Odds and Ends (last one)

So I personally think an art project based on the colours and white would be just about the coolest thing EVAR. Plus I could write a major best selling book documenting the process, which would also be my dissertation in being a not-pastor.  Then I could stop battleaxing and just retire to a life of self-agrandizement, which is basically what artists have to do to get noticed these days. Unfortunately the thing keeping me from it is that a murex vat would cost about 60 grand to make. Major sad.

Anyway I asked mem if I should put historic references into the post because the arguments rely on history a lot. I hate putting references into a text because they distract from the thought flow, but I did write it so that most of it could be referenced pretty easily if I had to. So these are some of the sources I used (referencing process is harder since I don't know how I know things I learned 15-17 years ago anymore). Rey asked for the references so I'm finally getting this post out.

The cool thing about the subject is that it intersects with many nerdly pursuits: theology, biblical studies, chemistry, ancient history, textiles, archaeology, zoology and so on. Which in my opinion makes it super cool and awesome, but I know from the way most people's eyes glaze over that they don't always agree. If you're not one of the normal people, here is a bit of a list to make it easier for my fellow nerdlings to research. Consider this my bibliography :).

PS I don't even know which citation style to use because there are a lot of different disciplines. And I hate that crap, having gotten a 37% in apa (mla was better). So I'm adding by author, year, article, book or journal, (publisher) for the most part. Or if Rey complains, I'll just edit and make them links.

Barber, E.W. 1995. Women's work: The first 20,000 years. Women, cloth, and society in early times (W W Norton).

This book is easy to read and discusses the development of textile processes from the most ancient times to about 500 bc.

Cardon, D. 2007. Natural dyes (Archetype books). 

This is THE BIBLE of natural dyes. Waaaannnttt 

Guckelsberger, M. 2013. Purple murex dye in antiquity. I can't understand the citation cause it's all something not English and I'm a barbarian :( It's on academia.edu. This one has a lot of the ancient sources mentioning dyes, Including Pliny the Elder. 

Whiston, W (translator). 2009.  The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem of Flavius Josephus (Project Gutenberg). 
He discusses the colours as symbolic of the universe in Book V chapter 5, section 4.

Koren, Z.C. 2005. The First Optimal All-Murex All-Natural Purple Dyeing in the Eastern Mediterranean in a Millennium and a Half, Dyes in History and Archaeology 20, pp. 136– 149 (Archetype Publications).
 A lot of Koren's research can be found at https://edelsteincenter.wordpress.com. Definitely some cool stuff there. He seems to have done a lot of work advancing Isaac Herzog's contention that tekhelet is molluscan. Also he properly reduced the freakin murex vat unlike some others. That makes him WAY more credible.

Additionally on tekhelet there is the P'til Tekhelet foundation at http://tekhelet.com (This where I got the picture of the blue murex dyed fragment and references to the Babylonian Talmud).

Orna, M. V. 2013 Chemical history of colour (Springer). 

This book discusses all the early pigments and dyes, as well as how we see colour and produce dyes. Also a discussion on the rise of the modern dye industry and its relation to medicine and industry. 

Ruscillo, D. 2002. Reconstructing Murex Royal Purple and Biblical Blue in the Aegean, Archaeomalacology: Molluscs in former environments of human behaviour pp 99-106 (Oxbow Books).
More on producing purple and blue. The repeated discussion of the stank made me lawl. Mem would probably relate this to whenever he is talking about Rey.

Also, besides the murex blue, I got the picture of the murex robe from this site.

I've had the picture of the kermes-dyed mantle for a long time because Alexander McQueen used it in one of his designs as part of his final show, and as you all know I'm waiting for God to miraculously make me that good at sewing so I can copy it. So I'm not sure where I got that particular picture from but it is a pretty famous textile.

I also used bible gateway and the blue letter bible for the references, concordance and words. Usually for things like this I look at the NASB. Heavy on the end of Exodus, also Isaiah 1 and 4 and Ezekiel 44.

One of the things I left out entirely was the contrast between clothing and nakedness in scripture. There is a link, especially in Hosea and Ezekiel, but it just didn't fit and probably would have been another thousand words long. But it is a fun study of its own. 

I hate it when sites disappear

So I signed up for the library's art book challenge back in September, which is due in September of this year. I chose the provided theme of super/natural so that I could basically go to town illustrating mythology, which I have done since childhood. Because the book was so big I decided to add scans of old work also. I created specific illustrations and then flanked them with what I termed "echo pages"--pages which set the aesthetic of the culture from which the story arose and precede or follow the main illustration. I have favourite motifs and thus have carved stamps and images at the ready, so it made it a little easier to fill a book with so many pages. I also started doing all tip ins because the paper isn't the best and is lined.

