The Open Sketchbook

Dream Paintings

2011-06-28T01:35:00.000+01:00

Paintings based on dreams

Preparation for dream paintings

2011-06-28T01:20:00.000+01:00

Interior World

Tar Monster

Floating Constructions

Two white dogs

Colossus

Flight

Exploring Inner Space

2011-03-20T12:26:00.000Z

I did some stitching for a friend who is doing a project on patchwork.

I chose a really random subject that comes from a drawing I did in my sketchbook.

The actual drawing comes from an "All American Ads of the 60s" book by Taschen.

It was quite fun, I am not very good at this though!

Small Spaceman

Making Big Discoveries

(Exploring Inner Space)

Feeling of Spring

2011-03-20T12:18:00.000Z

Today was particularly beautiful. Spring is coming and the sun is up in the sky.

I went to a garden near by with some friends and had the most perfect day.

We sat in a field of daffodils and had a picnic, looking out into a beautiful bamboo forest, a lake and a rhododendron tree in the distance. The garden ended up in the sea, where there was a little ice cream shop and we sat there, watching the sunny waves roll by. Gardens that end in the sea are one of the many advantages of living in Cornwall. Another is the Cornish ice cream.

I had my watercolours with me and decided I would paint the "feeling" of spring and not the landscapes themselves. I tried depicting the feeling of flowers and trees and of certain moments I was in.

Here are these feelings:

Woods, Sun, Leaves

The sea, waves, green reflections

The feeling of Spring

Daffodils and Bamboo

Sitting at the edge of the garden, looking onto the sea

Dream Paintings

2011-03-20T12:10:00.000Z

I did a few paintings based on some dreams that I had a few years ago. I have been keeping a dream journal for a few years and thought it might be about time to make a project out of them. I don't wright in it as much as I should, but I have enough material to do some paintings and drawings...

Here are some of the first paintings I did:

Dream of floating constructions on the beach

Dream my teeth are falling out

Dream of two white dogs, running

Dream of the Tar Monster

I think I will try and make some storyboards for these dreams as part of my next project, and also try and paint the feeling of the dreams.

Pages from a small sketchbook

2011-03-20T11:55:00.002Z

A beach barbecue

Quality of Animaitons

2011-03-18T11:34:00.002Z

I would just like to apologise in advance for the quality of the animations I put in here. I have not quite grasped how to export my animations without losing all the resolution, but as soon as I do, be sure I will post them again.

Stills from animation

2011-03-15T00:30:00.001Z

This is a series of images taken from the stills that I used to make up the " trial animation 2".

There were 361 stills in total, I picked one in every ten stills and placed them here, so an idea of progression can be seen while moving downwards.

Trial animation 2

2011-03-14T22:52:00.004Z

This is the second drawn animation that I try.

It was made by scanning in each step of the way... lots of scanning!

Trial Animation

2011-03-12T18:16:00.001Z

Here is a trial of a drawn animation, just to see how it goes...

Edmund Dulac and Moebius

2011-03-02T14:49:00.000Z

These are two artists that inspire me lately, both illustrators, and both making beautiful, dream-like scenes. My father's love for Moebius illustrated comic stories was enthusiastically passed on to me, and nowadays he is one of my favourite artists. Edmund Dulac, on the other hand, is a very recent discovery for me, having seen one of his watercolours in London only this weekend. I was delighted when researching his work to find out that he was an illustrator and did some beautiful, dream-like, intense drawings that really attracted me. Here they are:

Jean Giraud, also known as Moebius

French comic book artist

Born 1938

Edmund Dulac

(1882 -1953)

French Illustrator

Drawn Animation

2011-03-02T00:53:00.000Z

Drawn Animation

2011-03-02T00:46:00.000Z

Remote subjects in Art

2011-03-02T00:36:00.000Z

Remote Subjects in Art

It seems natural that artists choose to work with subjects that are geographically or psychologically close to them. In doing so, an amount of depth and meaning can be attributed to a piece work which comes directly from the knowledge the artist has about the subject. Filmmaker Sofia Coppola only writes about American culture and things she knows about, and only works on material she is familiar with. (A. Tain, 2010). Her films have a subtlety and depth that would probably not have been achieved if it weren’t for the artist’s close relationship with the subject matter. Other artists choose close subjects because they are more comfortable to explore, not necessarily having to attribute any depth or meaning to them. Giorgio Morandi is a good example of an artist who worked with themes that were close to him in the literal sense, not needing to look beyond his apartment to find subjects for his paintings. He was able to capture the nature of his subjects and the reality of their environment in an almost abstract manner, painting everyday still objects from his apartment in Bologna, where se spent most of his life.

