Category Archives: Childhood

Can you tell what it is yet?

Posted on by
Kiss

Kiss

Oil on Canvas
I enjoy looking at paintings that are a little bit ambiguous – where everything isn’t spelled out, and your eyes and imagination get to play with the image.  I aim to achieve this in my work, but sometimes it is difficult to know when I’ve given too much information, and when I’ve given too little.  So my question is – what do you see in this image?  Is it blindly obvious, or are you totally confused?

Boy with bike – oil painting

Posted on by
Boy with bike oil painting

Boy with bike oil painting

Oil on canvas.  Much of this was painted by taking the paint back off to expose the canvas underneath – rather like using an eraser on a charcoal drawing.  I like the soft effect that this creates, consistent with an old faded photograph, or a fading memory.

Playing with masks

Posted on by
id with mask

id with mask

After the Hebden Bridge Parade, I’ve had the idea of making more masks.  I’ve been further inspired to do this by watching the progress of Thingumajig Theatre on their blog.  So here I’ve finally pulled out my sculpting materials and had a go at a doll-like mask.  I was working with modelling clay (like plastacine) rather than traditional clay, and it is rather horrible to use.  For my next ones, I’ll get hold of some proper ‘muddy’ clay which I much prefer working with.  This is papier  mache using brown paper (recycled packaging).  I’ve left it unpainted for now, as I quite like the colour and surface as it is.  Who knows quite where I’m going with this, but I’d like to keep playing.   Masks are quite interesting to me as a symbol of the way that people can wear different ‘masks’ or identities in the different areas of their life.

Drawing from imagination

Posted on by

doll and crow version 1

Pencil in sketchbook.

This is a new and challenging exercise for me.  Usually, I find an image to paint or draw, and then work out what meanings can be read from it.  To try something different, I tried to think how to express an idea through drawing.  This is entirely done from imagination with no visual reference (can you tell?!)  It is the first part of a series which I am working on, exploring my reactions to fairy tales – and the role of the ‘princess’ in particular.

Related to this, I’ve rediscovered the old Ladybird Books ‘Well Loved Tales’.  I’ve managed to find a couple of these books which seem very familiar from my childhood – ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘The Princess and the Pea’.  Looking at them again, some of the illustrations are very familiar indeed, whilst others I can’t remember at all.  Obviously as a child, I had favourite pictures which I looked at again and again.  I plan to use this somehow – but I’m not sure how yet!