I took pics of the finished spreads today and went to upload to 1001 journals but it appears it no longer exists. This sucks. I already did the work of saving them so I want to post somewhere. These aren't all the pics, just the ones that are completed two page spreads. Some turned out better than others.

The Opening page of the book. I'll add the final date when I have to return it, even though I know what it's going to be. There's no way I'm getting all these pages decorated--the book is simply too big for that. 

This is a thunderbird illustration. This one is the latest illustration, and it turned out not bad. I used frisket, watercolours and ink, and felt pen.  I still have to make the echo pages for it. 

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. this was done in felt pen and watercolour.  This is the main illustration with its echoing pages in insular style following: 

The next pages are some of the ATCs I received in a project called Denizens of Mythos. Two of the ATCs are missing because they're on the last page, which isn't a completed spread. 

Kitsune--Fox woman of Japanese folklore. This is the main illustration, followed by a drawing of two foxes taken from a Japanese print (not pictured). The backgrounds are traditional shibori patterns. 

The following pages are the K'awiil spreads. K'awiil is the Maya god of lightning and dynastic lineage (taking this from some of the creepier illustrations). For some reason he had a big old snake for a leg and I think he looks like a deranged Simpson's character. This illustration was done in crowquill and ink, and is a gatefold which opens. It is followed by a map covered in block prints I appropriated from steles of Lady Xoc. Unfortunately the blue ink was quite slow drying and stained the other piece. 

The next illustrations are of the Ulster Cycle and include the red hand of Ulster and my family coat of arms and motto. The main illustration is Conall the Victorious, our legendary ancestor and source of the motto (and according to some, the heads also are a reference to him)--thus my favourite character to draw.

This is a scan of a watercolour Chinese phoenix I did long ago--the original piece was ruined, alas. I drew the tail in markers on the second page.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu--based on the pic I drew of Enkidu when I was mocking people on theo about ANE crap. But it turned out to be a pretty sweet illustration in the end. Enkidu especially is one of my favourites. It is done in pitt pens. 

I do have other illustrations that are singles. I also want to add explanations of the illustrations so that people know what they in fact are. I only have just under two months to complete it, so I guess I have to get on this stuff.

Playing Chicken

Over Christmas I actually got to make a few things. All two of you who are part of the in crowd of theo already know about this, but posting it anyway for posterity:

Heh yeah I just stole the pictures off of Holly's blog. I guess the USian government H8s me now. Oh well, not like I ever played by other people's rules. 

I saw a chicken quilt on pinterest, and decided to make one for Holly since she is a pastoralist now--there has to be some advantage to having little char to care for. Although I'm sure little char can probably care for herself, I'm also pretty sure she's probably totally self-absorbed and narcissistic, which means she is very demanding. And she prolly tries to peck out the eyes of all the happy chickens named after hebrew letters who don't give her books even after they promised to. 

Anyway it's a pretty simple piece, just fused the pieces on and machine embroidered, and quilted in a freeform feather pattern. It's been a long time since I've done any extensive machine embroidery, so I wasn't sure how it would turn out (especially because I had no stablizer), but I used some old bounce sheets and went to it. Here is a shot Holly posted of the embroidery.

 Skillz-I still has em.

Theological Domination

As you all know, I totally think John Owen was an ENTJ. When I am conversing with his books (yes you have to converse with Owen in his books or you'll miss things) I see him ambitious, brilliant and trying to take over the theological world (Richard Baxter notwithstanding). His intuitive powers make him both difficult and fascinating. And now that he's enjoying a renaissance, I imagine he's probably ribbing Richard Baxter in heaven every time someone mentions him as England's greatest theologian, or the greatest Puritan theologian or greatest whatever.

When I decided to make John Owen as brother for Athanasius, I knew that as with Athanasius I had to choose a descriptive mood. Athanasius I had wanted to look indomitable, but I felt John Owen should be vested with a rather imposing sense of gravitas (though in real life he was much more jovial) to match his argumentation. Like a juggernaut, he's not stopping to ask you if you managed to hop on. If you don't get it, it's just going to run you over and crush you into pieces. And that's your problem you silly person.

This is how far I've gotten. He's coming along okay though some more contrast work has to be done. The hook in his nose was ANNOYING as anything. At least I think I've finally got everything where I want it, so it's mostly down to building up the highlights (which of course is the most time consuming part). Hopefully soon I'll be adding local colours and thinking about the background.

I mentioned previously that I liked Greenhill's portrait and mostly used that with imput from others. The eyes in Greenhill's work belie a certain weariness that his drivenness coupled with seeing every one of his children die must have imposed on him. Hoping I did that justice.


