Ailyex vs. Dogboyo

biro and coloured pencil - 2006 perhaps

Still loving rediscovering the sketchbooks. This is from one of my university books but I don’t even remember drawing it. She looks a little like Harley Quinn, but after realising that the Joker will never love her enough, non?

I like my nail varnishes with finger monsters on top.

Louise Bourgeois‘ magnificent Maman steel spider outside Tate Modern

I first saw Maman in 2000 on a school trip to the Tate and it still strikes such a chord with me. Bourgeois states that the spider is both a protector and predator, threatening, trapping and mothering at the same time. In person, Maman is a truly jaw-dropping piece because of the way it invades space, looming over you yet supported on pointed feet just a few inches wide. I find it hard to walk away from it.

The rest of the exhibition included works spanning Bourgeois’ whole career and was at once unsettling and totally absorbing. There were pieces drawing on all aspects of Bourgeois’ life and she has such a way of spinning materials and subjects together to create awesome pieces. To me they speak of femininity as being scary, uncomfortable, welcoming,  wonderful and luminous all at once. Her ‘Cells’ in particular have such a mixture of the grotesque, gender issues, intelligence, sexuality, family, beauty and pain that makes them incredibly powerful.

There is also a wonderful textile aspect to her work, with pieces like Seven in a Bed, of working with fabric and textile sculptures that transcends ‘Art’ and ‘Craft’ in a very powerful way.

And then I helped my darling Hanbert move in, a very good and tiring day. x

Roux and Ligne Claire are up now, with Circe and Menthe following this evening for your purchasing pleasure. Happy Wednesday Campers! x

Menthe 15×20cm digital illustration - Rhodia Series

Circe 15×20cm digital illustration - Rhodia Series

Roux the Red and Weary 15×23cm digital illustration - Rhodia Series

Welcome to Wednesday my dudes! Boy, has it been a strange week-beginning . . . there has been:

1. A weekend of varying intoxication, including communing with nature on Barn Hill - a place completely removed from the surrounding rabble, with at its centre the most serene lilly-padded pool, ringed with frosted-green grass and protective trees, all rendered purple and green-black by the moon. With the campfire going, I watched the patterns gather and the trees grow; giggled with Han until we fell off our log; let the boys wander and Alan discovered that he could talk using his guitar. Lovely. Even after getting the bus back with Alan serenading the poor commuters - but then, the Mr. and I did crash out rather than witness the happy trippers’ Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in the garden . . .

2. TVU finally revealed my results . . . yay for the 2:1!!! As my Dad told me - it’s the grade that says you did well, but spent plenty of time mucking about and abusing your student loan too!

3. Lovely prints finally going up in The Shop. With TVU Contemporaries over, I have four images from the Big series that I’ve shared before:

Nautical

Rebirth

Flight

Mind

They are all A2 poster prints on smooth stock in jewel-bright colour - they look a little dulled here due to compressing them for the web, but they are really vibrant in person. Nautical and Rebirth are currently in there, and I’ll be posting Flight and Mind shortly. Plus, my Rhodia set will be joining them shortly . . .

Happy Wednesday Dudes! x

To sum up - after I’d returned from this musical day out and she had finished the new Potter, Hanbert related the main plot points to me, and . . . I was actually thrilled to find out Snape’s fate and that Han’s theories were true, and not that upset about _____ dying, but horrified that ____ dies and ______ loses an ear! I didn’t know I cared - but have since admonished myself.

In more ‘me’ news, here’s another Rhodia sneak peak:

soon to be Circe . . .

and the recently finished Roux.

La Femme de la Ligne Claire

This rosy lady is one of the first from my new Rhodia series of prints, so called because they are all developed from sketches in my new favourite notepad - a Rhodia No.16, which looks like this -

I am tres particular about my materials, even the seemingly unremarkable. You want to use something other than a Staedtler HB and a chewed Bic biro? Psh . . . And one of my most loved materials has to be continental-style squared paper. Few British stationers carry it, so our French family holidays include choosing very special squared pads for the inevitable Holiday Diaries. I can’t explain the simple joy of writing and sketching on nostalgic gridded paper . . .

I doubt that Herge would recognise this lady as the ligne claire style as he perfected it through Tintin, but she is my tribute to simple lines, clean colours and the seeming innocence of Tintin and Snowy - although I don’t know what they’d make of an actual girl!* Lizzi and I loved The Adventures of Tintin - and still do! - and the penmanship, the whodunits and Captain Haddock’s ‘non-swearing’ expletives make me unfeasibly happy. As does this lady - I love her simplicity - intended to remain a tad unformed, a mere languid idea of a girl. From which you’d never guess that I drew her in BF’s last rehearsal!

I’m off to speak to a new printing place and brave the rain, before I finish some the Rhodia characters who’ll be appearing in Le Magasin in the coming days!

* Herge hardly featured any women and got Snowy’s original name - Milou - from his pet-name for an ex-girlfriend. How normal . . .