More Dots!!! From Yayoi Kusama.

 The first time I came across Yayoi Kusama's art was when I saw this, in New York 15 years ago. It was, still is amazing.

At Last, The Start of Itchycoo No 4

 An oasis of summer in an iced floating Island - a black dog licking darkness.

Warm and colour V Cold and darkness (black and white)

 Finding the composition.

 Drawing  No 5

 Realising I'm wanting something different- a bit of the dark side .....

Red in the Morning....

The Obliteration Room

For 40 years Yayoi  Kusama has made paintings, sculptures and photographs using dots to cover surfaces and fill rooms, a process she calls 'obliteration', which means the complete destruction of every trace of something, in this case white space. The room, which is part of her 'Look Now, See Forever' installation at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, took visitors to the Australian gallery two weeks to create and is now a flurry of colour and random dots. A huge fan of dots myself, I love it!

Icicle Trees

Some more cool trees!

Where the Silken Threads Surround You.....

I've just come across these amazing trees in National Geographic.

Trees shrouded in ghostly cocoons line the edges of a submerged farm field in the Pakistani village of Sindh, where 2010's massive floods drove millions of spiders an possibly other insects into the trees to spin their webs.The unusual cocoons were a mixed blessing: The huge webs ultimately killed many of the trees they covered, perhaps by reducing the amount of sunlight reaching their leaves. But for a while, the webs also seemed to help trap more mosquitoes in the region, thereby reducing the risk of malaria.

Photographs by Russell Watkins

For more info follow this link.

Happy New Year 2012!!

Be Happy and Healthy

 Use your imagination, be creative and believe in it!!

A New Year brings brings thoughts of the past year and dreams and hope for this year.  Other than the obvious, health and happiness for my friends and family - creatively I'm hoping to be disciplined - to put in  the work and to be confident to believe in it - because it is all there. Last year felt like a year of continuous searching (waisting time?) I spent so much time looking at products and pattern I forgot about the true picture, or even the story. I also kept trying to paint differently, almost in the search of producing something -proper, a grown up art if you like - and I failed miserably.  Now I realise it's not what others think of my work - it's about me, insecurity doesn't get you anywhere -  how can I expect others to believe in it if I don't. So it's like going back to where I started and seeing what was always there - back to Itchycoo. I painted the first and second large picture in Jan 2010 and the last in six months later. I've done 18 small canvas's the last one was completed a year ago. It's about time to get on with what I had in mind, a picture book.

 Somewhere Beyond the Sweet Milk Mountain

 Where the Silken Threads Surround You

I Love You Inside Out, Whoever You May Be.

(The text for the book)

Beautiful Itchycoo 

Mimi imagined a land called Itchycoo.

Somewhere beyond the sweet milk mountain, where the silken threads surround you, trees weep rainbow tears and strawberries fall out of the sky. On the day the habbits escaped the carousel.

 Wait!

A whisper echoed inside her head, I love you inside out, whoever you may be.

Didn’t you know?

The book will be 12 pages of paintings, there is almost no text, it will be up to the individual to make up their own story. There will be a glossary for characters and objects and an open answer question page to help plot your own story as it is just as much about your imagination as it is about mine. For younger children the book becomes a bit of an eye spy, or where's Mimi. For older the book is  to stimulate imagination and to encourage their own creative writing.

These are the original sketches to the first 3 Itchycoo paintings.

These sketches, above and below this text are from August 2010.

 The titles and theme have stayed the same but the composition has changed.

December 2011, Sketches for the next 3 and a half Itchycoo story paintings.

No 4,  Curiously We Wait Across an Arctic Wilderness.

No 5,  Starfish and Coffee at a Table Laid for Tea.

 No 6, Super Fly High in a Sky, Beside us a City That Floats on by.

No 7 ??

As you can see I have a long way to go and hope it doesn't take too many years.  As for the story, or the illustrative part - that's it so far  - half way, beyond that I don't know.




Last summer I wrote a fairytale with Mimi inspired by old Norwegian folklore from the land of trolls. So below are a few sketches, not that you will be able to see what it is about yet, but is also in the making. 

Mimi Share The Love 

And The Troll Without a Heart 

Mimi in Itchycoo blog

If you haven't seen it I have also started a new Mimi in Itchycoo blog which gives a new dimension to the paintings where the characters can come to life. It has posts from Mimi, that becomes a diary of her journey in Itchycoo. There are also posts by Momo, her great great grandmother who gives her an insight to her history and helps Mimi along her way. My posts are a bit like excerts  from a book were the characters in the painting talk to Mimi and each other.

I did do something I liked last year, except it isn't finished!

This time next year I'll look back at this -
I'm hoping I will have put some serious work into it and get well on my way to achieving part of the above.
Then there is Life at Forty - to be a Fit and Fabulous 40, Not a fat Frump at 40 !!

We can all hope!!

Happy New Year 2012

Be Happy and Healthy

 Use your imagination, be creative and believe in it!!