The power of threes

Threes turn up everywhere - in folklore (maiden, mother, crone), time (past, present, future), mythology (the fates and many other 'trinities') and of course in art as triptychs. I started thinking about hydrology and the water cycle, and how mechanical this is in many ways, and this led me on to ideas about air, land and sea. However, I didn't want to separate these formally as a triptych, but fortunately I had three small canvases that needed to be re-used and they turned into Hydrology (Air, Land and Sea).

First step, a metallic respray and bolting the canvases together.

Step 2: start adding the mixed media/collage elements. Yes, it is a seahorse!

The most 'mechanical-industrial' of the panels - Air

Not well lit, but here's the final piece, the way I envisage it being hung.

Close-up of the Air panel.

Paper clowns and oily flowers

Years ago I saw my first ever cartoons - not animation, but the relatively simple paintings used as preparatory sketches for oil paintings or tapestries; these were by Goya and are in the Prado. Being self-taught, I learn about such things piecemeal - at galleries, in books, online - wherever - but they do prove inspiring even if filed away for later consideration. So, I had a big canvas and a picture in my head, and so I decided on an acrylic cartoon/sketch for a large-ish oil/collage . Here's what happened.

The cartoon for Human Jungle - there's no background but I've started added more textured, thicker paint over the flat acrylic layer e.g. bottom right.

Working on the central flower with oils - all the oil painting was done with a palette knife as I do enjoy a bit of impasto.

An early stage (detail from the bottom right corner)

A later stage - oil paints applied and gaps being filled, but still a way to go...

Most of the oil painting has been completed. Now, contrastingly monochrome images are selected from old art magazines, cut to shape and glued in place.

The final picture - the paper collage sections have been varnished and final oil details painted. In places the oils have been allowed to blend/smudge into the collage. Now to leave it to dry (which takes time for thick oils), somewhere that our cat can't get at it!

(Mixed) media storm

Over the last couple of months I've been working on all manner of projects - wall sculptures (there's now about a dozen), tattoo design (part 3 to come), poetry and jewellery commissions, and even trying to complete the occasional canvas. It's the latter I want to share here and is an oil with a few mixed media/collage elements. Though in many ways it would be technically easier to put the collage on last, I like embedding these elements in the paint, therefore they are added at an fairly early stage for me to paint round, or indeed partly over. I hope you like this one; it's called 'The Wreck of the Hope' and is intended for an exhibition in late spring 2015 (details nearer the time).

The Wreck of the Hope, oil and mixed media on canvas, 39 x 45cm.

Detail from The Wreck of the Hope.

If music be the food of art materials

...get on and play! I was recently presented with the innards of a very dead piano by a friend who specialises in festival installations, interactive noise-making sculptures and other joys over at the Gypsyjam Collective.

Piano innards awaiting my tender ministrations

Lots of pianos meet a splintery end as they're hard to shift, no-one wants them etc, but at least this one would get used for something. I had no idea what, but, well, all those lovely little levers and springs... so I started dismantling and organising.

Piano bits all neat and tidy.

At this stage, I knew more about how a piano worked, but still didn't know how the components would be used except that there would be (a) articulation, and (b) non-piano additions. I began to tinker. And then some more, until...

Here it is Pianomechanical #1

...yes, wall-hangings - it's more-or-less flat, so hangs easily, and I shall be making a series of them, all numbered 'Pianomechanicals', and all different. They're for sale, so if you are interested, do get in touch. Right, back to the workshop...

I built this city from, er, stuff and paint

Over the last few weeks, I've been working on a new painting/mixed media piece entitled 'City'. It was one of the more technically challenging pieces I've attempted, encompassing painting, ink-drawing, collage and some unfamiliar techniques/materials so here's an insight into the stages it went through.

The initial collage layout - plastics, polystyrene, card and wood on laminated hardboard.

Everything was spray-painted white. It makes a good photo, but in reality looked like what it was - a blank-but-heavily-textured canvas.

Sections of text from a lecture on NGOs and environmental law, and graphs from scientific papers on ecology were photocopied onto acetate sheets, then cut and attached to the discs already present.

The background was painted in black oils.

The black background highlights key features such as the organic structures made by applying solvent-based (but non-toxic!) products to polystyrene.

'Stars' and 'galaxies' are added in white spray, oil and acrylic paints. It is now a city in space!

Details at this stage include a fox and an angel... to my eye, anyway - to yours?

The final stage - 'circuitry' details in black ink.

The finished piece - 'City' (80 x 60cm). Texture is a huge part of it, and a photo doesn't really convey this, but I hope you like it. Once framed it'll be up for sale...

Ritz of bits

As you may know, my jewellery and hair-wear is made from reused and recycled materials, but I try to follow this ethic as far as possible in my other artwork as well. So, when I found I has an old printer's drawer and all manner of other bits and pieces accumulated in my materials store, an idea started to form, and that idea was 'Hotel'...

