOrsa my local artist group. I last exhibited with them in September 2009 in a group show with my painting 'Welcome to Bracknell'. At the time I felt it was important in my inaugural show to produce an image that reflected the local area and would be recognisable to the visitors who saw it. It also allowed me to stretch my creative practice a little by trying to fit my thematic concerns into a place while surprisingly rich in history was not at all a classic tourist destination. Like many local artist groups ReOrsa exhibits as a group often in disused spaces such as empty retail units, however they also have a permanent project space which I had been eyeing somewhat greedily and forming plans as to how I might use it if I should ever get the chance to exhibit.

So you should have seen my face when I get an email asking for proposals for the said same space for the new year. Well all my previously squirrelled away plans had never been written down and either they weren't anywhere near ready or they just weren't proving to be right for the space. One of the primary goals of ReOrsa is to show work by local artists that are an expansion of their practice to allow them to explore new ideas and new ways of working. One of the things I wanted to show were the results of the photos taken for my 'Perambulation' project but I knew I would be unlikely to have it finished in time, let alone sorted out exactly how best to show it. That really doesn't make for much of a proposal. However I knew that after the elephant was finished I was going to get back to my paintings, having a number of blank canvases ready including some new shapes and sizes and plenty of material to work with from the previously blogged trips to such exotic places as Cowes and Cardiff. While I had no problem showing a painting (when would I ever?? ) I didn't want to write a proposal that just said I was going to show a new painting flat on the wall. No matter how new the painting was it was unlikely to be particularly pushing the boundaries of my practice and well is pretty uninspiring as proposals go.

What I knew about the project space was that it was a decent sized shop window with a white wall behind it and a faux wood effect base at about knee level. With this information and the oft thought idea of not hanging my works but rather just leaving them lent against the wall like discarded objects I soon enough had the proposal written hastily on the back of an envelope. Here is a slightly edited version hopefully to be more concise and to fix some details about size and practicality that have changed since writing and visiting the space. It's also not written particularly well as a proposal but it helps knowing the people you are sending it too and allowed me to write it really informally.

“I've been hastily brainstorming a proposal for the project space. I was thinking that it would be interesting to make a larger point of the scale of my works than I have in the past. Obviously there is something strange about the oversized postcard images, however they are also obviously paintings and there is not a lot fundamentally odd about landscape paintings. I think the space is ideal to show them in a more unconventional way and to make more of their size as a defining character of their strangeness. What I propose is to create two paintings approx 100 x 150 cm each. They will be postcard pieces like my previous work, however in this case I want to create a front and a reverse of a postcard or rather a pair of postcards of the same city/town. The reverse painting would be addressed to me (I probably won't use my actual address but have one that is believable for the local area) as I'd like to keep the reminder of the local area and create a tie with the people who will see the works. These postcards will not be hung traditionally but instead arranged in the space as if they have just been placed on a shelf or mantelpiece (so really just leaned up against the wall). I am also considering buying/sourcing/making other scaled up props like paper clips on the same scale as the 'postcards' for emphasis, however I haven't had time to look into this more.

I want to give the impression that each work is an actual postcard and has a corresponding side. They won't actually and I plan to arrange them so only one side is visible but I don't want it to seem like the front and back of the same object as this would negate any impression of them being actual postcards. As such the reverse card will reference the other postcard in the text but other than that follow normal conventions for the writing. I plan to pick a well known place, current leaders are Cardiff or Cowes as I have been to each recently and have many images to choose from.

Basically this installation follows the same themes of perception and the tourist image that I have been working with. I am just exploring an new way to show them and trying to further the ideas of strangeness and falseness of the image by making a larger statement, accentuating the postcard nature even more by including a reverse and highlighting the scale.”

It's currently looking like the giant paperclips will be pretty easy to make but it is really early stages for all that stuff. Pretty much all I have worked out for now is that the scale would be a multiplication of 10 from reality. I now ask for suggestions for objects that would feasibly be on a shelf or mantel with postcards. Nothing that is larger than the postcard or too complex to produce scaled that much up. I'm at a bit of a loss as you will see from the image, apart from two stand in postcards I've only thought of including paperclips, push pins and a pencil. I don't need much with the postcard but I do feel there is some perfect object that I am forgetting.

It's Not Finished.................... It's Finished

2010-03-12T17:53:00.006Z

Well the elephant is finished. It was taken away at 8am on Monday and I then proceeded to get back into pyjama bottoms and spent the rest of the day watching Battlestar Galactica and tidying my room. Heavenly. I also made a long list (on the back of an envelope, the best place for important notes) with as many of the things I needed or wanted to do as I could remember.

I meant to write this entry on Sunday night, then Monday but I was so knackered that only on Tuesday I got round to starting it and I quickly abandoned it for more Sci-Fi and some of the more visually orientated tasks on my list. Surprisingly I find the writing as tortured as it seemed when I wrote the first draft is not as awful as I feared, although it still contains much rambling and non relevant material. But isn't that what a blog is meant to be at least in part? I should know better than to watch the same programme all day, my mind will become inevitably obsessed with it and I won't be able to think of anything else except plot twists and character profiles until I have exhausted my supply of it. So while now I am pretty clear of it, back when I was trying to write this the first time I was having to battle my brain to think about art.

Hmm, lets get back to the point of this entry.

So the last two weeks of painting the elephant have been hectic. I have been getting up at 6am in an attempt to start work at 7:30. In practice this has ended up more often with me hitting snooze twice and then not starting till 8, but it's not bad considering. Actually the sheer length of my day from 8am to 6pm reminded me a lot of the last few months of University which is not something I have had to do (and enjoyed) since then. While it was immensely stressful (one can have too many dreams about the elephant getting lost, destroyed or coming alive) it was also extremely focusing and turned into quite an obsessive exercise. However the stress was intensified by the unknown time factors including; sections of detail that took far longer than you would have expected or sections that you expected to take ages was done in next to no time. It made working out how long certain elements would take impossible to guess. It also made when (or even whether) it was going to be finished change on a daily basis. In the end he was finished at about 10pm on Sunday which considering what could have happened wasn't that bad at all.

Ahh no matter! It is done now and I'm pretty damn pleased with him. There are still aspects to him I think I could have done better, but isn't that always the case? Plus he came together as a coherent whole which, considering that I was working from drawings and an image in my head on a 3D and (to say the least) unusual surface rather than a photograph on a flat canvas as I am used to, was wonderful. Oddly I wasn't even that wrenched to see him go. The studio has space in it again and I was glad to have it all finished. I'm looking forward to seeing him in situ more than I am sad to see him go. In fact strangely enough it was my mother that was most upset to see him go. Go figure. Apparently she's going to miss seeing him stare from out of the conservatory at her in the mornings.