Still not sure about what to do with the background yet. I'm going to have to do some homework on that. I've been working a fair bit, but I do have more time now to make stuff. I put up shelves in my room in the apartment so that at least some of my art schtuff can be available-where I'm going to use it is another issue unfortunately.

Also I hate my flash because it's making the colour bleh.


Anyway it's coming along. Athanasius has returned home after his exile at SIAST, so he is currently staring at me and waiting for his brother. I'm working on it!

The Glory of Christ

that real view which we may have of Christ and his glory in this world by faith,--however weak and obscure that knowledge which we may attain of them by divine revelation,—is inexpressibly to be preferred above all other wisdom, understanding, or knowledge whatever...

The revelation made of Christ in the blessed Gospel is far more excellent, more glorious, and more filled with rays of divine wisdom and goodness, than the whole creation and the just comprehension of it, if attainable, can contain or afford. Without the knowledge hereof, the mind of man, however priding itself in other inventions and discoveries, is wrapped up in darkness and confusion.

John Owen, The Glory of Christ, preface to the reader.

As he lay dying, Owen was notified of the pending publication of this work. To this he replied that he had finally arrived at the long awaited day when he would see that glory in a way that he had never seen or could even imagine seeing in this world. He was ready to finally see the glory of Christ, truly as it is, with no glass, no veil. One can't help but think he was ready even as he wrote the words above. Ready to pass from glory to glory, and be transformed.




I am busy with school so I don't have time for much else but I hate the feely paper I have to write for class next week so I am skiving off at the moment. Athanasius is visiting SIAST library for a year (and everyone insists I should declare him finished-he is NOT finished-admittedly he might never be). Some people really gushed over him which was a little embarrassing, and one woman told me she was glad he wasn't white. (Anglicans...) But everyone seemed to recognize his indomitable stare, so that was cool. Hey I conveyed something.

Anyway I started John Owen as a brother for Athanasius over the summer-the noil was as difficult as ever to dye. I did it in logwood, let it soak for weeks, bathed it in iron and back to the logwood. Then I did a wash over it with soliel paint. It's very uneven, but not in a totally bad or unfixable way. That really showed up worse in the picture. I'll fix some of the worst of it later.

This one is a little different just because we know what John Owen basically looked like from contemporary portraits. I am using the John Greenhill portrait of him, which is the most detailed and I think captured his eyes best. I love his eyes in that one. It's also the only portrait including the man's actual hair. But I'm also using a few others for reference so it won't look just like that one-I think it is a tad idealized after all. I sketched it out and am pleased with the sketch. So far the big piece looks okay-I have to make the hook in his nose more apparent and work on the mouth.

As you can also see, while Athanasius is very low contrast, John Owen will be quite high contrast. The white layers have been rather heavy thus far, so I haven't added as many and I have a good imprint. I found a nice slubby black/grey duppioni that would do well for the background-not too shiny. I should probably buy some. I'm not as sure how I am going to work the background yet. John Owen is hard to pin down, but I am working with his work on communion with God by/and the glory of Christ at the moment-hense the name. I have some shadowy ideas on that, but I haven't come up with anything concrete. So I'll just work on the face for now.

With work and school, I don't have so much time to work on this, but I am thinking I will need at least some distraction some time or feely class will make me tear my hair out. So it's there, waiting. And these portraits require a fair bit of drying time and are easy to just pick up and work on a little here and there, so I think it will be ideal.

Regula Fidei

The Church, though dispersed through the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith:
in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them;
and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation;
and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father “to gather all things in one,” and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess” to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send “spiritual wickednesses,” and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning, and others from their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies Book I, Ch X

(isn't that sentence on the Holy Spirit just about the longest you've ever seen??)

Warning for Stan: Spoiler-if you like surprises in the mail, don't look any further. If you don't care or you're not Stan, go right ahead.

For those other two of you not in the know I have been working on a piece related to Athanasius for Stan for the last few months. It was designed at roughly the same time, and they were meant to be the beginning of a series.

Anyway because I am horribly lazy and fickle, only the two were ever designed, so I created this one for Stan in blue and copper/browns. It is a picture of Irenaeus, backed by Polycarp and lastly John (which I like to think is the Apostle just because I do and it makes the picture work). So it worked out like this:



The coppery lines across the faces is just the end of a thread I am using to quilt the background.

I still have that same old indigo vat. It freezes solid every year and every year I am surprised that it revives. I ran out of lye so it took an entire container of soda ash and over a week to balance the vat this time around, it was that acidic. But I did it-in fact the indigo gave the best colour I've ever gotten with it. I threw some silks and cottons in also at the time, with varying lovely colours. The colour is stunning and is a wonderful example of my earlier post on the luminosity of Natural dyes. I almost didn't want to paint over it. I darkened it with the tannin from some tea and it mellowed the colour and deepened it for a week or so afterward. This is another wonderful thing about natural dyes-surprises! The photo does not do the colour justice really.

