Tag Archives: Gardens

April Showers

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April Showers

Another New Studio

On the 1st April I happened upon this review in the Guardian  Yhonnie Scarce is an indigenous artist who uses glass to explore the lingering effects of the nuclear weapons testing in Woomera in the 1950’s and 1960’s. I suspect I’ll never get to see it for real but it appears to be very striking, possessing that power that comes from ownership and quiet repetition.

It struck me enough to record it here and I find it challenging because it directly addresses a history that is generally unrecorded and, like so much of our history, speaks ill of us. I’ve obviously never had anything that motivates me as strongly and I’m once again at a bit of a loss. To address this I decided to do the 30works30days project on Artquest to see if it kickstarts anything.

This is ‘What brings you Joy’. Day 3 of the 30works30days project on Artquest. Daffodils, paper, cardboard, found wood, cable ties, 150cm tall

April Showers

The works I’m doing are all linked to video and 3d work and I’m collecting them together here

I decided to make ‘Tree Flower’ the same pattern as ‘Dancing Tree’ and to paint the flower red.

 

The drawing in the background of that sculpture, made by collaging the paper I used on the floor when painting it, has become the basis of ‘Red Garden 5’

This one is the biggest yet and I’m trying to get some of the same dynamic as the VR world into it. I’ve spent a lot of time working on the VR this month, using google maps and google earth as the base of the 3d world and building into it.

The bottom of the garden, lidar scanned with my iPhone and Polycam

As I progressed I took the yellow down to push the space back into the picture and then looked at adding more detail into the tree. The whole needed a lot more depth to the colours as well.

The image below shows an idea of the detail in the tree on 27th March.

The centre apple tree from the garden shows the view the drawing represents, this is from the VR ‘red’ world.

After fannying with the materials for the google model in Blender, and dodging the april showers, I bought some daffodils to give myself a break and started a new drawing.

The first drawing was done on the 2nd April and the second shows how it appeared on the 4th.

I also did some more work on the ‘Red Garden 5’ drawing which I think needs something else in the centre foreground.

I read this thoughtful Guardian article about ai in art. It centres on Pierre Huyghe’s  exhibition in Venice, asking a series of questions about the use of artificial intelligence in art making. It’s an interesting conundrum but the genie is out of the bottle now.

Drawing

I’ve continued to draw every day;

The March drawings can be seen here

  • Draw Every Day – March 24
    Draw Every Day – March 24
    Draw Every Day - March 24 Continuing to draw every day, in the 15th sketchbook since the ...
    See photo »

…and the February images here

  • Draw Every Day – February 24
    Draw Every Day – February 24
    Draw Every Day - February 24 Continuing to draw every day, in the 15th sketchbook since the ...
    See photo »

There is a link to the previous month’s Gallery on each page.

The drawings are posted to Threads and Instagram each day.

April Showers

Self (It really is all about me!)

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Self (It really is all about me!)

Another New Studio

Self (It really is all about me!)

08 02 2024

Having reached something of an impasse in the last month what with finishing things and so on I decide to start a self portrait. So on the 8th February I spent two hours working from life and arrived at the above. The proportions are ‘ish’ and it looks nothing like me.

09 02 2024

On the 9th February I spent another two hours…

12 02 2024

Then after the weekend I spent a further two hours on the 12th February. Again it’s beginning to look vaguely as if it might be a relative of mine.

Self (It really is all about me!)

14 02 2024

On the 14th I spent 3 hours mostly measuring the features against each other and refining the shape of the head. It might be worth mentioning that I decided to do this after seeing the press reports for the Courtauld exhibition of Frank Auerbach drawings particularly Adrian Searle’s review in the Guardian

But It really is all about me!

 

16 02 2024

I worked some more on it on the 16th bringing it almost to a conclusion after just over 11 hours.

19 02 2024

On the 19th I spent the last hour I’d allowed myself, for now, to reach this state.

judge for yourself

It’s ok, but you can judge for yourself. It really is all about me!

