Praying Hands Albrecht Dürer
As part of the Winson and Newton Drawing Course there’s a reference to Praying Hands by Albrecht Dürer. I printed it out and decided to have a go at it. Here’s my sketch using and mechanical pencil and the useful eraser on the end. Shading is an addictive process and it’s very easy to get carried away and go too far. The fingers are very slender and a bit of googling revealed that they belonged to Albrecht’s brother who would have liked to have attended art school too, but was unable to.
Sorting out old stationery and learning how to draw
What could be better on a wet, cold quiet afternoon than sorting out twenty years worth of old pens and pencils and learning how to use them. I didn’t know I had some of it. There’s a chapter in The Art of Drawing and Painting about using old stubby pencils so these have been lovingly sorted too. HBs, 6Bs, 4Hs and an F? There’s a dipping pen and old cartridges and mechanical pencil refills. I haven’t tested all the pens yet, but I found an old loved ballpoint which I finally revived by holding over a flame for a split second. There’s joy in holding onto things.
Summer Dawn by Peter Buchan
From his Collected Poems and Short Stories (1992)
The Joy of Finding Gifts: Art Journaling
Brush Strokes Postcards by Isshu Muroya and Shukin Muroya
These beautiful postcards were a gift way back in 1997 from a friend and colleague. The series is called, ‘The Start of Enjoyment’ and the artists are inspired by the saijiki (a glossary of seasonal terms) and ancient characters.
The postcards are beautiful and I’m enjoying the process of using them in different ways to create pages for my art journal not least because of the serene colour palette.
It’s interesting learning a little more about the artists and their philosophy.
Ngā mihi nui
Journaling: an exploration of art, language and poetry
A carver, she has found her tupuna waiting in so many leaves of paper
Alice Te Punga Somerville
A weaver, she has drawn aho and whenu together and smoothed edges into line
From ‘Debris’
Always Italicise: How To Write While Colonised
Tupuna: grandparents or ancestors; aho: rope, line or genealogy; whenu: to twist or spin.
Quiet, please
It was the perfect hailstorm. A warm muggy day was thrown into chaos. The street emptied. Somehow, people managed to stop measuring time. She tightened the grip on her children’s hands and waited under the thin awning of a dry cleaners. The library lights glimmered, and caught her gaze. It’d be full of clocked souls soon (the council liked to keep track in case they ever disappeared), glancing up every now and then at the thunderous skies in those dark eyes, reminded of the last time they listened and breathed and somebody said, quiet please.
Abraham Lincoln is holding a letter to Manchester
Surrounded by office blocks and starbucks, boxed in, for now, with plywood, Abraham Lincoln is holding a letter to Manchester. To his brothers and sisters, Thank you for joining our fight and for downing your tools as we fought for justice and what is right.
Whilst the mill owners thought only of the costs incurred, kept sweating over timesheets and cotton loads, you thought of the lives yet to be lived free from slavery and for what is good for all humankind. You spoke of emancipation and showed your solidarity when you had hardly enough to feed or clothe your little ones lying in the slums.
You were not swayed by the propaganda of your nation, by the petty mindedness of your landlords and their accountants. When the cotton was delivered, you simply stopped spinning. Stilled, you could see and hear, breathe and remember how those selfserving masters massacred and killed in the name of progress. Theirs. There is nought so violent as the status quo.
Stop writing and filing and look up and out of the window at the man with a letter in his hand and remember the working men and women to whom it is addressed. Who stopped the deafening sound of the industrial revolution and who knew humanity and the deep southern sun could pierce the smog and grime of this city. This nation led by the same ruling class now as then.
Southern Cross, Saturday afternoon, 2021
Mask
How easily it slips, a physical manifestation of the mask you’ve worn your whole life to cancel the contagion of your true self, and, cornered, I can’t see you bare your teeth anymore. It allows me to see instead your fragility. Your face now a pleading window through which the birds fly. What else will escape?
wednesdays 