Category Archives: Process

#Letter365, Art, Process

So busy I found it hard to remember

#Letter365 No154 gets posted in bright sunshine
No154 gets posted in the pueblos blancos of St Andrew’s Road

When I saw the photo above I did think of the pueblos blancos of Spain, that harsh light on whitewashed walls, but really there are no Spanish houses in St Andrew’s Road. Bridport and the sun, though warm, was not as harsh as southern Spain. It is just one of those post boxes set into the side of a whitewashed Dorset house.

I have been busy again today with planning and preparations for the show in Ramsgate, plus the added excitement of selling an ink drawing to someone in the United States this evening. So when I came to write this post I found it hard to remember what I had done for #Letter365 only 9 or 10 hours ago! Part of the reason might also be the process of creation. I went to the studio wanting to do some work on a piece in progress as well as my #Letter365. When I got there, in quite a fired-up state, I found that I had left two sketchbooks open as reminders of things I wanted to develop. One of these was the long drawing I had been planning to do in a Moleskine concertina book. Making the first mark on a pretty expensive piece of paper or book is at times a pretty scary act and I had been sort of putting it off. Today I was up for it. I was full to overflowing with what I wanted to make: it was time. But there was just a little time for one last act of procrastination, my excuse being that I had to do #Letter365. And there laying on the table was the other open sketchbook with an idea that I wanted to develop – and remember that I was all fired up – so what could be easier than using that. I set to work and soon had created something I was pretty pleased with! Now I could get on with the drawing in the Moleskine. That went really well, actually even better than I had hoped. Once dry and I could interact with it I fell in love with it. So did someone else: it was the piece I sold to the woman in America.

Align One Ink drawing by David Smith on Moleskine concertina book
Align One
Ink drawing on Moleskine concertina book

So then I went back to the piece I had so boldly and confidently produced for #Letter365. I realised it was missing something; it didn’t quite work. I played around with different things for quite a while before realising that what was missing was me. I had skilfully found a way to get #Letter365 out of the way so I could get on with a piece that was really important to me, a piece I was full of. I wasn’t full of the piece I had made for #Letter365 and it wasn’t full of me. It was OK and had some interesting aspects but frankly it just wasn’t good enough! It didn’t pass the “would I have it on my wall and love it” test. Bit of a lesson there then! That meant I had to start again. Well I made a new piece, but I distilled some of the good aspects of the previous idea and sat with it until I could resolve it with honesty and integrity. In the light of what went before I am a little diffident about making any qualitative statement about just how good this latter piece is but I would be happy to have it on my wall and it pleases my eye.

Back of #Letter365 No154
Back of No154

 

#Letter365, Art, Process

The most stressful yet

#Letter365 No152 gets posted on a very rainy night
No152 goes in the box on a very rainy night

I nearly didn’t make it tonight! I posted No152 with just 12 minutes to spare and only posted a holding page here at 23:58! To be frank I have struggled all day, mostly because I was struggling with designs and words for invites for the Ramsgate show – mostly still trying to get some quality reproductions of my work! I think I can be better placed to get what I need when I next have a photographic session.

So in my usual slightly-overconfident fashion I was leaving #Letter365 until this evening. I had not taken into account that working from home today I had only a minimal range of materials and decided that I really needed to go to the studio. I also did not take into account that my printer might malfunction in a much more complete way than a visit from Violet Lines. When there is a problem my printer communicates the issue by specific numbers of flashing lights. In this case it was twelve. I looked up what 12 flashes meant in the manual but the list had a reason for 11 flashes and an explanation for 13 but 12 was omitted from the list! Fortunately my partner, Sally, was able to print it for me. This little scenario made me even tighter on time and I was a bit “flustered” by now. By the time i got to the studio I was back to a composed state and set to work. Even after a false start – well two false starts – I remained confident and relaxed. I even took a little time out to make some notes of ideas for something else and to try out a little technique to see if it would produce th eresults i was looking for. I only started getting stressed again when I was photographing the elements when I heard a drip that was clearly inside the studio. It was lucky that I was there to put a bucket under the drip or else a sketchbook and some drawings would have been ruined. I moved everything else that might suffer to what i hoped was a place of safety!

Back of #Letter365 No152
Back of No152
#Letter365, Art, Birmingham, Process

A very interesting process

#Letter365 No149 gets posted in Birmingham
No149 goes in the post in Birmingham

Today’s piece was very interesting for me and apart from being hugely enjoyable for me it gave me a huge sense of confidence; a sense that I could work in a whole range of untapped and untried ways. I still feel quite excited about it. I had prepared and taken some materials with me with a specific idea in mind following on from the work I did in Bath the other day. The idea was very different from Bath in some fundamental ways but shared some features. Specifically, I had chosen different materials. As it turned out I was inspired by some aspects of Birmingham as a cultural centre and the whole thing took shape in my mind very quickly and very differently to the plan. Fortunately it worked really well, though it took rather longer than usual to create. I did have back up materials, but wouldn’t have been able to create the original idea without buying some more stuff and putting more money in the parking machine or abandoning the idea of creating it till I got back home or the studio!

It’s all Bs! Bradpole, Bridport, Birmingham, Bath! Have I created a #Letter365 anywhere else yet? Maybe I should just do work in places starting with B?

Seal on the back of #Letter365 No149
Seal on the back of No149
#Letter365, Art, Process

Another late-in-the-day success

#Letter365 No138 goes in the box
No138 goes in the box

Well for the second day running I have been out all day and unable to engage in making art until late in the day. I was beginning to get a little tense about it (partly for other reasons than just being late in the day) but took some time out to reconnect with my art before cooking dinner (plaice fillet, with new potatoes from the garden and cavallo nero). That meant that when I returned to the studio I was able to come up with the goods and get some other things done too.

