This work evolved out of the former artist books I’ve been working on, using a concertina format.  The book becomes much more of an art object which is dispayed as is, rather than a book that requires you to participate by opening it up.  Also, the advantage of the concertina book is the inclusion of convex and concave corners which I can paint/draw around on a smaller scale than my large wall works.  I have been trying to extend the possibilities of drawing around corners in other ways now that I don’t have studio walls on which I can paint upon.

Have been scribbling away in my journal and sketching out some line drawings.  I have rediscovered the ruler and am enjoying its possibilities.  I haven’t worked with watercolours for so prolonged a period before and am finding them rewarding and challenging.  It is quite different from the acrlyics and oils I’m used to working in.  The colour mixing feels more complicated.

Here are a few recent drawings from my journal.

The ‘structures’ overlap and twist together and one is not sure which is in front and which is behind.  There is also a floaty quality which I am interested in entending.  They remind me somewhat of the drawings of Josef Albers.

Ah yes drawing, I remember you.  Today, my lone studio day for this week, I was determined to be productive.  Thankfully it worked.  I took up my journal and started sketching and looking and drawing, and remembered drawing.  And how that has come to be important in visually investigating space.  It reminds me of Julie Mehretu’s work even more, although I haven’t been looking at her at all.

Anyway, above is a concertina booklet I made and Apple Peel’d all the way across.  An extention of the work I started last week going across pages.

I enjoy the contrast between the painterly watercolour and the ruled lines.

Below are some shorts of my additions to last week‘s book.

I have been working on a few watercolours of late.  The contraints of having no studio walls to paint on have certainly challenged me a bit.  Full scale I like to paint around corners, so I am investigating this idea with the shapes I’ve been working with for some time now.  There’s more to make with cardboard boxes, but I wanted to do some watercolours also.  So I tore up some watercolour paper and sewed a small book.

A little sewing on the sewing machine and bam!  You have a purpose ‘built’ watercolour book.

I need to make a few more of these, experimenting with colour, page placement and documentation.  I love that they function as sort of sculpture and not a book with pages to be fliped-through.  All pages are meant to be viewed at once.  I could also look at the shape of the book.  There is no reason why it has to be rectangular.

Here are some results from a brief photo shoot in a nearby alleyway.  I rather like alleyways.  Abandoned non-spaces.  There always such lovely colours and textures there.  It’s a funny space too, because although I think it’s probably public space (for local traffic) and it’s perfectly okay for me to be in there, it still feels a bit odd.  Almost private land, but not quite.

I acquired another box.  Mozel tov.  And I have a paintbrush just the right length to be able to fit inside and plaint shapes.  I think I will leave them white.  Love how the shapes are more hidden in this work.  And they are starting to detatch from each other.

This little number is making a comeback, after featuring in this earlier installation.  I think it’s interesting what happens if I start to play with shapes and lines on a polygon and mess around with perspective.  This may end up a larger work, with a number of polygons.

Here lies the finished Brown Cube.  As usual acrlyic paint posed some difficulties to me.  It’s just as well I like the painterly look.  But something else which effected colour quite a bit, was the fact that the base was white.  Next time, I think I’d start with a base of yellow or something else, and then paint the transparent colours over the top.

The summer approaches, and I am studioless.  Well, I am studioless, in that I don’t have a lovely flat white wall that I’m allowed to do art upon.  I am limited to what I can do at home, until I get a new studio next year when uni returns.  But, these contraints can often lead to developments in work, so I will just have to evolve.

In thinking about how I will miss my ‘white cube’ of a studio, I thought about other cubes and came to cardboard boxes.

And the shapes continue, for starters in white gesso.  I plan for bright colours, but of course I need a white undercoat.  Documenting this was just a thought… might lead to some white-only works.  The white is rather pleasing against the brown of the box.  But we shall see.  Colour to come, anyway.