Below is an image of the both of us together, taken when the men came to pick him up. I'm not sure what possessed us to have him facing backwards but it was at 8am so maybe me and my Dad were still half asleep. There are a ton of other photos on the Flickr set I made for him here is the link.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/noblueskies/sets/72157623599724090/

PS: You get geek points if you recognise and laugh at the title.

(I think I used too many brackets in this post)

Arggg!

2010-02-26T21:14:00.003Z

Arggg!

Less writing, more painting

2010-02-23T20:39:00.006Z

So there really is little to say about the elephant this time. I have been working hard on it, in fact more so than before as I have been trying to stretch as much painting time into the day as possible. Only about a week ago I had my finish date fixed (8^th March) and there is still a fair bit to do, I really hope I won't have to pull a few all nighters to try to get it done. When it was arranged it seemed like a fair amount of time and enough to get what looks to be very little done, unfortunately it is also some of the trickiest and most detailed work. I am also slightly concerned that I don't like some bits of the most recent developments, granted they are unfinished but still when they are done I doubt I will have any time to paint over or redo them. Scary stuff all and all and 'The Fear' has definitely set in, I am even considering get up at 6:00am so I can start working at 7:30 tomorrow. Yes I am MAD, this is evidence of the sheer level of fear I am under.

Anyway here are the most recent photos.

The truth is out there........under a bush or something

2010-02-12T19:12:00.007Z

In December I blogged about my walking trips. Having started them in October I realised that by mid to late January I would have reached 3 months, I have also recently hit 100 photos in my album. Since then I have been meaning to write something about them, a reflection of sorts of the season and time. Unfortunately I have been busy with other things and producing a relatively large number of blog posts recently about the elephant among other things. Knowing my style as I do and the fact I can go on and on and on I didn't want to post too often so this has ended up waiting a while.

After looking back at the previous post I saw that I mentioned a need to show accurately the local area. This has since in my mind become a question of truth, are the images I produce an accurate reflection of my area? And I think the answer is No. But not No because I haven't been doing a good job but No because they can't be. The fact is that one photo a day might give an accurate image of my local area to me but I have the benefit of experiencing each of these days. Not only every sight but smell, sound, feel of the air and going deeper all the overall and varied psychological effects involved with going out, seeing what's there and coming back to look over the images. Some of the images I have taken are in fact visually accentuated versions of what I saw and I can only say that they are not untruthful because they conjure up or maybe show the essence of that walk, that moment not just the image but the feel of the day in all it's senses. Other photos (and this is more often the case) fail to produce the same feelings that I felt at the time.

The fact is the camera works in a completely different way to the eyes and brain. I knew this before but maybe I didn't appreciate it. How many of you have seen an amazing scene, one you feel worthy of capture but when shown on a computer screen it looks dull and uninteresting. Other times what image have to captured on a whim not expecting anything much only to when you look at it again find it is one of the most interesting images you have taken. There are many reasons for this and I'm sure the people out there who make professional observations about it can explain.

Personally I've not done much research on the topic. However for me some of this effect seems to stem from the brain taking what the eye sees and assigning areas of an image importance. But when reproduced on a flat surface it doesn't react the same way. The camera also doesn't cope with extremes as well as the eye/brain and certainly my little compact struggles under certain conditions. Dull and grey day? Well expect your images to be lacklustre, washed out or underexposed (the white cloudy sky confuses the cameras light meter royally) and lacking depth. But nowhere does the camera pick up the fresh clean breeze, sound of birdsong or some of the subtleties of light. Please don't tell me to switch to video, all I'd be adding is some tinny birdsong and I'd lose the clarity of a clean crisp shot.

In fact a dull cloudy day is the worse day to be photographing in for me. If it is light enough macro shots can come out well but other than that very little just pops off the page. Unfortunately after the sunny late autumn days and the sunny and clear snowy days of December/January, late Jan and early Feb seem to have brought a spate of these dull days interspersed with the occasionally sunny one. I have to admit that while I really enjoyed Autumn and most of the winter I am ready to be photographing flowers close up and seeing what spring brings. Rather than taking 90 odd photos around a lake and finally settling on another macro of a fungus.

As to truth. Well it will certainly be 'My Truth'. As I guess it always would be since I am choosing the image everyday and it is bound to be the best and most personally interesting photo I have taken. It's just some days I taken half a dozen upload worthy photographs and other days I struggle to be enthusiastic about the one best of the bunch, mediocre shot that might very well bring down the quality of the whole. So if you ever find yourself looking at my photos and finding there is one or two that you find mind numbingly boring and poorly lit just realise that there is something in it I liked, something that to me said this reflects today's walk, something that might look a hell of a lot better with a little sun but will probably never get posted again with it because I dislike to repeat myself and most of all, the best (in my small view) out of a bloody bad day.

But that's life, that's the weather and that was the point I was making when I started the walks.

'Phant-tastic

2010-02-05T21:18:00.006Z

So I promised another posting on the elephant in my previous blog post. But alas I find myself with very little to say. It has been going well and the increase in daylight hours has been quite a shock to me truth be told, so now I am happily working till 4:30pm when before I could barely get myself going again after lunch (knowing I would have only an hour at best to work in).

So the elephant, well it is resplendent in various shades of green. I have got to about the belly level although there are still aspects that I need to get back to. It is a process of layering, taking the furthest away points in a scene and painting them first then working forward remembering to put down enough base colours so that I don't stall myself. And while this was prevalent during the last posting I have worked into quite a good system and am surprising myself with how much I get done.

The trunk is only partially finished as of yet and while I ache to get on with these little flowers I have other more pressing concerns that need dealing with first. His eyes I also want to get on with but they also are low priority as yet and I still have the bizarre notion of doing one blue and the other orange that I need to work out before I deal with them.

My mother has become quite enamoured with the whole thing, actually wanting to use a camera to produce images to send to relatives (She distrusts technology and is not the usual choice for wielding a camera). She has even named the elephant 'Edward' and since I completed the mouth area has decided he looks like he is happy about what I am doing to him. It is a little far for me but I don't mind it and I will admit happily that he is starting to look less dopey the more paint is on him and indeed he seems to have developed a smile, goodness knows from where. He will not however be named 'Edward'.

I also realise that I started this post saying I didn't have much to say. I think we will all be glad that I didn't, for goodness knows how long it would have been had I had.

