Thursday 30 December 2010

Tommy Fitchet


''Painting directly onto the reverse of the glass panels, he achieves a depth of tone and colour and a freedom of expression and light. The many layers of painted surface give each piece a depth and complexity of colour, as well as a subtle luminosity from the glass.''






http://www.arranartgallery.com/artimages/20093151417190.3%5B1%5D.5x1.5%20Gannet%20Dive2_m.jpg



http://www.arranartgallery.com/artimages/200931514780.3%5B1%5D.5x1.5%20july7_m.jpg






http://www.arranartgallery.com/artimages/2009315149540.2x2%20july5_m.jpg



How to paint on Glass http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/glasspaint/glasspaint.htm

Different types of glass painting, acrylics can be used; http://www.ehow.co.uk/about_5384602_types-glass-painting.html

Katy Perry-Firework

''Ignite your Light''


Wednesday 29 December 2010

Monday 27 December 2010

The War Of Art by Steven Pressfield

From "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield




1. WHAT I DO

I get up, take a shower, have breakfast. I read the paper, brush my teeth. If I have phone calls to make, I make them. I've got my coffee now. I put on my lucky work boots and stitch up the lucky laces that my niece Meredith gave me. I head back to my office, crank up the computer. My lucky hooded sweatshirt is draped over the chair, with the lucky charm I got from a gypsy in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer for only eight bucks in francs, and my lucky LARGO name tag that came from a dream I once had. I put it on. On my thesaurus is my lucky cannon that my friend Bob Versandi gave me from Morro Castle, Cuba. I point it toward my chair, so it can fire inspiration into me. I say my prayer, which is the Invocation of the Muse from Homer's Odyssey, translation by T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, that my dear mate Paul Rink gave me and which sits near my shelf with the cuff links that belonged to my father and my lucky acorn from the battlefield at Thermopylae. It's about ten-thirty now. I sit down and plunge in. When I start making typos, I know I'm getting tired. That's four hours or so. I've hit the point of diminishing returns. I wrap for the day. Copy whatever I've done to disk and stash the disk in the glove compartment of my truck in case there's a fire and I have to run for it. I power down. It's three, three-thirty. The office is closed. How many pages have I produced? I don't care. Are they any good? I don't even think about it. All that matters is I've put in my time and hit it with all I've got. All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance.

2. WHAT I KNOW

There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't and the secret is this: it's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write.

What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.

3. THE UNLIVED LIFE

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.

Have you ever brought home a treadmill and let it gather dust in the attic? Ever resolved on a diet, a course of yoga, a meditation practice? Have you ever felt a call to embark upon a spiritual practice, dedicate yourself to a humanitarian calling, commit your life to the service of others? Have you ever wanted to be a mother, a doctor, an advocate for the weak and helpless; to run for office, crusade for the planet, campaign for world peace or to preserve the environment? Late at night have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is.

One night I was layin' down,

I heard Papa talkin' to Mama.

I heard Papa say, to let that boy

boogie-woogie. 'Cause it's in him

and it's got to come out.

—John Lee Hooker,

Boogie Chillen'

Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius. Genius is a Latin word; the Romans used it to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, which watches over us, guiding us to our calling.. A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center. It is our soul's seat, the vessel that holds our being-in-potential, our star's beacon and Polaris.

Every sun casts a shadow, and genius' shadow is Resistance. As powerful as is our soul's call to realization, so potent are the forces of Resistance arrayed against it. Resistance is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, harder to kick than crack cocaine. We're not alone if we've been mown down by Resistance; millions of good men and women have bitten the dust before us. And here's the biggest bitch: we don't even know what hit us. I never did. From age twenty-four to thirty-two, Resistance kicked my ass from East Coast to West and back again thirteen times and I never even knew it existed. I looked everywhere for the enemy and failed to see it right in front of my face.

Have you heard this story: woman learns she has cancer, six months to live. Within days she quits her job, resumes the dream of writing Tex-Mex songs she gave up to raise a family (or starts studying Classical Greek, or moves to the inner city and devotes herself to tending babies with AIDS.) Woman's friends think she's crazy; she herself has never been happier. There's a postscript. Woman's cancer goes into remission.