Tree Flower 12 02 2024

Obviously that wasn’t all I did during the first half of February, I also continued to work on sculpture. I repurposed the abandoned original support for the three trees half size maquette I made in January and also did some more work on the story for the Gardens project.

I looked up the idea of Eudaemonia that I encountered in Will Storr’s ‘The Science of Storytelling’ which is the only readably intelligent examination of the process I’ve found yet. Storr posits a 5 act structure for storytelling, Act 1 – This is me and It’s not working; Act 2 – Is there another way?; Act 3 – There is. I have transformed; Act 4 – But can I handle the pain of change?; Act 5 – Who Am I going to be? Essentially though I don’t think there is a set of rules.

I found myself distracted by an idea for the garden that goes back to the original impetus of recording the resting places of cats that have owned me over the years. To bring in an avatar of a cat that guides the player through the garden and instructs them on the quest, the quest being to find where cats go.

That’s where eudaemonia comes in, it is the state or condition of having good spirit, according to Aristotle. The eudaimonic life is one of “virtuous activity in accordance with reason” Or being happy by living with purpose.

Also on the 16th February I attended the first online seminar in AN’s Framework series Module 1. It was all about funding, different sources etc. Very useful if I can ever shift myself to apply it. I would post a link but the notes are not online yet.

Standing Nude 19 02 2024

After the weekend I spent some time buggering about with Gravity Sketch on the Quest 2, It’s been updated but it’s still very glitchy for me. Keeps dropping out and repositioning itself.

So I went back to ‘Gesture VR’ and did a drawing using passthrough.

Standing Nude 21 02 2024

On the following Wednesday I got sidetracked by the roof repairs at home and went to the studio on the 22nd, tidied the drawing up and stretched two new sheets of paper.

Studio 22 02 2024

At which point the studio looked like this.

Three (separate) Red Trees

To shake myself up a bit I took apart the three red trees, I should really take them somewhere and coat them with GRP, to give myself more room in the studio.

Structure 25 02 2024

Then I used the wood I got from c-view where my studio is, to make a structure for a new sculpture.

Dancing Tree 27 02 2024

On the 27th I attached surfaces to the structure – this is fairly heavy cartridge paper – and painted it with watered down Indian ink. It’s called ‘Dancing Tree’ for as long as I can remember it.

Drawing

I’ve continued to draw every day;

The February drawings can be seen here

  • Draw Every Day – February 24
    Draw Every Day – February 24
    Draw Every Day - February 24 Continuing to draw every day, in the 15th sketchbook since the ...
    See photo »

…and the January images here

Draw Every Day - January 24 Continuing to draw every day, using sketching pens, japanese brush pens, a set of moleskine coloured pencils, a Koh-I-Noor 4B and Derwent watercolour and liquid charcoal washes.  The 14th sketchbook was completed on January 24th and a new A4 book started on the 25th, when I also started drawing with a set of marker pens. Double page spreadsuntil the 24th. The drawings are made any time from 9:00 am at the breakfast table and occasionally later in the day if I'm away from home. The drawings have been posted since the beginning, 6th May 2020, on instagram https://www.instagram.com/latham_1959 You can see previous months through the galleries page https://www.ian-latham.com/blog/galleries or you can go straight to December's drawings here -
  • Draw Every Day – December 23
    Draw Every Day – December 23
    Draw Every Day - December 23 Continuing to draw every day, using sketching pens, japanese ...
    See photo »

There is a link to the previous month’s Gallery on each page.

The drawings are posted to Threads and Instagram each day.

It really is all about me!

Whatever It Is

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Whatever It Is

Another New Studio

I’ve had a mixed January after time off over Christmas. Lots of time spent trying to get an app from Unity onto the app store, I must have spent twenty hours and it still won’t go on so I’ve resorted to putting the Doncaster Platonics app on the Artivive  App.

It works, which is great, but it costs money to use for anything other than minimal output and there would be further charges if the works were viewed more than a 1000 times in a month. That might seem to be a lot of views but the five Platonics drawings are each individual artworks so that’s 200 views each.

