An article/rant/annotation to an illustration. A #Hackney bar and its flies.
This picture is not as sad and blue as it might at first seem, I promise.
It is early in the week and the pub becomes the territory of the most outspoken drinkers. Raised somewhere between Churchill and Harold MacMillan, a night such as this is time for them to spin out a yarn of nostalgic fantasy. Encouraged by the lack of a crowd and with space to fill, statements start to fly.
In the opening rounds the barman athletically hits back with factual blocks and reality-check haymakers; statistics and personal experiences are given. Two histories cross examined, one where 1982 means Thatcher and the Falklands, the other renders Reagan and the AIDS crisis. Stoicism and national pride vs mental health and realism.
In the latter rounds the barman is fatigued, swaying on the backbar, glasses begin to stack up as form begins to drop. The older men seem stronger than ever.
The barflies come in close now, they scrutinise his generations work ethic and make wild political comments on poverty, immigrants and the minimum wage.
The barman is close to sheer bloody despair, he maintains his defence and focuses on breathing while maintaining his professional stance.
But at the end of the night the barman knows HE will ring that bell, they will politely leave and they will return again in a week and maybe, just maybe there will be a change, common ground or maybe at least polite silence.
But what these interactions have given despite the salt in the eye is community and an exchange between generations, culture and class of those participating. No home is ever straight forward, no relative without their good and bad traits and in a world where we often slide into echo chambers online or in our physical environments, the pub is still a place where society is family, face to face, pint to pint. Or maybe it's just a room with alcohol on tap?
My tribute to my good friend who died earlier this year. Another white pastel on black paper. Not my favourite media but I love the effect of it. I need to practice more as I can't get my head around working on negative lol, erasing to get shadows and filling in to get highlights etc. I used a chunky white stick and a white pastel pencil but detail still eludes me lol. It's a technique I need to refine. It's the second picture of a dead person I've put on, apart from humph, so I'm a cheery little soul aren't I lol? Thanks for looking
The Super Bloom is still going in SoCal! On the trail are poppies, daisies, alyssum and now the mustard grass is in bloom. My process was an iPhone photo, then a drawing with color and then collage in Photoshop.
hahaaaa... sad times... I had a friend who had recently shot himself, and while everyone else with this prompt drew birthday parties and other kinds of happy surprises, I drew this, you can only imagine how concerned my art teacher was. Also, the lack of sleep I had was wearing on me, I spelled surprise wrong so I had to go on paint and correct it. It was the beginning of the school year and my friend had killed himself just at the end of summer break, when I was so busy having fun in the sun, it was the most surprising event I have experienced. So I tried to paint a beautiful scene with bright colors with a depressing scenario so that it wouldn't really match up... aka surprise.
One of my botanical abstracts, this one centered around a pond. Though I will be selling the original locally, the print is available on thousands of clothing and home good products across my many websites. Browse them all here: https://linktr.ee/okhismakingart
Ye know how it is, a brand new sketchbook and a blank white page, at first it's exciting "what am I going to put in here" but that pristine blank white page keeps staring up at you and you start to think "crap! what am I going to put in here?" So I just doodled and put some thoughts down and doodled around that until the whole page was filled with one big doodle... it broke the silence and started the magic...yeah I said it, super cheesy!