Is that what it takes? Do we have to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront Resistance? Does Resistance have to cripple and disfigure our lives before we awake to its existence? How many of us have become drunks and drug addicts, developed tumors and neuroses, succumbed to painkillers, gossip and compulsive cell-phone use, simply because we don't do that thing that our hearts, our inner genius, is telling us to? Resistance defeats us. If tomorrow morning by some stroke of magic every dazed and benighted soul woke up with the power to take the first step toward pursuing his or her dreams, overnight every shrink in the directory would be out of business. Prisons would stand empty. The alcohol and tobacco industries would collapse, along with the junk food, cosmetic surgery, and infotainment businesses, not to mention pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and the medical profession from top to bottom. Domestic abuse would become extinct, as would addiction, obesity, migraine headaches, road rage and dandruff.

Look in your own heart. Unless I'm crazy, right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you as it has ten thousand times, the calling that is yours and yours alone. You know it. No one has to tell you. And unless I'm crazy, you're no closer to taking action on it than you were yesterday or will be tomorrow. You think Resistance isn't real? Resistance will bury you.

You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.

4. RESISTANCE'S GREATEST HITS

The following is a list, in no particular order, of those activities, which most commonly elicit Resistance:

1) The pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or any creative art, however marginal or unconventional.

2) The launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise, for profit or otherwise.

3) Any diet or health regimen.

4) Any program of spiritual advancement.

5) Any activity whose aim is tighter abdominals.

6) Any course or program designed to overcome an unwholesome habit or addiction.

7) Education of every kind.

8) Any act of political, moral or ethical courage, including the decision to change for the better some unworthy pattern of thought or conduct in ourselves.

9) The undertaking of any enterprise or endeavor whose aim is to help others.

10) Any act which entails commitment of the heart. The decision to get married, to have a child, to weather a rocky patch in a relationship.

11) The taking of any principled stand in the face of potential reprisal.

In other words, any act which disdains short-term gratification in favor of long-term growth, health or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower. Any act of these types will elicit Resistance.

Now: what are the characteristics of Resistance?

5. RESISTANCE IS INVISIBLE

Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard or smelled. But it can be felt. It is experienced as a force field emanating from a work-in-potential. It's a repelling force. It's negative. Its intention is to shove the creator away, distract him, sap his energy, incapacitate him.

If Resistance wins, the work doesn't get written.

6. RESISTANCE IS INTERNAL

Resistance seems to come from outside ourselves. We locate it in spouses, jobs, bosses, kids, distractions. "Peripheral opponents," as Pat Riley used to say when he coached the Los Angeles Lakers.

Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. Resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. Resistance is the enemy within.

7. RESISTANCE IS INSIDIOUS

Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce, bully, cajole. Resistance is protean. It will assume any form, if that's what it takes to deceive you. It will reason with you like a lawyer or jam a nine-millimeter in your face like a stick-up man. Resistance has no conscience. It understands nothing but power. Resistance cannot be negotiated with. It will pledge anything to get a deal, then double-cross you as soon as your back is turned. If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.

8. RESISTANCE IS IMPLACABLE

Resistance is like the Alien or the Terminator or the shark in "Jaws." It cannot be reasoned with. It is an engine of destruction, programmed from the factory with one object only: to prevent us from doing our work. Resistance is implacable, intractable, indefatigable. Reduce it to a single cell and that cell will continue to attack.

This is Resistance's nature. It's all it knows.

9. RESISTANCE IS IMPERSONAL

Resistance is not out to get you personally. It doesn't know who you are and doesn't care. Resistance is a force of nature. It acts objectively.