Finally I will say that I have decided that although I like the idea of the grand reveal, there is not really any sensible reason to not show off a little how far he has come along. The pictures range from the last entry to today. By no means exhaustive but a far approximation. I hope to have at least one more entry of him finished but maybe I'll find something else before then. Oh and I should mention that there is a new mini site with elephant info about the parade up now: http://www.elephantparadelondon.org/index.html

London Large

2010-01-27T19:23:00.004Z

For a large part of last year I have been working on one big painting. It was finished just before the New Year but I haven't had the chance to post anything or take any photos . The Elephant (mainly the excitement about the elephant) and having to mostly evacuate my studio for Christmas/New Year has delayed me. However while I knew I had taken the original photographs that became this work a while ago I was horrified to find out (after sorting out a few files on my computer and taking a quick look at the folder containing the preliminary photographs and photoshops) that it was possible I'd started the actual painting in May of last year, let alone that the photos had been taken 9 months ago.

Now, I have in that time produced a few other works. You can lose a month and a half to the Bracknell piece and at least up to June/July time I was working on the Windsor paintings and digital works. Plus a week here and there on other unrelated projects, trips and dull, ordinary, day to day stuff. Still 4-6 months on one painting feels like a lot.

It shouldn't really, granted I probably could have worked more, those long summer days etc. But I have to remind myself that this 'single' work is in fact 4 paintings. The fact they come together to form one large canvas, the like not being seen since 2006 and those halcyon University days, is unimportant. They are not the large canvas of those days. Those works were a single image scaled up and frequently I have proven to myself that the complex and intricate image I'd have done at University on a 120 x 180 cm canvas takes almost the same amount of time as the same image done on a quarter of that size.

As you can see some of these paintings are quite complex (Houses of Parliament!!!!) so it's no wonder they took a while. It's just a shame that to the uneducated eye it might look like I've done very little this year compared to previous years. But hey, It was an experiment to see if I could continue to push my work and make large scale paintings again, especially ones that remain user friendly to my current situation. I also wanted to see If I could make a multiview image that I was truly proud of, and while there are elements of the finished work I am not quite happy with, I believe I have managed to do this. In fact I believe that I have managed to do it twice in 2009 with 'Welcome to Bracknell' as well. Not too bad then really.

Oh and if the final image below looks a bit funky its only because I had to put the 4 paintings together in Photoshop rather than take a photo of them assembled.

Elephantine Update

2010-01-19T21:31:00.003Z

AHHH! I wrote a blog entry and then conveniently forgot to post it. Oops. Well here it is, revised and updated a little unfortunately you will have to cope with older pictures of what's been going on.

4 days after receiving my elephant I was still drawing in my design! Usually a painting of a similar size to it would take an hour or so to do this so I really wasn't expecting it to take so long. I will admit that without the use of an OHP and having to do it entirely freehand must have put a crimp in my style. The fact is that there is no original photograph, only a roughly sketched design and what's in my head. The design while it took influence from many sources could not be projected well, even if there was room to do so.

Additionally the design requires that each side of the elephant be the same image with a few alterations so I have found myself spending more time walking around the 'phant than drawing on it. Happily I finished the drawing just a few days later and started painting him on day 5 of receipt.

It has been quite a challenge so far, I had not anticipated a few things and they came as a little bit of a shock. For one the drying time of acrylics is very different to oils, far faster and while I had used acrylics before and realised this would be the case I had forgotten quite how fast they can dry. This has taken some getting used to and has forced me to rethink a few minor details. But it has also come as a godsend for (and I know no idea why I didn't think of this) in many areas the paint has required a second or even a third coat to produce a properly opaque and even covering which has slowed me down a tad. But the days get longer and the work is now progressing at a good pace. I actually think I am still on target.

I hope to write another entry sometime next week or early the week after with a photo of an almost (or even finished) trunk, bearing in mind that the entire upper section of the 'phant will have to be done before I even get that far. But for now you will have to cope with the drawn version.

A parade under my hat

2010-01-08T15:46:00.006Z

OK so the big reveal.. Well if you've scrolled ahead to look at the pictures you may already have a good idea what is going on.

As I have mentioned to many of you insisting on finding out what I have been so secretive about, I did tell many of you about this when I was applying in September time. I know it was a useless hint but I was so excited about it I was half convinced I'd jinx myself.

Well today I had a fibreglass elephant delivered.

As some of you might remember I was rambling at one time about applying to paint an elephant and as some you may have guessed by now I have indeed been chosen to do just that.
I found out in November time that my design had been approved and all that was needed to be done was sort out a few logistics. I also decided then to not say anything until I actually had the elephant under my roof.

Now I have to say although the delivery date had been fixed for about a week, after all this snowfall we'd had I imagined that it wouldn't make it. While I'm very glad it did, the delivery men had a whale of a time getting it through my back garden into the conservatory and even more fun trying to get their van full of elephants back out of my road. Apparently Wimbledon just isn't all that bad snow wise, after this weekend they might change their minds. Unfortunately their early and slightly unexpected arrival caught me alone in the house (unusual with this weather) and sitting on my own foot (literally! Stairs at speed with a dead foot... dangerous) as a result my plan to document the hauling of the beast through the snow was left upstairs with my camera.

So for those of you who still have no idea what I'm talking about.
In the summer of 2010 there will be a parade of elephants throughout London. Approximately 200 fibreglass elephants painted by artists and celebrities will be scattered around the city. Not only creating a talking point and a colourful fun scene but also highlighting the plight of the Asian elephant.

I was privileged in 2007 to see something similar happen in Bath with pigs.

More information can be found here: http://www.elephantparade.com/london/ and indeed here http://www.elephantfamily.org/

And that is all I had under my hat.
Expect occasional photos on twitter and maybe even the occasional blog entry chronicling it's journey from white to glorious technicolour.

Boating 12th - 19th December 2009

2010-01-06T21:16:00.016Z

Oxford and Grand Union Canals between Brinklow and Stoke Bruene (there and back again)

So it's taken me a while to write anything about this trip. I know, I know, I am not exactly quick with my blog entries but although I don't complete and upload them right away ,I usually write at least a few notes or a draft within a day of (or even on) the trip. That is mainly because I have thoughts at the moment that I know I will forget if I take too long in committing them to 'paper'.

So why not this time, well I'm not exactly sure, one part of me was somewhat scared at the prospect of trying to document each day. Eight individual entries seemed like a really huge task and I didn't feel like I had much to say for each day. In fact I don't remember thinking anything about events of any day that made me think 'I must write that/expand on that in my blog'. Also the nature of the trip went against many of my usual habits on a day out, there was no non stop walking around, no particular places to document and a fixed route to deal with. It was frankly a lot more relaxed and I quickly fell into that pace so I guess my thinking relaxed. Alternatively I just forgot any thoughts I had by the time I got back. By no means did my artistic eye slacken nor my thinking stop, I just wasn't in a rush and it was for all intents and purposes a holiday not a task. But I think that that was what was important to realise, it didn't need 8 entries it just needed one.
Well the relaxed nature of the trip had me thinking less about photographs to become paintings but more about what I was seeing around me. I guess it has more in common with my previous post than any other. So what to say about it? Well I'm not sure. With the other posts I have been slow to start but once I get going I find I already have a point to talk about and ramble on and on no problem. This time I'm not at all sure what I want to say about it.

