Tag Archives: Collage

For the birds

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A Sudden Spring, mixed media collage on paper, 25 x 32 cm, 2021

It’s been no surprise to hear that so many people have taken up birdwatching during the lockdowns and the Covid restrictions. I guess we’re even more in awe of their ability to fly, and rather envious of it too, as we’re stuck in out little patch, with little prospect of flitting anywhere for a while.

Rain Clearing, Moonrise, acrylic on paper, collaged onto panel, 40 x 50 cm, 2021

Even if you’re locked down in a city, living in a flat, like I do, you can still enjoy seeing these wonderful creatures. Flying, coming and going with the seasons, nesting, raising young, feeding, fighting, getting on with their lives, they help keep us in contact with the natural world we’re a part of, even if we’re not able to engage with it very much at the moment. But from my balcony, in the middle of the city, i’ve seen an amazing variety of birds flying by or in the trees outside our home; woodpeckers, nuthatches, jays, jackdaws, gyre falcons, herons, tits and finches.

Now I’m starting to hear more birdsong too, and I realise how much I’ve missed it and what a wonderful, evocative sound it is.

We’ve had a particularly cold winter here but it’s changed, almost overnight, into a particularly warm spring. This is probably not good news, climate-wise, but it does lift the spirits 🙂

Spellbound

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Spellbound, acrylic on paper, collaged onto panel, 40 x 40 cm, 2021

After several days of snow and bitterly cold temperatures the sky cleared today and turned a deep, clear blue. Everything sparkled and the streets were looking like a Christmas card. So, to keep in tune with the seasons, I’m making more winter-themed work at the moment, including this scene with a barn owl flying over a frosty landscape.

The cold here in Berlin has been intense, but, thankfully, our flat is toasty and we’re cosy indoors. I wish we had an open fire though, that would make the snug feeling perfect, that and maybe listening to the shipping forecast whilst sipping a cup of hot chocolate – there’s nothing so cosy as being indoors under a blanket listening to news of a howling gale somewhere else.

I’ve made images with barn owls before, I find them so awe-inspiring, I never tire of trying to paint them. Whenever I return to Sleaford, the town where I grew up, I take a walk out of town along the river at sunset and I often see a barn owl flying along the river in exactly the same place each time. It always stops me in my tracks and I’m utterly spellbound. I don’t know anybody who reacts differently when they see one of these birds, they are such a magical sight.

I’m not surprised that so much folklore has grown up around barn owls, they are so arresting. Most of the associations are rather doom-laden though; foretelling a death etc, and it was a custom to nail a barn owl to a door to ward off lightening strikes and other evils. I’m glad they don’t do that any more; their habitats are under constant threat and they’ve been struggling in places so they need all the help they can get. Funnily enough, when i see one, they always make me think of my Dad, who passed away a few years ago, perhaps because he was the person who first took me birdwatching when I was a child. I always want to turn to him and say, ‘wow. Dad, did you see that?!’

There are few sights that make me catch my breath like seeing the ghostly shape of a barn owl flying at dusk, it’s just marvellous.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

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The Picture of Dorian Gray, acrylic on paper, 40 x 50 cm, 2020

I’m not quite sure why I was drawn to trying to do an illustration of this story last week. I hadn’t really enjoyed the book, by Oscar Wilde, published in 1890 as a serial in a magazine. The writing drove me nuts, but it is a great story all the same; a dramatic, fin-de-siècle gothic horror tale that has inspired artists and film-makers for decades. One of the most famous, and best (in my opinion) illustrations of the actual portrait in the story, is by Ivan Albright, who painted a masterful full-length portrait for the 1940’s film of the story. which won the  Oscar for best cinematography. Shot in black and white, but with a few shots in Technicolor, including a close up of the portrait which brilliantly depicts the putrefying soul of Dorian Gray, rotting away in a closed up room at the top of the house.

Impossible to top this, so I started with the idea of showing the character’s decay with a forest of fungi, growing out of his shirt collar; all semblance of anything human has gone, and he has become something entirely other.

The story has a lot of detail about the materials , colours, textures and scents of the environments where the story takes place. The main characters have a refined sensibility and emotions run high. It was tempting to frame the picture in something that would fit the tasteful rooms described in the book; tortoiseshell, bamboo, or gilt, something exotic and exquisite. But I decided to go against the grain; the book after all, is dripping in paradoxes and clever aphorisms, so I went for a faux-rustic ‘Black Forest’ style of picture frame. Some of these frames are dreadful lumpen horrors that would probably have made Oscar Wilde laugh or have a fit of the vapours.

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I’ve learnt a lot working on this image, that approaching an ‘illustration’ take a different set of skills, and, in my opinion, is about the most difficult thing a visual artist can do. ‘Illustration’ is often rather sniffily dismissed as representing a lower strata of some imagined artistic hierarchy. This idea of one branch of the visual arts being more lofty and worthy than another is a ridiculous anachronism, of course, like something from the Royal Academy in the 19th century. If there were such a thing,  though, I’d put illustration right at the top, i’m in awe of what good illustrators do!