Because the printer was being rather prickish in enlarging the image, I got to learn to make my very own projector from a shoebox, a camera lens, a mirror and a christmas tree light. It sort of worked-kind of. I don't want to do it again.

Here is the pen rendering of the design which was enlarged to become the pattern.

Because of the alkalinity of the vat (okay and because I could not find the noil I had used for Athanasius) I decided to use linen. While it worked out okay and I think that is the reason I got such a good colour, I don't think I'll use linen again. It started to pill as I scrubbed paint on there. The slubs also made an even layer of paint impossible. You can see the slubs and it isn't smooth like the application on Athanasius. It is also smaller, so there is less detail.

Except for those snags the paint went on okay. I am relatively okay with it.

I used the same pattern I had made in gesso for Athanasius to do the rubbing for the background. What can I say, I'm lazy.

I had a hard time deciding how I would add the words to the bottom, so I left it for awhile. Eventually I decided to do a rubbing so I used some old cerne relief paint that I had to pipe out the letters on a piece of paper and then rub over top of them with the copper paintstick. The piece moved when I went to do a second go over at the top, so the letters are not so clear there. I did go back and add some more paint in to render them clearer and some blue ink to make them stand in relief a little more. I actually like the deconstructed ancient look of the letters, even if they are likely quite difficult to read. It is the first part of the above quote that is used. I am thinking I might brown out the letters a little because as copper as they are now they are a little overwhelming.

I found a piece of dupionni that sort of mimicked the copper of indigo blossoms reasonably by being copper shot with blue. I decided to use it for the backing (it is not as orange as it appears in the photo because of the blue warp).

I've still got most of the quilting to do, but I don't foresee many snags there. I put the batting between the linen and the silk, and the edges of the silk are already finished and ready for hanging. Any day I don't have to do a binding is a good one. The linen is a little wonky, but I think it's livable. I'll update when the quilting is done, probably in the next few weeks.



ETA: Here it is with I think the quilting done. As you can see I unfortunately placed it a little crooked, but it hangs okay over all, better than I thought it might given the fact that the centre is so much heavier.

I should quilt the faces to contour them, but I am really wary of doing so. I might and I might not. The colours read truer on the first photo than on this one. Of course the silk is not so orange as it is in either.

Richard looked at it and said "Charlton Heston as John!" Okay so I guess it does kind of look like Charlton Heston. Haha. I hope you don't mind that Stan.

Two Ways

Didache 1:1, folded book

I got this idea a while back and today I decided to see if it would actually work. The answer is yes...and no. It folds up to about a 2.5 inch square. The folding is not the easiest thing and the join in the middle is rather fagile-I backed it with a skinny little piece of fabric hoping it would hold. Also as I used relatively thick watercolour paper (unlike the plain bond paper of the mockup) I found that I had to cut the top right open and add a piece behind to make it actually close.

And of course the lettering is not as exact as I might like, it never is. I lettered partly with the parallels and partly with traditional dip pens (the white side). The gradation was overpainted once I had the letters in place. That turned out kind of meh. All in all it could have been better and I am tempted to try a second rendition as this one didn't take so long (it did eat up the best part of my day and much swearing was heard over the small size of the art room when things kept getting tipped over...)

I do like the way the background painted, I used Sennelier inks (they are very nice) and Caran D'Ashe Neocolour crayons (also very nice). I hit it with the blowdryer to get some patterning also.

These pictures are from my camera phone because when I went to take a picture with mama's camera it crapped out with the lens half exposed. This is the third time this has happened with the powershots, twice with mine and now with mama's. I thought maybe they had gotten banged or something, but I didn't do anything to this one. This is very irritating.

Anyway teeny cell phone pics:


This is the way it is supposed to lie when open, I had this opposing folds idea very much in my mind, but am now wondering if a flag book style would not suit the idea better (simply because it is fragile)? How would I add the words right though. Hmm.

And this is just what the cover looks like (this one's rather yellow-the cover is actually covered in silver/blue duppioni)

The Golden Decade

Constantine's sons favoured opposite sides in the controversy. The first return was brief for Constantius again deposed Athanasius and after hiding out in the city for awhile he escaped to Rome. In the intervening years the Arians held counsels and wrote their own creeds while the Nicenes countered, many of whom had ended up in exile in the West under the protection of Constans and the Bishop Julius.
At the end of his second exile, Athanasius had been from his people for about seven years and now the Arian bishop who had replaced him was dead. In those years Eusebius also died. Constantius finally offered to reinstate him and Athanasius returned to his beloved flock In Alexandria. The Golden Decade had begun.