Though it feels malevolent, Resistance in fact operates with the indifference of rain and transits the heavens by the same laws as the stars. When we marshal our forces to combat Resistance, we must remember this.



http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_kuVZCQzbplU/SxAI3PiY4lI/AAAAAAAAHWY/60d3HIeZ0hI/s1600/alex-grey.jpg


Anti Plague Venom


1 litre of raw apple cider vinegar
2 onions (3 if small)
2 heads of garlic                                                                                                                                             
10-15 white peppercorns                                                                                           
Chunk of fresh turmeric root
Chunk of fresh horseradish root
1 tsp Cayenne pepper (i used 3 dried birds eye chillies)
Chunk of fresh ginger root
3 tablespoons of Italian herbs
1/2 tsp of sun dried sea salt


Use organic and/or wild crafted ingredients if available.

Blend everything in the blender and pour into a mason jar or a glass bottles, do not use plastic if possible. Take two tablespoons a day. Can be used as a salad dressing or taken straight from the spoon. For best results leave to infuse for two weeks before using. Lasts indefinitely.








Chile Tomato Soup

Bought some fresh Chilies at the African shop on Great Western Road today. I asked the guy for the spiciest he had and boy did I get what I asked for.

This is the ones I bought, I think they are Scotch bonnet from checking on Google images



They have a rating of 100,000-350,000 on the Scoville Rating which is;

'' a measure of the 'hotness' of a chili pepper or anything derived from chili peppers, i.e. hot sauce. The scale is actually a measure of the concentration of the chemical compound capsaicin which is the active component that produces the heat sensation for humans. The name capsaicin comes from the scientific classification of the pepper plant, a type of fruit, that belongs to the genus Capsicum. Capsaicin (8-methyl N-vanillyl 6-nonenamide) occurs naturally in chilli peppers together with a number of very similar compounds referred to generically as capsaicinoids, it is the precise ration of these capsaicinoids which causes the differences in taste reaction to different pepper species, for example the typical delayed reaction to the habanero pepper (C. chinense) as compared to other species.''

This is hot when you compare it to cayenne pepper which has only 30,000 as its rating. The birds eye chili was the spiciest I had had up until now with a rating of 100,000.



So what did I make with it? Here's the recipe.

300g organic cherry Vine tomatoes
1/2 tsp of sun dried sea salt
5 white peppercorns
3TB of raw apple cider vinegar
2TB Italian Herb Seasoning
1/2 to 1 organic avocado (optional)
50g  Fresh Organic Kelp seaweed or Dulse
1 Scotch Bonnet Chile, seeds left in (go half if just starting out with chilli's).
4 Spring Onions topped and taled, green top left on. Alternatively one small organic purple onion can be used.
2Tb Anti Plague Venom (see next post for details)
3TB Udos oil
1TB Raw Honey
1TB Unpasteurised Organic Barley Miso


Add everything to a high speed blender except the Kelp, salt and oil and blend until completely pulverised and liquid.

Pour into a saucepan and heat at lowest heat until warm to the touch, do not boil!

When warm take off stove and add salt, oil and chopped kelp.

Stir and enjoy :)


This is VERY spicy, be warned. Next time I will probably only add half a chili. To mellow it down and cut the spiciness a but I added some Stilton cheese, anything high in fats i.e cream, butter cheese,avocado etc etc will cut the spiciness.



Here's some health benefits of eating chilies;


There also great for your skin because they are so high in Silicon, this is what gives the skin of the pepper (and cucumber) its shine.

Eat shiny skin to get shiny skin.




My Curriculum

My Curriculum


· Read all of the books below.

· Carry out all the exercises (if any) in the books below.

· Practice the skills I learn from these books as often as is possible till I master them

Drawing


‘’The Practice and Science of Drawing’’ by Harold Speed

‘’The artists complete guide to Drawing the Head’’ by William L. Maughan

Painting


‘’Blue and Yellow Don’t Make Green’’

‘’The Practice of Tempera Painting’’

Woodcarving


‘’Wood Carving projects and Techniques’’

PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE!


prac·tice
v. prac·ticed, prac·tic·ing, prac·tic·es

1. To do or perform habitually or customarily; make a habit of.
2.To do or perform (something) repeatedly in order to acquire or polish a skill.
3. To work at, especially as a profession.

