ARTISTS' DESKS

Beyond the realms of academia only one prominent individual has made it his life’s work to collect our current folk customs, superstitions and beliefs. His name is Michael Fortune, an artist who for 20 years has been rooting out and recording the stories and customs of his region around Wexford, initially, and then expanding it to include the rest of Ireland.

“I never intended to be a folklorist, nor even to make folklore the basis of my artistic practice. It’s just that I come from a coastal village in Wexford called Ballygarrett that is part of larger Gaelic stronghold called the Macamores, which has remained remarkably isolated and stubbornly undeveloped, where old dialects and customs survive intact. It’s a place still scarred by the legacy of 1798. I’m from a farm-labouring background, a people who didn’t go to ‘Hell or Connacht’ but hung on and shaped their lives on the fringes. It was these voices and stories that shaped me.”

-Originally shared by wonderful Kiva Rose

- Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/away-with-the-fairies-irish-folklore-is-alive-and-weird-1.2986702

- Picture: One of my fav artists' desk, the illustrator Jill Barklem <3

"What does the interior architecture of the artist's workspace tell us about their process and practice? In psychoanalytic terms, it's often assumed that the artist's studio is a reflection of the artist's thinking. 

But nowadays, the spaces artists inhabit are very different than what they once were: they've had to adapt to a more migratory life, squeezed by bigger economic problems. The desk is really the only universal marker left, a synecdoche of the artist's studio; it's where the action is caught in motion, where bureaucracy and creativity meet [...]" by Char Jansen, Artslant

SHADES OF VIOLET

Exactly....shades of "violet" are what you will get when blue and red are mixed. Depending on how much of each is used and which medium is mixed, will determine the exact color shade of violet. Here are some pallets that ought to confuse ya...lol We are very creative and reinvent the names for many and varied reasons, but mostly to sell a product. '\_(**)_/'. Most people consider them shades of Purple, but Violet is the "true" color dominant when mixing the "true" red and blue pigment that do not have other colors already added.

If you’re mixing the primary color blue with the primary color red you will get a purplish color. But it will not really look like what you think of as purple. On a quick internet search just now, it will look muddy, like this color (4). Purple is a very hard color to make with paint. If you are a painter looking for a true purple, you’d buy a tube of it premade, like this… (5)

Blue and red, when mixed, make violet. (6)

Mixing red and blue together makes the color *violet*. Red and blue are primary colors, meaning they cannot be created by mixing two other colors, and *violet* is a secondary color, meaning it is created by mixing two primary colors. An artist can achieve different hues of *violet* depending on the ratio of the colors mixed. Mixing a large amount of red and only a little blue makes a magenta shade. Mixing a large amount of blue and only a little red makes a *purple* shade. Yellow is the color opposite *violet* on the color wheel, so *violet* and yellow are considered to be complementary colors.

https://www.quora.com/What-color-does-blue-and-red-make

Heather the Violet Fairy (The Rainbow Fairies)
http://bethbeingcrafty.blogspot.com.es/2015/04/book-parade-heather-violet-fairy-costume.html

PENCIL & INK AND WATERCOLOUR

La primera persona que amablemente compartió esta técnica conmigo fue la artista Jane Starr Weils, a raíz de unos comentarios en facebook sobre sus fantásticas Solstice Witches, que están anotados en este blog. Primero lápiz, luego tinta y luego el fondo con acuarela; en su caso, luego da a sus dibujos mayor vibración de color, volumen y brillo con sus queridos Prismacolors (waxy, and you can overlap layers of colors).

color!!

blending, mixing, watercolor tutorials
watercolorpainting watercolorart watercolorillustration

Manelle Oliphant ~ Fantastic Tales

The illustration is only half of the story though. To read the other half go tohttp://ift.tt/2kx0pZn and you can read it. For this painting the whole this is done with watercolor. The under drawing is with pencil but not much of it shows by the end.

https://www.facebook.com/talesfantastic/photos/a.931625083575233.1073741828.338427382895009/1377402665664137/?type=3&theater

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPFoe5PB_0t/?taken-by=talesfantastic

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPIQZxVhZ3p/?taken-by=talesfantastic

