Connections

           Stairs, unlike broadband, never fail to connect. 

Doors of Perception

Portal K Howell 2012 Charcoal/oil pastel on paper 14 cm x 21 cm

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. 
So says Goethe. 
And then comes the development work.


 I love the simple magic of doorways. A door is choice and possibility, the unexpected and undiscovered just beyond the threshold.
This is a reconstructed Saxon arch, and while it appears to go nowhere (it's part of a freestanding wall, the building no longer extant), it offers a whole new view through its frame. A Portal. From here to somewhere else, furnishing a glimpse of the Other Side (In this case, a shifting tide and Cumbria ).


Paintings are coming along Slowly... so many possible doorways!

Still Waters

Coming Up For Air K Howell 2012 Pastel study 13 cm x 13 cm

     Still playing with the stone cut graves. There's something about the  quality of the reductive anthropomorphic shape filled with water. Says it all, really.

     This study shows a calm, still puddle,  but it's often windy on the headland and at times the water in the graves is quite choppy. A mini tempest brewing, creating all kinds of interesting and beautiful patterns. I've been messing with ideas to build a series of paintings for ages, and it's becoming clear.

     Water contributes 65 - 90% of the mass of human cells, along with carbon, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus and trace elements. It's the phosphorus I have my eye on right now - and I think I can see where this is going. Finally. As all alchemists know, pissing about does pay off.

Stumped

Stump K Howell 2012 (tiny study) Pastel on Paper

Torrential rain last week and now the sky is a careless, indifferent grey. Maybe that's what I like about living here. The unpredictable, intense flashes of sunshine that never last, but are more interesting for their infrequency. Well, it's a theory.

I've painted this stump before - it looks totally different now, having entirely shed its bark. It's looking more vulnerable and exposed. Fibrous. I suppose what caught my eye was the dance of supple limbs around the ragged remains. An intricate, rented world momentarily brightened.

Moving on with some larger acrylics which are building slowly, but hopefully will be ready for a tiny local exhibition next month. They are twin paintings, exploring paint application and dancing with the devil in the detail, it seems. We'll see what emerges.

Congratulations, Lucy Watkins! Lucy's painting has been selected for the Royal Academy's A-level Summer Exhibition online, which is quite a feat! There were over 1450 entries, and Lucy's piece even has a room named after it.

Having seen the actual exhibition of A-level work, I think everyone deserves congratulating, as the developmental work, sketchbooks and finished pieces are really wonderful. Great to see! Keep it up, lovely people...

Seven Good Things

Persistent Fog K Howell Acrylic on Paper 2012

Life goes in so many directions. My thoughts are in several places on various projects and refuse to cooperate and regroup for anything resembling a blog post.

So here's some things to love, instead:

1 Fog: it makes the ordinary surprising.

2 Simon Armitage: what he does with words is Magic.

3 Writing books with magnetic closures. A tool that is also a toy! (for those of us who never cease to be amazed by simple mechanisms...)

4 Chewable Vitamin C. And they're legal.

5 David Blackburn's pastel landscapes. Genius.

6 Placebo. Who knew? I'm slightly obsessed. Slightly, mind.

7 Rocket. Related to cabbage, and yet...

Seven is a good number. Let's leave it there.

Zoomorphism

Loping Branch K Howell 2012 Pastel on Paper 28cm x 28cm

A blistering day. It's unusual to be slowly baking whilst working outside. Lovely for those of us with reptilian inclinations.

This branch was bone dry, brittle. But so marvelously contorted. Most interesting is the way the energy of growth is etched into its being. Such is the nature of wood, but it's so much more fun when it's twisted!

Once, I designed a tattoo of three hounds running in a circle, a typical Celtic unity symbol. The idea was that each of the hounds could be mistaken, in some aspect, for the quarry (a deer), but not so clearly as to be Obvious. Their tails all became twining vegetation that filled the empty spaces, interlacing everything together. I was a child, it was a phase and no, I'm not wearing it.

But looking at this branch, I remembered creating that particular design vividly. And zoomorphism has stuck with me. Quietly. Under the skin.


Wishing us all more of this weather...