Sunday 26 December 2010

Quote of The Day



''Where can you hide from yourself? There is nowhere to go but within, forgive yourself, forgive others, and shift into service.''




So....what can I do today to help others?

Quote of the Day


"Heroes and cowards feel exactly the same fear. Heroes just react to it differently." - Cus D'Amato, boxing trainer

Thursday 23 December 2010

Quote of the Day

"Man does not die. He kills himself!"

– Seneca, Roman Philosopher

Facing Your Fears

Tuesday 21 December 2010

Monday 20 December 2010

Beyond Survival with Les Stroud-Innuit Tribe

Caught the last 20 minutes of this last night on the Discovery Channel. Really interesting to see a culture like this who have lived so close to there land for centuries and who have such a deep respect for nature. Made me think about our own culture here in the west and the skills which have been past down from generation to generation which are now forgotten. Also interesting to see how they have been influenced by Western Culture, the things they have choosen to adopt into there culture and what they have decided to leave out.

One example being they prefer the wild foods form there land to the shipped in factory farmed meats but they pefer gun, a modern day invention, to the spear for hunting animals.

Maybe we can learn from these people, learn how to adopt and benefit from technology while at the same respecting and staying in balance with nature.

Weve gone top heavy on the technology here in the west with a disregard for nature, that how I feel anyway, and at what expense?

Time to re-connect and re-member I think.




Sunday 19 December 2010

Saturday 18 December 2010

Quote of the Day


''By our actions we are known''

Friday 17 December 2010

Henry Moore Maquette techniques










While all Moore’s pre-war sculptures had their genesis in drawings and notebook pages, those from later dates were made first in terracotta or plaster in a size that was easy to hold and view from all angles. Moore particularly liked plaster, admiring its flexibility and explaining that it was ‘ . . . an important material for sculptors. Good quality plaster mixed with water sets to the hardness of a soft stone. I use plaster for my maquettes in preference to clay because I can both build it up and cut it down. It is easily worked, while clay hardens and dries, so that it cannot be added to.’ These small sculptures served as the first model in the process of enlargement, and many were also cast in bronze editions.

Often Moore would apply plaster or plasticine on to a found object such as a flint or bone, or produce a plaster cast directly from the object itself. One example of this can be seen on the stand in the centre of the table. Notice the small plaster maquette with the bone beside it. This bone was the basis for Mother and Child: Hood 1983 (LH 851) in travertine marble, currently on loan from the Foundation to St Paul’s Cathedral, London.

The plasters were worked with various tools such as files and cheese graters to provide a textured surface, and sometimes coloured with walnut crystals to create a warm bone-like tint, recalling many of the found objects. The green deposits on the plasters result from shellac coatings used during the casting process, or from bronze dust settling on them while at the foundry. Moore admired this effect and sometimes imitated it with a watercolour wash.

Thursday 16 December 2010

Joseph Beuys: 7000 Oaks






Beuys's project 7000 Oaks was begun in 1982 at Documenta 7, the large international art exhibition in Kassel, Germany. His plan called for the planting of seven thousand trees, each paired with a columnar basalt stone approximately four feet high above ground, throughout the greater city of Kassel. With major support from Dia Art Foundation, the project was carried forward under the auspices of the Free International University (FIU) and took five years to complete, the last tree having been planted at the opening of Documenta 8 in 1987. Beuys intended the Kassel project to be the first stage in an ongoing scheme of tree planting to be extended throughout the world as part of a global mission to effect environmental and social change; locally, the action was a gesture towards urban renewal.


One of his projects, perhaps the grandest in scope, was 7000 Oaks. Begun in 1982, this ambitious project became a five-year effort in which he and others planted 7,000 trees of various types throughout the city of Kassel in Germany, each with an accompanying basalt stele as a marker. The solid stone form beside the ever-changing tree symbolically represents a basic concept in Beuys' philosophy, that these two natural and yet oppositional qualities are complementary and coexist harmoniously. Local community councils, associations, and citizens' initiatives determined where the trees would be planted. The organization of this project resulted in a series of conversations among participants concerning a wide range of issues, from its impact on city planning to its meaning for future generations. Completed in 1987 by his son, Wenzel, on the first anniversary of his father's death, 7000 Oaks truly epitomizes Beuys' ideas about art and its ability to effect change in society.





