Pomegranate #1

I'm intrigued by pomegranates - they have such a nice round shape and glorious colours on the outside and then you slice into them and get to see all the wonderful shapes and colours of the seeds.

I've been experimenting recently with compositions using pomegranates and am just about to start a larger study but thought I'd have a go first at developing a smaller work - and this is it.

This is coloured pencils on Arches Hot Press watercolour paper and is 7" x 5". I liked the idea of seeing a pomegranate halved but without seeing the complete shape of either half.

Working Smaller

I've started what I hope is going to be a series of small artworks - which now have their own gallery "Small Works" on my website.

The challenge for me is in working small - which is not something I have done on a regular basis in the past. But I'm intrigued at what can be achieved in some of the small works produced by other artists and I like in particular the way it forces me to look at potential subjects as individual items in their own right, rather than as part of a larger still life composition. This develops one of the ways in which I've been working on developing my larger still life paintings - treating individual items - flowers, fruit, vegetables - as landscapes in their own right through examining a macro perspective of the item concerned.

"Red Onion" is the first in the series. It is 7" x 5" and has been completed using only coloured pencils on black Canson Mi Teintes paper. You can see a larger version of this on my website on the new page for Small Works.

I'm hoping to produce at least one of these small works each week - and hopefully more.

Comments policy

To start with, if this seems rather heavy handed at this stage, I should explain. I did some research about blogging practice and policies before setting up this journal. This seemed to suggest that:

• It’s helpful to have a comments policy up front so that this enables those who might be shy at posting to ‘know the rules’ and therefore feel more confident about posting.
• There’s a general consensus that it’s better to publish a comments policy before rather than after you have been visited by a troll or received an abusive post which needs to be removed.

So here goes………….

General Principles

This policy is an amalgam of the best practice that I am sympathetic to that I can find on the net and my own personal experience of what can happen if comments are not moderated. Essentially I want to run with a policy which is derived from and based on what has been referred to by Lisa Williams as the “Living Room Doctrine” (UPDATE: link is now defunct - however I have found the extract which appealed to me - and qUoted it below) and the principles of the the “Friendly Stranger” [link now defunct] and Rana’s “Benefit of the Doubt” . I’ll amend this policy as required in the light of experience and the development of even better practice on the net.

I consider my blog to be a virtual extension of my living space. As such, any comments that I would find threatening or offensive if said to me in person in my living room will be deleted. It’s fine to disagree with me (I allow that in my living room). Not fine is unbridled hostility, name calling, etc., either towards me or towards other commenters.The Living Room Doctrine

In essence then:

1. I hope you will read this journal because you get something out of it and that you want to comment and/or interact with other people who comment on what I post
2. I will write about things relating to the purposes of this art journal (see under “Making a Mark”) and how they: (a) relate to me personally and certain aspects of my life; (b) relate to wider trends and developments; and (c)might be relevant to others who are developing their own artwork and careers
3. Learning is a good thing to pursue. Sharing information for mutual benefit is encouraged as are comments which expand our wealth of information.
4. My journal is a virtual extension of my living space. Consequently, in this journal we will discuss things as if we were speaking face to face in my living space. Comments will always try to be on-topic, informative and polite. Discussions should always be thoughtful and respectful of others – this is not a debating forum.
5. Private lives and privacy concerns are to be respected. When writing about personal lives and individuals both you and I will only share what has already been made public on the internet by the individual concerned or what we would share if standing in a queue chatting to a friendly stranger.
6. Comments about specific individuals will generally relate to sharing information about positive experiences and innovation.
7. Any references to something on another site should have proper attribution and a link.
8. I will assume you to be a reasonable, thinking person (unless you provide evidence to the contrary) and I expect you to treat me as a reasonable, thoughtful person as well.
9. My aim is run this site with comments enabled and without active policing on my part. However, comments will be moderated to start with and I will decide whether or not comments are enabled.
10. If you have a lot to say do please consider setting up your own blog to share your views with others.

Comments that will be removed

This is my blog and, while I welcome comments, all comments will be moderated initially. Please note that using Blogger means that I can only delete a comment rather than edit.

1. All abusive comments will not be published or will be removed – and I determine what is abusive in my eyes as this is my living space. So any comments that I personally consider to be threatening or offensive if said to me in person in my own living space will be deleted. It is not OK to bristle with hostility or to call either me or other people who comment “names”. Those who indulge in what I regard as anti-social behaviours (e.g. behave like trolls and/or conspire and/or practice deceit such as engineering double acts for false debate or creating conflict) will be banned and their comments will be deleted.
   