Aren't you glad we're to the part of the story where we get rid of Eusebius? Happy turning point there. Ding dong and all that.

It hasn't been seven years but this piece has languished some-though I have regularly been building highlights on it. Particularly given how the test piece worked out, I was afraid of embroidering it as I had originally planned. I still think that would have looked awesome, but I love the piece too much to take many risks with it at this point. I mean I'm sure we can all agree that the test piece looked pretty awful.

Anyway I think that Athanasius would not be impressed to know that fear of ruination would keep me from moving forward, so I decided to abandon the original idea for the embroidery and did running stitches by hand instead. these will be built up in the quilting which I have decided will also be done by hand. The contrast and texture I had intended is simply not there and while I think this does hurt the piece, I can live with this as opposed to an unmitigated disaster of threads.

Perhaps I will expand that coptic theme until I am better at it-companion pieces! Anyway here is how the piece stands. The dupioni has been added and stitches done for the moment.


Because I had chosen to make the halo and the world basically the same size, this meant an unusually small halo, and it is set oddly in the picture because of the shading. That was the thing I played with again and again in the original layout.

I was leary of my original idea of applying gold leaf in a deconstructed manner, but decided to go ahead with it. Now I am regretting that a little...Here is a close-up of the way the halo turned out. I think I can still do some salvaging once paint has dried. I still need to apply the 96th layer of paint to even the intensity out, and some other things.



As mentioned, varying intensities in the paint at the moment are leaving it looking a little wonky, and I have a good amount of work to do on that halo to fix it. But once I decide whether I want to do the edge treatment I had considered then forgotten about then found again, ( I like it but am again leaning against it) I can move on to quilting. Then it's only a few more exiles until finishing.

Mine!

In his lecture on the background of the British drawing collection owned by the National Gallery, the curator who originally put this exhibit together reminded the audience that all of the drawings belonged to the people of Canada. So I already own a CRM-I just have to share it with 30 million other people. I don't know why they wouldn't let me get my time's worth out of it at by keeping it at my house for awhile.

Okay I didn't steal it, but I did buy the retrospective book that went with the exhibit, and by posting this picture from that am likely violating copyright so I'm still breakin the laaaawww.

At the time this was painted, the Mackintoshes careers were in the tank. While architectural and other design were abandoned, Charles focused on serene landscapes and continued doing his beautiful, painstakingly detailed flower paintings. I was reminded of the famous quote from a lecture he gave:

Art is the Flower...Life is the Green Leaf.
Let every artist strive to make his flower a beautiful living thing, something that will convince the world that there may be, there are, things more precious, more beautiful-more lasting than life itself.

I was so drawn to the cartouche, which he inscribed with his own and Margaret's initials in pencil.

The Salon itself was interesting. They had organized lectures, a piano performance (Mama and I only recognizing the most common of the four pieces he did-Clair de Lune-since we are part of the unwashed masses), a rather amusing tableau in which the performers re-created one of the paintings, and a poetry reading. All of these were interspersed with periods for conversational circles relating to various subjects. The major complaint I had was that the conversational circles were almost impossible to join in because we couldn't hear a thing. I tried very hard to hear the fellow who was involved in the work with the synchrotron, but to no avail.

At least we got booze and food-totally the redeeming part for mama. :-P She said it was just like all the functions she used to go to with dad; she had no idea what the hell they were on about half the time.


Here is what 100 of my dollars looks like. Why do art books always have to be so expensive? I think someone is trying to keep them from we unwashed masses or some such thing. Okay and they have lots of pictures-and colour ones at that.
I had to go back the next day and buy the book as the gift shop was closed during the Salon, then went back a third time and bought the Lanigan collection book. Since admission is by donation, I visited my favorite pictures-and especially the CRM-every time. :)
I didn't buy them at once was because I didn't think I could really afford both until mama the buying enabler got involved and told me to go back for the one on the left. Though both exhibits were beautiful, some of my favorites were from the Lanigan collection (he is reported to own the most impressive personal collection of PRB and related works in the country).


This one does however partially belong to me:

This is a detail of a large and meticulous pen sketch by David Wilkie chronicling a visit to Scotland of George IV. I just love this guy, he's all "who gives a rip about that fatarsed German king? Don't these people know if it's not Scottish it's crrap?!"

Isn't this Asenius?

Athanasius proved to be a rock of intolerance to the Arian position. If he would not move, his enemies would dislodge him from his seat of power by other methods. An absurd smear campaign ensued. Athanasius was even accused of murdering a certain Asenius to obtain his hand for magic. The problem was Asenius was still very much alive and with both hands intact. No matter. the Arian Eusebius had the emperor's ear, and continued to put a bug in it until Athanasius was forced into exile in the west, where he remained until Constantine's death. Out of exile for a short time, but Eusebius and his new best friend Constantius weren't finished yet.


