I saw an email today where my correspondent said they’d love to know about art, materials and anything else that I might be offering. That’s lovely to hear, and gives me an idea about my ‘thought for today’.
I use oils most of the time now, although I know people tend to view it as quite a scary medium, but in fact watercolour (where many people start) is by far the hardest medium to master. Acrylic is quite a good experimental medium, but the colours are harsh and the plasticky feel isn’t attractive. They also dry so fast that you can feel slightly stressed trying to keep up!
One very under-used medium these days is egg tempera, and that’s how the illustration (‘Homage to Flammarion’) was produced. Most artists using egg tempera tend to go for photo-realism, but that wouldn’t work for me. The only thing you have to watch is that slugs love it. The painting here was painted on hide, managed to survive the slugs, and was stretched with leather cord onto a wooden frame. By the way, Flammarion himself deserves to be a lot better known – a 19th century chemist, his imagination was, as you see, quite out of the ordinary. The original was an engraving, but it’s been reproduced in many different media.
Disconnection in Time & Space
The disconnection in time is easy – I haven’t recorded any thoughts for a long time, mainly because I’ve been working on my latest – and last – deck, the Oracle of the Future. I’ve already explained a couple of times why it’s my last deck, but the easiest explanation...
Dark, Violent Forces
Dark, Violent Forces Things have been darkening since 2016, or at least that's how I see it. That was when Boris Johnson managed to get the British to vote for Brexit, by lying his head off. Then in January 2017, Donald Trump was voted in as President of the...
Pip decks
Thoughts on pip decks I have never used a pip tarot deck. I'm certainly not alone in this - many people prefer pictorial minors. But somehow, the Old Gods Tarot - which I'm creating at the moment - wanted to be a pip deck. Perhaps that's projection (I certainly...
The SACRED MARRIAGE
I had a dream a couple of nights ago mainly about a set of twins. Not surprising, perhaps, as I am reading a book at present featuring twins (The Alchymist by Michael Scott, which, by the way, I can thoroughly recommend). I don't remember much about the dream apart...
Thoughts on Paradox, Ambiguity and Uncertainty
Humanity has never enjoyed uncertainties, and although we say we like mystery, we don’t, really. We do not deal easily with ambiguity. Things are either black or white (though we can manage grey - as a colour), up or down, dark or light. However, with the...
Working_Backwards
Thoughts on Working Backwards For the last few weeks I've been producing images and copy for my website, which has been created for me by my IT wizard. It's just as well that I finally shouted to him for help, because I can't think logically enough to create a website...