The Raven

It's been a busy couple of weeks, what with workshops at university, the print symposium, working at the clinic, and stewarding for the Impress festival.
Much of it has been enjoyable, but not much time to get on with my own artwork. I did do this very large charcoal drawing of a scene from my interpretation of a Grimms tale called The Raven, using one of my ceramic bird girls as a model.

Charcoal on paper (75x60 cms approx)

There was once upon a time a queen who had a little daughter who was still so young that she had to be carried.  One day the child was naughty, and the mother might say what she liked, but the child would not be quiet.  The queen became impatient, and as the ravens were flying about the palace, she opened the window and said, "I wish you were a raven and would fly away, and then I should have some rest".  Scarcely had she spoken the words, before the child was changed into a raven, and flew from her arms out of the window.  It flew into a dark forest, and stayed in it a long time, and the parents heard nothing of their child.

 

Then one day a man was bathing in the lake in the forest and heard the raven crying in some nearby bushes, and followed the sound, and when he came nearer, the bird said, "I am a king's daughter by birth, and am bewitched, but you can set me free".  "What am I to do, asked he......"

 

My First Attempts at Slip Casting

Soon after Christmas (when my dissertation was safely handed in) I bought a second hand plaster slip mould of a pigeon for £4. I took it in to the university ceramics technican and he gave me a crash course in slip casting (although he did wonder whether it was rather a large mould to start with considering my zero knowledge on the subject). It is quite large (that's a 12 inch ruler in the picture) and very heavy (special thanks to my sister in law, Helen, for collecting it from the seller for me) .

When my first attempt came out of the kiln OK I coloured her dove grey and gave her human eyes.

I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to try and do with the pigeon after reading lots of fairy tales for my dissertation, where humans are turned into birds.  I had attended a mould making workshop a while ago, so I set about trying to make a plaster mould of a doll's head. I cast another pigeon and cut her head off and replaced it with a cast of the doll head.

 

 

 

I was really encouraged by the results and tried it again but with a different doll head. This is the point at which my beginner's luck ran out. The second head was heavier than the first and the pigeon body started to collapse. I had to sacrifice her perch and feet so I could salvage the rest. Once she was fired I decided to make her some ceramic and wood wheels to get around on. I think I like her even more than the first one now.

 

 

This description makes it sound like it was all quite quick and simple but in fact these pieces were created over a period of several weeks. Now I just can't decide whether or not to colour these latest bird/girl hybrids or keep them white. And should I carry on and make a flock?

Playing with Clay

When I was supposed to be doing my dissertation last semester I was always finding other things I needed to do ie. prevaricating. One of my distractions was playing with the clay which Stephen was using on his course. Over the weeks I ended up with a family of crow people. These photos were taken before they were fired (in case they collapsed in the kiln). I have had very little experience with clay but, while I was distracting myself from writing, other ideas for ceramic pieces were starting to form. But they would have to wait till I finished the dissertation.

 

 

But then I couldn't resist drawing the crow family in their nests.

 

 

 

 

                                      

Then I went back to my dissertation.....

IMPRESS Print Festival 2013

http://www.gpchq.org.uk/impress-festival13/

The IMPRESS Print Festival organised by the Gloucestershire Print Co-op is on throughout March. There's tons to see snd do. Click on the link to the festival calender so you can have a look....

Most exciting for me is that Hughie O'Donoghue is exhibiting at The Museum in the Park and giving a talk on Friday. He's one of my favourite artists. I think there's still a few tickets left.


I AM IN THE CATALOGUE WITH HUGHIE O'DONOGHUE!

 

 

 

 

 

The Adventures of Bird Girl

Following on from the last post....
I later made up my own story about one of my bird people and did some large A1 charcoal drawings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My tutor at UWE suggested I shouldn't have put the door and window into the second drawing. The location is best left unspecified.
The terrified creature in the last drawing is a little doll who, when I divested her of  hair and clothes, turned out to have a body made of wire rope. I recently discovered that the collective noun for spiders is 'a clutter'. Sounds noisy somehow. I think I'd like to copy my spider doll and make a clutter of them. With their porcelain arms and legs I'm sure you'd hear them coming. But will this one will survive her present ordeal?

Bird dolls

       Last year I went to an Edward Lear exhibition at the Ashmoleon in Oxford which included some of the little drawings which accompanied his letters and nonsense poems depicting himself as a bird.              
                                        

In many of the Grimm's Fairytales humans are turned into birds and I was inspired by Lear's drawings to have a go at some 3D versions. Originally I was going to clothe them but in the end I decided they'd be more useful plain.




 

This started me off looking into using dolls to tell stories and suggest alternative fairy tale senarios.

It's been a while....

and a lot has happened... including the fact that I am currently enroled at the University of the West of England to do the 3rd year of my degree in Drawing and Applied Art. It was now or never, before the fees got too ridiculous. As it is I am doing it part-time over 2 years.

The first semester was taken up largely with the dissertation - mine was entitled Fairytales, Fine Art and Feminism, and that's broadly the area of  my artistic pracice at the moment as well.
When I first enrolled I imagined I'd be concentating on printmaking - and I did work on my ideas for alternative endings for fairytales, for a bit - but then I got side tracked by all the interesting stuff I was looking at for my dissertation. The great thing about being part-time is that I have time to play and experiment with mediums that are unfamilir to me, like ceramics. I've just had an assessment and, so far, my tutors are OK with me exploring a range of ideas and I'm really enjoying it. My fellow students are very supportive and I'm learning a lot from them. I rather think they regard me as 'the eccentic old woman who makes weird dolls', but that's OK, they're a nice bunch (and I'm not the only oldie).

Below are a few of my sketches and ideas for prints for the as yet unfinshed Alternative Endings series. I got the original idea from some cards I bought of a woman dancing with crocodiles.

 

In the next few posts I'll get you up to date on what I've been making, drawing, painting, printing...