Painterly Challenge

Why not paint with acrylics instead of oils?  Acrylics have several advantages.  They are water soluble and there are lots of mediums available that can help make acrylic paint imitate oils.  Moreover there are mediums that can allow an artist to paint with thick heavy impasto with very low risk of cracking as it dries and enables an artist to paint quickly as acrylics dry very fast.

Oil paint on the other hand can be tricky.  You are required to paint in layers allowing each to dry as you proceed.  The use of underpainting white, thinner, and wingel expedites this process by speeding drying time.  However you are still required to allow for drying time before putting one colour over another or you risk making a muddy mess of your colours.  Just to make it even more challenging as a painting dries oil will rise to the surface making it difficult for the next layer of paints to bind to the surface.  If you use too much oil mixed in with pigment you can lower the tone of the colour or impede the paints ability to bind while not enough oil will do the same.  The ready availability of colours in tubes along with various mediums take much of the guess work out of oil painting but knowing when to stop painting is important to a successful painting

Interrogate Space, Oil on canvas, 2009: Private Collection

Machine Knitting

I am enjoying using an old Bond Machine knitter that was a gift from my mom.
Its a bit finicky to use but the results are quite nice. This machine is called the Incredible Sweater Machine identified by the fact that the needle bed is in two parts.  Its first incarnation was the Bond Original which came out in 1981.  The inventor Roger Curry named the machine after Bond Street in London apparently because he felt that street in particular illustrated the height of British fashion at the time. Curry wanted to make it possible for all women to make their own fashionable garments quickly and easily.

For some reason my machine does not have the original carriage with it.  I am using the intarsia key plate to knit with until such a time that I find a proper carriage.

Using the keyplate makes setting up the hooks a bit tedious as they are set up by hand using cards to position them as shown in the first picture.  The yellow card for working position and green card places the stitches into the far front of the needle bed.

There are tons of youtube videos and instructional websites out there as machine knitting is still popular. This is a good website for information about the Bond machine.
 http://www.bond-america.com/help/help_usm_faq.html

The Jar

The things people throw away become part of a microcosm growing and/or decaying, being consumed and consuming. Each piece of detritus is the seed of change an evolutionary chink in our planet. The full potential of these plantings has yet to be realized. There is a cosmology of destruction and growth contained within an environment encapsulated. The glass jar will never decompose but the metal lid slowly oxidizes rusting away as chunks fall into and around. Once the air penetrates the semi-opaque contents are warmed by the sun slowly turning the jelly yellow-brown, releasing the unctuous aroma of petroleum within. In 50 years the soft pvc lining on the underside of the lid begins to decay perhaps cracking becoming brittle, taking over 450 years to breakdown. The glass jar may at some point be crushed melding container and contents with the mulch of rotted wood, leaves and dirt. Various bugs, seeds, plantlife unfortunate enough to fall into the jar become encased in the petroleum become part of the soup of jelly crushed glass, plastic and mulch.

Painterly Challenge

Every once in a while I do a painting that just does not want to be painted. 

At the outset of this painting I carefully planned my landscape, drawing it out in charcoal and planning where the colours would go.  I then executed an underpainting blocking some of the basic forms and the darker areas using raw umber and some lighter shades of the colours I wanted to fiinish the painting with.  The palette for this painting lime green,  red orange, chcolate brown and ceruleian blue.  I let the underpainting dry.   Then I started brushing thin coats of colour mixed with linseed oil.  Intent upon building the layers as I paint; fat over lean, light to dark to get the full effect of layering oils and to bring out the light through the colours.  A half an hour of concentrating intently as I paint and the drool starts to form at the corner of my mouth.  Next thing I am leaning back in my chair, brush in hand, head back, mouth open with snores softly issuing.

I awake abruptly feeling refreshed.  I chuckle as I realize that once again I am trying to subvert my nature as a painter.  I love to paint but usually with heavy impasto.  I love the texture of paint mixed to the consistancy of butter and then slathered onto the canvas.  The very fact that I fell asleep while doing my own painting, well its kind of sad, but simply demonstrates that I was bored out of my skull.

A painters style is something developed over time, most often over years of work. I believe that it is marked by what the artist finds most exciting about painting mixed at times with a little dose of luck. Whether an artist paints realistic, impressionistic, abstract, expressionist etc., the primary requirement to developing your skill is to paint and to keep on painting but paint what interests you.

The Best View

The best view can come from visiting the past or in this case sites laden with the past.  Seeing something old like this can give a fresh perspective.  What we leave behind becomes embedded in the landscape.  It becomes part of the landscape around us.

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Ordinariness and Inspiration

I took a snap as we were passing by mostly because something about the features drew my eye. The dull grey sky flattens the light and the ethereal quality of this image is enhanced by drawn and heavy clouds suspended over twin humps of forest in the distance. Railway lines, phone and hydro lines trace the boundaries of wilderness and act as familiar markers delineating the flatness of prairie.

Robert Kroetsch writes in Seed Catalogue of the indelible imagery of the Canadian landscape. His prairies are spare dry and dusty boned; the seeds of growth and the patterns of prairie life are unearthed touching upon a place that dominates as it nurtures. His poetry recalls the plainness of the prairies much like the place in this photograph. To me Kroetsch's poems drum a message of Canadian prairie and prairie living that inspires a host of familiar memories and images from the countryside I grew up in.  When you look at something that is so familiar its familiarity makes it ordinary you have to make an effort to appreciate the beauty.  To really see what makes a place remarkable you need to recognize its power, its ability to unite us and invoke a sense of the sacred.  This is what inspires me to paint.

Toe Challenged

Have you ever bought a pair of socks and after wearing them the first time found that the seam on the toe made the socks unbearably uncomfortable to wear?

I am always on the lookout for wool socks, that are well made, light and hopefully comfortable on the tootsies but occasionally I get suckered.  Like with the last six pack of socks I bought for my husband.  After the first wear they were pronounced unfit for duty.  That's eight whole dollars wasted.  I ask myself, should I throw them away or give them to a second hand store?  No! No way will I waste these socks instead I will attempt to re-knit the toe in a make work project that will involve hours of my time and energy.

I started in the kitchen cutting the toe off, had a nice light snack to bolster my energy and then moved to the living room. 

Comfortably ensconced in my couch I could deal with pulling the yarn back to the line of gray yarn indicating the beginning of the toe.  As I pull back the yarn individual stitches are revealed making it easier for the next part.

After a good stiff drink I began picking up the stitches all around the sock toe.  I don't remember how many there were but its important to pick up every stitch and to ensure that all strands are neatly over the needles.  I used 0 mm bamboo needles which are perfect for picking up the loops.  This process gave me plenty of time to consider factory knit socks. They can be terrific because they are made with very fine materials and very closely woven making them comfortable and sturdy.  Added value comes from not having to make them yourself.  However factory knit socks are often sewn shut along the toe leaving a bulky and uncomfortable seam leaving me, and my husband in this case, bitter and foot sore.

Once all your stiches are picked up the rest is a breeze!  Pick a lightweight, wool sock yarn for finishing the toe and knit it like you would a regular toe.  I like to decrease four stiches every row until I have around 22 stitches left then I will knit two together all around until I have around 5 stiches left which I draw up onto a loop.

Here are several finished socks.  They have been enthusiastically worn many times since I finished fixing them.  No more sore tootsies.   We just won't talk about how long it took to fix.  I can't say its rational, but making or even re-making things is good for the soul.