Giorgio Morandi - Still Life

Still from " The Virgin Suicides "by Sofia Coppola

Other artists find themselves compelled to choose more remote subjects. This particularly interests me because I have a strange cultural situation, currently living in England, having lived the first half of my life in Italy and the second half in Brazil. Not having an exact place to belong to and a subject that I am completely familiar with, almost every subject I chose seems remote in some way. During my Foundation course, I found myself looking across the globe at a contemporary event happening in Rio de Janeiro, (drug trafficking war) and choosing photographs that reported it as subjects for various pieces. Even though I lived there for nine years, by taking this geographically distant subject and removing it from it’s context, I found it became unfamiliar and distant to me. It was a strange sensation and because of it I became interested in the ways artist treat and work with remote subjects.

Albrecht Dürer's, Rhinoceros

Sometimes artists have no other choice than to work from a remote subject, like Albrecht Dürer and his Rhinoceros woodcut, (1515), which he made without ever having seen a rhinoceros in real life or in picture. “His preparatory drawing…is an imaginative design of the rhinoceros based on a description and sketches sent from Lisbon to Nuremberg”(G. Bartrum, 2007). The woodcut is amazingly detailed if considered that he was drawing an animal that lived on the other side of the world, in a time where it would take months for the artist to reach the subject. Nowadays, with photography, globalization and the Internet, it is more plausible to choose a subject that is geographically remote. Everything is so interconnected that it becomes difficult to distinguish the difference between cultures and between what is close and what is distant. Any geographically remote subject can be brought closer to the artist by the click of a mouse, but by doing so; subjects lose the context of their environment and their physical, real connections to the world.

Yinca Shonibare's gowns

Some artists explore this contradiction and confusion that is brought by globalization and the distortion of cultural identity that comes with it. Yinca Shonibare is famous for challenging cultural assumptions by using certain fabrics as subjects in his installations. These are “ Dutch wax fabrics, designed in the former-Dutch colony of Indonesia and manufactured in Manchester, England” (B.S. Gersh-Nesic), which are then exported to Africa and associated with an African identity through fashion. He is choosing a geographically remote subject because it belongs to the African identity on the other side of the world, but at the same time a close one because it is made in England, where he lives. The subject is also psychologically close and remote at the same time, familiar and unfamiliar, real and fake. His bi-cultural heritage allows him to be playful about the duality of the subject, and the subject allows him to be playful about his bi-cultural heritage and its ironies.

Gerhard Richter - Portrait

When a subject is psychologically remote and has no distinctive value to the artist, it can liberate the artist and enable him to create a piece of work that is void of meaning. Gerhard Richter, who works from black and white photographs, found randomly, is an example of an artist who uses remote subject as a way of reporting images, without further intentions. According to T. Lubbock (2009) the images could be holiday snaps, newspaper cutting, and photo-booth shots. Even photographs that Richter takes himself are void of any real connection and could be called “psychologically” remote, or as Lubbock states, “psychologically indifferent”. By choosing these types of subjects, Richter is able to paint everyone and everything equally, removing them from their time and space, de-contextualizing them, making them purely aesthetic and compositional pieces. By choosing a remote subject, the artist is able to fully dictate it’s intentions on the piece of work without having to worry about respecting certain boundaries that involve the subject’s natural environment. As Lubbock states, it is a sceptical way of painting, as if to say that painting could no tell or show or make or grasp anything, it could only operate and remove.

Sigmar Polke - Lens painting

In quite a similar way, artist Sigmar Polke used a multitude of subjects for his paintings, ranging from photographs of cheap advertisements and concentration camps, to images of washing-up bowls, watchtowers, barbed wire and sleazy sunsets ( A.Searle 2010). Like in Richter’s case, the subjects are all remote to him in the sense that they are removed from their context and chosen in random ways, free of other connections. Unlike Richter, even though Polke’s subject s are remote, there is closeness in the paintings. The transcription of these subjects into his own visual language can create a sense of connection and familiarity with the viewer. He collects these subjects and paints them using experimental techniques and medias to give them new aesthetic meaning. Even though the subjects alone are not close to him or connected to each other, when they are part of these compositions they seem to be strangely familiar and to make sense within the paintings.