 

Strange times

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Spring Equinox, acrylic on paper on panel, 40 x 40 cm, 2020

There are some very dark hellebores flowering in the garden outside out flats at the moment and they’re absolutely entrancing. They’re so dark they’re almost black, but they also have dusty delicate blooms of blue and pink over their petals that’s hard to capture in photos or in paint. There are spring bulbs flowering on my balcony and seeds germinating in the bright warm sunshine we’ve had here in Berlin this week. But the burgeoning spring and dazzling light doesn’t fit the mood at the moment as the news is so unsettling and upsetting.

I wanted to make an image including the hellebores but it’s turned into a rather dreamy, unreal scene, where the usual rules regarding scale, light and weight don’t seem to apply. This feels quite fitting at the moment as I try to take on board what’s happening.

I collaged this image together from elements made separately. It may sound strange to say this, but I don’t really like working in this way; I prefer collage when it’s using random papers juxtaposed together to make an image, rather than painting specific objects separately and then stitching them together on the panel. I find that some of the joy of collage is lost when I paint a flower or a leaf and then cut it out and add it to another image. I prefer the energy and surprise of using papers painted spontaneously with a variety of colours and textures rather than purposefully making specific elements separately. But, that’s just the way this image went, and, in the end, I think it added to the sense of spooky unreality so i was happy just to go with it.

Here are a few details, which illustrate the collaging of the various elements a bit more clearly:

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All the best to anybody reading this, hope you and all your loved ones stay safe and well over the coming weeks 🙂

Froth

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Near Challock, mixed media, 40 x 40 cm, 2019

I was in the UK last week and my friend Paul took me for a drive out into the Kent countryside,  a few miles south of Faversham. At this time of year the cow parsley and creamy hawthorn blossom are smothering the narrow lanes and hedgerows in froth, and the gently folded hills and woods become swooningly beautiful. I got back to Berlin a couple of days ago and made this image to try and capture some of the magic I’d seen on our drive.

I’ve noticed it’s almost exactly 7 years since I first posted on this blog, and that my very first post, back in May 2012 was also about hawthorn blossom, so it’s obviously a subject i’m drawn to. I do think that a country lane in Britain in early summer is one of the most lovely things in the world. Our climate may not deliver the weather we always want but it does lend itself to some gorgeous soft , lush greenery at this time of year 🙂

 

Hansel and Gretel on tour

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The new stage adaptation of Hansel and Gretel premiered at the Cheltenham Festival last Saturday to a packed Parabola Arts Centre theatre. The musicians, puppeteers and narrator, as well as the technical crew did a fabulous job on the night, despite the sweltering heat, and made sure the first performance was magical.

A very nice review in the Guardian here today; good to see all the thought and hard work that went into the show appreciated.

Next stop Lichfield, so I made a little collage of the Hansel and Gretel forest encroaching on Lichfield Cathedral, as you do…

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Although it’s a rather whimsical scene, there’s a tiny kernel of truth in it; just a few miles to the north east of Lichfield is The National Forest, a newly planted forest that is growing apace as more and more trees are added each year. So, eventually, if it keeps growing, it may one day reach all the way to the doors of the Cathedral ;-).

Here’s the schedule for the rest of the tour:

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And a photo of the creative team that brought Hansel and Gretel into being:

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And finally, a photo of Gretel, dressed in the wonderful clothes made for her by Oonah Creighton-Griffiths. The puppets, made by Jan Zalud, were utterly mesmerising in the hands of our two superb puppeteers Di Ford and Lizzie Wort.

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Forest music

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‘Out of the Mid-wood’s Twilight’, acrylic and paper collage on panel, 30cm, 2018

A whole series of forest inspired programmes and features are being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 this week; right up my street, especially as I’ve been working on a new stage adaptation of Hansel and Gretel recently where the forest looms large.  The programmes have been great, full of beautiful music and fascinating stories; there’s a link to the Radio 3 website here. This series of programmes really is a treat and I think you can listen to them on the BBC Radio iPlayer for a few more weeks yet.

Wonderful new music has been composed for Hansel and Gretel by Matthew Kaner. Matthew says of the project:

‘Simon Armitage’s poetry is an inspiration to work with. It’s a helter-skelter journey from ghostly foreboding horizons to a pleasure park of sweet feasts. It’s pushed my music into new territories.’

I heard some of the music in rehearsals a few weeks ago and it’s spine-tinglingly good. There are only a very few tickets left for the premier in Cheltenham, but tickets are now on sale for the following venues up until Oxford, with tickets for the the later shows to go on sales shortly; follow the links below for information and tickets:

I’ll be going to the Cheltenham, London and Canterbury shows – see you there if you’re going!

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I’ve been cutting and glueing paper collages this morning, starting to put some ideas down that have been evolving while I’ve been working on Hansel and Gretel. Collage has been a real friend to me in the last couple of years. While I’ve been juggling a busy ‘day-job’ to make a living, time in the studio has sometimes been very limited and with collage you can quickly get something down, move things around, try out compositions and generally have a play about. The last month has been hectic as I’m coming up to finishing a work contract with a local authority. It’s been a dash to get as much as possible finished and ready to hand over. So, with the first bit of time to do something in a while this weekend, it’s out with the scissors and glue. The collage above is on a circular panel which I thought i’d try out – not sure, lol – compositionally, it’s tricky!

