Monthly Update: August

Traffic Light Banana

I tend to use this blog mainly for writing essays, which means I tend to neglect the actual 'log' part of the process. To correct this, I intend to write an update post like this once every month, giving you a rundown of my activities, and pointing out ways in which you can support me in continuing them.

First of all, as you can tell from the image at the start of this post, I've been drawing and sketching a lot lately. I started doing an art therapy course where the goal was to produce a painting at the end; in service of that goal, we were given sketchbooks and told to start practising. 

This was a big challenge to me, as I hadn't picked up a pencil or a paintbrush since I stopped doing art as a subject after my third year at Secondary School. So I figured I should get a lot of practice. My early efforts, like this picture of the luchadors Santos and Blue Demon, were pretty simplistic: 

Over time, though, I began to improve somewhat. 

Yes, I drew the berserk EVA, I am such a cliché

 

That Basement

Avebury Cove Stones

Eventually, I was able to complete the painting I had decided to do for the project. I decided to create a semi-abstract piece called Jubilee Weekend, summing up how I felt on that very Bank Holiday weekend when a friend took me out for a drink to talk over the recent death of my mother (something I also mention in a recent piece of music I made, Phrygian for Fred) and my anger over being surrounded by symbols of jingoistic celebration at a time of personal grief. This event was very much on my mind following the recent, sudden and unexpected death of the friend in question. 

I planned that the picture would contain a number of elements: a screaming mouth; a painting of the view from the pub we went to, or as near as I could manage from my photographs of Tynemouth; a torn Union Flag; a drawing of the flowers from the cover of Virginia Astley's album From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, one track from which, 'A Summer Long Since Passed' became something of an earworm for me in the weeks following my mother's death; and a KACO-style poster reading FUCK YOUR FUCKING JUBILEE. 

Jubilee Weekend

The final version is less satisfactory to me now than it was at the time (having done a little more work with acrylics since, I would probably spend more time building up each layer if I did this again), but, as I say, it had been over thirty years since I'd last painted anything, so there was a real sense of achievement in getting these images out of my mind and onto canvas. 

After finishing the course, I continued sketching, working hard to improve. My friend Stephanie Smith gave me some great advice about how to look at subjects to build up portraits in more detail, as well as suggesting I switch from an HB to a 3B pencil. I think this really lead to a major improvement, something you can see from these two drawings of Jacques Derrida I did at two different stages: 

M. Derrida

Jacques Derrida

I also decided to acquire some canvas board and work on a study for a portrait of Derek Jarman, the filmmmaker, artist and diarist who's been a big influence on my writing and whose book Chroma is one I have returned to at numerous times, and was reading again with new eyes after having spent some time working with paint. I want to make a video about Chroma for my YouTube channel, and one strand I want to include in the video is me making a portrait based on the photograph of Jarman, taken by Howard Sooley, which appears on the cover of my copy of the book (later editions use a different cover image). In preparation for doing this, I decided to do a study - a practice run - on the canvas board and, while my painting lags behind my sketching in terms of improvement, I still think the practice portrait I've done is a definite improvement on Jubilee Weekend. You can see that I'm working harder on building a painting up layer by layer, mixing paints to get the right colour, and getting used to the nature of painting as an additive medium, one where you correct mistakes not by erasing and trying again, as you would in a sketch, but by painting over errors. 

Study for a Portrait of Derek Jarman

That, then, is where things are with my visual art at this point in time. But this update isn't just meant to be about drawing and painting! I've also:

- written a short story on this blog which has been very well-received;

- organised, promoted and hosted an absolute banger of a poetry and music night at the Kittiwake Trust Multilingual Library in Gateshead, on top of my regular volunteering shifts there; 

- performed at the most recent Poetry in the North event at Estate Tea Company in Heaton; 

- and took part in the protest against fascists in Newcastle earlier this month! 

Stop being fascist little freaks man

As someone who is both mentally and physically disabled, this takes a lot out of me, but I do it because I want to contribute something to the world instead of just sitting around doing nothing (not that there is anything wrong with disabled people sitting around and doing nothing, and indeed I fully support our right to do so and will be doing exactly that as soon as I'm done typing and sharing this post). It would be lovely to think that my Universal Credit payments covered all of the expenses incurred in doing this but, let's be real, they don't. And that brings me to another reason for making these monthly update posts: if you value any of what I do, please consider throwing a little something in my tip jar on ko-fi.com. As an added incentive, if you tip more than a tenner you can help guide my artistic evolution by suggesting something for me to draw! You can even have the final result sent to you digitally if it's something you don't want shared on my insta, which is probably the best place to follow me if you want to be updated on what I'm doing more than once a month! 

That, however, about sums it up for this month. Thanks for taking the time to read this, don't forget to share it if you think more people should be aware of my work, and whether you tip, share, or can't do either, I hope you have a great weekend!

And now, I am going to sit around and do nothing for a bit...

Magnolia grandiflora