Whatever It Is

Christmas Tree – Oil on Board

While I was at home I painted a Christmas tree, because it was Christmas.

Bird Skeleton

I missed several days studio work after discovering water dripping down onto my stairs from the skylight. This proved to be a hole in the roof so that needed sorting, mostly involving waiting for tradesmen to turn up to quote and then sitting around while the one I chose did the job.

While I was in the roof cavity, off my cellar studio I found the skeleton a small bird, I think it’s a sparrow, and I took it into the studio at c-view to draw. This is 140 cm x 80 cm pencil and pastel on paper. This was started on the 12th of January.

Small Fox

I also painted a small fox while I was waiting around at home and did a lot of digging in the garden.

Whatever it is

Bird Skeleton with Red

On the 15th January I was able to get into the studio again and added some red to the bird skeleton and worked over the shadows and some marks on the paper with white paint. I managed to get help to deliver the lemniscate  to the NHS at Barnsley Hospital and also got some photographs taken of the work I’ve made at c-view for prints and a new website.

Bird Skeleton with red wash

I got back into the studio on the 19th January and painted the background of the bird skeleton with red ink.

Studio 23/01/2024

I also started a new half sized maquette for the three trees variations in cardboard. I finished this on the 23rd January and made a lidar Polycam scan.

Three Trees Maquette drawing

When I returned to c-view on the 24th I started a drawing of the three trees sculpture, I’ve also explored this in the sketchbook.

Three Trees Maquette drawing

And when I next got in on the 29th I finished it.

Whatever it is

Red Pigeon

I was in again on the 31st, after a lot of work on the app and the background story to the big Gardens Project and I worked the Red Pigeon drawing up to almost finished.

I’m thinking that the Garden is the protagonist of the story for the project, asserting itself by becoming in the presence of ‘you’ as the witness. As simple as it sounds the longer you are present in the garden the more you see and the more you interact the more you find out. The plot may be the reconciliation ‘of’ or ‘with’ a fatal flaw in the main character. There has to be some kind of achievement at the end of it.

I wrote a kind of manifesto for my protagonist. Which garden I am depends upon you. I am the garden growing the fridge freezer and the bin bags full of ignorance; I am the garden organised with gravel and abandoned to dandelions and curly wurly wrappers bleached and wilted; I am the garden clinical in its efficiency, with no room for invasions or unwanted natives, made new every season with garish borders; I am the garden abandoned to ideology, at the mercy of the wind and the moss and the tap roots, and the ‘wilding’; I am the garden that tells you what it wants and where it wants it; You are the garden I am.

I really should find the time to work consistently on this, whatever it is.

A small aside about photographing work, I took the photographs below in my kitchen with the iPad, the picture is 12inches square. I haven’t adjusted the colour in any of them, it is just a question of finding the right light. The one at the right is the closest to reality.

Fox, colour photographs

Drawing

I’ve continued to draw every day;

The January drawings can be seen here

  • Draw Every Day – January 24
    Draw Every Day – January 24
    Draw Every Day - January 24 Continuing to draw every day, using sketching pens, japanese ...
    See photo »

…and the December images here

Draw Every Day - December 23 Continuing to draw every day, using sketching pens, japanese brush pens, a set of moleskine coloured pencils, a Koh-I-Noor 4B and Derwent watercolour and liquid charcoal washes. I also added a set of Winsor and Newton promarker water soluble markers. The 13th sketchbook was completed on December 12th and a new A5 book started on the 13th. Still doing double page spreads. The drawings are made any time from 9:00 am at the breakfast table and occasionally later in the day if I'm away from home. The drawings have been posted since the beginning, 6th May 2020, on instagram https://www.instagram.com/latham_1959 You can see previous months through the galleries page https://www.ian-latham.com/blog/galleries or you can go straight to November's drawings here -
  • Draw Every Day – November 23
    Draw Every Day – November 23
    Draw Every Day - November 23 Continuing to draw every day, using sketching pens, japanese ...
    See photo »

There is a link to the previous month’s Gallery on each page.

The drawings are posted to Threads and Instagram each day.