Art appetizer

It's been a soggy Labour Day weekend here, chilly enough even for the lighting of a fire to warm our cockles last night.  Dadda Boo has been immersed in preparation for a summit next week, so things have been pretty low key around here, although his emergence from the office to concoct some fine wholesome soups has been much appreciated.

 

These images were taken of the view up through our skylight in the kitchen,  I love to watch the rain fall upon the glass, and the clouds passing, rather like that James Tyrell installation where you go into a darkened room to sit and gaze at a frame rectangle of sky above your head.

We did, however, manage a family trip to the Vancouver Art Gallery today, where we sidelined the masses milling through the Rembrandt/Vermeer exhibition, and scooted up to the Andreas Gursky retrospective exhibition.  Working on 'toddler time' (take whatever you can get), we shimmied through the exhibition, 'look its football players', 'look its a beach', in and out in less time than I used to take for my mooch around the exhibition bookshop (such luxuries a distant memory), but I feed on whatever small morsels I can get.  It's hard not to be impressed by Gursky's work, its 'awesome' in the truth sense of the word, rather than the sense in which its used around here, like when you give someone the right change. It's grand in vision and execution, and the pieces I've seen before have also been grand in scale. However, many of the images in the Vancouver show are reproduced on a much smaller scale than I had expected, which was quite refreshing (though entailed more small child carrying so the refreshment didn't quite reach my arms) and felt a bit more human to me.  I suppose I've felt his work to be quite macho with its grandness, and there is a strange sense of being alienated from the masses of people depicted in the images, we are so distant from them all.  

Picking out a couple of images from the exhibition, these ones seem like an interesting juxtaposition (mine, not the curators).  The first is from a rubbish dump in Mexico.   I'm struck with the beauty of the image and find myself in the exhibition trying to imagine the stink, it seems so aethesthetised to me.

The second shows a designer trainers store.  I wonder how many of the latter end up on the former?!

Sneaky Peak

On a rainy bank holiday weekend, I bring you a sneak peak of a couple of images from 'my book' which is finally coming together, the product of snatched fragments of time over the last year.  I apologise for my lack of professionalism in the photography, but I was a bit excited so just snapped them sitting on my drawing table in the studio.

Images copyright Cath Hughes 2009

The book is tentatively titled 'Sea Otter Feast' , and is a picture (no!!) book for preschoolers.  There will be some short text as well but I haven't overlaid that yet.  Basically it's a counting book, with mama otter fetching increasing numbers of food items (squid, clams, crabs, urchins etc) for baby otter.  It was inspired by my discovery of the vast amount of food that otters have to consume in order to maintain energy. The images are made using collage technique, with handmade hand-dyed paper, photographic imagery and batik on paper.

There's a fair bit of refinement still to do, but now completion is in sight.  I am so excited about the prospect of finally being able to give Boo a copy of 'my book'!

Lessons from Pottyland

I think one of the most wonderful, and daunting, things about parenting is how it constantly demands that you adapt, become resourceful, take a different approach when things don't work out.  And you must step up to the mark with this, the stakes are just too high to just shrug and go 'ho hum that's the way things are'.  I am so grateful for this as I have to own up to having fallen prey in the past to the evils of whingeing and moaning about something in my life that was not working out. And then not doing a damn thing about it.  So now I remind myself to take a step back and consider, so what else can I try?  How can I do things slightly different that might just shift things a little?

I'm getting lost in preamble here, but this spot of reflection relates to potty training. Yesterday it wasnt working out for us.  There was wee and poo on the floor yet again and Boo didn't even seem to acknowledge that anything had even happened!  Cue one frustrated mama, longing to just sling a nappy on that bare bot and be done with the mopping up, she's obviously never ever ever going to get it and clearly won't be able to ever get a job because she she still won't be 'clean and dry' as they say!  We've done stickers, we've done songs galore, we've 'done it together', Granny's been on the case, we've read countless books, I've tried physically dumping a struggling Boo on the potty.  Still she wees on her toys and resists pottytime.  

But I  don't sling on a nappy.  I have determined today as a 'let's stay at home and do some potty training' day.  Clearly I've been putting everything into it.  Or have it?  Actually, I realise on reflection, I've been wandering off, sometimes literally, things to do, bathrooms to clean, sometimes I'm just not present, caught up in the 'monkey mind' in my head.  The reason she's not doing it is because I'm not doing it, I'm simply not being there for her.  She needs my constant vigilance, my presence, and my patience.  So I position myself near to her and determine to 'be there' for however long it takes.  A little while later there is a bit of poo on the floor.  With a sing song, I promptly scoop her up and plop her onto the pot, whereupon she does her 'trying' noises and face, and we are thrilled to see a good 'deposit' in the potty!  There are high fives and we are both buoyed up by this success but I know its a long road.  Some time later, I see that Boo has positioned herself on the potty, not, it seems to do anything (she still doesn't seem to know when its coming) but just to hang out there.  I'll be reminding myself to slow down and be there in the coming days and weeks but I'm beginning to trust that we won't be sourcing adult-sized nappies after all! 

Waldorf painting... well, almost

Last night was a 'bad night' in which Boo was screaming out 'can't sleep, can't sleep' from her bed, ended up in my bed (poor Dadda Boo retreated to the basement) and spent some time kicking me in the head before finally succumbing to sleep, only to wake up in a stinking whinging mood the next morning.  With tempers frayed, surely what a sleep deprived mother and daughter required was a spot of watercolour painting?  Watercolour might not spring to mind for painting in the early years, but Waldorf education espouses it for young children, using a 'wet on wet' technique.  Boo will be going to a Waldorf preschool next year, so I figured it might be good to give it a go.

