Author: berrydaines

Printmaker

Banner

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Protest banners should be light enough to carry while walking along, but heavy enough to stay upright and readable. This week’s ripstop on net banner is for the Hart Must Go! event.

It has a blue deer, symbolic of the local Tory MP. A hart is a deer, lacking the ‘e’ of an organ that pumps blood. The blue deer is being chased away by some red foxes. Local MP enjoys bloodsports so that’s a relevant theme. The general election is in December so this banner looks slightly festive.

But it’s too hard to understand! I know, I know, it shouldn’t need an explanation.

Drawing at Art College

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Drawing at Art College. Mostly mark-making, none of that precise decorative nonsense.

There was an incident one lunchtime when I was drawing a sewing pattern on the back of an old print. My drawing tutor looked at the lines on the paper and said: “This could be better!”.
I explained it would be a shape to chalk around. It had an arrow to indicate the direction of fabric grain and various clues for dart position and seam allowance. Perfect!
He furrowed his brow and continued to insist that the drawing needed more depth, more information for the viewer. In that moment I felt the full weight of the futility of art theory. A printmaking tutor arrived. He rescued the situation by explaining the difference between functional drawing and Fine Art Drawing in a few words. I still wish we had drawn an infographic for clarity.

Life drawing every Monday. The life drawing room could be a place to hide, according to some painters. Presumably landscape drawing offers a similar chance to escape from a stuffy studio environment(?).

We began with quick exercises to loosen the wrists, usually the model moved around or through a fixed structure. Some models practiced yoga while we drew their repetitive movements.

I have spent time in some incredibly dull life rooms, which involved drawing a person standing still in a pastel coloured room. Ideally, there is good light on the subject, who has taken an interesting pose.

Ideally, the work made during the day bears some resemblance to a human form. It’s easy to spot errors because the drawn person appears unable to function with those spindly limbs or crooked neck. Drawing a naked human means there are no useful clothing folds to mask a dodgy angle.

As an Art student, listening to irrelevant waffle, I often wondered:
Is there any other subject that can be taught by people who possess very little relevant skill?

Lemon Meringue Pie

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Not actually a pie, there’s no pastry.

I mixed a packet of lemon pie filling (mostly potato flour, cornflour etc) with half a pint of water but left out the egg yolk that the instructions suggested.

There was a jar of water left over from a can of chickpeas. I whisked the water with half a teaspoon of cream of tartar. I added caster sugar and continued to whisk.

The meringue spread nicely over the cooled lemon pie. Should it be baked or grilled? Various recipes suggested various methods and temperatures. Into the oven for a while. As there had been too much meringue I’d put spoonfuls of the mixture onto some baking parchment.

These were baked for a shorter time. They looked nice but were still wet inside… A minute of microwaving improved the texture.

The meringue on top of the pie was also watery inside. Grilling it didn’t help. Neither did microwaving, it exploded! I gathered the broken pieces and microwaved them. Lemon pie with chickpea meringue garnish?

Democracy

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Democracy – a system of government in which the sovereign power is vested in the people as a whole exercising power directly or by elected officials.

Democracy should mean power to the people, but somehow we have all chosen to give power to the wrong people. We are governed by a small group of people who are out of touch with our distant problems.
Our elected members have done very little to improve life in Pembrokeshire. They have consistently voted in line with their party policy rather than for the best interests of their constituents. Their actions have caused further cuts to our health board and they have helped to slowly eradicate any local educational opportunities.

Previously prorogued parliaments have been followed by military rule after beheading the monarch – the green party might disapprove of royalty but we’re not savages.

We need to save our environment, which is more important than any petty political shenanigans. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but Green Party policy is to look for a positive solution and for everyone to take practical action. Everyone has a skill to offer. Pembrokeshire has a great many worthy projects that are run by volunteers, when they should be properly funded.

There will be distractions such as tribal concerns or the media’s divide and rule tactics, it’s too late to bother with those. You can disagree with someone’s outlook but still achieve some level of common ground.

Do we need to be governed by impractical people that we would never seek advice from? No.

Let our elders and betters shut themselves down. Ideally parliament in its current form would never resume and we could save a vast amount of money and resources.

Swans

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I saw a group of swans chasing each other on the Mill Pond near Pembroke castle. One rescued another from the violent attentions of a third swan. Third swan floated away looking reasonably dignified. Then the first two stroked their necks together and caressed in a heart shape.

From my scruffy sketches and some blurry photos I cut a lino block. I wasn’t pleased with it, put it aside and didn’t see it again for about five years.

Made some test prints, it’s not that bad really.