'Swimming the Butterfly' - Volume 21 of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - Sidney Nolan Trust Challenge

‘Swimming the Butterfly’ – Volume 21 of the Sidney Nolan Encyclopaedia Britannica Challenge
On receiving volume 21 I flicked through the pages, my mind flitting and flying from one subject and idea to another.

 

Eventually, it was the hot summer, and experiences arising out of it, that led me to my final creation. I have never been swimming as much as I have this year and my garden has attracted more butterflies than usual, including one of my favourites – the Peacock.

Skimming through the text I settled on a section headed ‘SWIMMING’ and read about the butterfly stroke. It led me to think of the phrase, ‘Swimming the Butterfly’ and the surreal connotations of combining butterfly and swimmer. It’s a racing form of the breast stroke, so I felt that it had to be organised in lanes across my book and I had to decide upon a winner … the butterfly that excites me the most – the Swallowtail.

 

 

Encyclopaedia Britannica Challenge

I accepted the Encyclopaedia Britannica Challenge a few months ago.   This involved having volume 21 which I need work with to create an altered book.  This is quite a well established kind of art form now and I have experimented a little in this in the past.  An exciting prospect...but what to do?

I considered all kinds of possibilities, but this warm summer I have been swimming a great deal and  I had also made drawings and created prints of butterflies a couple of years ago for a book (Shropshire Butterflies edited by Nadia Kingsley).  So, on seeing the section on SWIMMING in my volume and thinking about 'Swimming the Butterfly' I started....

 

 

 

NEC Gardeners World - a few of the gardens

 African garden - painting walls with strong colour - magenta and burnt orange here - really lift the mood even on a dull day.  Used here with wood, wicker, bark and some simple planting.

 I love the combination of foxgloves and old pots with lichen in this 'Birmingham Borders' category of garden designed by a student Ben Corah.   Some of my own foxgloves are in flower now but I'm still waiting for the chocolate ones.

 The grey-green of the aloes, lavender coloured cushions and wood + sedums made a calm, minimal and low maintenance garden.

An interesting idea of what to do with an VW if you have had enough of repairing it!

New title for my blog - Gardenista - Linda's Art and the Garden

I had planned to start a new blog in order to mark a new phase in my printmaking, however, it's proved easier to just give my existing blog a new title.

I've been working on images relating to the garden on and off for some years and plan to make it a focus for a while now.  I want to comment on my garden, other gardens and garden-related things as well as the art I make that relates to it.

I'll see how it goes....

How to cut and print lino and vinyl

How to do relief printing - e.g. cutting and printing vinyl and lino - a video of me demonstrating cutting and printing, published on Youtube and made by Chris Hill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JK1S6tVUAg

Please note that I am changing the title of my blog to:
http://gardenistaartandthegarden-linda.blogspot.co.uk/

'Knockout exhibition' 'Punchy Prints' The exhibition ends 5pm, Sat 18 May

Comments on my exhibition - made tongue in cheek perhaps, but good anyway!
#Wolverhampton Art Gallery #Finding the Balance #prints #iPad drawings

Last week of my exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery - it closes at the end of Saturday 18 May

It was good to take my cousin to see my exhibition on Saturday - it's still up and looks good.

Some more cards had sold from the shop, no more prints since the opening day and I'm not sure how many small mounted, iPad drawings have been purchased.  There were some lovely comments in the Comments Book.   One more week to go.

I'm meeting a group of students there tomorrow to explain what's involved in the technical aspects of putting up an exhibition.

I also had a look at the new Sensing Sculpture exhibition on upstairs and that looks fresh and good. More pieces by Paddison than before, which I like.