Sara Cimarosti

 

True love for Sara Cimarosti's man in his checked shirt! 

Gareth Lucas

 

Finishing my crocodile focused week with this illustration by Gareth Lucas who has an incredibly vibrant, pattern-rich, eye-popping portfolio. 

Aniek Bartels

 Aniek Bartel's crocodile.

Nikki Burley

 

Continuing a crocodile week, illustration by Nikki Burley.

A Crocodile at Large!

 

A chance discovery of an odd paragraph in an old paper and we have a story . . . of an escaped crocodile on the run for four days from Arbroath caravan park, trying to make his way down a drain, to a burn where the fisherwomen washed their laundry. 

As a teenager, I grew up in Norfolk, England and the area was full of caravan parks where, as I came of age, I worked in the clubs and pubs, making cocktails and many other less glamourous tasks, so caravans and caravan parks still hold a nostalgic fascination. 

The image above somehow has a disaster movie feel about it as they stagger away arm in arm after a giant crocodile has sat on their caravan.

Anna Süßbauer III

 

Anna Süßbauer's crocodile is going to walk us into the week.

Faye Moorhouse III

 

Faye Moorhouse's crazy leggy crocodile.

To Mars and beyond.

 

I have been making work to send to #thearbroathcorrespondencschool a project run by Kirsty McKeown at Hospitalfield. This has led me to many wormholes of history in my research and chance encounters with characters who reoccur in the scarce photographs of this time, revealing incredible stories and lives.

I am trying out a new format of chain images to consolidate a collection, like old strips of postcards. It seems a natural progression as most of my work sent to this postal project has been in postcard format.

Today I will be making my Mars book (images above) which is about a penal colony for children which was established on a boat (Mars) moored on the coast off of Arbroath from 1869-1929. I am using deep red glitter watercolour, to reflect the ship's name 'Mars', for the water and also to allude to the alien environment into which these children were placed. 

Yesterday I put together a collection I had gathered featuring Mr. Andrew Beatt, who was a tobacconist in Arbroath from 1890-1939 when he retired. He was also secretary of the Arbroath Health Congress. and a champion bowler, swimmer and singer. The images gathered have come from all over so I love it when I catch a familiar face or name and can make a connection and a collection about an individual, event or specific location. 

Friday catch up

 

I have become more involved in collage since embarking on the Arbroath Correspondence School, and many many hours of research has meant that people and events are now coming together across the centuries into wee collections. I love this type of research and it has led me to incredible connections and images. The next obvious development is into little books which I will make and share over the coming week. 

The Bruton Correspondence School is another creative exchange that I have become involved with and I made the image above for them. Collage is great fun, but hours pass finding just the right image and I have a stack of shredded magazines that I'm scared to recycle as I know as soon as I do I will need them. soon I will be an old lady in a castle of shredded magazines...

Abner Graboff II

 

'I Want to Whistle' written by Anne Alexander and illustrated by Abner Graboff, published in 1958. What can I say, other than I love Abner Graboff, and I am always pleased to find a new book illustrated by him.

Jayne Stokes I

 

Jayne Stokes likes to use unusual often discarded things. Today I am focusing on her matchbox landscapes, treasures of captured views, of the building exterior, be it cottage, boat shed, or shed, to the views that building enjoys of harbor, sea or road. 

Paty Benavides

Paty Benavides is a collage and assemblage artist from Peru, I particularly like her work with fungi. 

 

Félix Vallotton

 

Félix Edouard Vallotton (December 28, 1865 – December 29, 1925) was a  French/ Swiss painter and printmaker key in the development of the modern woodcut. He painted portraits, landscapes, nudes, and still lives, this is a collection of his sunsets.

Emile Jadoul

 

The art of parenting even with eight arms is extremely difficult, 'Papoulpe' by Emile Jadoul, published March 2020 by Pastel.

Kiln Stilts

 

I go to the beach every day it is less than 200 yards from my home. I live north of Edinburgh in a town called Kirkcaldy, where I used to work as an art lecturer before I left to retrain as a children's illustrator. This was a very busy industrial town in the 19th  and early 20th century with a coal mine, lino and linen works, and three potteries to name a few of the industries. I clean the beach every day of its contemporary litter and sometimes I gather its historic midden to.

Normally I leave the kiln stilts choosing instead the patterned ceramics and ginger beer bottles. I also have a love for the many bits of old teapots, particularly the perforated spouts, which I like to write imagined stories of the prior owners and the tales that the teapot overheard.

For some reason I picked up the kiln stilts this week, they are the pieces that you put between pots and kiln to prevent them from sticking. They are like the bones of the old industry and that made me think of fossils and skeletons. 

The older stilts are decorated, from a time when life was still about beauty and less concerned with profit. 

I have allowed myself some play time, I really like making the turtles, the shapes seem to lend themselves to these best.