#watercolourpainting #watercolourart #watercolorillustration #watercolorpaintings

video {traditional ink}

Karen Gillmore Art {ink pen}
https://karengillmoreart.com/2014/02/22/technique-of-the-week-combining-pen-ink-and-watercolour/
http://www.studentartguide.com/articles/line-drawings
rotring! (my old painting) instead of using an ink pen (waterproof)
Almu Ruiz {lápiz o portaminas, rotring o estilógrafo, lápices de colores}
http://www.almuruiz.com/2014/10/calendario-de-noviembre-pintado-mano.html

rotring faber castell

Una vez que tengo el boceto con la idea que quiero hacer, lo hago de nuevo en el papel a lápiz y delineo los contornos con rotring negro 0´2.

Y ahora el color!!!

Comienzo el dibujo a lápiz y realizo todo el trabajo de claroscuro, volumen y sombreado con la tinta negra del rotring o estilógrafo. Su punta fina me permite llegar a todos los detalles, y gracias a los diferentes números, se puede conseguir una mayor gradación tonal. Empiezo con el 0´2 y me ayudo del 0´4 o 0´8 para las zonas más oscuras http://www.almuruiz.com/2014_10_01_archive.html

K'ank'in

Mayan Astrology Signs Interpretation: Those born in the K'ank'in sign are people of the earth and the sun. You have an affinity for both the planet beneath your foot and for the strong solar energies of the sun. Spend time under the solar rays meditating for there is wisdom for you. Spend time as well in and on the earth. If possible, meditate in a cave, or at least visit a cave and experience the calm tranquility of being in the womb of the earth mother. Your totem animal is the dog, specifically the yellow dog. Dogs are well known for their loyalty, but a less known meaning of this animal totem is their incredible inner strength.

PERRO 4/4/ al 1/5

Su nombre maya es PEK

LA MUJER PERRO

El valor de su vida no se mide por lo material, sino por el amor que atesora. El amor es el motor de su vida, cuidar de su casa y sus seres queridos. Tiene una actitud tradicional ante la vida, aunque es dueña de un corazón bohemio que no puede pasar sin sus aventuras. A veces puede resultar un tanto impredecible. Con su forma de ser, locuaz y espontánea, suele meter la pata y hasta meterse en unos cuantos líos. Sin embargo, su ternura y candor naturales parecen hacerla gravitar sobre los problemas. Posee mucha empatía, le gusta proteger y cuidar, y siente como propios el dolor y sufrimiento ajenos. Es el justiciero espiritual en la evolución del génesis maya.

En ciertos aspectos es impredecibles y ésta es una de sus características más constantes, se adapta con naturalidad a situaciones variopintas en la vida. Entre lujos no se siente cómoda, y aunque posea una buena situación económica, preferirá los muebles de madera, las ánforas de barro y las flores, los lugares sencillos y poco pretenciosos. Su casa parece una cabaña de Walt Disney y en realidad su vida misma es de película.

The Meaning of Yellow – the Colour of the Golden Sun

Yellow is the colour of light and the golden sun. The word is used to describe many things from sunshine to jaundice, and is one of the oldest colour words used in the English language (after white, black and red). It has its roots in proto-Indo-European language (which is the root of Afghan, Persian, Greek and English among others), although there is no written evidence for its existence. The original word for yellow in this language has been determined to be ghelwo, which entered proto-Germanic as gelwaz and then came into Old English and other more modern languages. It has the same Proto-Indo-European base, -ghel as the word yell; -ghel means bright and gleaming, as well as to cry out. Yellow is a color which cries out for attention. The oldest written use of the Anglo-Saxon word (geolu or geolwe) is in the epic poem Beowulf, in reference to a shield carved from yew wood.

