A Line is a Line...

I popped down to Middlesbrough to catch the tail end of the Drawing in Progress exhibition at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. The exhibition displayed MIMA's recent acquisitions of American post-war drawings. G's and my favourite was Fred Sandback's Untitled from c.1987, in which we pondered whether the black and yellow described the edges of the gap between the vellum sheets; or were the lines themselves the gap, separating the vellum sheets.

I also enjoyed drawing the front of the MIMA building, and particularly Lawrence Weiner's A Line is a Line for All That. Struck me a sentence about line would look nice in continuous line writing. But I would say that, wouldn't I.

I made MIMA a gift of one of my wandering lines on one of their comment cards, above. :)

It's not that I don't like giclee...

(I never intended to start a drawing team on etsy. I went looking for a drawing team to join on etsy. I couldn't find one.

And so,

was born, and I'm now captain of an etsy team about drawing. Here is my first rant, it is about giclee, which I actually like very much indeed.)

" Of course I like giclee, and yes it absolutely has a place in broadening the price bracket of a piece of art; you have the original for sale at 100%, you have a giclee for 25%, and some notelets or postcards for 5%. For example. So, your customer can be anyone, not just the ones with more disposable income.

And then, you might have already sold the original, so all anyone else can have is a reproduction, and giclee is a darn fine reproduction. I'm just a bit tired of looking at some of the etsy shops full of prints, and as a buyer, if I have a spare £40 one month, I'd rather blow the lot on one small original from a favourite shop. As a seller, I want to be one in a brave set of sellers, who have he guts to part with the originals, because (in my humble op) that's really what being a practising artist is about. Surely nobody wants only a collection of digital prints? I'll get off the soapbox now. Thanks for reading. :) "

See the team on etsy...

Tony Orrico: Penwald: 2: 8 circles (2009)

One of my clown images was featured on www.patiodebutacas.es, thank you, Loredana; but the other stuff on the blog is also interesting...

Including this artist, Tony Orrico. Here using his own body's proportions to construct a work. Reminiscent of hypotrochoid drawings. But on a much larger scale.

an exhibition

an exhibition, originally uploaded by Donna Nicholson-Arnott.

Yes, eight original line drawings by me, including that little blue horse above, in

Cafe Wander
110a West George Street
Glasgow

On for the whole of March, and probably April too. If you find yourself in the area, do please feel free to pop along and have look. :)

............................

This little poster was featured in one my favourite artist's blogs,

cathy cullis: mosaic monday

Thank you Cathy!

Crazed rabbit can opener, in a book!

It isn't quite released here in the uk yet, but I just got my comp copy and I'm very excited!

There are three others of mine, and a wealth of superbly located faces from other more talented photographers.

Focus: Found Faces, May 2011, Lark Books, 9781600597923.

my heart's witnesses hide

I slowly continue to make these. I should probably get a move on and make more, but there's something so meditative about the process. It's tense making the initial drawing onto the prepared balsa; balsa is soft so there's an impression of the drawing on the wood as well as the graphite drawing, and errors are not really correctable in situ. I have sanded back one awful drawing when I got home once, and re-inked it for next time. But I'd rather just get it right and move on to new bit most of the time. I add all the colour and details when I'm back in the studio. This one ended up with some words because there was space at the top compositionally, and I had some bits of Browning on my desk from fiddling with the clownery, and they were catching my eye. I inked it's edges black, because I was short of white, and wondered what it would look like darker.

This one is for sale in the new Far Dot Shop.

Clownery at Ollaberry.

I'm pleased with the way Lisa at Ollaberry has displayed the clowns. You can see how they stand out from the wall a little in this shot, that's the little balsa frames I made on the back.

Oh, it is nice to have exhibited some of the clownery at last.