It certainly was relaxing, 2- 4mph speed limit is a perfectly wonderful speed to be going at when you are sitting in the bow watching the world go by. It was really cold and we had plenty of weather conditions to photograph in; sunshine, rain, snow. We even had a rainbow on the second day, gorgeous sunsets and sunrises and a frozen canal on the last morning. It was also a great change of scenery from the woodlands and heaths of my home, big flat plains, green pastures and hills. I saw a kingfisher which was a real high point, I even managed to get it on camera, of course it is only a vague turquoise and orange blur among a greater green blur of foliage. But you know what that's ok. So maybe I don't have much to say because for once my mind stopped trying to see these places as an artist all the time, dealing with all the people and trying to photograph a perfect moment for a potential artwork. I was forced to slowly go past the world, at a speed where I could happily indulge my shutterbug tendencies while still being able to sit back and use my eyes rather than only my camera to frame the beautiful images I see and enjoy what I was seeing. No deadline no train to catch just fresh air and a little exercise mooring and operating locks.

Maybe that's why I don't feel like I have much to say, because what I noticed above all else was the profound peace and calm of the waterways and rural landscapes and that is really plenty.

Oh and I probably drove my boat mates a little batty stopping to take photographs of frozen leaves and sheep and fields while we were trying to get through sets of locks. I'm sorry but it was a compulsion impossible to ignore. :P

Incidently if you want to see my photos from the week you can see them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/noblueskies/sets/72157623087122470/

Walking

2009-12-05T16:54:00.011Z

Well since Cardiff I have hardly gone anywhere, certainly no where specifically for photographic purposes. A number of factors have caused this:

1. Winter. It is just not that great weather all the time. When it is sunny, it is beautiful but as I have said before, the light quality isn't the same as summer, people are not out as much, or wearing giant coats and many places are closed.

2. After such an early start and a long and intensive day in Cardiff, I realised after a variety of unpleasant reactions to that days exertions that I just didn't have the fitness for it. Frankly I think my stubbornness and unwillingness to stop and take a decent length break when I am tired was my downfall. It is a testament to my passion that I manage to completely ignore (in fact I would go as far as to say not even notice) that I am pushing myself to far. Well I figured that if I cannot change my mind set then I must bring myself to the point where I can better cope with it.

Most days in most weeks I do no exercise at all. This is not healthy but I've not found many ways to exercise which I am not either scared stiff (ice skating, swimming) or completely bored by (the gym). I am also someone that is naturally skinny and struggles to put weight on.

While I was at University I did Taekwon-do, that was fun and very intensive, a great cardio workout and there was a pride aspect to it. You would be mercilessly mocked if you missed a class without a very very good reason and you were aiming for that next elusive belt. Additionally you would see your class mates all around campus, there was no escape. Also while at University I started Archery, great for arm and back strength, posture and a nice gentle repetitive stroll to locate your arrows. Unfortunately I have never planned to be where I am for any length of time, so as I am in flux I cannot afford to take up either of these, subscription fees being pricey and for a full year. Which knowing my luck I'll get a job in London just as I subscribe.

However as you can guess I am an ardent explorer (at least certainly of the British Isles). I like the certainty of home but I also like to get off the beaten track, poke through woods and hedges and see what's over that next rise. So why not do a little something to improve my fitness levels and do a little exploration. So I started going for walks.

Now at the same time as this was filtering through my head I had been filling in applications for residencies. Now all of these had involved to a certain degree the idea of not only (or not at all) creating work subverting the postcard image. They had at least some relation to the local area of the residency and I was more interested, with the information I had, in thinking about producing a body of work to in fact reflect accurately the local area. The importance of local tourist sites (if they even had any) was not as important and I was becoming more interested in not playing the traditional tourist roles , rather seeing what really is there and reproducing that. After filling in two of these with similar ideas well, it just all kinda fell into place without me even realising at first.

By the time I had realised I had already gone on a few walks and started taking my camera out with me. I am now going on walks everyday (apart from Saturdays). Generally lasting between 30 mins to and hour and a half depending on where I decide to go and how much time is spent taking photos . I am often not in motion for the entire time since if I find an interesting shot I may just be playing with it for a while, trying to perfect focus or light qualities. As to where I walk I don't really follow a strict plan, there is some wonderful national trust woodland within a stones throw from my house and other than a walk up or down the main road it's the only direction to go. It certainly proves to be the more interesting. I also usually end up near or at the local pond, the round trip of the pond is a pleasant 30 min walk, it is beautiful and the pond itself is at my end of the woodland anyway so its kinda hard to avoid. It has ducks and I know in the spring the geese will return to make a violent racket and sit on the island in the middle.

From these trips I have been amassing quite a collection of photographs, some good, some mediocre and some down right fluky. Everyday I post a single photograph to Twitter that I think fits the walk or the atmosphere of where I went. I try to make it a photo that is at least interesting, if not the best photograph I have taken that day. The fact that sometimes the photos I come back with are a little mediocre or dull I am zen with. Sometimes the weather just isn't in my favour. The point of the walks were firstly a way to gain some exercise, secondly to explore and thirdly to create a personal and truthful perspective on the area.

How it will all turn out is yet to be seen as is what, if anything, I will do with it. Either way I am exploring those woods better than I ever did as a child and finding out all sorts of things I never knew.

I imagine I will blog more about this as I see fit. Every trip need not be written about and certainly the walks that have already occurred cannot be since I have only got round to this first draft over a month into it. Plus I don't want an in depth analysis of every walk, the photographs should go a long way towards that. But as important things pop into my head I will endeavour to write them down.

As you will notice my blogging now includes pictures. Just a note to say the photos here are a selection from the walk photos. You can see the whole lot at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/noblueskies/sets/72157622935946910/

Cardiff - 26th September 2009

2009-11-29T17:46:00.010Z

I like travelling by rail and while cars and even buses have their own appeal there is still something to be said for a good train journey.

I guess I can understand why people want to read on trains, I have done so on many an occasion when I am on a route I frequently travel. But today when I am travelling into new and unknown pastures it seems needless to bring anything more for the journey than my Ipod. I wanted to use the opportunity to soak up where I was going and even now as I draft parts of this entry on the train, I am glancing up more at the passing scenery than I am writing. Soon enough I will put paper down and watch the landscape roll by.

