Sonic confection
I had a bit of busman's holiday this evening.
I went to see Glyndebourne's production of Don Pasquale.
I've worked on the show a couple of times before, but have never seen it from the front.
So it was lovely to see how the backstage hustle and bustle creates the perfect, magical illusion on stage of elegance, poise and charm.
The show was a delight – to me, a bit like a theatrical interpretation of the experience of eating a macaron.
Here are some sketches I made while working on the show in previous years.
Pearl
Silk and iron
I feel very lucky to live near the sea.
Every time I walk along the beach, it feels as though I am wandering through the most perfect work of art.
The other evening, the colours in the sky were amazing.
Recently, I've been going through a phase of working in bright, intense, brash colours – there's fun in their loud vibrancy.
But the colours in this sky – ethereal, watercolour-like hues of mauve, rose, peach and taupe, brought me back around to ideas of a gentler persuasion.
The delicate colours here, offset by the remains of the West Pier and the gold disc of the moon are just wonderful.
I haven't really managed to capture it in a photo, but maybe in a painting...! I probably wouldn't set out to try and recreate this image as that's not my style. But the mood, textures, colours and juxtaposition of softness with strength will certainly inform some ideas.
Pearl
Vantablack
'It's called Vantablack.'
The backstage chitchat had spanned flamingo ankles, gnomes and wetsuits. Now, it was about this new colour.
'It holds the world record as being the darkest ever man-made substance. Look.' Saffron held up her phone. I saw a photo of a man holding a black-painted circle that was so black, it looked like a Photoshop cut-out. 'It absorbs 99.9 percent of light!'
I kind of had in my mind that we already had all the colours... and yet people are working on creating new ones.
Artist Christian Furr describes this new back as being 'like dynamite in the art world.' However, it turns out that the artist Sir Anish Kapoor has been granted exclusive rights to use Vantablack, 'sparking a furious reaction from other artists,' according to the Daily Mail.
So I guess I won't be using this super-swanky colour myself any time soon.
'Yeah,' you might be thinking, 'but black isn't a colour.'
Well, that's true – I tend to never use pure black for shadows and dark areas in my paintings. I aways use a mix of other colours to reflect what's happening in the image – but that's exactly what black is – all the colours!
Kind of magical, in a way.
Pearl
Image: @vantablackinvasion, Instagram
The ink girl
A nameless character looks up at me from the sketchbook page.
Not even a fully-formed face. But enough of a presence here to feel this is a person made from ink.
Id like to wear this dress – wide stripes cut from a fabric that shines, that pulls back against the wind.
'What's going on with your hair?' I ask.
'It's not my hair,' she replies, and laughs.
'So what is it, then? A hat? Light? Energy?'
'No,' she says, 'it's lines you made with a ballpoint pen.'
Pearl
Big smoke magic
'Well, London is so ahead of New York when it comes to edginess.'
'Reeeeally? You think so?'
I sat back in my seat, and raised a conspiratorial eyebrow.
I was in a cafe in trendy Shoreditch, East London, having lunch with a fellow student from my art college days, now a successful designer, who I hadn't seen in about a hundred years.
'Oh for sure. Certainly in terms of style and design, anyway.'
'Hmm!' I glanced out of the window while I digested this controversial little nugget, and saw red London buses grinding past, cyclists weaving in and out of the traffic and present-day art students walking past in preposterous outfits.
It felt wonderful to briefly reconnect with the dusty, grimy, gleaming, quirky magic of my old London life.
I found plenty to whinge about while I was at college, but in that moment in the cafe, I felt an overwhelming rush of gratitude- for the wonderful group of people I studied with, for the opportunities we had, for the moments that could only have existed at that time, and for who we have all become.
It sounds clichéd to say that you should strive to appreciate every moment... but it's true.
Pearl
Fashion passion
I used to be very anti-fashion, but then I realised there's magic in style, and how people choose to present themselves.
So while I'm not interested in following trends, I do like to keep an eye on style trail blazers, particularly when it comes to the theatre of haute couture, for example.