With the scraps I made a little illustration of the witch’s cottage I designed for Hansel and Gretel, a model of which will be appearing on stage:

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My collage, though, is based more on sketches of the model by Clive Hicks-Jenkins, who has been working as visual director for the stage production. You can see his beautiful drawings and other terrific Hansel and Gretel images at his Instagram site here.

And finally, here’s my model of the cottage, and a Lebkuchen version I made for an animation sequence too. I’m all for experimenting with new media and now I can add  fake iced gingerbread to my toolkit 🙂

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Exhibition – Imagined Landscapes

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I’m very pleased to be included in the upcoming Imagined Landscapes exhibition at the Royal Cambrian Academy in Conwy this autumn. Curated by Clive Hick-Jenkins, the exhibition will include works by Clive, and also by Ian Whadcock, Kevin Paulsen, Garry Barker, Peter Lloyd, Abi Whitehouse Efnisein, Geoffrey Coupland, Orson Coupland, Desdemona McCannon, Jonny Hannah, Sharon Hannah, Barry Smith and Sarah Raphael-Balme. It’s a great pleasure to be showing work with such wonderful artists in such a lovely setting.

The details of the exhibition are as follows:

Imagined Landscapes

Saturday 21st October to Saturday 12th November

Royal Cambrian Academy

Crown Lane, Conwy, LL32 8AN

www.rcaconwy.org

The brief is a treat; while I do love painting from nature and sketching from observation I’m even more excited by inner landscapes, the genius loci of the terrain seen in the mind’s eye. The two are often intermingled, of course, with places i’ve been to and got to know seeping into my subconscious and then reappearing, transformed into some other place, so that the landscapes I create are layered in different associations and memories, just as the landscape I see when I travel or get out of town is a palimpsest of different stories, laid down over millennia.

I’m making some new work for the show, with possibly one or two older pieces in there as well.

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In the Gardens of Mr. & Mrs. Lyon, acrylic and collage, 31 x 76 cm, 2017

This collage stems from one of my current preoccupations, the story of Beauty and the Beast, reimagined as The Courtship of Mr Lyon by Angela Carter in her collection of short stories based on fairy tales, The Bloody Chamber. I’m making another piece of 3D work for the show of the Beast’s house as we first encounter it in the story, beautiful but sad and frozen, whereas this piece is set in a time after the end of the story, when the spell is broken, the Beast transforms and the ice melts. I’m sure I’m not the only one who is slightly disappointed when the Beast goes through his transformation at the end of the tale. By then i’ve fallen in love with him as the Beast, just as Belle has, and he’s always much more, well, ‘grrr’ than the rather insipid prince he usually turns into. Mind you there’s a nice moment in the recent Disney live action remake at the end when he turns into the Prince but has a beard. He says something like ‘I’ll shave it off tomorrow’ and Belle goes ‘ooh, no, I like it!’.

The collage has turned out rather more busy and whimsical than I’d set out to make but i’ll go with it; this is, after all, a picture about happy endings, when love conquers, winter turns to spring, everyone’s dancing and singing, cue the credits and swirling music….

I’ve made a lot of sketches, maquettes and photos as I explored this widescreen format and there is a lot of exploration from these sketches to do, it’ll keep me going for a while this train of thought…

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The Spirit of Wildwood

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I’ve got some pieces in The Spirit of Wildwood exhibition coming up at the wonderful Tanner & Lawson gallery in Chelsea next week, so if you’re in the area you’ll be very welcome at the private view on Thursday 1st. The exhibition is on until the 23rd December and includes some fabulous work by artists I admire enormously so i’m chuffed to bits to be in such talented company in this show.

The artists exhibition include: Susan Deakin – Kit Boyd – Kate Nicole – Peter Clayton  –  Paul P. Smith  –  Clive Hicks-Jenkins  –  Jim Sheehan  –  Bruer Tidman  –  Emily Mackey – Robin Lucas – Su Trembath  –  Richard Swallow

Here’s a selection of work that will be included in the exhibition:

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Forest Pool, by Phil Cooper, Acrylic on board, 55 x 70 cm

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Ferns, by Kate Nicole, Watercolour and stitch on paper, 75 x 50 cm

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Foliate Head III, by Clive Hicks-Jenkins, Acrylic on paper, 19 x 19 cm

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Green Man I, by Peter Clayton, Mixed media on panel

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Nalans Wind Up River, by Paul P. Smith, Oil on canvas, 100 x 150 cm

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Magnolia Grandiflora, by Emily Mackey, Gouache on paper, 80 x 60 cm

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Fading Flower, by Bruer Tidman, Acrylic on canvas, 183 x 183 cm

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Proof of Spirits by Jim Sheehan, Acrylic on board, 100 x 120 cm

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Winter Green Man, by Kit Boyd, Etching on paper, 36 x 30 cm

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Untitled, by Su Trembath, Mixed media on canvas, 100 x 160 cm