Fine Art Blog

I like how stretched out this motif is. Although I feel it loses its elegance when repeated. I got new whiteboard markers though and tested out the purple and blue ones today. The lighting wasn't that great in the studios to the exposure isn't right on these photos but that is why I qualify them as snapshots taken during the time-lapse that I am recording with the same device.  Time-lapse of class:  https://youtu.be/9LjfvbgAGCI The Fly Like a Bird line dance, 2 walls choreography, erasable marker on A4 whiteboard The Fly Like a Bird line dance, 2 walls choreography, erasable marker on A4 whiteboard The Fly Like a Bird line dance, 2 walls choreography, erasable marker on A4 whiteboard The Fly Like a Bird line dance, 2 walls choreography twice, erasable marker on A4 whiteboard The Fly Like a Bird line dance, 2 walls repeated, erasable marker on A4 whiteboard

The three drawings I created during the second conscious dancing session. The black lines were my instinct for yang and the brick red tones were my yin. The colourful piece was a first attempt at yin but I approached it too hastily trying to throw everything I could think of at it. Having had some time to reflect on the session I now see the combination of yin and yang fighting for dominance in the colourful piece which does reflect my current state of mind that is overwhelmed and a bit of a mishmash of everything. A wonderful exercise. Yang, A2, Charcoal on paper Yin, A2, Chalk pastel on paper YinYang, A2, Chalk pastel and Charcoal on paper

I have recently started a conscious dance course called "The Art of Becoming" that is a form of movement medicine to work through some emotions and settle in the uncertainty of life at the moment. I hope that by releasing some of the shame and shyness that I have been holding onto for so long, I will be able to express myself to the fullest most authentic way possible during my performative drawings. ‘This is a time of radical uncertainty, we do not yet know if we are midwives bringing a new world to birth, or hospice workers to a dying planet. The process of being with someone who's dying and the process of attending a birth have many features in common. We can only be grateful for this moment, this breath, this incredible capacity to direct our attention. Whatever happens, this can be a moment of unparalleled awakening. We have a sense of what it means for an individual to wake up. For the collective to awaken, we cannot even imagine what it will be like. The evolutiona...

I would love to do something like this with a dancer. I realised in one of the weekly line dance classes that I could draw out the marks of the steps on the whiteboard while staring at the steps that Barry was demonstrating in front of me without once looking down at the markings and still achieve a clear motif of the routine, so could experiment with that while Barry performs them next to me. I don't know if I could draw it full scale because I am better on a small scale, but worth adding to the ideas list.  I also thought about my conscious dancing when watching this video and wanted to play around with that idea now that I had received my large roll of paper. In the description of the video Jaanika Peerna explained that in this 2012 performance  "Drawings become movement and movement becomes a new drawing again. " Inspired by this I wanted to create a full scale charcoal drawing  in response to the words spoken during a 2h30min session of the conscious dance zoom cours...

I did an artist talk about my line dance drawing journey yesterday and I was really proud of the work I put into this presentation. I did my absolute best and only stuttered a couple times so I am counting it as a big win. Sharing my work on social media and receiving so many encouraging words and inspirational ideas from so many people has made me feel more connected than ever so I shared this presentation on all my platforms for those that would like to read more about it. I have lots of big things in planning at the moment including investing in a 3.55m wide roll of paper that will allow me to experiment with creating huge monotypes of the dances, doing a full charcoal drawing and performance of the routine on top of it, creating videos of the drawings and dances to illustrate the process better, trialling paint pouring with long tubes attached to my feet while I hold bottles of paint, experimenting with vinyl as a surface to make marks on... The possibilities are really only as big...

Today proves to me that sometimes you make 6 ok drawings and one great one and that great one will make your day! The depth in the Just Got Paid line dance captivated me and I love how the colours came out in the editing. I also quite like the frame that came with the whiteboard because it added an extraordinary image onto a basic whiteboard from Tesco. A slow day but a great line dance class. Time-lapse of the class: https://youtu.be/uzmuE2tXxqI The Just Got Paid line dance, repeated choreography 4 walls, erasable marker on A4 whiteboard Snapshots from the timelapse of trial choreographies for the just got paid line dance A4 whiteboard Snapshots from the time-lapse of trial choreographies for the heel toe line dance The Easy Come Easy Go line dance, repeated choreography 4 walls, oil pastel on A2 paper The Waltz Across Texas line dance, repeated choreography 1 wall, oil pastel on A2 paper

This development in my practice is leading me down an exciting new path of creativity that embraces who I am and what brings me joy. I am a dancer and I have been dancing my whole life. I have done everything from ballet to ballroom and before the pandemic hit, I would be going to weekly modern jive classes and multiple dance festivals every year. Growing up I remember going to lots of folk-dance festivals and sitting on the edge of the dancefloors my parents would want to dance in, watching the classes and learning the moves by mimicking my legs with my hands from pure boredom. This technique of learning came with a big bonus for a lazy pre-teen because it meant I could learn most of the dances without even having to get up. Once I had understood the movements with my hands, I could do the routine on my feet, without having to stand around during a class learning the dance at a slow pace. I still use this technique to this day and used it during a virtual line dance class that my ...

  A friend of mine who I used to go to galleries with back when I lived in London sent me a message recently offering "as a gift to art", to send me 5 rolls of sticky back vinyl that applies to countertops because he was invested in my practice from my social media posts. I was so humbled and appreciative to receive this gift because I hadn't even considered vinyl as a stronger medium that wouldn't tear so I was excited to give it a go. He sent 6 rolls of the stuff to me: 5 to create a 2m x 2m square if laid out together and an extra roll for experimental purposes. I had absolutely no idea how I was going to make marks on it or what I was going to stick it to but the gesture was so generous that it gave me energy to experiment with a new medium. When testing various mark makers on the vinyl I soon discovered that this may be a more complicated task than I anticipated. Charcoal just blew right off so that was a no go. Graphite pencils left a faint grey line but nothing...

This is the result of a collaboration between Barry Watson and myself that he offered to edit together. It took me about 15 takes to get a video of me drawing all four walls of the line dance correctly without accidentally leaning my head into frame or messing up the steps. In the end we settled on me drawing the steps to the right tempo but taking a break between each wall to reposition so that I would have a better chance of getting it right. We rushed to put this together quickly for programme day so that I would have something to show everyone that would hopefully explain what my drawings were about better than any words I could muster up on the day. If we can put something together in three days that looks this good, imagine what we could do with some proper work! I am very excited for the things to come as I pursue this collaboration with Barry.  Final video:  https://youtu.be/Ur7mxDR4374 The Don't Let Go line dance, 4 walls, A3 whiteboard Unedited: The Don't Let Go line...

Today was a catchup class where we went over a few line dances that we had previously learnt together. Because I was more confident in the routines I was able to push the drawings further by using repetition to build energy into the piece. The All Shook Up line dance while pretty simple as a base routine gained girth and density with the repetitions and I really like the way it turned out in green and blue. The red and black markers that I have are running out of ink creating a white streak in the lines which pales and dulls the overall saturation of the colour. However, the lines start to interact with each other by erasing one another when they cross paths thus giving a 3D element in the structure of the drawing. I think the Lamtarra Rhumba line dane will be very interesting to recreate in a large format because of the intricacy of the footwork for each wall. I am familiar with the Moving On Over and Waltz Across Texas line dances now so I pushed the designs further by repeating the ...