Transcribing a remote subject into a piece of work is, for many artists, easier than transcribing a close one. Maybe this is because the more remote subjects come disconnected of all the ties that could limit one’s imagination and production. In a way, being detached from your subject can also make things clearer, whilst if your subject surrounds you all the time, it is more difficult to look at it through an analytical and unbiased eye. This may be the reason why I only chose the subject of Violence in Rio after I moved to England. The fact that Rio and its conflicts became a remote subject for me as I moved away from them allowed me to take certain liberties that I couldn’t take before. It relieved me of the need to take sides on the subject and I was free to treat it aesthetically without the pressure of making a political statement.

References

Electronic publications

B.S. Gersh-Nesic, Yinca Shonibare’s Age of Reason, viewed 1^st February, <http://arthistory.about.com/od/special_exhibitions/l/bl_shonibare_bgn_0708.htm>

T. Lubbock, 2009, Photos and fantasy: Gerhard Richter’s portraits, viewed 1^st February, <http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/photos-and-fantasy-gerhard-richters-portraits-1634987.html>

A. Searle, 2010, Sigmar Polke – Sorry I missed you, viewed 1^st February 2011, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jun/16/sigmar-polke-sorry-i-missed-you>

A. Tain, 2010, Sofia Coppola – princess cool, viewed 2^nd Ferbruary 2011, <http://paris-lifestyle.aeroportsdeparis.fr/en/carrousel/sofia-coppola-princesse-cool/>

Books

G. Bartrum, 2007, Durer-The British Museum, The British Museum Press, London

Pages from my small sktechbook

2011-03-02T00:21:00.000Z

On the train

Illuminations from the Baghavad-Gita

On train

St. Ives

In Pub

On train

Stanley the butler

On airplane

On bus

In Emil Nolde exhibition, Berlin

(one of his postcards on right)

Sketching in Museum, Berlin

Sketching in museum, Berlin

(Emil Nolde postcard on left)

I hate Easy Jet

Islam exhibition, Rio

Compassion

To repair the world

In cottage

Playing with Lomography

2011-03-01T23:30:00.000Z

Lomography is so much fun!

I discovered it at RISD when I did a summer course there in 2008.

These are some photographs that I took since then, all in a very playful way.

I have used Holgas, Dianas, Fisheyes and disposable Lomography cameras,

and all have their different personalities and effects.

I think the Holga takes the best photographs, but is the most fragile because it's batteries are located under the film. When you use it properly and carry it around, eventually the batteries will start rattling and coming out of their place, let's not forget that this is a camera made wholly out of plastic. Pieces brake, are lost and get loose, that's the whole charm of it. I spend half my time fixing my Holga and taping it up. It has got to a point now unfortunately that the batteries don't last me half the film without falling out, and without the batteries, the Holga loses what makes it special, the colour flash.Trying to place the batteries back in their place when you are mid-film is suicide, since it requires opening the rear end and exposing the film.

But hey, don't be discouraged because each camera is different and comes with it's faults and quirks which accumulated, create the famous unpredictable character of the Holga.

The Diana is a safer version of a Holga. I found the Holga's flash works better though, (when it works at all) and the photographs come out nicer in the Holga too. Why did I buy a Diana then? Because it lasts longer, (at least in my case). The batteries are outside the rear end and nowhere near touching the film like in the Holga, meaning I can have a guaranteed flash throughout the whole film! What a luxury!

The Diana also has the advantage of having external colour filters, meaning you can go crazy on the colours without really being limited to the fixed ones inside (like the Holga).

The Fisheye is more portable than both Holga and Diana and is a different game whatsoever.

It is much easier to take photographs and they all come out in a wide eyed lense!

The quality is great and it comes with many gadgets such as the underwater mask which make it even more fun. Also, the fact that it takes normal film instead of 120 film makes it much easier to develop and to handle. (And cheaper).

It is nonetheless a poorer cousin of the Holga and though it has its charms, it is still quite ordinary.

What I have discovered that is a real gem is set of disposable Lomography cameras, because they are the easiest, cheapest ways of taking those beautiful, grainy, colour-distorted photos that we like. They come in four different colours, red, blue, green and yellow, which gives you room to choose depending on your mood and the event you want to photograph.

The film in it normally has 36 photos which is quite a lot, and it is extremely easy to operate and to develop. It is a toy though, and don't expect miracles or any control over the photographs you are taking.

It is perfect for a day out, an important event or even a night out (because of it's strong flash) and makes everything more lighthearted and fun!

Plus, the excitement of waiting for the photos to develop is so worth the while!