Many ideas for paintings, characters and stories have sprung from the world of fashion.
From the perfumed, glossy heavyweights such as Vogue or Harpers Bazaar, to more off-the-wall, edgy publications like Scene or Love, I used to hoard them all in dog-eared, paint-spattered, missing-pages piles in the corner of my studio.
These days, it's more about looking around me to see what people are up to, or stumbling over stuff on the internet. A friend, Natalia, has just sent me a link to the Iris Van Herpen collection for fall/winter 2017 – how crazy and amazing are these designs?!
Treasure hunt
'It's in locker number 31. A parcel for you.'
The text message was cryptic.
A colleague was safe-keeping a gift for me.
The next time I was in the opera house, I couldn't find locker 31. I went up and down flights of stairs, all along the corridors, in and out of the costume store, and I checked two kitchens.
Finally, hidden behind a rail of costumes, I found a small stack of green lockers. And inside number 31, was a brown paper parcel with my name on it.
Inside the parcel was a book called Write for Life, by Nicki Jackowska. It was a gift from an actor, Gowan.
I've also been loaned another book, The Art of Creative Thinking by Rod Judkins, from Lee, who plays the tuba in the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
I feel so touched that people have gone out of their to bring me these books – little bits of wisdom and inspiration that I can't wait to get stuck into.
I guess it goes to show that when you talk to people about your passions, they very often will want to help you.
Pearl
Fishy business
'Huh,' I thought to myself the other evening.
'Why would someone just dump a load of paint onto the pavement?'
Something about the movement of colour through the splodge made me stop for a closer inspection.
I had a sense that I was looking at the shape of paint from the wrong way up, and so I walked around it to the other side.
Sure enough, a fabulous fish emerged!
I really think this is a great painting. I love the messy trails of paint and the random splashes – I'd like to get more of this kind of energy happening in my own work.
Amazing magic you can find when you keep your eyes open.
Pearl
The Queen of June
The Queen of June inclined her head.
'What have you got there?' she asked.
She was the sun's lover, and her skin shone like burnished bronze.
Her hair burned in clouds of bright, wild flame.
I hesitated, my fist clenched tight. 'Um -' when I glanced up, her golden crown dazzled my eyes, and I looked away again quickly.
'It's... I've got the key to winter,' I said.
She chuckled lightly. 'Good,' she said, with the slight edge of a sneer in her voice. 'Give it to me, and I will keep it safe.'
Pearl
'Queen of June'
Acrylic on board
21cm x 30cm
Price and shipping on application
Contact me here for more details
The artist who became a stag
What do you reckon? Good for a night at the opera?
Maybe not so much for the people sitting behind me.
My friend Jules always has incredible things lying around in her amazing jewellery shop.
I found these antlers, and so of course I tried them on for size.
There's a Greek myth about a hunter called Actaeon, who gets turned into a stag as punishment for gazing at a naked virgin while she was bathing.
I haven't been gazing at any naked virgins lately, so I haven't been turned into a stag – but sometimes when I'm painting animals, I can kind of get the feeling that I am becoming that creature, for a little while.
Unfortunately for Actaeon, he got ripped to pieces by his own dogs, so I'd definitely recommend having a go at being an artist instead.
Pearl
Healing magic
Art is great healer.
Thank goodness for wonderful artists – painting pictures, writing songs, making movies, creating poetry, forging novels – all wonderful tools for us to use when figuring out life, and the inevitable challenges that will crop up.
'Life is sometimes hard,' said author Neil Gaiman. 'Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art.'
Pearl
Words magic
I've taken a break from writing during the past couple of months.
I was trying to fix a novel.
But then I began to wonder if the cracks in the story went too deep, and couldn't be effectively re-crafted.
After a while, I started to get some new story ideas.
During snatched backstage moments at the opera, I've been scribbling them down in a black-bound sketchbook.
I might have a go at putting them together, but there's always the fear that things may never come together creatively.
However, at the weekend, I saw this message in town.
And it gave me courage.
:)
Pearl
Stories in the stars
In the middle of the night, I trekked up over the local hills with a friend.