2. All wildly off-topic comments will be removed.
   
3. Any inflammatory statements, allegations or statement likely to generate legal interest and/or action by others will be removed.
4. Posts will not be published [Update 2nd September 2007] if they are:
   
• inappropriate (eg breach privacy considerations)
  
• very disruptive to the flow (eg they would have been better sent as e-mails or are excessive in length.)
• rude and/or disrespectful (eg if the poster comments at length on the topic and in a way which indicates they haven't read the post or subsequent comments. This is a conversation not an opportunity for people to get on a soap box.)
  
• Comments on any post which are suggestions of items which could feature in my weekly "Who's making a mark this week" blog posts. These may be read but will not be published. If you have a suggestion use the 'contact me' mechanism. This is because I sometimes need to ask questions but mostly because I never ever accept a suggestion which are anonymous and lack an e-mail address.
5. Spam (i.e. comments containing irrelevant links to commercial sites) will always be removed. [Update 28th June 2007]
   
• I suggest anybody who wants to post a link to a commercial site but isn’t sure whether I will regard it as spam checks with me first via e-mail.
• Any anonymous comments or otherwise suspicious comments which I suspect may be spam will be deleted. I always check who you are when you post. If I don't get an identifiable response your comment may be left in moderation or deleted. However I've just found that some spammers now have a way of masking their identity and consequently in future all such comments may well be deleted.
  
• Bottom line - this blog does not provide link love to spammers

Where I have deleted a post I will indicate the reason why – at the highest level only (e.g. off-topic; spam; abusive). I won’t enter into any sort of debate about what I consider to be appropriate comment in my journal after the event.

Links to artist weblogs and websites

I've got my links to other sites reinstated (note to self - make a copy of all edits to the template before you fancy trying out what another style looks like!!!) And I've remembered to put in the extra bit of html which means that when you click on them they will open in a new window.........

I've split out the various art weblogs / journals from the websites of artists. The "blogs" or art journals vary enormously but demonstrate to me the different ways in which artists can use their weblog to display their work and or record how they see the world and develop their skills in producing art. I love looking at the daily paintings of Duane Keiser (A Painting a Day)and Julian Merrow Smith (Postcard from Provence) and really look forward to them landing in my Inbox each day. They've certainly inspired me into looking at what can be achieved in a small format and I'll doubtless comment on this further in future posts. The others listed provide some really good examples of what can be achieved and are my favourites out of the many art blogs I've looked at so far. Which is not to say there might not be others which I haven't found as yet!

The artist websites belong to:

1) People who I'm very pleased to have as my friends (you all know who you are) and who are working like me to develop their art and get more of it into the public eye. Some are working full time on their art and expanding their horizons all the time, some are doing an amazing job of raising small children at the same time as they make very significant advances in their careers as artists, some are working on how to generate more income from their art so that they may be able to spend less time on their current full time job and hopefully make that switch at some point - and some have still to get their websites up and running!!! But they will and they will be listed..........I'm planning to focus a bit more on each of them as this journal progresses. They're certainly a great bunch of people and constantly provide both inspiration and support as well as much good humour.

2) People I know and whose art I admire - Jackie Simmonds switched me on to pastel during a painting holiday we were both on in Bali in 1992. Having subsequently bought her books and videos and been painting with her again I can say from personal experience that she is one of the best teachers I've ever come across for those starting out in pastel. She does fewer workshops and painting holidays these days but check out her website for details of any coming up as I know she lists them there. I found Sally Strand's work inspirational when I was starting out in pastel and I am so pleased that she has finally got a website of her own which displays her work. I'm very keen to try and do a workshop with her this year if possible. Ann Kullberg is a very accomplished artist in coloured pencil who writes in a very accessible way and has done an awful lot to promote the development of coloured pencil to a wider audience. This list is only limited by those who choose to have a website or not which I can link to - there are many other people who have provided inspiration along the way...and hopefully there will be more links to post

3) Artists I've come across whose work I admire - this is very much an incomplete list as at the date of posting and more links will be added in as I get the time. Barbara Benedetti Newton works like me in both pastel and coloured pencil which makes her website particularly interesting to me. I rather suspect that Barbara also a liking for trees and I love visiting to see what new pastel landscapes are on her site. Elizabeth Patterson's artwork in coloured pencil is quite stunning and her work in progress page is well worth a look for those who aren't on slow connections.

I'm also going to be developing a list of links to sites providing resources for the artist. More of this in future.

Catnapping

Another sketch of Cosmo having a catnap. This one was done (double page spread in the MoleSkine) on New Year's Day evening.

Cosmo catnapping 2

The reason I've not posted it before today is I've been pondering about whether I've opted for the right blogger software and whether, if I need to change, I need to do it sooner rather than later. But every time I look at all the alternatives I get a headache. And as the flu bug has only diminished rather than disappeared I think I'll leave that for when I'm feeling a bit more invigorated and generally up for a bit of cyber thingummies. Especially as I've just managed to lose all my refinements of the basic template because I fancied looking at what it looked like in blue! Grrrrrrr!!

[Image size changed and technorati tags removed January 2016]