There is a lengthy rationale and description for this mode of painting in 'You are Your Child's First Teacher' by Rahima Baldwin Dancy, but I will try to summarise.  The idea it seems is to move away from rigidity, hard boundaries and heaviness, allowing the colour to be experienced in its purest form, and for movement and fluidity to occur.  Sounds lovely, I've always enjoyed the unpredictability of colours bleeding myself.  So here we go.

I lay out all that we need:

Wooden board, good quality paper (mine was some overly expensive Fabriano that had got buckled in my portfolio, as I couldnt put my hands on any watercolour paper), watercolour pigment diluted in a small amount of water (I used Winsor and Newton), water jar, sponge to remove excess water, rags to clean up and a wide flat brush.

Baldwin Dancy recommends using one colour for a 2-3 year old, and choosing from red, blue, yellow.  The rounded edges apparently deter the young uns from painting around the edge.

First the paper needs to be soaked - we did this in the bath.  Then the excess removed with the sponge.  Then it begins.

Thirty seconds later, Boo becomes more interested in the water jar, and at this point I wonder why I have even prepared it when we are only using one colour?!  She enjoys turning the water crimson, and putting some of the tinted water onto the painting.

 

Ten seconds later and Boo is saying 'want the other paint'. I know the paint she means, the finger paint.  So out comes the finger paint and Boo is pretty absorbed in that for a little while.

I guess the thing about the wet on wet technique is that is more of a visual process, watching the fluid movement, the artist slightly physically removed by the length of the brush handle.  Boo is definitely absorbed by tactile sensory experience, the feel of materials on her hands and being able to manipulate them directly.  We'll try it again, and I'm sure by the time she goes to preschool she will find it mesmerising, but for now its fingers in and let's get mucky!

Blackberrying

Living in London, seasonal changes seemed to relate largely to the calendar, the weather and perhaps there were sometimes leaves to sweep up on the patio.  Since living in North Vancouver, I've become more aware of shifts in the natural world around me, and marking the passage of time through observing key events: the blooming of skunk cabbages in May, wild raspberries in high summer, dragonflies in late summer, giant red maple leaves clothing the sidewalks in Autumn.. and blackberries.  The blackberries are in full succulent fruit and off we trot to gather them with stained and sticky fingers.  The thrill of coming across a glut of undiscovered heavy brambles!   

 

Then home for a spot of cooking with our spoils.  Boo's favourite: Blackberry and Apple Crumble.  She likes to 'help mix', particularly after the sugar is added.

My recipe for a wholesome Blackberry and Apple Crumble:

Filling

3 eating apples, cored, peeled and sliced

10oz fresh blackberries (critters removed)

1tbs brown sugar

Topping

150g/5oz wholewheat flour

100g/4oz soft brown sugar

50g/2oz rolled oats/kamut flakes

pinch of salt

Lay fruit and sugar into dish.  Rub fat into flour, add sugar, flakes and salt and cover fruit. Bake.  We love it.

200C/400F/Gas 6 for 30-35 mins

Salt dough adventures

When I first tried making salt dough with Boo several weeks ago, I was quite excited.  Here was a medium that appeared to offer something for both of us: the pleasure of making something lasting (as opposed to play dough) for me; and the joy of manipulating a soft, easily workable material for Boo.  I had been wanting to make some large scale beads with big holes for Boo to use as first threading beads, and this appeared to be a great medium for this purpose.  I mixed up the dough in a matter of minutes and all was going swimmingly...

     There was lots of exploring with pressing walnuts and pasta into the dough, just a spot of tasting (can't see the attraction myself!) and some big beads made.  However, when I removed the beads from the oven after they had cooled, they seemed rather soft and the next day I concluded that they would not stand up to toddler handling so discarded them.

Take two, and I try salt dough again.  Again, Boo loves it and is learning to roll out.

 This time, I try some flat cut-out shapes using cookie cutters in the hope that they will cook to a greater hardness.  I make holes in them with a skewer so that I can thread them up to be used in a hanging decoration in Boo's room once it has been decorated.

This time, the results are much better and my faith in salt dough is restored.  Now I can sand and paint the shapes for the hanging.  Hurrah for salt dough!

To make salt dough you need:

10oz (300g) plain flour

10oz (300g) salt

1/3pt lukewarm water

1 tbsp veg oil

Dissolve the salt into the water first, then add the flour and oil.

When you are ready, cook your salt dough in the oven at 210F/100C for 1.5 hours.

A spot of curating

A few of my paintings (from BB (Before Beth!))  have found their way onto the walls of our beautiful new home.  These just felt so right for these locations and we think they look better than they have ever looked in their previous homes.

 These two paintings, featuring images from Epping Forest, England, sit well either side of the fireplace in our light-flooded lounge, which is awaiting the arrival of a sofa and chair.  The embroidered text beneath the painted image can be glimpsed as the light changes through the day.

This pair of paintings seemed an obvious choice for this spot behind our dining table.  The raised underpainting on these depicts a William Morris design, which can again be glimpsed as the light falls on the surface.

Much of my work, particularly the 'industrial East London landscape' period I had just prior to Beth just doesn't seem to fit our house in a mountain rainforest location.  This one, however, has sneaked onto a windowsill in the dark area of our basement at the back of the house and seems to be quite comfortable just as it is.

Then there are some mini paintings of decomposing fruit which have found a home in a little corner of our kitchen area.

Beth also now has her own little 'gallery' for her pictures/photos/things above her nature table/drawing space.  She is so proud of putting her drawings up on the string and talks about all the items on display.