EDM#44 and burnt beads

 

I went for a walk with hubby in Kenwood today, it was warm and grey and kind of muggy, strangely pleasant though. We went to the duck pond and suddenly I remembered that I had not done any EDMs yesterday or today. So, I thought it was the perfect location for EDM#44, Draw an animal. There were no ducks around but I found two pigeons perched on a tree. They were very still as if they were posing. As soon as I started drawing them, they moved, of course. So, the pigeon on the right ended up looking like a parrot. But there are parrots in Kenwood, so there, I could always say it was meant to be a parrot. The truth is that lately I have been very distracted by... beads. So here is the story. On Friday I went to the library to browse in the art section, and my attention was drawn by a book on the history of beads. I flicked through it and I was hooked. It was a magical experience. Beads have been part of human history for over 30,000 years, they appear in all the human cultures. And they can be seriously beautiful. Apart from the Murano beads with which I am very familiar as a Venetian, I discovered Chinese beads, African ones, ornamental ones, shamanic ones. Oh, I liked those, made of bones, teeth, bits of wood. I thought I could make myself shamanic necklaces, picking up little stones when I travel, and collecting unusual beads. A whole world of beads opened before the eyes of my imagination. I spent the following day browsing for beads on ebay, millions, trillions of amazing and not so amazing beads. They are made of all sorts of material, glass, plastic, wood, and, yes, polymer clay. The Chinese make tiny funny clay beads in the shapes of animals, the Buddha, teapots and what not. So the seed was (tragically) planted. I had to, absolutely had to, make my own beads. I happened to have some fymo (that's the upside of hoarding), and I got working. I made marbled beads, rabbit beads, and, of course, "me" beads. I put them on a tray, shoved them in the oven and in no time at all... the smoke was so dense you had to wear a gas mask around the flat. Poor Me and Rabbits, completely charred. I sat like a child who's just dropped an ice cream, until hubby shook me by the shoulders and said, Try again. So I did. And here you are: charred rabbit on the left, me in the middle and not charred rabbit on the right. Ok, they are not the best beads you've ever seen, but hey, what a journey!

EDM#40 Draw something with folds

I seem to always feel cold, since I was in my twenties, and I seem to always have an animal print blanket, whether in Italy, or here, or wherever I go. I can imagine myself with an animal print blanket in the Sahara (by the way, I could have done with one when I was there in November). Yesterday, I pulled it out for the first time since June. It's a sign that summer is coming to an end. Anyway, it does have a lot of folds. And so does my hand. My hands are very long and thin, they seem weak but they are not -  they are a good book to read my life.

EDM#32 Draw something metallic

It's the second time I draw these scissors. The first time was exactly a year ago, and I blogged about it here. What the EDM challenges have done for me is to remove the inertia, the indecision about what to draw. They have also given me a routine, a drawing a day, so that the fear of the blank page doesn't have the time to creep back in. I am very pleased with this, as I very much enjoy sketching once I've started. Art came late in my life, only a few years ago, and it has been difficult to carve a space for it, a space that doesn't hurt, I mean, that feels natural. I am finally getting there, and I'm happy.

EDM#42 Draw something you are thankful for

I am thankful for our nights at home in front of the TV, always partly covered by hubby's feet. I am thankful for our harmony, for the dreams that we share, for my dreams that he accepts and encourages, for his dreams that are full of poetry. I am also thankful for my sense of humour and my eternal curiosity. I have a fun life, made of little things, big things, exciting things, frustrating things. I have a past and a future, where I spend most of my time. I have a present where I draw, doodle, photograph, write, in the here and now, for the here and now. In the present I always feel cold or hot, thirsty, strange, vulnerable. But when I do my art, I feel only the the fun of discovering how my eye & hand help each other see the world.