Yellow was one of the first colours used in prehistoric cave art, such as at Lascaux’s image of a horse coloured with yellow ochre pigment made from clay (estimated to be 17,300 years old). Yellow was associated with gold by the ancient Egyptians, and was considered imperishable, eternal and indestructible (the skin and bones of the gods were believed to be made of gold). Yellow was used extensively in tomb paintings (either yellow ochre or the brilliant orpiment, though it was made of arsenic and was highly toxic) and small paintbox containing the paint was found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. It also stood for female energies, for the gentle and sensual. The ancient Romans used it in their paintings to represent gold or skin and it is seen frequently in the Pompeii murals.

turmeric powder

Yellow has been shown to stimulate mental processes and the nervous system, activate memory and encourage communication. It has meanings associated with joy, force, vitality, energy, warmth (yellow lamps are more natural and feel warmer than white ones), brightness (as the color of sunlight, yellow is aften associated to knowledge and wisdom, and in the medieval world yellow was the colour of reason, as opposed to passion [red] and the spiritual [blue]), freedom, personal power, control, fire and the eyes. Yellow is also the colour of the solar plexus chakra, which is linked to fire. It symbolizes a new day, life, rebirth, awakening, rising and new beginnings - a new udaya. A new sun is beginning to rise within you. The colour of the rising sun has the unique and unmistakable glow of shining saffron-yellow or yellow-orange (the color is not actually saffron, it is ochre). The name alone, which comes from the arabic za’farãn, marks the characteristic color of the noble spice and bears the meaning “being yellow”. In Greek mythology, Eos is cognate to Vedic Sanskrit Ushas and Latin Aurora (Old Latin Ausosa), both goddesses of dawn, and all three considered derivatives of a PIE stem h₂ewsṓs (later Ausṓs), "dawn", a stem that also gave rise to Proto-Germanic Austrō, Old Germanic Ōstara and Old English Ēostre/Ēastre, and this agreement leads to the reconstruction of a Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess. Eos, a Titaness and the goddess of the dawn, who rises each morning from her home at the edge of the Oceanus and hastens from the streams to open the gates of heaven for the Sun to rise, and thus, to bring light to mortals and immortals, is described by Homer in the Iliad as a beautiful woman with golden arms (krokopakhos) and rosy fingers wearing her saffron-coloured robe (krokopeplos) embroidered with crimson flowers. Ovid tells of Her in his Metamorphoses that she may bring the light of day in her chariot which she rides into the sky ahead of the Sun. She has a purple mantle that spreads out behind her as she rides, and she scatters flowers before her. The Vedic dawn goddess whose name the Sanskrit cognomen of Eos is the saffron-robed Ushas. What we're looking at is saffron (krokos) as a signifier of female sexuality in the ancient world. Athenian girls between the ages of about 7 and 12 were required to participate in a festival at Brauron, the Arkteia, referenced by Aristophanes in Lysistrata. For this, they were dressed in the krokotis, a saffron gown intended to make them look like ruddy little bears. The point of playing the bear for Artemis and stripping from the saffron-bear clothes was symbolically to come of age, to be transformed from being an untamed little wild girl and single into a woman and wife/mother material. And in a rite going back almost a thousand years before the Ancient Greeks, the sky father and the nature mother lay down by a river, and a bed of saffron crocuses sprang from the earth beneath them.

saffron stories

In the acrylic paint world the brilliant orange-gold-yellow color of saffron the spice is known as Indian Yellow – which could also be thought of as Native American, or Aztec/Mayan (K'ank'in) – with reference to East Indian, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the saffron or yellow-ochre robes (the robes may not be dyed with costly saffron, but cheaper turmeric or ochre), the special magic of this color, its sacred quality. At a Roman wedding, the bride would wear a saffron colored veil on top of her clothing, indicating the eternalness of the wedding vows – a tradition, which was adapted in a large number of cultures. The enormous symbolism of the gold-red saffron palette reaches across Eurasia and back into the deep history of its people from India to Ireland.

Shades of Saffron by artist Lil McGill

redware pottery - Rare glazed red earthenware brown pitcher with yellow and green splashes. Together with an olive-green handled jug with rust and yellow spots.

warm earthy colors

Shades of Saffron strikingly look like the warm earthy ochre colors of redware pottery. In the Buddhist tradition yellow is the color of the Muladhara chakra. The most basic chakra in the body is Muladhara. Muladhara is stabilization, not realization. It is the journey work of growing stable, rather than flying off into a blissful experience, of shaking the world as a magnetic force when awakened. Yellow indicates the Earth element, representing the beginning of new life. Muladhara chakra symbol is a yellow square bearing the mantra LAM as its sacred seed, one that crawls forward and eventually sprouts, re-emerges. 