'Hotel'

So, why hotel? Well, the most obvious reason is that it is made of rooms - as simple as that - but, it has a little more depth as it is, in part, highly personal, so although some of these rooms are primarily decorative,  many are actually 'memory rooms' containing little segments of autobiography. A boot from a childhood Action Man, a small volumetric flask from my PhD, the sketch that became a piece of silverwork, a Rainbow warrior badge, items from my travels, an empty pack of Citalopram. Of course, it's designed to be looked at closely, peered at, scrutinised and zoomed in on - so, let's go on a little tour...

The central third of Hotel - there's that flask (second room up, bottom right) and of course a magic fish held down by a spider (top left)

Zooming in a bit more, the moulted skin of a stick-insect (I am also an entomologist), chainsaw links and postage stamps under a celestial arch.

If you been here for example, you'll know about my liking for 'cyber' imagery using bits of electronic gubbins...

I like pubs, well good ones anyway - here's a tiiiiiny one complete with posters.

The only room I've ever wallpapered...

Words, I love them so... to the extent of wearing out a Scrabble set.

Luv 'im or hate 'im, a little homage to Damien Hirst

That's all for now - I hope you enjoyed the tour, and if current plans come to fruition, you may get the chance to see Hotel hung in a gallery at some point...

Synapse by stages

I've just finished 'Synapse', my latest science-inspired mixed-media piece - so, here's a brief insight into how it was created. Enjoy!

Stage 1: The baseboard is in the background - here some components from dead mobile phones...

Stage 2: Adding components to the baseboard - it could be a space-station, but it's not...

Stage 3: Adding more components.

Stage 4: Now the right way up - adding detail in gold ink - but the pen ran out and it's 10pm!

Stage 5: New gold pens bought, final details and white oil-paint highlights finish the piece, so here it is - 'Synapse' (40x50cm approx), £POA

Cortically speaking, I've just had an inkling

It's been a busy few weeks, hence the quiet in HubArtHub, but there has been much moving, and indeed shaking, in my developing artistic life. First up, I've embarked on the 'Creative Dave' plan which has been brewing for some time i.e. to link together my jewellery, painting/drawing (i.e. what's here on HubArtHub) and poetry. It's still a work in progress (look out for a dedicated website in 2014 if not before), but that's OK - it is progressing.Part of this has involved getting some pieces ready for sale - one of these is 'Cortex' - a mixed media piece on board which is inspired by the natural circuitry of the brain and works with my liking of intricacy and non-standard materials. It's for sale £POA so do let me know if you are interested...

'Cortex' in the middle of frame-choosing at Bridge Gallery.

'Cortex' - the finished piece (well worth the pro-framing IMO) - 30 x 40cm approx

'Cortex' (detail) showing the materials - tacks, gold paint and ink, electronic components - and many hours...

Getting in touch with my cyber-side

Halloween's coming (yup, it really is) - pumpkins, trick-or-treaters and of course masks. Being a wearer-of-glasses, masks can be a bit of a pain, but they do offer interesting opportunies for some not-flat artistic expression. Given that I like a bit of detailed pen-and-ink work, including some sci-fi cyber-style gold-on-black, you might not be too surprised at the route I went down to produce these. Better still, the add-ons are all recused bits and pieces (the red eye is from an old cycle lamp), and the blank masks can be acquired very cheaply from fancy-dress shops like this splendid independent one (my personal fave, hence the plug). Anyhow, here's what I came up with...

Cybermask I - an electronic pharaoh inspired by Stargate/Fifth Element.

Cybermask II - a head full of words and numbers...

Introducing the Quantum Triptych

OK, here goes - the first proper 'look what I did' post on HubArtHub. To start, there's a few themes and about-me things that you need to know. The main one that's relevant here is that I am an unashamed nerd - in my non-artistic life (though that's being rapidly absorbed by the artistic one), I am a professional academic/ecologist with a penchant for physicsy/mathsy/sci-fi stuff. This informs at least some of my art. I also like to use recycled/repurposed materials (as in my jewellery), and this sometimes drives what I make my art from. So, what's the Quantum Triptych?

Well, I wanted to explore the aesthetic of very-big-and-very-small physics - you know, the interesting stuff that Brian Cox talks about on TV - fundamental particles, quantum-weirdness, cosmology and so on. I also wanted to look at this like a story with a beginning, middle and end. Actually, not the end - I chose 'now' as the end point, but the idea stays the same. Anyhow, I could babble on, but won't - here's the triptych, all 'mixed media on board' - I hope you like it.

Triptych part 1: '1.616 x 10^-35m'- this is the Planck length, measurement used in quantum physics, and the smallest unit of distance that has any real-world meaning - it is the realm of 'quantum foam', particles popping in and out of existence and so on.

Triptych part 2: 'The first three minutes' - after the Big Bang, the period when the Universe rapidly expanded and created matter as we know it. A lot happened in this short period of time, which also approximates to the length of many a song. This is a time of major transition, hence the loss of structure seen in parts 1 & 3.

Triptych part 3: 'Virgo Supercluster' - our corner of the Universe as it is now - a cluster of clusters of galaxies, and a structure that's actually large enough to be significant in what is a very grand scheme of things.

As yet unframed, but here's the triptych as it is intended to be displayed.