All around me adults are sleeping (it is 8:30am on a Saturday morning and I have been up since 6!) or are reading newspapers. Most are also hidden in plain sight by a pair of headphones much like I am. Only the small child sitting in front of me is taking in the joy of a journey and a landscape never seen before and not seen for long. I find this kind of sad yet endemic of life today. People are so intent to get to where they are going that they forget to just enjoy the journey. I'm not saying I am not also prone to this but I guess this journey today brought that little snippet of thought to the surface.

The only thing that would make it better would be for the train to have a steam engine.

As to Cardiff itself, well the weather took a while to improve. After starting out beautiful and sunny the clouds rolled in while in the Swindon area and stayed until midday in Cardiff. I was somewhat upset to see the bright morning skies disappear under cloud and the wide flat fields and gently rolling hills of western England become that little bit murky. It was defiantly autumnal weather. I had been 'promised' excellent sunshine and I was keen to steal a last bright and sunny day before winter set in. While the morning was less than perfect It did improve markedly. In fact as soon as the sun came out it became very hot, almost unseasonable.

Cardiff struck me as very quiet for a Saturday, I soon found out that that was due to two things. The cheese festival in the Castle and the newly opened 'largest John Lewis store in Wales' absorbing the majority of the population. Now while I had first hand experience of the packed John Lewis store (I went in there to look for a loose leaf tea strainer device and yes it really really was a mistake) seeing the quantity of people in the cheese festival was coincidental.

After walking around Cardiff and the bay all day I had got most of the photographs that I wanted including images of the Castle, Millennium Stadium and an unrelated to my practice yet amusing shot of the closed up entrance to 'Torchwood's Hub' by about 4pm. While wandering through the city centre in the last of the decent light I came across a church that I had tried to get a photograph of earlier. While trying again (with much better light this time) I spotted people on the tower top. I decide to investigate further and found for the small donation of a pound I could also go up for as long as I liked. It was a long climb on very steep winding stairs and included an angry buzzing insect of some kind (I assumed it was a wasp but was paying more attention to my steps that whatever it was I had just disturbed) but I got some excellent views of Cardiff, including into the grounds of the Castle and of the sheer numbers of people milling around for cheese.

These days out are all about the exploration, the journey. Granted there are rules and ways in which the day can be made preferential but most of these you cannot control nor should you worry about trying to do so. The final product, the goal, is the collection of postcards and photographs from the day, but to get there you must enjoy the journey, let your day unfurl as it wants to, embrace the oddities, unusual occurrences and strange urgings you get to investigate places that may or may not end up being interesting and give you that one photo you want to make into a work of art.

Relish the meandering path.

Brill - 21st September 2009

2009-11-29T15:36:00.008Z

Never Trust the weather forecast.

I mean it, never never trust the weather forecast!

Late last summer, while returning from Sheffield my father mentioned the existence of a windmill at Brill. I had no idea where Brill was, except that it must have been near the M40 and Chilterns as that was where we were passing. At the time I didn't really react but inwardly I was intrigued. I've not seen many windmills and certainly one so near to me would be worth the visit. I think the last time I'd come across a windmill was on a 10 year plus old family holiday in the Norfolk Broads. Personally I wasn't aware of any windmills near to me by a long stretch but then again I live in a valley which is generally not conducive to a frequent and decent breeze.

I was aware that for the distance I would be going and the things I would be photographing that I needed the day to be glorious sunshine. So I decided to keep an eye on the Met office forecast and only go when it was meant to be sunny, not sunny intervals mind you, full sunshine. From previous experience I knew that sunny intervals might not be often or even definite sunshine and I knew that I couldn't in this case tell the difference by just looking out of my window. Unfortunately the days passed and all the forecast sunny days turned to overcast as they approached or I was unavoidably busy.

Suddenly a few days before I ended up going I saw that the mid range forecast was saying that Thursday was going to be amazing glorious sunshine. This seemed to be good news but it was too many days away to know for sure. I had been cheated by the positive weather forecast before. But only a day or so later the forecast changed to have that very day good sunshine (for at least the morning) and that was enough for me. I wasn't busy and although I could have waited till Thursday I decided that I might as well go that day than wait for a day that may or may not just be as good.

Photographing the windmill was not exactly as I imagined. The landscape was amazing, high up on a hill in Buckinghamshire, but in the immediate vicinity was the most hummocky undulated ground I've ever seen. I understood why some think Brill was apparently Tolkien's inspiration for the village of Bree in Lord of the Rings. It looks like Hobbits would have a wonderful time there. Unfortunately the weather forecast that I so pinned my hopes on was not entirely accurate. It was sunny but it had that autumnal haze that obscures the sun and loses the intense shadows and highlights that are so desired. The fact of the matter is that the forecast just cannot be that specific.

Usually I wouldn't care, Summer is usually easy to predict, bright sunshine will be bright strong sunshine and you can deal with the occasional fleeting cloud. But the autumn and spring months are more changeable. The sun is weaker and less likely to burn off high cloud, you have to know each season intimately and even then I am not sure you can really tell. So while the little sunshine I got from up there was a little on the weak and watery side the nature of the colours I use will undoubtedly make the whole image more intense. The view was still amazing, it is very nice to get to high places once and a while and I can always go back when Summer is in full bloom.

Sheffield 19th August 2009 – The importance of sunlight

2009-11-28T19:46:00.005Z

While the trip to Sheffield was for a purpose other than sightseeing. I did manage to make a little time for my favourite activity. Since this trip was date specific rather than weather I have the opportunity to talk about difficulties related to poor weather and poor lighting.

First of all Sheffield is a very pretty city with an excellent travel system. Trams, Trains and more buses than you could shake a stick at. A few of those buses were free and the trams were in my opinion well priced, £3 for an adult day ticket anywhere on the tram network. Plus for an industrial city it has obviously had a lot of money spent on it to make an attractive and unified city centre and a green city. The council obviously had an obsession with fountains, there are at least half a dozen in the Peace Gardens alone plus goodness knows how many more dotted around the city.

This proves to be useful when finding good postcard sights, fountains are an excellent draw to people especially in the summer. In fact after locating the Tourist Information Centre (a criminally small and poorly marked shop for the size of the city and the tourism potential in both the city and surrounding areas) and purchasing a selection of postcards I found that I had already taken one of the depicted shots of the Peace Garden fountain.

