Gardens Project 12: First Post in 3 Months

Gardens Project 12: First Post in 3 Months

At Christmas, as I was awaiting new year with bated breath, ready to make myself new resolutions and approach 2022 with a renewed vigour I got offered a job. Quite out of the blue an agency I had signed up with when I retired emailed me to see if I wanted to take up an interim position at a college not too far away and within a couple of days I’d spoken to the college and decided to go.

The good thing about this is that it shifted me out of my rut and meant I had, for at least some of my days, a defined purpose that wasn’t just about me. The bad thing is that even though it was initially only four days a week focus on anything else goes right out of the window.

I have been doing some things though…

I’ve joined a website for Yorkshire Artists, https://yorkshire.art/directory/artist/ian-latham/

had a meeting about the lemniscate project,

Three Lemniscate maquettes

Three Lemniscate maquettes

I’ve carried on drawing every day and you can see the February images here

The drawings are posted to Twitter and Instagram each day.

and produced a couple of bigger studio drawings.

Gardens Project 12

Drawing of a fox in the garden at Balby – Charcoal 100x90cm In Progress

Gardens Project 12

The attic studio from above – pencil 90x90cm

I’ve also had to revisit the gardens project in VR as I made a series of mistakes that meant I had to rebuild the environment. My lack of knowledge leads to my constant stepping back to check and repeatedly changing my mind about where I’m going with this project. I do think (?) that I know what the installation will look like now, the piece will be entered through interactions with a set of platonic solids and will explore their associations with the classical elements. The faces of the dodecahedron being used as entry points to the different experiences.

I’ve started to adapt the narrative into a twine so that I can explore the different routes through it. This in effect doubles the number of chapters, or at least chapter headings? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t.

The Gardens project posts start here 

I also finished my painting of a rose

First Post in 3 Months

Balby Rose Oil on Board 50x50cm

Gardens Project 11: Hackwork and Ennui

Gardens Project 11: Hackwork and Ennui

Langour of spirit is about right as far as the ‘Gardens Project’ is concerned.

I’ve got, finally, the topography established for the glover street scene. It took about 230 hours to get it looking the way I wanted. I’ve noted before that this is because of my lack of knowledge which leads to the iterative process of build, test, scrap, rebuild, test, scrap and on. I’ve also built the Introductory scene in outline and started to model the oak leaf as the overall box for the environment.

There will eventually be an introduction leading to the oak leaf and six chapters built around the gardens that will be accessed through the oak leaf at the whim of the player.

Hackwork and Ennui

Gardens Project Plan

I’ve planned this out to complete over the next six months frustrations notwithstanding, but then I got a job, so that’s going to slow it down somewhat.

Given those frustrations I’ve continued to paint.

holly leaves oil sketch

Holly Leaves, oil on board, 10″10″

I added a 10”x10” oil sketch of the holly leaves on plywood and finished the Bathroom Still Life.

bathroom still life

bathroom still life, oil on board, 50cmx40cm

This one is 50cmx40cm plywood and is another oil on board.

I made three small (30cmx20cm) oil on board paintings of lens flares from my camera trap.

lens flare painting

Lens Flare One, oil on board, 30cmx20cm

lens flare painting

Lens Flare Two, oil on board, 30cmx20cm

lens flare painting

Lens Flare Three, oil on board, 30cmx20cm

I also made a garden painting the same size,

apples

apples, oil on board, 30cmx20cm

and a painting of honeysuckle.

honeysuckle

honeysuckle, oil on board, 30cmx20cm

I added a sparrow to my bird collection

sparrow

sparrow, oil on board, 10″x10″

Finally I began a 50cmx40cm of a rose from the front garden.

rose - in progress

close up painting of a rose in progress

I’ve carried on drawing every day and you can see the November images

The drawings are posted to Twitter and Instagram each day.

The Gardens project posts start here 

 

Gardens Project 9: Continually frustrated by my old brain.

Garden’s Project 9:

Continually frustrated by my old brain.

I finished the July drawings, one day left handed and the next right handed, and by the end the left hand ones have a delicacy that matches the right. The difficulty with ‘wrong’ handed drawing is the lack of muscle memory and/or development (strength) in the hand.

pair of drawings left handed and right handed

pair of drawings left handed and right handed

The example above from the end of the month shows that it’s hard to tell the difference.

For the first six days of August I continued with the left hand right hand to finish the sketchbook, then I started a new one doing double page spreads for each drawing, mostly right handed.

End of August drawing of kitchen

Kitchen Window, 30th August

I’m still sitting in the kitchen drawing from the same seat.

The finished July Gallery is here

The August Gallery is here

I’m carrying on through September and beyond. The drawings are posted daily to Instagram and Twitter, there are links in the side menu.

3d model of areaa around Glover Street

3d model of areaa around Glover Street

The last two months have been incredibly frustrating for the Gardens Project. I decided I needed to change the layout and the way the ‘news’ was encountered and had to relearn modelling for terrain to do it. Since then it’s been stop start, rebuilding and rejecting and I’m close to 200 hours into modelling chapter 1.

This post is only here because I need to put something up.