It was the summer solstice, and it made sense to mark the occasion with a connection to nature.
It was a dark, moonless night, and a curious mist swirled around us in a way that made it feel as though we were walking through a magical painting.
After a strenuous climb up a steep hill (for me, not my martial-arts-student friend) we took a moment to turn around, sit down in the scrubby grass and admire the view.
The town glimmered far below us, while above us, the sky was strewn with countless, silent stars.
'It's weird isn't it,' I said, 'to think that we're looking at light that no longer exists.' He agreed.
'Do you think that light from the Earth is travelling out into space, endlessly projecting images from our past?'
'For sure! I've often wondered if there could ever be a way to time travel through capturing light,' he replied.
I sat for a moment, thinking about the silent films of our lives spinning on endlessly through the stars... whoa!
Pearl
Stitching magic
Ethereal, delicate, raw, exquisite, dream-like, gossamer...
...some of the words that come to mind when I think of the internationally renowned fashion designer Abe Hamilton's work.
Last weekend, I was thrilled to spend a bit of time with Abe himself, who happens to be a friend of a friend.
He brought along a chic black portfolio, stuffed to the gills with photographs, press clippings and magazine shoots for me to have a look through.
'It all started with some pressed daisies that I had collected in Spain,' said Abe, 'and the inspiration just flowed from there.'
It was a such a beautiful treat to wade through the portfolio and immerse myself in this gorgeous world of magical elegance.
And it seems that fashion isn't Abe's only passion – as you can see from the amazing cake that he baked for us!
Pearl
Another scorcher!
The sun is blazing in the UK right now.
Some people are still managing to complain about it, but I am loving it!
I had a couple of things to do in Brighton today, and the city was in full-on summer mode.
Flip-flops were flapping all around me, and stereos were blaring through open windows. The pavements outside cafes and pubs were thronging, and B.O. Was an issue.
I love to people watch – catching moments, characters minding their own business, interesting style choices.
I remembered to take a sketchbook with me but not a pen. I didn't have time to buy a new one, but here are some sketches I did from memory in the evening.
Ah, the magic of summer!
Pearl
Peony dresses
Peony dresses
OK, so here are some sketches of what I was envisioning yesterday.
These have been done with ballpoint-pen and watercolour.
:)
Pearl
Luscious and blowsy
It's become a bit of a Fathers' Day tradition to get peonies for my Dad – they're his favourite flowers.
In fact, I love to give flowers to my friends who are men, as it seems they rarely receive them!
But aren't these gorgeous?
White tones can be difficult to achieve in paintings, as they can so easily look too flat and bright.
Looking at these peonies, I can see the softest hints of rose pink mixed with creamy, swirling shades of pale buttermilk. I would not normally think to contrast such delicate colours with the striking, deep burgundy and glossy bottle-green of the petal cases and leaves, yet that's exactly what Nature has done here.
It makes me think of a tightly buttoned, burgundy and green Edwardian-style velvet coat, with layers and layers of cream coloured silk petticoats spilling out underneath...
Pearl
Feathery friends
Perhaps inspired by yesterday's post, look who paid me a visit today.
I love these guys – so bright-eyed, clever and strikingly beautiful.
These particular crows are a pair of Rooks – they are common in my town.
I had a little skim on the internet to get some more information about crows, and these tidbits appeared near the top of my results:
Because of its affinity with life mysteries and magic, the crow is seen in many shamanic traditions as the spirit animal of choice for those who use magic and have the power to manipulate the law of our physical universe. The crow used to be the animal of choice for shamans, those who do witchcraft and shape-shifting.
Spiritanimal.info
One of the oldest legends attached to these birds is that of Huginn and Muninn, a pair of male Ravens who were sent out each day by the Raven God "Odin". These Ravens collected information and gave it to him on their return at sunset. Hugin represented the power of thought and Muninn represented the power of intuition.
thespiritualcentre.com
Fascinating!
Pearl
The Raven Prince
He employs a murder of pirate ravens and crows.
They bring him treasures that he can sell in exchange for magical secrets.
