[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 4 November 2022].
this road floods each tide
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 30 September 2022].
It's been a while (like, over a year) since I created and shared a new digital collage for my lost in her own world series.
So here's one I created this evening using a photograph I took in Bosham a little over a year ago.
#FridayFeels
It's also been over a year since I wrote an instalment of my postcards from another's life series. But I've had some ideas gestating the past couple of days inspired by a couple of podcasts I listened to earlier in the week. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to write those soon.
I hope you have good things planned for the weekend x
reflecting upon a subject deer to my heart
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 3 March 2022].
jazz at 11 (accidental portrait of the artist’s parents)
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 8 September 2021].
unstained glass
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 29 August 2021].
This week has been such a mixed bag. A rollercoaster of emotions.
High points: spending the evening with friends doing a BYO quiz at a pub on the other side of town, and long chats with friends far away about life, love, art, work and the future.
Low points: feelings of panic, fear and dread. Some of that feeling has calmed, but it'll be a while before it goes. And there is so much more left to do to lift it.
Meanwhile, and possibly related, the past few days have been the most productive I've been able to have since before I caught Covid. Especially in terms of working on things long overdue that will move me further in the direction I want to go.
I've been working on avenues to find new clients, including updating and adding projects to my profile on The Dots. I still have more projects to add, but it now includes some social media design and copywriting work I did in my previous job.
Unfortunately, you can only view the content of my projects when logged in. If you're a member, feel free to connect with me.
I've also been working on profiles on other sites. And I need to create a portfolio website showcasing my design, social media, book design, editorial photography, writing work, etc. Not just my photography, which is what my main website is for.
I also seem to have fallen into a new line of work. My first assignment is expected to start from 13 September for three weeks, running alongside any other projects I pick up during that time.
Some of you already know what it is (no spoilers in the comments, please!) But I'm going to keep it under wraps for everyone else until it starts.
I hope it will inspire me, lead to new photo series, and maybe even involve collaboration. I'll say no more for now.
I hope those of you in the UK are having a pleasant bank holiday weekend and that all of you are staying safe and well x
hotel ^^^^
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 24 August 2021].
windmills of your mind
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 28 June 2021].
Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never-ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half-forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that you said?
Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning to the colour of her hair!
Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never-ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!
- Marilyn Bergman / Michel Legrand / Alan Bergman
Original recording by Noel Harrison
A more irreverent version from The Muppet Show. This was probably where I first heard the song and why I always think it speeds up when the original doesn't.
054 corner house
Day fifty-four of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
Despite this being a 20-minute sketch, it was possibly one of the most hastily executed for the project so far.
After sketching over 50 of my photos - both those specifically shot to sketch and others from my archive - finding the next one often takes as much or more time than drawing it.
There are plenty of my photos I want to attempt to draw. But how much time I have to draw each day generally dictates what I take on. Often more macro/abstract elements can take as much, if not more, time than photos of a wide vista.
Yesterday it took me almost 30 minutes to find a suitable photo. That meant I started sketching about three minutes before I was due to have a Skype call with my friend Erin. Despite allowing myself about 45 minutes after finishing some client work. My sketch delayed us starting our chat until almost 30 minutes after our planned timing.
Obviously, I didn't like being late to the call but, given we can talk a lot when we do have a chance to Skype (we clocked up about three hours last night!), I didn't want the sketch hanging over me while we chatted, putting a time limit on our catch-up.
Thankfully, Erin understood. And it was a good thing I completed my sketch before we spoke, as we didn't finish up until almost 23:45. Allowing for the image search would have meant I missed a day of my project, officially, if I'd sketched post-chat.
And then, as I was closing off this post, my Dad became free for a "short chat", which turned into an almost 1.75-hour chat. So my sharing of yesterday's sketch has come even later. No regrets, though, as it's always good to natter with Dad.
My sketch of a tall thin building on a curved road in Cambridge from my travels with my parents in 2017 (my Mum's final overseas trip) was executed initially with a 4H pencil. I then hastily drew over the darker elements and shaded them with an HB pencil. I then went over the outlines of the lighter areas with the 4H more heavily.
a millennium in a moment
[I originally posted this collage as early access for my Patreon patrons on 4 December 2020].
landlocked
He was back in front of this window; the window that had ended his school days, every day.
When he was young, he used to stop and gaze up at the model boat and the marine rescue vehicle as he arrived home each day. He would stand there, distracted for long moments.
So long, that his mother - waiting, anxiously, for him to return home from school - would open the curtains and find him stood there. Motionless, head tilted back, mouth slightly gaping and staring up at the boat.
She would come to the front door and watch him for a minute or two, a soft smile playing at the edges of her lips before she bundled him up and took him inside to the kitchen. She would ask him about his day while she prepared supper and listened to the tales he would bring home from the schoolyard.
His fascination with the boat had not waned over the years, but he had stopped gawping at it as he grew older. There were girls to gaze at instead, and as he grew up, they were what caught his eye or kept his attention as he arrived home each day from high school.
As he reached the end of high school, he was usually too busy sneaking in one last kiss with his girlfriend, Sarah, as he unlocked the front door of the house and said his goodbyes for the day.
The model boats, the marine rescue vehicle and the lighthouse baffled him a little bit when he was growing up.
