I have just used 3h of my studio time to gat the paints I wanted but it was so totally worth it: I am having the time of my life pouring, mixing, rolling, testing various primers. As I’m doing this I am thinking about the Poor Artists book and feeling guilty, wondering about all these people who think the “Artist’ as a pipe dream I could let go of when push came to shove, and not a career I was dedicated to.” Those who seem to think “Artist sat outside the remit of a proper adult life.”(Pg.27)
But I am also thinking about how I used to think when I was a kid, how my favourite thing to play during the breaks in synchronised swimming practice was mermaids swimming close to the bottom of the pool(ocean,sea), paying Ariel (this was my favourite Disney movie during the 90s) and how living in that world of fantasy and imagination was the best thing for me to be. Thinking now how often I’m told that fairy tales are unneccessary, that we are adults now and that there are more serious adult problems than to get into made up fairy tales too much(conversation with my husband after me brying my eyes out after final episode of Stranger Things). But as I’m “playing pointlessly” going back to mermaid underwater land I feel that letting your imagination take you places is one of the most important things. For people overly sensitive, who take seriously and to heart all the little “unimportant” problems of everyday life, who are exhausted by the mundane sameness of everyday, the routine of: make money, shop, cook, wash, sleep, repeat. I think getting creativity and imagining things, thinking of ideas, trying, failing, trying again, all to have brief moments of living in a fantasy magical fairytale, this is how I survive the everyday
‘The imaginative tool is in us all.”13
Clive Barker said that one. He wrote Hellraiser and Candyman (pg.33)
“My life has absolutely been transformed by the imaginative possibilities offered to me by artists. Isn’t that one of the reasons why we go to books and paintings and theatre and movies? We go because we want our lives enriched and that enrichment is a kind of change.
We want our pain illuminated, and if it’s illuminated maybe it isn’t quite so bad.’ (pg.34)
13. From an interview with Clive Barker on The South Bank Show, TV programme, episode broadcast 10 April 1994.)
I have initially bought a grey primer by accident and was going to return it. Returning it would have cost a fortune for some reason. Then I thought I might as well keep it and try it next to the white primed with clear primer. And I am super happy I did keep it because the interference colours look soooo much better on grey!!! I am testing a mix of paint(25%), flow aid(5%) and gloss gel(75%) but I am also testing just the paints on their own to see the difference. The gel mixture is very difficut to mix because it’s very dense but once properly mixed it gives a reallly nice subtle sheen whichi I think might look better when layered multiple times. So far purple and green are my favourite, also thinking of trying it in life drawing but need to find a small fridge door I could use for testing first.
Vecna cost us a lot of trips to Hobbycraft for extra airdry clay and a walk in the forest in search of the perfect sticks. It also used loads of copper paint and some metallic purple facepaint as well as loads of sticks used for gluegun veins, but making something together was a great fun boding time with my son right before finding out he will be going to the high school of his dreams:) Now all we got left to do is a film of Vecna wandering around the forest since he was selected to play football tournament all day and cannot attent world book day in the costume(sigh)