Unfortunately the sun refused to come out until I was just about to leave. I did get a few nice shots when the sun made an appearance but they obviously looked rushed and left no time for the random and unexpectedly brilliant shots that always come. While the shots I got while it was dull helped prepare me to get the same shots in the sunlight it was never the same and lost a lot of its spontaneity. As a result I have a few images that would make excellent postcards if not for the fact that the light quality is flat and dull. The sunlight is vital to the image, bright light and shadow and the intensity of colour are needed for interesting and vibrant location shots. Images that would encourage others to visit.

While I can fake the light quality with paint it is extremely hard and I would prefer not to do that. Especially as it makes matching the right new sky to the work very hard. Light makes an enormous difference and a sky that suited the dull colours may not at all suit bright ones. In addition some colours, especially buildings, change in unexpected ways and the way the shadows are cast can be almost impossible to add to an image. All you have is a 2 dimensional representation of a complex 3 dimensional scene, you can guarantee at least some of the shadows will look out of place. While I like out of place I do need a certain amount of reality to be retained in my images.

Cowes - 7th August 2009

2009-08-24T21:03:00.003+01:00

The Illusion of Sun and the Difficulties of Sea

Had an awesome day out at Cowes. It was an unplanned day mostly, at least with regards to photography. Its primary purpose was to have fun on a day out with family and to take a look around Cowes during Cowes week (if you don't know what that is look it up, although it is simply a sailing competition with additional tourist and festival type airs). We were there on the Friday in particular to watch the Red Arrows and the famous fireworks in the evening.

I'm always a fan of going to the seaside. As someone who's grown up in a suburban valley, being able to see the horizon is a novel experience let alone that much water. My father was at one point in his life in the merchant navy, sometimes I wonder if it's in the blood. With regards to my work however I find myself thinking about the issues around taking photographs on a seaside setting.

The sea is always in movement (yes I know, stating the obvious) and much of its interest lies in that. Trying to get a photograph of it on a particular wave pattern is impossible unless you catch it by accident. Even then you still lose a lot of it's allure, like many things it just doesn't look as good stationary as in motion. On a minor note you also have the challenge of getting the horizon level something hard to do using the view screen rather than the viewfinder (additionally more so if you are A. impatient and trigger happy and/or B. with a limited time period in which to get the shot). I rarely worry too much these days about a perfectly level horizon however, it can always be fixed later in Photoshop ;)

Another interesting problem to note is that of sunshine and shade. On most occasions a bright sunny day with a few occasional clouds is not a problem. If the sun become obscured I will just wait for it to come back out. By the seaside, scudding clouds are the good weather norm. However waiting for the sun to come back out doesn't work when you have a huge swathe of open beach for some where, that beach will be partly in shade. The only solution? Take lots of photographs, hopefully one will have the shade in a place where it doesn't ruin the overall composition of the shot.

We were pretty lucky that day, having no idea what usually goes on and when at Cowes Week we stumbled on the boats coming into the finish line right by the coastline. I managed to get quite a few close up shots. The boats were spectacular en masse with the multitude of brightly coloured spinnaker sails. We also found a brilliant spot to get shocked by the fireworks and the unexpected appearance of the Red Arrows from behind us. I tried to take a few photographs of the Arrows, a futile endeavour I know but does anyone with a camera to hand not try and try again. I did manage a good video and a single photograph....and plenty of empty sky and smoke trails of course.

Kew Gardens - 29th May 2009

2009-08-22T20:38:00.002+01:00

My trip to Kew was unexpected to say the least. It had been somewhere I had recently been thinking about going and with summer well advanced I knew it likely to be busy and colourful. However it is also somewhere that takes quite some time to get to and I had always thought that there was little else around that attracted me to the area. Really it was just on my mental list of places to investigate online before committing to going.

What ended up happening was outside interference from my mother after my mild rant on the Friday morning about costs of visiting Paris for the day and all the other places I was thinking about going to. Next thing I know I am putting my camera battery on charge for a brief period and getting ready to go out. I was hardly prepared, the camera didn't gain enough charge for a photographic adventure with no worries about running out of power halfway through the day and I had no idea what to expect.

Soon enough we are on a train to Richmond and then onto Kew. Now as I have said before I don't usually like going on these kind of outings with other people, If you are going to come with me it has to work one of two ways. Either the trip is primarily one of fun (for whatever reason) and my photography is secondary to that or you realise that I am going to be doing all sorts of strange and unexplained things, I'm probably not going to be all that accepting of stopping to rest a lot (I just don't, I'm completely impatient and always looking for that next shot) and I will more than likely keep going until I, the sun or my camera is completely exhausted.

So bearing this in mind I was a little cautious about going to Kew with a parental unit, especially one with arthritic knees and one that doesn't share my passion for what I do. She quite likes plants however so that was a bonus, as was the credit card (I hadn't realised how expensive Kew was to get into) It was also handy that Kew has some well defined and obvious places to get good photos and it's not so big so as to get around in a few hours. So I set myself to work on principle one and take it as a fun day out. Although my mother is quite used to some of the more unusual antics required in getting particular shots as my father is also a photographer and he is probably worse than I. My dad will often stop immediately if he sees a potential photo, although his can be almost anything from macro shots of insects to wide angle landscape shots. I tend to see mine a little before I get to them and a shoot fast unlike my father who may see a shot but have to wait until everything is right. As I have explained before I generally don't have that luxury or in fact want. The last time I was waiting for a shot I was trying to get sunlight on the Houses of Parliament (sunlight being probably the only thing I will wait for) and standing there on Westminster bridge with a camera just means you end up experiencing the cameras of every tourist that walks past. I think in the 10 minutes I was there I was asked 5 times. And yes of course I took them all, even one that stole a moment of sunshine that should have been mine!

But back to Kew, it was a very nice day but I realised quickly that my camera just didn't have enough charge to last me all day so I had to be quite restrictive in what I took. No more photographs from inside the plant houses or close ups of waterfowl as they would never be paintings. A shame since I'm not just about postcard style shots and it did steal that sense of photographic abandon that I relish. The place overall had a pretty calm air about it. You wouldn't have thought you were anywhere near London certainly but it was much as I expected. Doesn't mean I didn't have a good time, it was excellent ,but the most exciting part?

Just chucking myself on a train and going, no planning, little or no expectations, reckless adventure!

Spitalfields Part 1 (24/05/09) - On that shot you get a second chance at

2009-08-22T18:53:00.001+01:00

I headed away from Brick Lane back towards Liverpool Street Station and on the way managed to get another photograph of an ice cream van. This makes three I managed to get a decent shot of, the first becoming a painting in early 2009, the second a few weeks previously while in Portsmouth. From Liverpool Street I caught the bus back to London Bridge and took a little time to grab shots of both Southwark Cathedral and HMS Belfast/Tower bridge that I had seen multiple times that weekend already and not managed to before. It seemed like fate was driving me to get these photographs and I'm not one to ignore that.

