getting ready for the new year...

A quick post today before I get into the interior painting I have taken on... see visual eclectica blog for that story! Its the time of the year that, given I am home on holidays, there is a chance to rethink and remake... starting with the new header here. Not sure how long it will be kept... but change as they say... you know the rest!

I have so many ideas, projects and studio/painting plans that I decided could wait whilst I freshened up my home and created some all important order in my domestic scenario. The beauty of that is you find things that will ultimately be used in the work... and you clear your head in a way that allows for more calm and order ... a very good thing!

Ive added these photos from my UK residency at the Millennium Seed bank in West Sussex. I wrote extensively about the UK Research trip in my latest E-Newsletter available from mid December. You'll find an overview and extensive notes on the places I visited with plenty of photos along the way!

E-newsletter header

Home over a month now I am still realising how many photos I took that I haven't yet looked at properly. Around xmas day I worked on journal and postcards I  started over there... but I've not been getting round to taking photos at the moment. Something I must amend as there are a number of things I wish to capture.

This was my desk workspace in my room at the MSB. It was set in the midst of a huge estate and Botanic Garden at Wakehurst Place. You can read all about that in my latest E-Newsletter.

The journal I managed to work on extensively in my stage... here opened at a watercolour drawing of a fossil seed cupule.

Pages from the journal...

painting in my mind!

I've had a huge couple of weeks writing... so the painting is on hold at present!

Tonight ... after yet another long day writing about my UK trip for a report... and also completing the E-newslteer about to go out anyday now.... I started viewing images on my tumblr site Seed Capsules.
I changed the template I use some months ago and now I really do have a site that has images tumbling out of the screen. You can scroll on and on and the view is of two columns with just a narrow band between images. I was sitting at my large desk top screen remembering each image I've reblogged there and marvelling at the density of visual stimulation and intellectual property in the collection of images which rolls out.

Its really quite inspiring to receive this outpouring... OK...its only a smallish screen image, not necessarily good resolution in most... and yet the magic and potency of certain images does seem apparent. Some images have a kind of totemic power to them... they actually convey qualities that touch one. I do find that curious and surprising. Mac computers have that light behind the screen and a lovely clarity...is that all it is....
i don't think so.

Go see if you see what I mean.... visit Seed Capsules here.

WHat i found scrolling through these images was a certain lushness in some... wonderful painterly qualities, others its the compositions or shapes... whatever... what it did do is make me feel really keen to again get immersed in the paint. Haven't had a chance to paint since that short trip to the coast and before that at the Millennium Seed bank. I'm glad Xmas is coming up... i want to make the most of some free time!

I don't like to post anyone else's images here simply because it might create confusion... but these two images stood out tonight and reminded me of qualities I like in a work.

suchasensualdestroyer:


Aboriginal (unknown group, Kimberley, Western Australia), Pendant, pigment/pearl shell, c. mid-20th c.

(via huamao)

Martin Assig
Nur M. 1996
Enkaustik auf Leinwand.
160 x 100 cm.

MORE

This is by the same artist and was at the link above as well:

Martin Assig

Beide Fridas
1999. Enkaustik und Tempera auf Holz. 185 x 136 cm. 

Interesting to take time to appreciate how someone uses their materials and works the surface ... colour...composition. Things to think about here.

well thats my experience tonight of 'painting in my mind'... as I slowly mused my way through all the images I found paintings being prompted from my own free flowing thoughts and associations.

so my task is to try and realise some of the promptings from my imagination....

stay tuned!