Updated: (click on the picture for a nice large version with reasonable detail) I have finished the painting for the most part, so I cut the fabric down and took this pic. Now I just have to wait a few days for it to dry so I can work on stitching. Not entirely sure what I will do, I am afraid I'll wreck it! I am also abit wary of the gold leaf I intend to apply-I've never worked with it before, and I imagine fabric to be a less than easy ground for it.
I think I will be conservative in embellishment-much more so than I had originally planned. I do hope to give it more definition, as I can't do much more with the paint. This is also about how dark the piece actually is-the fabric continually darkened for weeks after that iron bath!


I have been awake for 25 hours. I woke up far too early and finally transferred the design for Athanasius onto the silk. After coming home from work, I went right back to it. I smell like oil paint, a good feeling. At the moment the piece is too low contrast (the strength of my method is it's subtlety) I don't want it quite that subtle however. I have lightened all of these photos for better readability.

This is the first rendering of the face-I particularly liked the way it looked-less smirky than the drawing. However it was so dark it was almost unreadable in the photo. More layers of light had to be added. It doesn't look as well now though.

This one is the top laying on the floor as I was working it, paintstiks, brushes and my coat surround it. Yes I got home, took my coat off and worked at it! This is also the first time I have used sticks rather than tube oil paint (They were the thing that took months to arrive!). I like the dryness of them as they go onto my brush much more lightly, reducing the need to brush as much off.
I continually took photos to get an appreciation for how it was reading.


This is how it looks right now. He looks a bit more cranky in this picture (less so in life), perhaps he is thinking of the Eusebii (I don't know if that is actually a word...). the coptic textile design has been rendered in gold to the left. the first attempt gave me a much more readable design, but oh well.
There is still much work to do, but I feel better to have finally started work on the actual piece after all these months of stalling. I designed this just before my practicum-almost a year ago! I kind of wish I could leave it dark and low contrast; it looks very cool that way, dark and moody.

Drawring of the Day

Sometimes I wonder how much of a wingnut I seem to to everyone else. Then I realize I am a wingnut and it's only fitting that I appear that way.

I am listening to old recordings of David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (he had the best accent, didn't he).
Anyway, I think he had a wonderful face so here is my drawing of the day: D Martyn Lloyd-Jones, done in a hatchy directional manner. Not really sure why I decided to do that, but I think it turned out nicely regardless. It was done relatively quickly, as I have an affinity for the look that produces.

I used the photo on the cover of the first biography by Iain Murray, which looks 20s-30s. Really Lloyd-Jones' face got more interesting as he got older (gained character of course) and I would have used a later picture, but this younger picture of him is a particular favorite type of photo portrait-good lighting which translates to sketch nicely and three-quarters view is my preferred angle.


I think I would do well on the weird peripheries of Christian blogging, heh (not the heretic country that is, just the tangential ). Anyone else in the blogosphere referencing Lloyd-Jones is going to mention his meticulous expositional preaching and theological output, for better or worse. Only here do you get an exclamation about what a delightful face he had. Told you I was a wingnut.

For the record, I have been set myself a challenge of a drawing a day for a month, mostly mundane things to improve my quick spot drawing. Today I decided to fall back on more familiar territory, hence the portrait.

You think to escape, but it can not be

Earlier parts of the saga are here. :)

Once Alexander was gone, his authority (and therefore the battle against Arius) would fall to his protege Athanasius. I am sure he had no warning of how much trouble the Arians would be. Then again, I am also sure they were completely unaware that one little man could create such colossal havoc for their evil cause.
Though the Son knew-from eternity past of course.



I FINALLY got a reasonable colour on the noil for Athanasius.
I initially used synthetic dye with acid and it went frickin purple! (I think the shelf life on those particular dyes is about over) a quick tea dye browned it a bit. Then I worked on it with an entire bottle of silk dye-and ran out of that. Last attempt was multiple extractions from walnuts and tea bags (no less than 7) allowed to reduce down into concentrated stock, a long hot soak and finally a post-mordant of iron to react with the tannin (decided against chrome when I changed the layout). It is still a dark medium brown-I would have liked it darker and I may do a second dip with the tannin/iron if I feel so moved. But I don't think I am going to be able to get a really dark shade on that particular fabric. Much of the first dyebath rinsed out.