Seed by Mara Berendt Friedman

Rain Steam and Speed: the Great Western Railway by J.M.W. Turner

Georges Seurat was later fond of yellow as, most famously, was Vincent Van Gogh who loved the sunshine, as he wrote to his sister, “Now we are having beautiful warm, windless weather that is very beneficial to me. The sun, a light that for lack of a better word I can only call yellow, bright sulphur yellow, pale lemon gold. How beautiful yellow is!”

The pressures of living in an imperfect world cause cracks in us all; but the good we do for others and put out into the world is the gold that repairs us and makes us beautiful. Some people are broken more than once; some cracks are more difficult to repair; and some people can be shattered completely, seemingly beyond repair. But everything that can be broken can also be restored. It may take greater effort, a longer time, and a deeper commitment to repair - but it is possible, especially when you realize there are only two responses to having been shattered completely: to choose to remain broken and useless; or to choose to rebuild yourself into something greater, and become entirely golden. No one ever chooses to be broken. But everyone can choose whether or not to stay that way.

Pastel Pencils

Pencils, pencils, pencils...! if I colored my drawings, I would also do it with Dry Media: (Prismacolor or Derwent Artists, both with a waxy texture that allows to overlap layers of different colors) Colored Pencils, (Derwent) and Pastel Pencils will trace the paper playground along with Graphite Pencils, Charcoals, (Conté a Paris, Cretacolor, Faber Castell, Prismacolor) Sanguines and Sepia Pencils...

Las Mujeres de Humo, cocineras y magas

Yo llevo muchos años cocinando. Cuando me preguntan que cuándo empecé, les digo que yo nací cocinera. Nací amando la cocina.” Tardó tiempo en entender que estaba en proceso de convertirse en la mujer de humo que ha sido toda su vida, desde que nació. “Y mis canas son de humo, y yo huelo a humo, porque soy una mujer ahumada. Voy a seguir cocinando, yo digo que cuando me muera quiero que me pongan un fogón afuera de mi tumba, porque ni así quiero dejar de cocinar'. Porque su olor no es perfumado como el de las demás mujeres, su cuerpo ha tomado el aroma de la leña usada en el fogón; no traen su pelo de otro color, ni sus canas están pintadas; cuando envejecen sus cabellos no se tornan blancos, sino grises como las brasas y la ceniza que queda cuando el fuego se apagó.

“No somos chefs, somos cocineras. Somos mujeres de humo”. “La palabra chef es extranjera. Los que somos mexicanos somos cocineros.” En la tradición de las comunidades, las mujeres que se distinguen por su sazón y habilidad culinaria reciben el apelativo de “mujeres de humo”.

Sin embargo, es en su memoria y tradiciones donde el fuego de la cocina tradicional mexicana arde con mayor pasión. “No hacemos rescate, es lo que vivimos a diario. La auténtica cocina tradicional se encuentra en las comunidades, las rancherías, en el campo y en los montes. Ahí se vive de verdad esta cocina. Nosotras no estamos acostumbradas a montar y maquillar platillos. Lo que sí hacemos es darle el sabor y los aromas con lo que tenemos en el campo.”

Tienen muchas creencias… guardan las tradiciones, y tienen respeto por los alimentos y la cocina, porque _dice_ “cuando una relación es feliz debe mantener el amor y el respeto.” Las mujeres totonacas se congregan alrededor de los fogones, y llevan a cabo su ritual ancestral. barren la cocina, bendicen la lumbre, su masa y todo lo que van a cocinar. Estas magas, mujeres de humo, aseguran que la magia más grande que da el sazón de sus comidas son el amor, el humor y los sentimientos. "Nosotras no somos las chachas en nuestras casas. Nos merecemos un lugar grande en nuestras casas, porque nosotras somos las que les damos de comer, alimentamos, cuidamos, mantenemos nuestras casas." #reclamandomiancestralidad #reclaimingmyancestry