Their home was twenty minutes from the nearest body of water, and that was a river, not an ocean or the sea. Hardly somewhere that a lighthouse or a marine rescue vehicle would be needed, let alone various large boats or ships.
The models were his dad's, but he didn't talk much about them and didn't like being asked about them.
His dad didn't really like being asked about anything. Or talking about anything.
The models just sat on the windowsill gathering dust, hidden from the inside of the house by the curtains. A display for others, not for us.
Except him, of course; he was fascinated by them.
On occasion, when his dad was in a more social mood or simply wanted to distract him while he talked with the grown-ups, his father would let him take down the marine rescue vehicle. Roll it across the rug, pretending he was saving his Lego men from some maritime disaster.
But his dad was always firm about the boat. The boat was not a toy. It wasn't to be removed from the window. He had received more than one firm slap across his legs and buttocks for even inching his fingers up toward the boat.
It was only in the past few years that his mother talked more about his dad's upbringing. It was only in the past few years, as he became more ill and his mind started to slip that his father spoke about the sea. It was one of the few things he could still connect with. That he still remembered.
He didn't remember faces, except his wife's. He never remembered birthdays; that was no change. But he could talk vividly about the sea. The sound of it. The smell. The feel of it on his hands.
His dad would sometimes stop mid-sentence and tilt his head as if listening closely to a conversation through the walls. After a few moments like this, he would invariably ask if they could hear the waves. They nodded and smiled awkwardly, hearing nothing, but knowing that they had to agree. That his dad would look crestfallen and confused if they said "no".
Growing up, he never met his dad's parents. His dad never spoke of his father, so he grew up believing he only had one set of grandparents. He didn't question this for a long time, and then it seemed too late to ask. Too awkward of a conversation to have.
Coming home now, facing the front windows of his childhood home, he gazed once more at the boats, the lighthouse, the marine rescue vehicle. He knew that now he could lift them out of the window and take a closer look. He knew that no one would reprimand him for that.
Since his dad had died, a lot of pieces had fallen into place in the puzzle. His mum had opened up dusty photo albums hidden away in the loft for decades. Too painful for his dad to look at, to speak about, to share.
In the yellowed black and white photographs taken in his dad's childhood, a warm, smiling, middle-aged man gazed into the camera from the railing of a boat.
He waved at the photographer with a look of love.
scenic lookout
[I originally posted this collage as early access for my Patreon patrons on 16 October 2020].
gorgeous view
[I originally posted this collage as early access for my Patreon patrons on 24 September 2020].
nice light on those cows
[I originally posted this collage as early access for my Patreon patrons on 18 September 2020].
heaven or hell
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 14 September 2020].
This is another photograph I submitted to issue #149 of Shots Magazine.
Like encrypted, this photo was taken in the ossuary housed in the crypt at St Leonard's Church in Hythe, Kent.
It's a fascinating place for people like me, but maybe not up everyone's alley...
This was taken about 14:00 one day in summer. The mixture of daylight through the window of the crypt and the artificial lighting overhead creates a nice contrast of red and gold light on the shelves of skulls facing each other.
fully fernished
[I originally posted this collage as early access for my Patreon patrons on 12 September 2020].
take a long walk off a short pier
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 21 August 2020].
So, I 'lost' a week to the heatwave. And just as that finally finished I found out my Dad was in hospital.
He's home now, and the situation wasn't life-threatening because antibiotics. But let's just say the past couple of weeks have been stressful for me for the above reasons and others I won't go into right here, right now.
In that time, I did manage to:
get all my collages from The 100 Day Project up onto my blog and add credits for the illustrations to the posts on Patreon (in case you're interested),
decide retrospectively on a title for the project (to be revealed), and
think about what I would do with it next.
I know it's been much delayed but, once I can, I'll share my thoughts on the project and some other (hopefully) exciting information with you.
---
Over the past months, I've also been dealing with the impact of conspiracy theories on those around me. I'm thankful it doesn't include direct family. It's heartbreaking to watch friends being drawn into this, and I've had to step away from friends of over 10 years.
My condolences if you've also been dealing with this. A friend shared a tweet with me recently that garnered myriad comments which read like memorials and shared experiences about their friends and family members' deaths.
I'm not exaggerating to say it's felt like that to me at times. Having to 'let go' of people who I've had a mutual support system with and admired the photography and talents of for so long.
They're not dead. Just completely bought into these conspiracy theories. I can't watch it. It breaks my heart and is detrimental to my mental health.
---
On a lighter note: when I was creating my collages for The 100 Day Project, I came across George Du Maurier's illustration, Vae Victus, from Wives and daughters, volume one.
It sparked the idea for a series of collages entitled lost in her own world. I started creating collages for the series this evening. This image is one of four I've created so far, with more to come.
Each collage uses the same illustration with a variety of backdrops; all my photographs.
As you may have guessed, today's collage is entitled take a long walk off a short pier.
The title conveys how I feel about 2020 so far (despite this year allowing me lots of creativity and productivity thus far). And how I feel about those spreading conspiracy theories. But at the same time, it creates an idyllic backdrop for our protagonist to lose herself in.
Which feels much needed at this time.
dock, dodder and squill
Day fifty-five of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
Frogs by Charles Henry Bennett from The chicken market and other fairy tales
rear window
now playing: fleetwood mac - dreams