Athanasius has proven as troublesome to me as he was to Arian heretics. I have been trying to print out the pattern and used a good 50 pieces of paper before I got something approaching the correct size (stupid printer! When I type 20 inches into the size box that means it should print to that size!!) >:(

It also took one heck of a lot of pondering (granted I was listening to apologetics.com on the computer at the time) to come up with a solution to creating a raised form of the coptic textile I am using for the background. I was thinking of carving, molding, lying-the final winner was to syringe it on to paper using gesso. I was surprised that it worked (especially given the heaviness of the silk), though I will have to be careful with the rubbing as the design is only slightly raised.

I am almost afraid to begin work on the actual piece! Perhaps I've already run my stream of crappy luck with this one. What else is going to happen?!

Mucha Me

I finally got a free day! (I just finished working 6 shifts in 5 days, figure that out.) I certainly did not expect to be working so often, though I was warned this could happen. Soon the regular staff members will be back from holidays, so I should be getting fewer call-ins.

Also my brother and his son (Aves who is pictured in the footer of this blog), SIL and the hellions were here on the weekend. Those days never count as "days off". :)

Anyway, instead of being particularly productive on things I should be doing, I made a self portrait in the style of Alphonse Mucha:



I deesigned it on a whim, like everything I do. For whatever reason, I thought I'd digitally colour the original sketch. I have learned that I hate digital painting. My hands are killing me (yeah both of them-I drew on the tablet with my left and moused with my right-what do right handed people do!?) and it took forever! Of course my OCD-like tendencies would not allow me to quit when it was half done. This is why I rarely do large scale works.
I'm surprised at how even with the tablet I had a difficult time with line control. You can see this in the drunken look of the heavier lines. Bah. Still it looks kind of nice, if simpler and messier in general than Mucha's own pieces. The flower...thingy turned out weird though, I might go back to it when my hands are feeling better and I get my next day off, whenever that may be.

Athanasius out of exile...for awhile

I haven't had so much to post (as usual) as I am spending too much time lurking at other people's blogs, and not doing anything constructive. I did make a dress last night, first thing I've actually done in a while.

Soon all of my supplies for Athanasius will be here, and I can get to work on that. I bought some lovely silk noil (raw silk) for him-It is nice and heavy, and not as slubby as is normal. I am hoping the paintstiks will work overtop of it.

As I have often said, all the deadliest poisons make the greatest art supplies. To that end, I must get out the evil poisonous chrome so I can mordant and dye the underpiece. Yes I am one of those pernicious miscreants who uses chrome! That level of depravity does indeed exist. A walking testimony against Pelagius, that's what dyers who use chrome are.

Anyway, I don't think I ever posted it, but this was the compromise I came to in the design:



The flow is a bit improved, which I needed to bring the eye back to the trefoil. Plus, I still will be able to have my crop (well after a fashion). The earth will likely not be that dark; photoshop rendered it darker than I liked as it recedes a little too much. The background should also be darker if all goes well and the chrome does not kill me-this time. I already know that is how I will die-it's just a question of when and whether I'll get the latest art project done before it happens.

I don't like the way his face turned out in this rendition and will try to go closer to the original rendering when I do it. I've never used paintstiks before, only unarchival oil paint-I do hope the application goes well on that slubby texture!

I fear I may have gotten a tad ambitious with the idea, so we'll have to see how it decides to turn out.

Athanasius Contra Mundum

Anyone who knows me is aware that when the new heavens and earth have come, and I am in the City of God, I am going to make a journey to find two people. The first is Jeremiah; I feel so kindred with him. The second, Athanasius, is just one of my absolute heros.

I decided to make a piece of Athanasius on a bit of a whim, and I thought I might document a piece from the beginning to end here. So yeah I'm still in the sketch stage with this one, working out a conundrum already.
The original idea that came to me was of his face severely cropped in half, with three interlocked circles behind him. I know that is technically bad composition, so I drew the entire face. Everyone who has looked at it so far (that being mama and dad) has liked the full face version; I still want it cropped. Once I decide what I will do, then I can start working on the full version of it.
All two of you who may occasionally view the blog may weigh in if you like; which version is more pleasing to you?

Here is the full sketch (yes the left eye is wonky because I figured since it wasn't going to be in the finished piece, I could be lazy with it) :




This is how it would look cropped like I want (with some things moved to fit):



I *really* want to work a coptic style textile into the background. I am thinking I'll work a fair amount of metallics into it as well, and I just know I will swear alot at it for insisting it must have them.

Dawn of Kitsch

I love the internet! You can find some intriguing people and philosophies that you never would have guessed existed. Yeah there's a lot of junk, but there are some nuggets worthy of consideration there too.

On the creative front, I found the site of Odd Nerdrum to be a very interesting read. Not that I necesarily agree with them, but certainly an unusual theory on 'art'. I'm going to guess they aren't big fans of Kant...

