Wednesday 30 April 2014

Early Etchings



In my posting of January 14th, I mentioned I’d taken up art classes and showed you my rather effeminate attempt at a Greek bust in charcoal. To our great joy, in January, we were allowed to start dabbling in oils. Despite my stated preference to work in water-colour, our lovely teacher, Evangelia, suggested we use water-soluble oils. The owner of the art-supply shop I had previously gone to rather sniffily replied these were modern materials that probably wouldn’t stand the test of time. No worries, I thought, we’re hardly in the David Hockney league! 

Once I collected my supplies, I felt a mixture of self-importance (here I am: a ‘real’ artist, complete with canvas, brushes and oils) and trepidation – what kind of mess was I going to make with these colours and wasn’t working on canvas just a touch too presumptuous?!

Virgin-white canvas is equatable with a blank A4 sheet of paper and an essay topic alongside. It’s the where-do-I-start anxiety. Then once the pencil outline is done, will I muck it up with the paint? At least water-soluble oils are more forgiving as a mistake can be fairly easily worked over, which is not so for water-colour. 

 I donned a lab-coat hanging outside the studio, clearly used to protect other wannabe artists. I noticed two things:
  • none of the other painters were covering up
  • shortly into the exercise, Evangelia came over and draped a second garment across my legs Somehow I manage to splosh paint everywhere.
Building up the colour to achieve depth needs quite a bit of work. My untrained eye often tells me a piece is done, then Evangelia will come and advise me to start on the shading next!

This is my first ‘oil-painting’. Now it didn’t help that the blooms were of synthetic materials – and mine most certainly convey a strong sense of the inanimate – but they are recognizable as flowers, so not bad.
                                                  


      In our pre-Christmas pencil/charcoal phase, one of the subjects we worked on in charcoal was a bowl of quinces. What really surprised and pleased me was the reasonably accurate appearance of window light reflecting on the shiny surface of the bowl.
So I set my next goal: doing the same subject in oils, to see if I could get that same effect in a different medium. First you can see the pencil sketch with the background washed in, as well as what are lines supposed to mark the material folds but which resemble stranded jelly-fish!
                                               


   
Next the material has been painted in, though I think I overworked the folds and tucks a little and that distracts the eye from the quince-bowl. In the next picture the quinces are now being worked on.

        

 








                     
The final version below was completed at the end of January, and the leaves are mostly artist’s impressions as the leaves in our original pre-Christmas composition had withered beyond recognition.       I left the bowl, focus of much anxiety, to the end, hoping I could get that desired lighting effect. Eh! – achieved to some extent. So now I have a set: quince-bowls in charcoal and in oil.                   
 



   

                                         
 Our classes are held once a week in the local council premises, and we are mainly lady ‘penshies’, as the Scots vernacular has it. We all have one thing in common: for three hours we shelve our household duties, dump our daily concerns and do our own thing. We lose ourselves in representing or recreating a subject of our choice; we push our skills of perception and manual dexterity until we achieve the effect we are after.

 I have tried to work with diluted colour to attain the delicacy of water colour; I have thrown caution – and oils - to the wind and applied thick dollops of colour, leaving on the canvas thick brush curves and satisfying strips of sheen.

Last week as I left the class, Evangelia asked if I was going straight home. Her concern was that I might be going out into public places looking like a woad-painted Ancient Briton – my face was spattered with cadmium blue! 

No matter. I get the same sense of satisfaction from practising my art as I do from trying out a new recipe. The initial sweet anxiety of anticipation gives way to full-on concentration, total involvement in the task. 

At the end it feels like you’ve experienced a mental massage, been transported to another place.          If the finished article is recognizable and presentable, then so much the better.
But that will never cease to surprise me!
                                

Friday 18 April 2014

Easter : Lilac and Roast Lamb


What a clever plant is the lilac! In Greek it’s known as the Easter shrub or tree – and it always seems to know when to bloom! We have both white and lilac bushes in the garden and it’s not often they flourish at exactly the same time but – here they are! 


                                                                      
Easter, as discussed in the 29.2.12 blog, is a moveable feast and the lamb-on-the-spit is literally that - mobile!  Ioannis, our next-field neighbour, is going to show us how it’s done ; he has already featured in such a role in the 19.4.12 posting. (As in any good demo, this is one we prepared before – Easter 2013.) Now Ioannis is a perfectionist. His garden is impeccably maintained to the extent that I maintain the tools he uses for its upkeep are nail-clippers and nail-files. So it is with his Easter roast; the procedure is a painstaking one. Here what we can see is a young goat whose meat is less fatty than that of lamb.
He kindly called me round on the Saturday evening so that I could learn about and record the preparation. Below he’s laying it out before putting it on the spit. Now this part requires both force and precision: strength to mount this weighty carcase onto the metal rod and real precision to skewer it symmetrically, otherwise there is the danger that as the rotisserie rotates, pieces of the goat may tear and break off if the weight is not evenly balanced.                            
    
                                                 








                 

 And Ioannis has an audience, including H and the ubiquitous Mr Mischief, here just to oversee that all is going as it should!                                                                                             

Now it has to be fastened carefully to the spit. Again manual strength is needed as Ioannis threads fine wire through the carcase and round the skewer.  In the final stage Ioannis’ wife, Anna, with years of experience in the medical field, brings her expertise - and surgical equipment - into tying up that goat good and proper. The meat is symmetrically secured, hermetically sealed; it ain’t going nowhere- just round and round and round on the spit!
                     
              








It’s Easter Sunday and the spit needs to be supervised from time to time to check it’s turning freely and that it’s neither too close nor too far from the charcoal. No rush, Ioanni, the assembled company of family members and friends are already on the ouzo-meze (appetisers) just to take the edge off their hunger.

 







                          
Their smiles express approval : Anna and Ioannis pronounce this goat duly roasted. Now it’s time to remove it from the spit and cut it into pieces.

                                         
At the table it’s served in chunks for everyone to help themselves to, surrounded by already-half-consumed salads : broccoli, tabouleh, tomato salad, potato salad, and tsatziki, the famous yoghurt, cucumber and garlic mix. 

 Ioannis can now  relax- here he is with daughter, Eirini.
                                           

Sevek, the senior canine of the house, and Paireag, the timorous pussy-cat, wait for any spoils that may come their way.
                                                      
Well, we’ve caught up on the news, congratulated our hosts on their excellent spread which we have fully done justice to, and it’s Easter Day. This year we all share Easter together. So, whatever your tradition, may your roast-meat be done to a T, may the Easter Bunny bestow copious quantities of chocolate eggs upon you , may the sun shine ….and your spirit dance.
                                                              



                                                         Happy Easter!