EDM # 9 Organised chaos

Organised chaos is something that runs in the family from my mum's side, and it's been lovingly handed down through generations. I felt that the challenge of drawing any of my cluttered surfaces was not enough, so I chose an impossible tool to draw this EDM with: these supertiny pencils that belonged to my great great uncle. It was like trying to draw with my left hand or eat soup with chopsticks. A very humbling experience. If you need help decoding the drawing: it's my kitchen table, with Olympics newspapers (recognise the mobot?), a cd, hubby's phone, plectrums, keys and a few coins, Hello Kitty metal box + the cutlery basket - what? You don't have one? As all of our kitchen drawers ceased to work many years ago, we keep their content in a basket.
After the sad experience of drawing with the slippery micropencils, I looked at their box and found the magic word 'rechange'. Ah, I thought, they are refills for something, you weren't really expected to draw or write with them like that. So I went to one of my favourite sites for vintage pencils (the only one), brandame pencils, to search for clues. Eventually I wrote to the guy, Bob Truby, who revealed the mystery to me: these were refills for some kind of silver holder. I should have guessed that from the beginning! Anyway, has anybody got a spare silver holder I could have for my pencils? It needs to be very very small indeed.

EDM#16 Draw your favorite tool

 

This is a page holder or book clamp, it keeps the book open at the page you want, and it has been a life/time saver during my 20 years + as a book translator. It has kept open more than 100 books for me. It hangs on the wall in my study when I am not working. It's made of brass or similar alloy and it's incredibly ornate, so I drew it with gold and bronze pencils. I don't remember where I bought it, but it has been a most faithful companion, so it must be my favourite tool.

EDM#25 Draw a glass

 

For each Everyday Matters challenge, I like to add the challenge of using different art supplies, or combine them in different ways. To me the history of a tool is important. I am deeply animistic, I guess, and I believe history is embedded in the soul of an object. This glass is a tribute to myself and to my friend Diana. I wanted to draw a glass of water because I have been greatly inspired by the Olympics, and I am now on a path to become a gold medallist in Rio (on the astral plane, but still...). I chose soluble graphite and some funny soluble pencils called Grip Colour Magic: with water the blue pencil becomes green and the green pencil becomes blue (what's the point of that, I hear you saying). The brush I used was a birthday present from Diana, she made this brush herself when she was 15. There are so many magical stories in one glass of water.

EDM#22 Draw a piece of clothing

Now, this may seem like a very strange confession. In my life I've inherited clothes from my sister and from some of my closest friends, but I have never bought second-hand clothes. I have a knack for finding new clothes for very little money, they last me forever, so that's that. I never really put much thought into it. Until the other day. I decided that I wanted some more cheap clothes and bought a bundle of 12 tops on ebay for £12, including postage. Not bad. I washed them feeling really happy. But when I was ironing them, I realised they were USED. Used by whom, I started thinking. What was she going through when she was wearing them? Were they attached to happy or sad memories? And why were they so worn out? My clothes never get worn out (perhaps it's the amount of salt I eat that has turned me into stone). Who was this woman? Why did she sell her clothes? Perhaps she thought they were worn out too. And now what, I asked myself, should I welcome these 'strangers' in my life or bring them to a charity shop? I can wear them one time each, I guess, and see if they become mine or keep on staying hers. Or I can draw one of them and definitely make it mine. Here it is, it's quite cute, really.

EDM #18 View from my Window

This is the view from my study. I wanted to contextualise it a bit, so I included in the frame my radiator and my dictionary trolley (what? You don't have one?) The fluffies on top of the dictionaries look very exhausted. Did they go out dancing last night, or are they working too hard? Ok, probably I'm the one who's working too hard.

EDM#4 Draw your cup or mug

 

Meet Gromit II. Gromit I died in a crash landing from the kitchen counter. Gromit II is in reasonable good health, except for his dwindling eyesight, so every so often I have to redraw his pupils with a sharpie. He is also always very concerned, about what, I am not sure. Hubby uses this mug to bring me coffee in bed in the morning or in my study when I am working. When the coffee is too hot Gromit's nose turns bright red and both hubby and Gromit show extreme concern that I might burn myself. Careful, they say, it's hot.

EDMs in Venice

I've been trying to do an EDM challenge a day and felt that if I had left it for a few days, I would get out of the habit, so I tried my best to continue while visiting my family in Venice. At the airport I bought myself some children's markers and drew my foot using the markers as watercolours. The lady sitting next to me was very intrigued and we struck up a conversation. She was an artist who used mainly pastels. She looked in her seventies and has been travelling the world since her husband's death ten years ago. She's been everywhere, China, Vietnam, Africa. What an amazing person.