The basic line of thought on what the "kitschpainters" call art is proving to be more prominent than I would have expected as I dig around. I've said it for years, and obviously so have many others; the modern and postmodern eras are pretty much over, and being assailed ever more. I suppose once the modern became the very establishment it meant to topple, doom was assured. We are in a transition period these days, and an uncertain future awaits. I don't think we can predict what changes will come yet, though it is apparent some return to skill will be part of it. Perhaps the 21st century will indeed be the dawn of Kitsch.

Quotable:
Do not allow Art to retain its moral authority over ability.

Year of the Veteran

I got the idea to do this piece for the year of the veteran as a greyscale quilt with deep red accent back in June. It took so long to get around to it because I wanted the portrait my grandma has in her front room-and I can NEVER get anywhere because of the stupid dog. I finally had to get mama to take this pic of it:



This is a large portrait of my Great Grandfather from WWI. He would have been around 25 at the time. I love this picture, I believe that is partly because he looks so much like my brother. This is the main focus of the piece. I played around with different gradations of grey and red, and then added a second photo, taken from WWII period.

My Great Grandfather served in both wars, was blown nearly to pieces in the first one and a veteran's guard in the second. We tried to look up his records once-the number of Joseph Smiths was astounding. He did not have a middle name. He truly was but one of many-so many names in a long list. In some ways I feel like this makes him all the more representative of those faceless names. Of the many, here is one. One who was real, who lived in more than a single line on the list of Joseph Smiths.

I never even came close to actually knowing him (he died relatively young-likely as a result of his war wounds) but there are long stories I could tell about him as my grandma and her sister have talked about him enough to nearly bring him back if only in one's mind.

It seems he was haunted by the inhumanity of a stupid war all his life. He was both physically and psychologically scared from his war experiences (being nearly buried alive would do that to a person) and for the most part would not speak about them. He was, as many others, shell-shocked. I added a piece of silver into the eye of the older version of the quilt, because he had a literal glint in the eye from shrapnel.

My dad remembers him as a 'dour little Scotsman' constantly giving him heck about something-but he was truly generous to a fault-would help anyone with anything. His house was marked by the hobos in the 30's as a friendly place, and my grandma remembers waking up some mornings to the floor littered with young men and boys who'd come in the night looking for a place to stay. That was how my grandparents met.
Some of us also inherited our somewhat *fiery* temperament from him... :)


Anyway, technical stuff; It ended up 17x21 in size, as I am of the school of letting the quilt decide what size it wants to be. :) the top went together quite easily. I dyed and painted the fabrics to get the right range and laid a piece of tulle over the whole thing to hold the smaller pieces in place, because fusible web is like socialism; a good idea in theory, but unless there happens to be a spare Tommy Douglas around it usually gets messed up in real life and falls apart. Anyway. If you know me (and my dear old bertha-yes I named my iron) you know what's coming. Why yes I did melt the tulle. Right on the elder face. At the binding stage. AND I was using a pressing sheet to protect it! Grrrr...

I tried to salvage it, and while I did manage to improve it, the quilt is now wonky and you can see where the new piece of tulle has been sewn in. Sigh. It looked gorgeous before that. But somehow it seems fitting that the quilt should be damaged, since it represents a man who did not leave this life anywhere near unscathed.

Indian Princess

I made this quilt about a month ago for a swap on the quiltart list. As it was annonymous, I didn't want to post until said swap was over (as you spammers might let the cat out of the bag-I know you are like giggling schoolgirls in the area of keeping secrets). Anyway, choices were revealed today, so here it is.

This was originally a design I did for a deco. It's original, but owes pretty much everything to Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh-as I've said before, I rip off the work of she and CRM a fair bit (I'm just "inspired" by them that's all).
The center is whole cloth, dry brushed with oils (the archival nuts would detest me, yes) in a palette based on the medicine wheel plus umber. It's quilted in a 35 weight brown thread, and beaded in a rather random manner. I was quite pleased with how it turned out-and also pleased that someone chose it in the swap!




Here is a detail of the girl's face, feathers and some of the beading:


She will be heading to a new home soon, and I will be receiving a cool beaded quilt in return!

Yeah boyah

That's right, tomorrow is P-day. I can't wait! I feel like a kid...

I made this in the spirit of diy concert gear, but am unsure if I will make it into a cuff as originally planned or something else.
Regardless of what I end up wearing, I am going to enjoy this! I haven't been to a concert since well the last farewell tour of one of my favorite bands, Big Sugar.
Only one more sleep! AaAAAaaHHhhHHhHhhh!

hammerquilt

hammerquilt
Originally uploaded by char111.

Yeah, we got another digital camera and now I can post a pic of the Hammerquilt!