Artistic Musings: A Journey of Self-Expression and Provocation
Dear readers, I’m no philosopher, neither am I an expert on art theory. Just a disclaimer before I start this blog post. My technical abilities in art are self-taught: trial and error. I know my limits but I love to break them and test myself. Sometimes great, sometimes child-like, I just enter a flow state and happily let the hours roll on by putting ink to paper in one form or another. I become a hermit and sit happily alone, finding out whatever it is I’m trying to say. Like stated in my blog post, Why Do I Doodle?, I do what I do to relax, for therapeutic and cathartic reasons. I’ve always enjoyed trying my hand at art, even if at times my hand coordination is not best. However, it became a constant habit after my dad passed and now it’s almost an addiction. I don’t try to be anything other than myself, which should be the case all the time, but art is my safe space to do just that: to open a lucid door in my mind and sit there for a while. I don’t know if it’s all the time, but I always seem to have a message of some sort that I want to float to the surface. It’s usually flowing in the subconscious and I find out what I’m trying to say after I finish and see it on paper. Other times, I know what I want to say from the beginning and provoke a thought or feeling in the audience, get a reaction or a call to action, whether it is text or a drawing. I feel a bit weird and phoney about calling myself an artist, but I’m curious about whether other creators possess this calling to provoke or release, to make their audience feel something. Thought is free after all, both for the artist and the audience. Freedom of expression should be as free as freedom of interpretation, because once the artist has published whatever they publish, it belongs to the audience to interpret whatever they need or want from it. Sometimes it can feel a bit manipulative trying to provoke or sway thought, while at other times, my ego tells me it is a gift that comes within the art. A narrative, I suppose. In a previous post, I shared a drawing based on a Friedrich Nietzsche quote, “No artist tolerates reality”. I love this phrase, because it enables artists to play with reality and sometimes enter the absurd, another love of mine. But I also love the idea of art, be it a portrait or a story, painting a certain reality that doesn’t sit well with the audience and makes them want to change the reality. Graffiti does that a lot. Controversial works. It’s healthy for societies and communities to see and read such endeavours, to evolve as one. You look at the past and see the game changers, in art, in people. It’s my critique of the woke movement, the section trying to whitewash works because it hurts feelings. Sometimes feelings were meant to be hurt as lessons have been learned. If we whitewash it, we lose what we learn, the mistakes made, and we go back to and commit the same errors. Of course, we have to be careful of the person (or corporation) painting that reality, because those intentions can be irresponsible and have consequences that may be beneficial to certain people or groups. The news channels of course, who paint reality from opinion and then thresh it out to push an agenda, a narrative, a fictional reality, a distorted view of it, to a degree. Maybe we do that as artists at times. It makes it hard to interpret and judge who is right and wrong, who is the hero, who is the enemy, what and why is this being painted. Do we openly allow it or are fooled into it? It’s very subjective. Reality often depends on the eyes of the beholder, like beauty. There are many ways of seeing the same object. However, as mentioned above, no artist tolerates reality. In art it’s almost our role to distort it; in the news, it’s vice versa; to tell the closest to truth as can be. I enjoy provocative art as much as I enjoy an innocent portrait of a landscape or emotion. I admire how the different art forms evolve, new mediums, platforms, narratives to say or tell our stories, be visual or musical. I enjoy the abstract and absurd. There are two in particular that I love and feel inspired by for different reasons entirely, one is Sergio Duce, aka Yo Runner, who does educational and thought provoking positive messages and observations based on societal values and flaws. The other is Joan Cornellà, completely polar opposite to Yo Runner, who is Catalan with a worldwide following, who makes hilariously cynical and dark observations, likewise, of society. He brings the devil out of me, as he might do out of you. Both have consistent styles in their art, one which I don’t yet have as such, but one that I’m working on called Anon. me, which I will share soon. Over time, I have noticed myself, sometimes explicitly, using a mixture of words and drawings to provoke an emotion, be it joy, humour or affection. There might be sadness or questions for the audience. Sometimes I might be having a shit day or frustration, and I hear or read something that inspires me and helps me keep going, which may be useful to someone else. What I do is nothing out of the ordinary. I try to be responsible with my message. Sometimes it may be perverse. You have seen some in previous posts. You’ve been warned. You be the judge. You can see them below. Leave a comment if you have a question or critique.
Playing with Pastels
Dear readers, Following finding the watercolour paintings I painted, I came across some pastel portraits I did. To be honest, I didn’t really like it. It was messy and I didn’t really have the appropriate paper. I bought watercolour paper pad not realising that pastels don’t work too well. I didn’t think or research about technique; I just picked up the pastels like a toddler and got going, sometimes under the influence. And I think the results appeared that way. Only more demonic. I was left a little spooked, wondering what part of the subconscious possessed me to produce something like this, especially of the women. And ‘possessed’ is the key word here. They look like a shrine to the devil. I feel that my pastel art is a portal or gate to the underworld or wherever evil spirits reside. Hell, maybe, or our worst thoughts. Joke, by the way. Then again, the devil would say that. Like the watercolours, I used the pastels in the mid-months of 2o23, then I forgot the pad existed, until a few days ago. Or more so, I had no idea what to do with them, so I thought I would share them here. I’m not over thrilled. See what you think.