And, as I remark on the back of the envelope, there is hardly a mark on the leading and trailing edges and Violet Lines is absent, though the colour still is not accurate:

Back of #Letter365 No138
Back of No138
#Letter365, Art, Process

The value of sketchbooks in an emergency

#Letter365 No137 goes in the box
No137 gets posted without spontaneously combusting

I have not been involved with art at all today, we have been out looking for a new car and by the time we got back and had some food and a discussion and fed our neighbours’ cats it was late. Being totally devoid of any idea what I might do for today’s piece and refusing to panic with ony a few hours to sort it all out I cheated. Well nobody said i couldn’t cheat! It wasn’t really cheating. It’s not as if I did a Blue Peter and whipped out one I did earlier, but I did raid my sketchbooks and notebooks. O the sanity of jotting down ideas! Day saved without worry and stress and I didn’t spontaneously combust!  And still time left to stress about the other things I haven’t done today!

Back of #Letter365 No137
Back of No137
#Letter365, Art, Process

Struggle has a simple message

#Letter365 No135 gets posted
No135 goes in the box

I have been struggling with this post as I did with today’s piece. It’s a muggy old day and there is still that unsettling electricity in the air that last night’s thunderstorms didn’t clear. It makes the bees irritable and over-defensive and me too really. I thought it would be a good idea to force some kind of resolution on some elements that I have been playing with for a few days or more. I thought I could use that idea up and get it out of the way, but of course things have their time and today wasn’t it! After a few other false starts it was time to take a step back and stop struggling. Now I don’t mean that in the way of giving up or giving in, rather I mean that sometimes battling with something head on does not bring results and oblique strategies and sideways thinking may prove more effective. As soon as I started to work on some other things not related to #Letter365 an elegant solution started to form and opposition crumbled away. Struggle was only interested when it thought I was  up for a fight

That strategy didn’t work so well for the envelope or this writing or indeed the other work I was doing but, hey, you can’t win ’em all!

Back of #Latter365 No135
Back of No135
#Letter365, Art, Meaning, Process

This is only interestingly boring

2 Comments
#Letter365 No124 gets posted
No124 goes in the box in bright sunshine

I successfully completed the tasks required by myself in this project today without fuss or bother and even got it in the post before the collection had gone so there is nothing much else to say really.

The repetitive and in a way boring nature of a daily task is in itself one of the key aspects of this art process, the sort of process that is endlessly fascinating to me whether it is found in nature or people or the processes of society or our entertainment. This conversation with Ersi Marina Samara  on Twitter gives a hint.

Screen grab of Twitter stream
Screen grab of Twitter stream

On the other had it could be just some kind of madness. This diagram posted on Twitter by @Omdenken could be how it is!

How to be an artist diagram
How to be an artist diagram from @Omdenken
Back of #Letter365 No124
Back of No124
#Letter365, Art, Meaning, Process

Rain again so this one may be damp outside…and in?

#Letter365 No120 goes in the box in the rain
No120 goes in the box in the rain

The reference to damp inside is my fear that I had chosen the wrong media today as noted in the previous post. As for the stuff on the envelope I feel I need to explain a little.

You may have noticed a musical theme over the last few days. The Morning Glory reference two days ago just popped into my head and yesterday’s Emile Ford was a bit more “manufactured” following on. (I saw Emile Ford’s band the Checkmates on the same bill as the Rolling Stones and the Hollies – a long time ago!) I had forgotten that I was going to say hi to the postie and ask if he had had a good holiday. That was because I stumbled across this post on Twitter from Helen Atkin-Roach about a mystery item:

Photo od an old trouser press
Helen’s mystery item is of course a trouser press

As a time-served Bonzo’s fan I had to enter into a dialogue about it and ended up posting  this video of the Bonzo’s:

This led me to referring to the trouser press in the “Do Not Bend” area and alluding to the album title at the other side. Sad isn’t it? Or maybe it is art of the highest kind! Certainly the Bonzo Dog Band (or Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band as they were then) must have a  right to be labelled art!

On the back, however, I have probably lost the plot and maybe the will to live:

Back of #Letter365 No120
Back of No120
#Letter365, Process

Do not be afraid – it’s only art

#Letter365 No119 goes in the box
No119 gets posted and it’s almost dark already

Another lesson learnt today. I hesitated before adding some last-minute enhancements to today’s piece. I didn’t want to risk spoiling it yet I knew it needed something. For a few moments I held back. The piece was OK and I really didn’t want to start from scratch again. Then I said to myself “Do not be afraid – it’s only art” – well that isn’t quite true: the actual words involved an expletive or two, but that is a fair summary! I believed in myself and was confident that I could create something good if II did have to start from scratch. That of course gave me the freedom to add enhancements that enhanced!

Back of #Letter365 No119
Back of No119
#Letter365, Art, Process

It always pays to be straight and not cut corners

#Letter365 No118 goes in the box
No118 gets posted

Today I have been stressed and stretched, doing things I had to do but shouldn’t have needed to do, things that gave me a headache from the start. So when I grabbed some time to go to the studio I was looking for a quick result and no stress. No way! I tried to shoehorn an idea into the wrong format with some bits I prepared yesterday for something else. Well I left it on the desk and went to the house to do the envelope (quite successfully and stress-free) and when I returned I sat and studied what I had made as I usually do. Usually I feel good, sometimes smug even, but today  I was asking myself “is that OK?” I was trying to convince myself it was good; that I liked it. Whereas, in fact, I didn’t believe it to be good enough. There was a little period when I tried to tell myself it “would do” but in truth I knew I had to discard it and start afresh. Much better!

I should perhaps say that I finished a little constraint I put on myself for the month of June and am flowing freely till the next mad idea crops up.

Back of #Letter365 No118
Back of No118