Drawing Tuesday - Docklands Museum

The splendid cargo basket called out to me, but proved to be difficult to (a) see and (b) get close enough to, in a drawing position, to be able to see it better -

There were enticing shadows, though....

 So I tried to capture some shadows, using water-soluble crayon, only to find the waterbrush wasn't working well. It turned out to need refilling! Plan B, at the bottom of the page, was to draw around the shadow-shapes, and I went on to do a page of small renditions of various shadows, for which I have "plans".

My two approaches to shadows

Najlaa's red door

Mags' hooks and other implements

Janet found some lifeboat equipment

Joyce's barrels

Sue was in danger of getting lost among the spokes

 Tool of the week - Joyce has several Rotring Art Pens, with different colours of ink -

A review/comparison of these pens is here, and the company's website is here. As for how to use it - this snippet of a video will get you started.

Everyday pleasures

Blue bird, blue berries

Buddleia, with bees

Watching the dogs go by

Breakfast in the garden

Night view from the desk, with reflections and moth

Fortunately not so everyday - flooded street after rainstorm

Things I need to remember.

Cyclegs

Amusing, but practical, bike stands along the Caledonian Road, north of King's Cross.

(via)

Making little notebooks

The insides of the notebooks - size A7, 3"x4.25" - are typing paper, cut in half and half again, then folded. The covers are cut slightly larger, and it's all sewn together with 5-hole pamphlet stitch.

The fun is in making the covers. I'm using cartridge paper from my collection of painting classes in years past, and leftover bits that received leftover paint. (So much frugality!)

These sheets are halfway there -

Several layers later, this one is almost ready -

 Transformed and ready to cut up -

 Cutting strips, then individual covers -

Large motifs in a small space -

The background of blocks of related color works well, as does the mix of colours on the stamp -

Layers of simple swirls made with a large brush -

More to come - from starting points like these, waiting to be painted up and made "pretty" -

Immediate transformation of the bright one, using white acrylic wiped on with a palette knife to cover the glaring areas, and lots of stamping with the favourite flower stamp. I put two colours (and sometimes a dollop of white) onto a small bit of foam for the "inkpad" and they blend on the stamp.

 Chopping it up into little bits makes for a lot of interesting fragments -

And from the other two half-painted papers -

Cut and the turned-under edges glued down ... ready to pierce and stitch -

Submitting work online

There's nothing like a deadline... so when I found an exhibition with the theme of "line" and a deadline of 31 July, it seemed like a good idea to enter something. That was in mid-July - and the first step was to go back to Studio136 and see if I could lay my hands on the work I had in mind. (Why make new work when some of the finished work hasn't seen the light of day yet?)

There was no way to get hold of the piece I had in mind, but something else turned up that would do as well, in terms of a submission on the theme of line. It's been exhibited several times - any chance I get, really - and between times it lives in its special shoebox

When it came to being rephotographed, it fell into a new configuration -

which shows its double-sided configuration. It measures 25 cm wide and 380 cm long.

The piece used to be called Journey to the Studio, but has now become "The Daily Round", to fit in with the artist's statement I quickly wrote, which talks about quotidional repetitiveness, the ever-extending line incorporating the ephemerality of the daily news. Or could/should have, but at the 11th hour those sorts of thoughts hadn't yet risen and the statement ended up like this:

"The Daily Round" is a meditation, evolving day after day, on matters exterior and interior. The probing stitches laboriously fasten the ephemerality of daily news to the solid base, and the thin line of newspaper strips goes around and around, making the piece sculptural rather than two-dimensional.

Margaret Cooter's cross-media practice (ceramics, drawing, printmaking, books, textiles) is largely focused on the use of time in daily travel (commuting) and the input of labour in domestic maintenance, as part of the larger topic of the concept of home.

Not sure how absolutely "true" this is,  but you sometimes have to reinvent your intentions as circumstances change. "Travel lines" have given way to the Home project.

The point of the exercise was to enter something, somewhere - to keep going creatively, to get impetus for the next part of the project. 

The deadline for this call has been extended to 31 August - my next goal. But this involves making something new, as works have to be about "nature" (in the widest sense) and on an envelope.