Frans West

http://artcritical.com/brown/images/franz-west-1.jpg

http://crazy-frankenstein.com/pictures-files/wired-ny-sculpture-pictures/Long-Franz-West%27s-aluminum%20sculptures.jpg


http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_things_to_do/attractions/public_art/images/mercury_large.jpg



















Barbara Hepworth





http://www.fineartmirrors.com/images/product/Hieroglyph1953.jpg








Screen Print

Jean Arp

Hans (Jean) Arp, Nimeton


Print (silk screen)



http://www.abstract-art-information-inspiration.com/images/pioneers-jean-arp-omeba.jpg

Print (silk screen)




http://www.affordableart101.com/images/arp%20hasard.jpg

Print (silk screen)












http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2760/4032218901_d2c9050322.jpg

Alberto Giacometti

http://www.dailyartfixx.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Dog-Alberto-Giacometti-1951.jpg




http://www.kclee.de/clemens/cclimages/alberto_giacometti/alberto_giacometti_2006-07-29_1_100_1653.jpg


http://www.poster.net/giacometti-alberto/giacometti-alberto-lhomme-qui-marche-ii-7800022.jpg



http://larosacanina.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/albert-giocometti.jpg


https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTkB2p4c8uvLQecT8emMimkytWoC4ymHwz4i91GEyEQg9TRmoJexFVaMTzFCN4-26ERIdc9iskbymeA1wtbyG-DJst6OUx5BJ-2fdZS9OY4ef6crtViSfdUZOM3nMXCpyxb0QEFBlpJVdu/s400/Alberto+Giacometti+-+Grande+Femme+debut.jpg



http://artinvestment.ru/content/download/articles/20081216_giacometti_homme.jpg




http://taidedesign.com/files/uploads/2009/07/alberto_giacometti_fondation_beyeler_taidedesign_com.jpg




Naum Gabo, a Russian by birth, was a sculptor of Constructivism who professed Formalistic tendencies. Gabo studied medicine, natural science and engineering at Munich University. At that time he had the opportunity to hear Heinrich Wolfflin's lectures on art history which, it is said, prompted the discovery that he had interest in both science and art. In 1917 after his return to Russia he made an active commitment to the avant-garde movement. The impetus provided by an exhibition in 1922 in Berlin, transformed him into a German Constructivist and from the 1930s he even more actively participated in abstract trends. His works can be roughly divided into three different categories: surface, line and moving sculptures and this work falls into the second. Gabo considered line to be one element of construction, and worked as if he were creating something as elaborate as woven fiber. This sculpture, composed of translucent plastic line, was begun towards the end of the 1930s. By connecting these plastic lines, to the basic structure its organic form was created. Thus an object with volume but lacking the appearance of weight was created. In addition, he was able to bring external space into the interior of the object and visualize it. The tightly stretched strings also inspire a feeling of tension as well as hinting at movement. Works such as this one, which suggested movement and those of his sculptures, which actually did move, made him a pioneer in the Kinetic Art movement.


Naum Gabo - Linear Construction No. 2




https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPG2huDgotTFKZyEOPDeQGH75ABoq8k07q-K4Zw_I79coImNvcUlc00CYVH1rfa43J8Ae_r5aAASohizKXwyd6NOVwr_s9Xj5uEr_E0i42osEVef_XH5aOqfiCN-mRAH34N_twpYn0tDVu/s1600/lodder_fig2.jpghttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6qL0dkpM4aPydX_Vyw6NJ97K4_UoyovlHbol5i9-RR7AD1RaKp4zo5iZSUFn4WTGDSTFPYdwyeyTgaVz6-l4bTmAXuT1jicsewIX0xwR7tRgImKNwyjPV6r6xWhqUN6BfjeKxT3QjYV4/s1600/pictur_front_tinae.jpg