❄❅❆❄ a million snowflakes fall

this morning looked like this:

⎐ treasure trek

after many many charity shop trawls:

nothing floating my boat:

coming home empty handed:

till the last shop ....

these glass beauties for 10p each:

welcome additions to my dwindling collection

& replacements for those, that in the past

haven't survived dog or children:

and two bone crochet hooks

for 50p:

they were meant to be mine:

꒽ intertwined

a new exhibition at the CoExist Galleries

curated by Amy McKenny

sees two artists exhibiting together, yet apart:

pieces by Annabel Dover

set objects with paintings:

delicious colour and strokes:

like sweets in a shop window:

lighting can't subdue the bright:

rendered mineral specimens from a

readers digest book:

past relics to the present:

her personal memory shared:

as the metronome finger wags and ticks:

she imagines herself running alongside

a tumbleweed:

the moment passed/past:

discovering that Peter Cushing lived in

Whitstable, Alex Pearl began to write

a vampire novel called

The Pearlfisher:

an account of a visit to Whitstable and 

the making of a work for the Biennale 2010:

notes, letters & thoughts from his blog

transcribed into a book:

Spaceman is a haunting yet amusing film

re-cycled from the 70's tv show UFO:

nostalgic childhood viewing:

both artists toy with our ideas of the past:

how we link object with memory:

a small glimpse into their personal worlds:

they are {as we are} uncannily similar:

ꃆ forty three years later

this is a photo of Michael and me:

I don't remember it being taken:

as you can see I was small then:

it's been quite some time since that day:

so he came for a cup of tea with his

lovely lady:

to meet with Libbie and me:

ᄆᄆᄆmagentacyanyellowblack

a few months ago, at the push>process

exhibition {blogged here}

there were hints of new workshops

being held at the CoExist Gallery:

yesterday I was lucky to have a place at a

tempera workshop with Alex Chater:

he pre-prepared our images into negatives

for contact printing each process colour:

magenta, cyan, yellow & black:

the tempera process uses egg:

ammonium dichromate +

a little matt medium:

this produces the standard emulsion mix or 'stem':

the 'stem' base is mixed with magenta pigment:

this is evenly rolled onto a polypropylene

plastic paper and dried:

carefully, we placed our magenta negative

surface to surface onto the paper,

using clips to complete the registration:

placed into a contact frame and under

an ultra violet light:

exposure for my piece was 3 minutes:

after rinsing into a clearing bath for

three minutes to wash away the residual dichromate,

we used soapy rollers to clean off

the unexposed areas:

using other sponge pads {even mister muscle!} 

to remove parts of the coat until 

we were happy:

a final rinse in clean water then

dry completely:

with a magenta layer completed,

start again using a cyan coating:

at this stage I repeated both the magenta and cyan

making four layers:

rolling directly onto the dried paper:

it seemed quite scary at first,

worrying about applied pressure and

a danger of damaging the previous layers:

yellow x 2:

black x 2:

happy with the luminosity and subtle colours 

of my final print, it was cleaned of any residuals:

then soaked in white vinegar for ten minutes

and thoroughly rinsed under running water:

carefully dried:

silence

tempera print:

1/1:

{original}

ꉺꉺ spin sounds

saturdays are made for thumbing through vinyl:

select phono:

33, 45 rpm:

knowing crackles:

a sides, b sides:

sleeve notes:

instant nostalgia to days spent in bedrooms,

in bars, at discos, at gigs, with friends:

I'd forgotten how good that is:

now sharing with my 15 year old:

revolutions per minute:

♫ play to win:

{long players on the turntable today....

boys don't cry ~ the cure:

17 seconds ~ the cure

travelogue ~ the human league

fireside favourites ~ fad gadget

rattus norvegicus ~ the stranglers

penthouse & pavement ~ heaven 17

porcupine ~ echo & the bunnymen

blue bell knoll ~ the cocteau twins

inbetween days *12" ~ the cure

substance *sides 3+4 ~ new order}

☕☕ a nice cup of rosie lee

raindrops on roses:

turkish delight in a cup:

☯ oak leaves fall:

ᚖ the last of the line

the latest brave artist to open her home

 to the public as part of showflat ~ Heidi Wigmore:

transforming her private space into the

Von Heil Haus:

'Everything is not always what it seems behind the closed doors of a stately home'

invited to peep behind doors:

listen to sounds:

an unguided tour:

unpick the story:

clues left by historic artefacts:

items enshrouded:

ordered:

abandoned: unchanged:

not quite black and white:

edgy: unnerving:

innocence lost:

imagined or alter ego:

dark tale or half truth:

'she spent her life proud, furious,

selfish and unfeeling ....'

click here for a tour with the artist from Michaela Freeman: