30th November - 6th December

When I chatted with Mark last week, I got reminded of the importance of maintaining a regular painting practice. Of course this is something I've always been aware of, but I feel like it had gotten lost in the last few weeks. I was putting too much pressure on coming up with novel ideas (in a time when I quite frankly find it extremely difficult) rather than just working. As such, I started working on a painting as soon as I could.

I took this reference picture a few weeks ago when Dundee was taken over by fog. Just like when I first witnessed it last year, I was taken aback by it, as such weather conditions never occurred back home. I find the way it creates a natural soft focus effect absolutely gorgeous, and it reminded me of how the world can feel when I dissociate heavily. This is something that tends to come back in most of my paintings, since it is how I experience the world most of the time.

I also wanted to include some figures, so I photoshopped another picture I had taken that day onto it. But when I used the auto select tool, the effect that was created was that of ghosts. I feel like it suits the mood very well.

16th - 22nd November

I started the week by continuing my large head sculpture. I used vertical slabs of clay to create a structure in the base and further hollowed out the head so that it wouldn’t be too heavy once I added the hair. With some slight repositioning, I think the sculpture really came alive - I wonder what they’re looking at? As I kept working, I noticed it slowly look like an old lady rather than myself so I decided to push it in that direction. I'd say it’s mostly finished now, I would just like to touch up the hair and the bust next week.

Later on in the week, I was playing with a piece of cardboard that was lying around the house and started drawing over the ridges. I drew a face and really enjoyed how subtle the imprint was. I then used lines of masking tape to recreate the effect in my sketchbook - this imprint looks even cooler in my opinion, but the lines are definitely too sparse to make out the face (unless its pointed out). I would really enjoy layering this over a painting at some point so

next week I will keep experimenting with the technique. It reminds me of the artwork of Jesus Rafael Soto - maybe I could take this into three dimensions somehow?

I have been feeling quite burned out lately, so I’m glad I found this. I’m looking forward to making my drawings more disjointed by using this method and maybe experimenting with printmaking as well. It would also be interesting to see how I could use similar techniques in painting. I think watercolour would work especially well with this.

9th - 15th November

Last week, I continued my exploration into the field of sculpture. The first thing I worked

on was a head shaped plant pot for my foundry induction. In the same vein as last week's bottle head, I enjoy how comical it (hopefully) appears. Similar to my previous project, it also reminds me of a shrunken head. That being said, I don’t know if that’s the direction I want to be going in.

I then started a much larger clay portrait. Primarily, this is a study of the human form (or rather part of it, for the time being) as I would like to eventually bring in more figures into my landscape paintings. But I am also finding great joy in experimenting with sculpture. Something about it’s materiality is extremely engaging creatively. With this sculpture, I wanted to focus more on the expression than making it look like myself so as to move away from the stiffness of my previous sculptures. So even though I used a mirror, I wouldn’t necessarily call this a self portrait.

Next week, I would like to finish my large sculpture. I need to work on the hair as well as well as the structure so that it can stand on its own.