Poetry Thursday - Love Song for Words by Nazik Al-Malaika

See below* for the story behind the image

Love Song for Words

Why do we fear words
when they have been rose-palmed hands,
fragrant, passing gently over our cheeks,
and glasses of heartening wine
sipped, one summer, by thirsty lips?
Why do we fear words
when among them are words like unseen bells,
whose echo announces in our troubled lives
the coming of a period of enchanted dawn,
drenched in love, and life?
So why do we fear words?
We took pleasure in silence.
We became still, fearing the secret might part our lips.
We thought that in words laid an unseen ghoul,
crouching, hidden by the letters from the ear of time.
We shackled the thirsty letters,
we forbade them to spread the night for us
as a cushion, dripping with music, dreams,
and warm cups.
Why do we fear words?
Among them are words of smooth sweetness
whose letters have drawn the warmth of hope from two lips,
and others that, rejoicing in pleasure
have waded through momentary joy with two drunk eyes.
Words, poetry, tenderly
turned to caress our cheeks, sounds
that, asleep in their echo, lies a rich color, a rustling,
a secret ardor, a hidden longing.
Why do we fear words?
If their thorns have once wounded us,
then they have also wrapped their arms around our necks
and shed their sweet scent upon our desires.
If their letters have pierced us
and their face turned callously from us
Then they have also left us with an oud in our hands
And tomorrow they will shower us with life.
So pour us two full glasses of words!
Tomorrow we will build ourselves a dream-nest of words,
high, with ivy trailing from its letters.
We will nourish its buds with poetry
and water its flowers with words.
We will build a balcony for the timid rose
with pillars made of words,
and a cool hall flooded with deep shade,
guarded by words.
Our life we have dedicated as a prayer
To whom will we pray . . . but to words?

Translated from the Arabic by Rebecca Carol Johnson 

Nazik Al-Malaika

Influential Iraqi poet Nazik Al-Malaika (1923-2007) is credited with being the first to use free verse in Arabic poetry. Her poem Cholera, written in 1947, is considered to be a revolution in the Arabic poem.

Born in Baghdad, she wrote poetry even in childhood. After a first degree in Arabic literature, she went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and took further degrees, in comparative literature and inmusic. She taught at a number of schools and universities, living in Iraq until 1970 and then in Kuwait and finally Cairo.

"One Evening", transcribed 

*The Tuesday Drawing group was introduced to this poet by Najlaa, who had been to the Etel Adnan exhibition twice before we went to draw there, and used Adnan's poetry books as a springboard for making her own book. She chose to incorporate "One Evening", written by Al-Malaika in 1946. Sitting in the sun beside the waters of the Serpentine, we were curious about what the writing said, and Najlaa immediately translated the poem, part of Al-Malaika's romantic output. Unfortunately I couldn't find it on the internet, so have substituted another

Wordless Wednesday

Drawing Tuesday - Serpentine

At Serpentine Sackler was the Etel Adnan show. I was about to settle on the floor, against the wall, when a helpful assistant offered me a stool - how nice! I had hoped to capture the colours each of these simple paintings - she often uses paint straight from the tube - but matching the colours from the 24 pencils in my Laurentian set proved quite complex, and I didn't even get to the end of the top row -

 Others had more sensible projects.

Jo used her new brush pen on the ever-moving subject of water birds

Najlaa took inspirating from Adnan's artists books incorporating poetry

 Sue had been to two of the summer houses inspired by the 18th century temple nearby -

Janet, however, had been swimming! She did fit in a 5-minute drawing (sorry about the camera shadow) -

Tool of the week - Jo's new ink-filled, refillable, brush -

I so enjoyed using the pencil crayons that, on getting home, I found more of Adnan's paintings online -

(Sometimes the entire areas aren't filled in, to remind me of the layering of colours.)

At one point I discovered a brand-new set of aquarelle pencils among my shelves and boxes, but couldn't bear to start using the pristine beauties, so it was back to the Laurentians -

This deliberately "unfinished" drawing, on the same scale, was added to the page later -

I'm liking that meshwork of lines.

btw the Laurentian pencil crayons - made in Canada - were later called Laurentien, and discontinued in 2012/13. As well as the 24-crayon plastic pouch, which lived at the back of my desk drawer at work for years, I have a large set, currently inaccessible in my studio at the flat. I love their smooth waxiness and will be taking good care of them, so they outlast me. Might mention them in my will??

Domesticity, of a sort

Keeping the garden tidy

...as it bursts into summer bloom

The lawnmower is, um, character building!

Chive harvest - washed, dried off, cut to length (can be chopped small), and bagged ready for the freezer

Indoors - the house has to be tidy for viewings by prospective owners. And many items must be consigned elsewhere, hopefully to have new lives.

Cleared surfaces (thanks to Mags for the cards made from her drawings)

Fewer cushions on sofas and chairs

Amazing transformation of under-stair cupboard (thanks to Clea and Paul)

A farewell rinsing

Ready to go

How much harder to dismantle the little collections

And then there's the shed 

It was very difficult to have the estate agent's photographer in the house, pleasant as she was -