sunday scribblings

I liked to read words on a sunday
and feel them slip-slide down my throat.
it's rather like drinking a large glass of milk
which has curdled
or plunging into a pool of mud
which is bottomless. I used to
taste words as I read them but
now I find I prefer to
down them quickly.
Eyes across a page, fingers on a spine
I collect hollows without meanings.

"collector personality"

reflections

I started a story called Colour and Light over the summer. It took a very dark turn and I find it difficult to continue writing. In the simplest way, this photograph seems to capture the essence of that story. I wanted it to be all sparkles and glints but the shadows gathered around the edges and now it seems impossible to break out from them.

I suppose this concludes the week-long theme project, Doors Opening/Art Homework. I enjoyed posting my pictures. I hope that you have enjoyed looking at them.

It is feeling stranger and stranger, writing this blog on my own. Emily & me started it together as a co-operative and mutual decision. She is alive and well, but unable to access Internet. It's like you are playing badminton and swing your racquet only to find that the shuttlecock has disapeared into thin air.

journey around school

I had english literature beforehand.


But we started in the art block.


We were sent out-side


I found myself staring


at the many things on the wall.


Nooks and crannies,


whole compositions,


lines and angles,


Colours and shapes.



Don't forget to look up,


even when you feel trapped.

doors opening

Last week I returned to school to start my A-level course. I'm studying French, German, English Literature -and Art. Of course.

I had my first art lesson today. I'm being taught by two teachers, one to take the thematic project, the other life drawing lessons. I'm really excited about the latter, we're going to have life drawing sessions with a professional model every Wednesday until Christmas. People always talk of the figure being the hardest thing to draw, but it happens to be my favourite. I cannot abide drawing landscapes, and still lifes often seem to lack interest. It's people I'm interested in, and people I want to work with. The theme for our coursework is Doorways, and my homework for the week is to "Take 10 photographs of doorways. This does not mean that they have to be doors."

I generally use my digital camera, although I yearn for the ability to use real technical DLRs with real film which you can sink your teeth in to. Here is the first of the ten photographs, and I'll post a little explanation as well. I'm going to say that this homework will be the theme of the fortnight here on Idle Dreaming, as Emily is still unable to be online.

Please feel free to join in with this mini-project if you want to!

#01 sewing machine

I've always been able to sew, and my Paw Paw taught me basic functions on the machine when I was very little. But since taking a short course in g.c.s.e. textiles I have broadened my mind about clothing and creation. Taking the course, and perfecting the usage of those Berninas, Brothers, Toyotas and Singers - plus this one, my very own Frister Rossmann - made me remember that I do actually have a talent, and now I dream of being a costume designer. All since learning how to thread the sewing machine.

sunday scribblings

There's a time every night when I
Get that sinking feeling, it's a
Place in my mind where the
Shadows come to meet. There's a
Flaw in my self which I
Know I can't erase, where I
Plan things too much:
They can never be the same.
I am thinking of one name.

"that sinking feeling"

What happened to Idle Dreaming? Emily has been off-line and I have been busy living. The Clothing as Art project will definately get back into gear soon, I promise. It's something I'm really looking forward too, and I'm waiting till Emily is feeling better. Meanwhile I shall be writing occasionally on here.

Roy Lichtenstein + Mark Rothko

I missed a day last week, so I am combining two artists into one post.

Roy Lichtenstein

Mark Rothko

"I am not an abstract painter. I am not interested in the relationship between form and color. The only thing I care about is the expression of man's basic emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, destiny."

Elisabeth Vellacott

If you've read all of the lists on the sidebar you'll notice that Elisabeth Vellacott is amongst my "loves". I really like the shapes in all of her pictures. This is one of my favourites precisely due to that. The arch is reflected in the sloping shoulders of the dwarf, his stout figure in the bright shabby coat a contrast with the stark, cold black-suited woman.

I also like Vellacott because she really seemed to mix about her dry and wet media, combining pastel with inks, which is something I like to do as well. Additionally she just sounds like one cool old lady.

The painting on the left is called "The Dwarf", by Elisabeth Vellacott, 1953, oil on canvas.

Here is a short biography of hers.

More works.

Info on The Dwarf.

Other favourites are "The madwoman banging her dustbin-lids" (movement is captured so cinematically); "Evening walk no. 2" (emotion); and "The Queue" (you feel their boredom).

Maggie Taylor

A dramatic change of pace regarding the artists, one of my next artists to focus on will be Maggie Taylor.

Her work reminds me of a mixture between fairytales and dreams - which in some ways can be the same thing. The fantastic and unusual blended with imaginary things.

Gustave Klimt

Emily introduced you to our secret project in the last post so I thought that I'd mention a few more artists who are going to be involved. There should be a total of 10 artists, five each, and here is one which I'm including.

You will of course know of Gustave Klimt. He & I share the same birthday, which is Bastille day, although there are several underlying differences between us:

1. Gustave Klimt was 96 years older than me,
2. Gustave Klimt was undoubtedly a pervert and,
3. Gustave Klimt was a man.

Best known for his iconic portrait in the shape of an erect phallus, you are probably familiar with The Kiss. (see right). The Kiss isn't actually my favourite picture. Klimt's portraits embody colour in a way that is so rich, yet he manages to not let it be overpowering. The faces, pale and stark by comparison with the gold-leaf shrouds his figures wear, draw the viewer's eyes to them immediately. There is a great sense of passion.

Klimt isn't a painter whose works I love, in the sense that I like the portraits but he wouldn't be on my list of favourites, far from it. So why did I choose to include him? Not sure myself really, perhaps the answer will lie in sleep.

clothing as art: part 2

over the next month or so, Anushka and I are going to be having a secret 'challenge' of sorts. to introduce this, over the next few days I will be writing a little bit on a few artists which are involved in this secret project.

first off, one of my recently discovered favorites: Edward Hopper. I had never heard of him, though I had seen one or two of his paintings. the Smithsonian magazine had a very interesting article on his work -- I will include a few excerpts from it as well as photos of Hopper's work.

-Rooms by the Sea

"Painting did not come easily to Edward Hopper. Each canvas represented a long, morose gestation spent in solitary thought. There were no sweeping brushstrokes from a fevered hand, no electrifying eurekas. He considered, discarded and pared down ideas for months before he even squeezed one drop of paint onto his palette."


""Hopper simply happens to be a bad painter. But if he were a better painter, he would, most likely, not be so superior an artist.""
-Clement Greenberg


"Hopper's 'equivocal human figures engaged in uncertain relationships mark his paintings as modern' as strongly as his gas pumps and telephone poles."