Playing with Watercolours: Postcards for Mum
Dear readers, There is a certain joy in finding something we thought we’d lost or had stolen, whether it be a watch or ring or CD or a book; something of great sentimental value and precious. We don’t know how or where we misplaced it, but it gives enormous guilt and grief and nerves. The relief in finding it is so intense that a smile wider than you thought your face could manage appears. Well, this is no such situation. I simply lifted some papers while doing some spring cleaning and I came across a little pad of postcards which I had been doing some watercolour paintings on in the mid months of 2023. It was a gift from my mother for the Christmas of 2022, a travel pack of watercolours, a wonderful tool for art therapy (see my blog post: Why Do I Doodle?). I knew it was there all along they were there, but I didn’t really know what to do with it. I don’t want to give myself a too loud pat on the back, but I’m kind of pleased with what came out of my rather inexperienced and primitive watercolour painting skills. They are of everything and nothing, some based on people I know, on the shades of night and Tegucigalpa, the smog created in 2023 by the forest fires which surround the city. The smog is still there in 2024. Some things never change, including the scattered papers in my room. One definite constant: my mother’s gift. Enjoy. I know that I enjoyed painting them, on the balcony of where I currently live, sometimes aided by a cup of rum, whiskey or beer, a social lubricant, as well as an artistic one. Intoxins: do your thing.
Why Do I Doodle?
Dear readers, Doodles. Drawing. Art. Why do I do it, or attempt to do it? What is the point of it all? Why do any of us do anything? Why even breathe? Where are we? Point of life? Who knows. Seeing that I’ve diverged into pretentious, philosophical nonsense, I will now attempt to get back to the point (if there is one?), addressing the question of this blog post. I doodle. I love it. I do it all the time. Drawing. Or writing. If I have a pen, pencil, brush or mobile app in or at my fingertips, something to draw on, and an idle mind full of ludicrous inspiration, I am at my happiest. Letting the world and hours fly by and switching off my phone to all distractions. A coffee or tea close by is a nice luxury. The location of where I’m vomiting my imagination on paper isn’t much of a worry, unless I’m in an environment provoking motion sickness, and then I’m vomiting my last meal on the paper. Not a good thing. Unless you like vomit art. And if you are, please stop reading now and visit the dark web or wherever sedates your needs. You know who you are, even if we don’t. Spoiler alert: I don’t practise that kind of art. I also love the absurd. In art, novels and movies. The tens of thousands of thoughts we have every day. The vast majority of them are useless; we don’t practise upon them because of just that: they are absurd. But art enables us to do that: spew our thoughts out on paper [note to self: enough of the vomit analogies. I don’t know what’s got into you. It’s tiring your dear readers and beginning to sound like verbal diarrhoea. (Pun intended.)]. I have always enjoyed drawing or doodling, or painting. I don’t think I’ve ever been that great at it. I struggled to colour within the lines at school, causing much disdain among teachers (I justify it now by telling myself that art shouldn’t be kept within the lines…I wish I’d had the wit at the time to tell the teachers just that, not that I hold any [much] resentment). Through constant practice, and I don’t want to bore you with the ‘practice makes perfect’ line, I’m proud of my improvement. Maybe it’s the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000-hour rule to master an activity. Fuck knows which hour I’ve reached. I’m not counting. Who does when one’s enjoying themself? Just recently, I feel I’ve turned a corner. Not to blow my own trumpet. I’m not winning any prizes (yet!), and when I look at doodles and drawings in galleries or social media or Pinterest or by friends, I am astonished and inspired by the thought process and technique and style of the artist. It’s a constant learning process, like everything in life, but in a more profound way. Sometimes it is just a stream of consciousness and improvisation, being inspired by something I see and trying out styles and/or putting my own touch or narrative around it. Just finding out what I like, and fucking up with no pressure or remorse and succeeding now and then and being proud with what I produce, taking my foot of the pedal, so to speak. Self-teaching and finding a voice for everything. I love to see what comes out from an intangible idea created in a millisecond, to create a tangible work of art. The spark of it all. The burst of activity. This comes through all acts of creativity. But still, I love it. I guess I started something of an artistic journey two weeks after my father passed away. To the day, actually. Sunday 23rd October 2022. I found myself walking down the high street in Great Malvern with a fiver in my pocket. Not in note form, though; just coins and shrapnel. And if anyone knows anything about the UK or even spent 5 minutes there, they love change, and to make matters worse, the coins weigh a ton, even if it doesn’t come to that greater value. You need a belt to save your trousers or skirt dropping to your ankles. And don’t think that baggy trousers trend in the early 90s had anything to do with aesthetics or style; fuck no, the eejits just had too much change in their pockets. Which is where I found myself that morning, no doubt a grey morning considering the time of year. To be honest, I can’t remember if it was grey or even a morning. I just remember walking down the high street, trying to adjust to the death of my father and a cashless society. I felt the coins in my pocket and had a burning desire to part with them as quickly as possible, with an adequate rush of consumer thrill (more like dull thudding), while also trying to keep my jeans at waist height. I was toying with the idea of a sausage roll and/or Cadburys Chocolate. But then the book and craft shop, The Works, stood before me, so I stepped in to see what nonsense of a book I could buy and probably not bother to read. But, amongst all the Christmas shite that Santa had no doubt barfed up, there sat with halo around it was a little black sketch book; the colour pretty much reflecting how I was feeling around those days. I needed to fill it with whatever storm was brewing in my head. I picked it with some colour pencils and went to the till. The irony was, the two items came to over five pounds so I had to use my card anyway, and I was still left with the hunger to part with the fiver. Luckily my hunger for a sausage roll and Cadbury’s Chocolate had not departed, so I walked home with the thought of being slightly fatter and the potential urge to do something artistic. And it all sparked off