One Handed Working

All of this is typed with one finger on my left hand as I’ve got tennis elbow! As best as I can figure I’ve developed an RSI from drawing on the iPad. It may also have something to do with digging.

52 left handed pastels

52 left handed pastels

So I’ve had to draw with my left hand, I haven’t tried painting yet – I feel as if requires more control – and made these 52 5”x 7” pastel drawings of the garden. I’ve also been drawing daily on the iPad, with my left hand since the 2nd September.

Drawing with your wrong hand is a strange activity in that it involves stilling the involuntary spasms that your usual hand makes due to muscle memory and conciously switching the natural action to its mirror image. It feels as if you are thinking differently at first, but after a while it seems as if there is a bar to your usual thinking so that the process is foggier.

Since my last post on August 18th I’ve begun a couple of paintings

Balby Garden Robin

Balby Garden Robin

This robin is 10” x 10”, as is the Edlington Woods painting below.

Edlington Woods Branch

Edlington Woods Branch

I also entered a local online competition with this small painting of birds…

Birds Do It

Birds Do It

which is 12” x 9”, they are all oils on board.

dogs on beach

dogs on beach

old mine works

old mine works

lathkill dale

lathkill dale

I also started three more, same sort of sizes, that I haven’t been able to finish yet.

All of these are a way to teach myself to paint with oils again.

I also finished the August Gallery

Quick, Look Like You’re Busy

coffee cup

coffee 13th August #100

What have I been doing since the 5th August?  I’ve been working on four or five different things. The picture above is the 100 th consecutive drawing on my iPad made between 9:00 am and 10:00 am each day since the 6th May. I picked the coffee cup deliberately because this is the first drawing I did.

Coffee 6th May #001

Coffee 6th May #001

I think I might be improving. I’ve kept up with these and they can be seen on my Instagram latham_1959 or in these galleries.

I’ve also been painting, continuing to work on the sequences from Edlington Woods and from my garden in Balby. They’ll be displayed on this website

https://www.ian-latham.com/painting/

These are the latest ones.

Edlington Woods Orchid

Edlington Woods Orchid

Balby Garden Baby Crow

Balby Garden Baby Crow

Balby Garden Dunnock

Balby Garden Dunnock

But mostly I’ve spent the last fortnight finishing off my ACE funding application and submitting it through the online portal. Fingers crossed.

Is it still Lockdown? (Twenty days later)

Frustrating month trying to get my head in gear to work on the gardens project. I’ve got a chanace to put this out for feedback through the CAST scratch night but I’m having real difficulty with the animation and scene loading in Unity/Steam so I’m reverting to the travelling through tunnels, or dropping down holes to progress.

In the meantime I finished the set of five sculptures and placed them in the garden. The  Garden Sculpture website can be seen on this link. I’ve set it up seperately so I can send it out for applications.

The sculptures are smaller than I’m used to and I’m not sure about them yet. I’m working on a piece about the garden as an inspiration and a site for sculptures that will be posted soon. (don’t hold your breath).

I also set up a site for the paintings I’ve been working on over the last couple of months.

There are three series of five, one completed – still life – and two in progress. Edlington Woods, the one above is the latest in this series.

And paintings of my garden like this one. The site can be seen here Learning to paint

I’ve also been drawing on my iPad each day, since May 6th, so I’ve got 82 drawings/sketches up ’til today.

The rest of my time I’ve spent staring at computers, 3d modelling, getting VR wrong and checking over my application for a new Lottery Project grant from ACE.