After hopping on the Jubilee Line as far as Canary Wharf I wandered around trying to find the correct bus stop for the rail replacement bus to London City Airport (as I said travel was broken). By then my feet were really starting to hurt. While In Canary Wharf I got a few photos which was nice as the last time I was there the sun was rapidly going down. So very shiny all that steel and glass, there was also an interesting public sculpture that I could have sworn was a deep blue but all the photographs I took make it look like it was black.

The bus ride to London City Airport was quite enjoyable. Nothing really beats the underground for getting around London fast but the buses help connect the city together. Plus you get to see some interesting views if like me you prefer landscape to people watching. In particular I got quite a stunning view of The Dome from the Blackwall area.

I got off a stop early to see the Thames Barrier and was mightily impressed by the surrounding gardens. I had seen on the map that there were gardens on the north side of the barrier but really expected it to just be a large heathland or open park like space. In fact areas were very heavily manicured and others left to be more natural with many trees and a Cafe. A slightly surreal situation as I felt I was very far from any kind of residential area. In fact I was quite wrong, there is quite an impressive residential community in an area I would expect to be almost entirely industrial.

The Barrier itself was far more impressive than I expected from images I'd already seen. Surprisingly for such a mechanical monster it was quite relaxing, I imagine this was due to the beautiful day doing wonders for almost any object and my proximity to the river which as I have stated before seems to induce a profound sense of calm.

I then proceeded to walk to London City Airport and attempted to walk around the perimeter trying to find a good and unobstructed view. Walking to the terminal proved that there was no good unobstructed view from that side nor was there any sign of an official viewing platform. Not wanting to attract too much attention to myself and being quite aware of current security concerns I decided to go see if I could get a couple of quick shots from the bridge and call it a day. In fact what I found was that the bridge was inaccessible for pedestrians but there was a separate underpass with a great view of the runway and directly underneath the incoming flight path. I was scared half to death by a black private jet plane that stayed about 30mins then departed as quickly as it came.

I hung around for a while getting a few photos of the terminal and planes but realised I was really too far away for my little compact camera to get anything close up. I also had the definite feeling that I might be doing something potentially a little naughty and had had that feeling since I walked into the general vicinity of the airport. In the end I crossed over to the other side of the docks and spent more time watching, photographing and filming the planes as they came in. Of course from where I was I wasn't going to get any people in my shots so it was more a curiosity thing than any real expectation of artwork coming from it.

I will finish up this excessive post with a quick note on the confusing return journey. As I said before, transportation links in this area were a little broken due to weekend engineering works. On the way home I ended up taking the DLR one stop then a Rail Replacement Bus to another DLR station and almost remained on the bus going back the way I came. Frankly the guys running the bus must have stopped caring and while they were friendly enough they were more concerned in having a laugh while moving the herds of people around to mention we had got to our final destination. After working out where I had ended up I realised the bus had dropped us at a non functioning DLR but within walking distance of Canary Wharf. Happily walking to Canary Wharf gave me a second shot at that view I had seen earlier on the bus of the Dome.

Definitely a day of second chance photographs.

Spitalfields Part 1 (24/05/09) - On doing this alone

2009-08-22T18:27:00.005+01:00

Finally I have got round to editing this. I was hoping for a concise entry but I quickly realised that 1. I have a lot to say even if I manage some semblance of being concise and 2. this was an oddity of a trip that actually requires an entry about each area I visited that day.
So I continue...

My trips to London have mostly been for two fold reasons, taking photographs and seeing my friends who made the move. As I see so little of my mates now compared to while at University I usually do little intentional photography for my art as all my time is spent having fun. On the Saturday evening we had as a group descended on the Spitalfields area to celebrate a birthday with boozing and 50's style bowling. While there I was told about Sundays in the same area, cool markets Brick Lane and the such. Since I already knew I would be having a rare Sunday to myself it sounded like an excellent plan.

A quick note: I am not entirely against combining the two reasons to come to London. It is just the way I inevitably work is not usually group friendly. I tend to walk a lot, I rarely stop moving and when I do it is for the purpose of some image I have half seen. Sometimes capturing said image might require me to go off the beaten track, do strange and potentially embarrassing things (like lie down on the pavement) wander where you might not expect to go and generally follow some impulse or other. There have been many occasions that the shot I want requires me to kneel down halfway across a road. And none of these behaviours suit a group activity.

I realised that the Spitalfields area would not take all day and although I could do as I usually would and just go to an adjoining area (Shoreditch, Hoxton etc) I actually had another idea in mind from a planned trip that had yet to happen. I had wanted to go to Heathrow to see if I could get photographs of tourists and planes in much the same spirit of Malcolm Moreley's cruise ships. As you can see from this and the previous post it has been on my mind. Prior research told me that Heathrow might be troublesome without some pre arranged clearance to prove I wasn't an evil terrorist type (my lack of two mobile phones might have stood in my favour however). I decided instead to take a DLR ride to the Thames Barrier and London City Airport. Places I had never ever been near before which in London is a rarity for me. Unfortunately it being a Sunday meant that transport and especially the DLR was quite erratic.

So I started out at Liverpool Street Station after having taken the bus from London Bridge. It is quite a nice journey in fact crossing the river over London Bridge where you can see HMS Belfast and Tower Bridge in one direction. A view I had seen the Friday night previously and have plans to revisit. You also get nice views of Southwark cathedral and for me some unusual overground views of the area around Monument, which I have done previously but it was quite some time ago.

Outside Liverpool Street I took a moment to try to find a nice angle to photograph the Station for a future project I have in mind. I then wandered towards the areas we had been the previous evening, having no particular goal in mind but to investigate. I ended up wandering through Petticoat Lane market which was a riot of colour and people. Slightly claustrophobic and although it was enjoyable it was also pretty hard to get photos in. The fact of it is that in any close quarters environment you will really struggle to get a well composed image that doesn't have someones head in the way. This is an example when many people are detrimental to my process. Luckily I did find an excellent vantage point halfway up a set of stairs into a council estate at the junction of three roads literally covered in market stalls.

I continued to roam along the market until I came out at one end to the main road. Checked the map as I still hadn't found the particular area we had been in the evening before and headed towards the indoor market. It was interesting but alas it was also indoors (no sky!) so after a couple of photos I moved on. Eventually I located the place we had been the night before saw the infamous vegan restaurant in a red Routemaster, got some interesting shots of that area and looked around a few more indoor markets working my way up to and along Brick Lane. Although not directly related to my artistic concerns I have to say that that area probably has the greatest variety of food stalls I have ever seen. Seriously, pick a country and I'm sure you could find a cuisine from it or its nearest neighbours.