It makes everything seem like an adventure and teaches you to appreciate your shots more,

photographing when it is necessary and when the moment is beautiful,

and not for the sole purpose of putting the photos on Facebook.

Holga

2008

Diana

2009

Diana 2009

Fisheye

2009

Fisheye

2009

Fisheye

2009

Lomography disposable camera

2009

Holga

2008

Holga

2008

Holga

2008

Holga

2008

Diana

2009

Diana

2009

Fisheye

2009

Fisheye

2009

Fisheye 2009

Fisheye

2010

Fisheye

2010

Fisheye

2010

Fisheye

2009

Old Works

2011-03-01T23:01:00.000Z

Here are some old pieces of work from 2008, 2009 and early 2010

Self Portrait

2008 (RISD)

(1 x 2)m - Gouache, white and black charcoal, paper collage

Non Objective Self Portrait

2008 (RISD)

(1x1)m - Acrylic paint, stones and beads collage

Drawing from the senses

early 2010

Tempera

(Listening to Dasi Karnamrita, trying to draw what I felt, saw and what appeared)

Playing with a photograph

2009

Ink observational drawing on rice paper

(0.85 x 0.65) m

2008 (RISD)

Small self portrait

(0.6 x 1.47)m

Gouache, Ink, Paper collage

2008 (RISD)

Observational drawing from studio window

(0.47 x 0.6)m

2008 ( RISD)

Observational collage

(0.47 x 0.6)m

Paper collage, black and white charcoal, ink

2008 ( RISD)

Observational drawing from life

(0.6 x 0.47)m

Ink, White charcoal

2008 ( RISD)

Figure Drawing

(0.47 x 0.6)m

Ink on Newsprint

2008 (RISD)

Fluidity

(1.8 x 0.5)m

Gouache, Ink, Plastic tap

2009

Collage in the nature lab

(paper and beads, ink)

2008 (RISD)

Study of ink washes

(0.47 x 0.6)

ink

(2008) RISD

Frenzy

(Paper Collage)

2008 (RISD)

"O Monstro do Rio"

(1x 2)m

Digitalised collage of painted plastic stencils

2009

A History Drawing

2011-03-01T22:30:00.000Z

30/09/10

Life Drawing

2011-03-01T22:29:00.000Z

Line drawing development

2011-03-01T22:26:00.000Z

Development of my sketchbook line drawings for my Foundation course.

04/11/10

Preparation

Final Piece - A1
Objects hanging from the ceiling

Pages from my first small drawing book 2010

2011-03-01T22:21:00.000Z

Beatrice and advice form Erin

A bald man in a tango class

Interiors

Bob Dylan on the telly

Childhood memories

Erin on the roof

Girl with swirls

Antonio reading

My patterns flourishing again

Istanbul

no, Constantinople

Kea

An error becoming a flower

Random bits and bobs

2011-03-01T21:55:00.000Z

Featuring : George becoming a seagull

The day Sophie was ill

Copper Plate Etching

2011-03-01T21:52:00.000Z

These are a progression of works inspired by the recent small war in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, between military forces and drug traffickers in November 2010. This subject is close to me as I lived there for the past nine years and understand not only how important this conflict is for the pacification of the city, but what it represents for its inhabitants.

I was inspired by Gerhard Richter’s RAF paintings, and how, as he describes, “by way of reporting, the paintings will contribute to an appreciation of our time, to see it as it is”. These pieces were created with the same intention, trying to report an event by exploring a series of visual languages and different medias such as acrylic, copper plate etching, lino printing and collage.

(First time I tried Copper Plate Etching)

Very Fun

Rio Collages

2011-03-01T21:50:00.001Z

This series of collages combines the previous Newsprint studies with lyrics of brazilian songs that I like, with other old works glued in, with the use of permanent marker and gouache. A bit of everything!

Soldier Lino Cuts

2011-03-01T21:45:00.000Z

Soldier Paintings

2011-03-01T21:43:00.000Z

On one hand, the lightheartedness and beauty of the flora, abundant and constant. On the other, the sharp edge of fear and violence, always looming around. Both coexist in the same environment organically, almost separately, creating an odd situation of extremes.

Soldier Collages

2011-03-01T21:38:00.000Z

It is interesting to see how one can be aesthetically attracted by these images, only realising afterwards that they portray soldiers pointing their guns. It is the abnormality of this situation and the fact that still it somehow works as a composition that interests me. I also like to approach the questions of how we see conflicts like this, if we really see them at all or if, like in Rio, they have become part of the "norm". How different these soldiers read when taken out of context. How strange it all is in the middle of colours and exuberance and life. How strange it still is that war can occur in such beautiful places.

