Purple Mamba rides again (briefly)

OK, so this blog post has already captured the imagination of some for entirely the wrong reasons. (Just in case you were wondering or hoping for something else…..this post won’t tell you how to grow, source or buy top grade marijuana, but let’s go with it anyway eh)!

I met up with some old work pals earlier this week to bid another old friend, Liz, farewell. These were not the best of circumstances, but fate brought us back together temporarily for just a few hours…..a disparate group of people who had once been united by the joint causes of our work place. We had all “grown up” together through our formative years and now looked a little older, far more responsible and yet strangely much the same people. Despite the years that had passed since we had last seen each other the shared laughter we had enjoyed amid the challenges of the job was still there as we raised a tea cup to absent friends. And so began the reminiscences…

Memories of Liz and happier times were sparked by old photos leading to revisited laughter about the good old days and…The Purple Mamba.

As I said, nothing at all to do with cannabis, the Purple Mamba was the collective brain child of RADAK, a couple of cheekie chaps (they know who they are) and me! He was our very own office cartoon character (created in our own time of course). Mamba allowed us to comment on the daft things that happened in our world of work, or more accurately the office fridge, which had been prone to a series of mysterious “smash and grub” raids that seems to befall most office spaces.

Purple Mamba Cartoon strip

Looking at the old cartoons now (this first one celebrated a 17th birthday back in July) they’re not entirely PC, but they do take me and hopefully some of you readers out there back to happier times and Liz even makes a guest appearance in one of them (with her knowledge and permission at the time of course)!

It’s been a funny old week, and one I’m glad is over, but isn’t it great that laughter can connect old friends and the images we create can help to cement those memories. So here’s a toast to old and absent friends and though the people in these cartoons will be unrecognisable to some of you I feel sure the sentiment will make sense for most!

For those of you who recognise this or have simply enjoyed the insight into the life of civil servants, don’t forget to pop back I will post the remaining cartoons over the coming days as I uncover and digitise them.

– I know some of my old friends just wouldn’t use Facebook to follow these but other reminiscences will appear on my KLArt Facebook page please remember to LIKE if you like once you arrive there.

Show me : Part 2 & 3 | Part 4 & 5 |

Waxing lyrical – Encaustic part 2

“I’m running a part 2 workshop…” Brian said “are you interested?”

“Am I…sign me up!” I replied

And so I came to be sat in the Encaustic Art Plus workshop (part 2) on a beautiful autumnal monday…did you know, as cold as it is, that winter doesn’t officially start until the winter solstice 21st December?!

I digress…back to Elsecar Heritage Centre, green “pinnie” neatly tied behind me, warm iron waiting and lots more vivid colours calling me from the tin I’m awaiting first instructions from Brian Nelson once again…..

Today’s workshop will build on skills we learned previously and explore other methods and techniques that can be combined to introduce variety to our encaustic painting. We’re going to use stamping and hotplate techniques and I’m excited by the sight of a nugget of gold beeswax lurking toward the edge of the tin…..

Encaustic Painted Tree

Encaustic Tree

First up, tree inked, stamped and “fixed” with beeswax before overpainting  with the liquid gold that appears as I place my nugget on the iron. My encaustic tree grows beneath something resembling the Aurora Borealis.

Encaustic painted seahorses

Encaustic Seahorses

A slight change in direction and we’re off to the depths of the ocean. The stylus tool picks out the detail of the ocean floor and a solitary star fish.

Something slightly different next…we dismantle our irons and with all the anticipation and excitement that comes with a child’s Transformer toy they become a personal hotplate.

Encaustic painted Forest of three trees

Encaustic Forest

The play of beeswax on the heated surface of the card presents new opportunity and challenge in equal measure.

The introduction of a “palette” to paint from as melted beeswax is transferred via stamps to a second card…reheated to create an opportunity for a wax-drawn forest floor beneath the broccoli like trees.

Encaustic painted VW

VW Heaven or Hell

 

A sheet full of vivid molten wax is transformed when introduced to another stamp…the iconic VW Camper emerges from the molten heat of Hell.

The versatility of this medium and the vibrance of the available colours have warmed another cold afternoon which has passed all too quickly.

Fortunately there is just enough time left to consolidate all the tools and techniques we have worked with over the two workshops and create our very own encaustic masterpiece, so……………….. Here Be Dragons!

Fantasy landscape with dragon

Here Be Dragons

Thanks again Brian!!

Help! I missed Part 1

What is Art – L.S.Lowry? Happy 125th Birthday

“I am not an artist. I am a man who paints.”

So said the man who produced around 1,000 paintings and over 8,000 drawing during his lifetime. L.S.Lowry (Laurence Stephen in case you were wondering) has long been known for his industrial pictures of Manchester, where he was born and grew up, and specifically the matchstick people who inhabit them.

I have never really been a great fan of his work, possibly because of my own preference for realism or the extreme opposite surrealism. Lowry always struck me as just a little dull at the side of the vivid and imaginative works of so many other artists, such as Dali for example.

Then again, perhaps I was simply put off by the association of his art with the 1978 hit single “Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs” by Brian and Michael. Now, there was a song that seemed to spend an interminable amount of time in the Charts way back then, though strangely the reality is it actually only spent 3 weeks at no.1! Thank goodness they were a one hit wonder!

With the approach of his 125th birthday I thought it would be interesting to revisit my apparent negativity/disinterest. Among the pictures I could track down on line l was taken with this rather strange picture “Gentleman looking at Something (1960). I say “strange” because there is something quite unusual about a picture where the primary source of interest doesn’t appear in the picture…I want to know and can therefore only imagine what the “something” was. Perhaps he was watching an approaching tram, given that he is stood between it’s lines?

Reading a little further I am reminded by the Winsor and Newton site that Lowry used a very limited colour palette throughout all his paintings:

  • Ivory Black
  • Vermilion
  • Prussian Blue 
  • Yellow Ochre
  • Flake White

As I start to look more closely at the range of colour he achieves in his paintings I realise just how complicated things have become these days, with a vast array of colour tubes to select from, and very little idea about how some of them have been created! The subtlety and depth of colour achieved with this limited palette really is quite tremendous.

So, I can’t say I feel more excited by the art, but I am persuaded that there is something solid about the approach and something I might learn from that. Indeed, I already have thoughts in mind about painting next with a smaller range of colour on my palette.

In the meantime though – I’ll accept it’s art, think about arranging a trip to the Lowry in Salford, and wish Mr Lowry a happy 125th birthday with a small homage: “Lady looking at Something else.” I will leave you to determine what that something is…..