Brick Lane continued the Sunday market theme. Stalls lined the road from Hanbury Street to Bethnal Green Road and produced another interesting photographic situation. Most people who know me will know my fascination with VW camper vans, well as I walked up Brick Lane I came across a very pretty and very shiny chrome Citron van acting as a mobile coffee stand. While not a VW it was very nice looking and with the sunlight reflecting off it, all the colourful people (I love how summer gets people in colours other than black, grey and blue) and the strong blue sky behind it I felt it would be worth a shot. Alas a common problem appeared, that of too many fast moving people.

In this shot I wanted people at the van and no or very few people around it. I didn't want people in front of me obscuring the van. As I may have said before this means I need to get my shot quickly however this doesn't always pan out. In this situation it was a relatively open space in the market, good for the image but also a place where people either walked faster or would pause for breath. In any case I spent quite sometime there trying for a shot and leaving unsure that I managed to get a decent one. As it turns out I think I got a couple of doozies.

Portsmouth 9th May 2009

2009-08-09T20:40:00.003+01:00

NB (9th August 2009) Impressive fail with the blogging recently. Not because I haven't been writing but in fact because the idea of trying to condense and rewrite my verbose ramblings has left me cold.

It's been quite some time since I went to Portsmouth. Initially I wasn't going to blog as it wasn't an intended trip. However I realised after reviewing the photos that I had been on occasion in that special frame of mind that is perpetual when on an premeditated trip. Seems it has become quite natural to drop in and out of this frame of mind when seeing potential for photos, so much so that apparently I don't notice I have done so.

So a quick bit of background. I went to Portsmouth with my parents to see my sister and celebrate my fathers birthday. After a little time there we went down to the waterfront to go to a pub they all like and have a bit of a walk. Now the last time I was in Portsmouth was a year previously or there about for my sisters graduation ceremony. While they were in the ceremony (which I wasn't able to attend due to space restrictions) I had the opportunity to explore Portsmouth and I walked a bloody long way around most of central Portsmouth However there was one bit of beach I wasn't able to access, although I did walk along the sea wall above it. This time the beach was open to all and we took a walk along the beach and up along the sea wall.

While on the beach I got some photographs of things I rarely have the opportunity to see including large ferries coming in to port and a gunship of some description. Remembering the ocean liner paintings of Malcolm Morley I found this all very inspirational. The other aspect to this trip was the addition of a ready source of people which I could utilise. Granted I would rather get people in natural poses but I did have the ability to use the already natural antics of my family and use them to my own advantage with the common cry of “stay there please”. I say common cry because often enough I need not say it, for my father has already done so. Usually I actively dissuade my friends and family from joining me as I know how frustrating it can be for both parties. But hey I'll take what I can get, it's just a matter of priorities something I may touch on in future blogs.

I also got a good photo of a ice cream van.

An Unforeseen Update

2009-06-01T12:12:00.003+01:00

So as I said previously I had a bit of an urge but no real plans to go out again. Well you know how it is, the plans just sort of happen and of course they happen last minute. So this is just a quick post to say there will be two more entries soon (having yet to write them of course).
24th May 2009 - Spitalfields and the area of the Thames Barrier and London City Airport. (Two very distinct and different areas. See what I mean about last minute plans)
29th May 2009 - Kew Gardens. (This one wasn't even planned, I just ended up on a train about half an hour after I mentioned that it might be a place I visit in the Summer with no time to prepare maps or places to see or even charge my camera fully)

Hopefully I will have them written up soon. Especially as I made no notes and my thoughts for the day are fading quickly. In fact the only reason I haven't as yet is becuase I have been painting while it is daylight (and doing less interesting but more important tasks) and trying to sleep at night.

22nd May 2009

2009-05-22T17:30:00.002+01:00

I've not been out with my camera much recently. The weather having settled into a warmer pattern and the leaves out on the trees I have lost the feeling and need to grab whatever sunny day I can. They have been and will continue to be generally sunny and so the urgency has fled as the pollen has risen. I also have been busy painting and doing other less interesting but just as vital things. I have a deadline coming up and although the paintings for it are close to complete I also have half finished paintings and a backlog of images that could make wonderful paintings. But I am getting that itch again to go somewhere.

It was a violent itch today. I was doing one of the many journeys I am very familiar with. Happily this one had one unusual change in it, instead of a local stopping service on the train I ended up on the slam door, high speed service. Not only that, it was a high speed service with many prebooked seats and lazy asses that liked taking up two seats with bags and feet and small children (I am kidding about the small children)and while this would normally annoy me I was only standing up for 30 mins or so and I got an excellent view by the open window of a door.

For a while I thought about trying my luck at taking photos through the window but instead decided to just enjoy the view. Unlike the last time I had undertaken this journey on a sunny day (see previous post) It was most definitely summer but had a closeness about the atmosphere rather than a flatness and openness. Maybe it was the abundance of green and the leaves on the trees compared to last time, maybe it was just the more natural seasonal weather, I'm not really sure.

What I continue to notice is that on a speeding train (and boy this one was going fast, I am not at all used to it being someone who lives in a small village and uses local stopping services all the time) many things that are usually decidedly unattractive can look really beautiful. I can only assume that this is due to them passing by so fast as not for you to be able to define any detail nor have the option to go investigate further. A good example is the rails of the other train lines. Look at them up close and you have a lump of iron, often rusty and very samey. Sometimes it has a certain charm, when you juxtapose the black iron and pure white snow or when plants and flowers grow around the rail but this is purely a contrast thing, another beautiful and/or unusual object does all the work. However if you are looking for beauty in the rail itself try watching them while you are zipping past. They become almost organic snaking along past you (yes I realise that is an optical illusion, not the point), they also if it is sunny become a duo-tone of reddish mat and shining silver brilliance.

Maybe I just like industrial things.

This journey wasn't about getting to place to take photos but in fact a journey of happy necessity to visit friends for the weekend. But as they tend to do, any journey can evoke me to thought.

19th March 2009

2009-03-31T12:17:00.004+01:00

So it has been a couple of days since my trip to Virginia Water

Strange how spring and sunshine makes places look and feel different. Got the impression today on the train that these spaces I saw from the window were great arid bright and very flat. Something I seem to have missed through the winter months. I know this journey, it is one I have taken many a time. It has before seem so close and enclosed, homely and at times a little stifling.

Is this because spring seems to have so suddenly and so strongly arrived or is it some psychological after effect of going on location twice in a week and falling into that associated mindset. Will, after this period of almost summer weather makes way for more usual spring weather, it remain?

No postcards here nor any photos, I know this feeling is not one that can be captured through photography, certainly not from a train. Maybe I should have tried however.