For my second challenge, I skipped ahead to # 265, draw your neighbor. Beach life in Venice has always included very vocal card players (my dad used to be one). They take their games very seriously indeed. A couple of huts down from ours there was this group of players. The lady on the right never plays, but watches the others for hours, quite funny really.

At the back of the first row of huts, and in front of the second row, there's a line of trees. Every single tree was bearing a sign, so my sister explained to me what had happened: people in the second row of huts physically and verbally attacked people from the other rows who were sitting under this line of trees, claiming that the shade was theirs. Eventually the beach management put a stop to the fighting by hanging a sign on each tree that reads, 'All the CAPLI customers can enjoy the shade of the trees'. Only in Italy!

EDM #26: Draw anything you like. Shell beaches are quite rare, I believe, and Venice used to be a fantastic shell beach. When I was a kid I could collect an amazing variety of shells. I would paint them with nail polish, so that they always looked shiny as if still wet from the sea. Now the variety is much less, but I sill like to walk along the shore and find small treasures. Drawing them, though, is a real challenge. I wish I had a magnifying glass to see all the details and all the ridges and crests. I found myself cursing Fibonacci, but just a little bit.

EDM#20 Draw something "Dad"

 

My dad's dad was not my grandad, because he died when my dad was 16. He was a clarinet player. He played at functions and at silent movie theatres. He also ran a hotel which was always full of other artists who never paid. My dad was convinced that his dad had died unhappy and poor because he was a musician, and was adamant that I should not pursue a music career. But in his melancholic moments, he would confess to me that the sweetest sound he had ever heard in his life was his dad's playing the clarinet. At some point in my life, I was given grandad's clarinet, which I treasured like a sacred object. It came to England with me and sat on a shelf while I was trying to look for a musician who could play this old instrument. I wanted to make a recording of it for my dad, so that he could hear the sweetest sound one more time. It never happened.

EDM#2 Draw a Lamp

 

Draw a lamp. This has been so far the most difficult challenge for me, as all my lamps and lights are painfully ugly. This is the ceiling light in my sitting room, a very plain, boring thing. So I thought of using some of the children's art supplies that I brought back to England in my pink bag (previous blog entry) to see if I could put some life and character into it. I used Crayola's Color Switchers and a white Conte pencil. I don't know, it still looks a bit sad.

EDM#3 A Bag

The first thing I do when we get to San Diego is to go to Michaels and stock up on art supplies. Of course I NEED them to sketch during our travels, and you know, better safe than sorry, I buy everything in sight. Luckily I like children's art supplies, felt tips, crayons, etc. so not too expensive. But, of course, very bulky. 

When the time came to go back to England, we realised that all those markers did not fit in our suitcases and had to rush to Ross to buy an extra bag. We found this pink bag, and I filled it with my cheap art supplies and other bits and pieces.

In the days in which British Airways was British Airways and American Airlines was American Airlines, you could bring two suitcases each. Now that American Airlines is British Airways and vice versa, things have become very murky re how much luggage you can bring. So when we checked in, a smiling lady said: 'That will be $60'. 'For what?' 'For the extra bag'. I didn't have the heart to dispose of the bag and all of those art supplies, so I paid. And there you are, the most expensive children's markers in the world. So, I learnt my lesson: less might not be more but it's definitely cheaper.

EDM #10 Draw your hand

 

Inspired by Danny Gregory, who is re-doing all the EDM challenges (328!), I decided to have a go, but unlike him who has a dedicated sketchbook for them and meticulously started with #1, I am drawing in a lot of different sketchbooks and choosing the challenges I fancy in no particular order. 

I thought it would be nice to blog about them, as for every picture there are little things worth mentioning. This is my hand. As you can see, it has two wedding rings. The one below is my wedding ring, a silver Navajo artifact. My husband's ring was lost in the Pacific ocean off the coast of Hawaii two days after our wedding. The second is a gold ring and a family heirloom. It bears the date 12 October 1846. My grandmother's aunt, Romilda Pantaleoni, was a famous opera singer (Verdi wrote the Desdemona for her), and was born in 1847. It is very likely that this was her mother's wedding ring. As Romilda was my hero when I was dreaming of becoming a singer, many years ago I decided to wear her mom's ring. The eerie thing is that it is exactly the same size and shape of my own wedding ring.