Random Pages

2011-03-01T21:20:00.001Z

Random pages in between the Rio project, hence the helicopters and soldiers.

Soldier Abstractions

2011-03-01T21:19:00.000Z

Using a mix of newsprint studies, paint and permanent marker.

Studies on Newsprint

2011-03-01T21:16:00.000Z

I made some studies with ink on Newsprint based on photographs of the riots in Rio that I got from Newspapers, both online and physical.

Initial Ideas for soldier painting

2011-03-01T21:12:00.000Z

Interesting colours on old palette paper

Ideas for soldier paintings

Playing with my Super Sampler

2011-03-01T20:50:00.000Z

Gylly beach, Falmouth

Figure Drawing

2011-03-01T20:41:00.000Z

Trying not to look too hard at the paper

Going a bit crazy

A small history drawing

Line drawings and a poem

2011-03-01T20:38:00.000Z

I love this poem.

Just another page

Line drawings

Experimenting with Lino cut prints

2011-03-01T19:01:00.000Z

Lino cutting is fun and addictive.

Drawing in Falmouth

2011-03-01T18:58:00.000Z

I inserted the basketball players on the bottom right hand corner before I did the drawing. I have this compulsion of pre-filling some of the white pages before I start a book, with photographs or artwork that I like or with poems. It makes it easier for me to start drawing and it makes the sketchbook a little more whimsical, and who wouldn't like that?

Random Doodles

2011-03-01T18:53:00.000Z

In the studio looking at the rainy, cloudy day outside.

Preparation fo Painting

2011-03-01T18:47:00.001Z

And a little bit of White Rabbit will do the trick...

No todo lo que es oro brilla

2011-03-01T18:20:00.001Z

More Watercolours

2011-03-01T18:16:00.000Z

Abstract

Deer

Greece

A place in the sun

2011-03-01T18:09:00.000Z

Raul

More doodles

2011-03-01T18:02:00.000Z

Drawing in Falmouth

2011-03-01T17:55:00.000Z

Don't mind the giant seagull on the roof of that house.

More randomness, more snails.

2011-03-01T17:51:00.000Z

Photography Day

2011-03-01T17:47:00.000Z

Having a bit of fun with Photography.

A purple palette

A sunny day in Falmouth

Roses that promise the coming of Spring

A few odd branches

A bunch of odd branches

The mailman and the shoe

An interesting angle

The beauty of rust

Hello nature...

The pink shoe

A majestic tree

The lone branches

Snails

2011-03-01T17:35:00.001Z

Today I realised how cool snails are.

Randomness

2011-03-01T17:28:00.000Z

An afternoon of randomness in my room

Advice

by Robert Crawford b. 1959

When you are faced with two alternatives

Choose both. And should they put you to the test,

Tick every box. Nothing is every single.

A seed's a tree's a constellation.

Nail your true colours to this branching mast.

Weekend at the Cottage

2011-03-01T17:10:00.000Z

No televesion, no phone. Just us and the sea and the dictionary game.

Drawing Objects

2011-03-01T16:58:00.000Z

Continuous line drawing of a series of objects scattered around a table:

Watercolour on continuous line drawing

Line drawing of objects hanging from the ceiling:

Doodling in class

2011-03-01T16:56:00.001Z

Audrey

2011-03-01T16:55:00.000Z

Watching Breakfast at Tiffany's, drawing Audrey.

Recycling Old Paint

2011-03-01T16:47:00.000Z

Using old, dried up paint to create different forms and animals....

Fun!

Ink Study

2011-03-01T16:32:00.000Z

Testing bamboo brushes and ink

Very relaxing

The weathering effect

2011-03-01T16:27:00.000Z

I went out to draw some boats in the Falmouth docks...

Boats are difficult to draw, they never stop moving.

And then it began to rain, hence the involuntary splatters of ink on my page.

Line Drawing and Poetics

2011-03-01T16:15:00.000Z

A poem to cheer us up

By John Clare
Written in Northampton County Asylum

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death’s oblivion lost;
And yet I am, and live with shadows tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
And e’en the dearest – that I loved the best -
Are strange – nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for – scenes where man has never trod,

A place where woman never smiled or wept;
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie, -
The grass below – above the vaulted sky.

Introduction

2011-03-01T16:04:00.000Z

Welcome to my Sketchbook

"Art isn't the imitation of life, life is the imitation of something transcendental which we can glimpse through art"

- Astraud