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by Lake Hayes

11/20/2018

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Continuing with the theme of art inspired poetry....'capturing our creativity' in multiple modes.

LiterArties Kay Jamieson and Dennis Hamley are an artist, author partnership. The beauty of Lake Hayes, Queenstown, New Zealand, inspired Kay to paint her tranquil artwork that, in turn, inspired Dennis to pen a poem. 
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By Lake Hayes
Dennis Hamley
 
The sun makes soft shadows on the mountains
Beyond the opposite shore.
Far to our left, beyond the trees, past the town
And across mighty Wakatipu, the shadows are
Sharper, darker and the sun glares
On the jagged Remarkables.
 
But this is a gentler lake.
Far out on the blue Aotearoan water
A racing four, your granddaughter
Rowing at stroke, practices.
 
Only the soothing cry of a solitary bell-bird breaks the silence
As we sit companionably together
Under the trees which fringe the water’s edge.
I write and you sketch.
 
Wooden walkways snake towards us, pause,
Then slide away back into the bush.
Yes, people come here.
But, though a faint roar from far behind us
Says that plane after plane is making
Its approach through the gap in the mountains
Bringing yet more to the honeypot town,
They are not here today.
 
This scene is archetypal, permanent.
We and the rowers are impertinent intruders.
The lake is for ever.
We are not.
 
Yet what you and I do as we sketch and write
Will have outcomes.
Fledgling words will seek form,
Questing lines and shapes will strive for unity,
Until they are both complete and satisfying.
So, even if nobody reads them,
Nobody sees them,
They will be for ever too.
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Painting Heatherlands Step-by Step

11/16/2018

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LiterArties' Deborah Martin's painting technique illustrated by a step-by-step example.

"I thought it might be interesting to show a work in progress at the various stages from start to completion, as an example of the type of demo/talk/ workshops I offer. This painting I'm calling 'Heatherlands' ...
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​​Step 1: Pick out the colours you see and place them onto the canvas in blocks of colour. Looks like a weird kind of patchwork, doesn’t it?

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​​Step 2: Start smoothing with a fan brush. This is sfumato, a-la-Leonardo da Vinci; think Mona Lisa smile. Starting to look a little more like a sky now …

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​

​Step 3: Add more highlights and then go back to smoothing again. It doesn’t matter if the colours blend. They do in real life too. And it doesn’t have to be a carbon copy of anything either. It’s YOUR sky … 

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​Step 4: Now look at your palette – ugh! What a mess; just the way I like it. What colours will you use, and which have you finished with? Get rid of the defunct colours- don’t be a messy Tike like me! 

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​Step 5: Vary the type of fan brush you use to blend colours, I use about 6 different ones in total. Keep smoothing until you’re happy with the effect and you have ‘sky’.

Step 6: Start adding the landscape, starting with faint delineation, and then building until you’re happy with the transition form sky to land. Now start to add the foreground …


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​Step 7: Use blocks of colour again, but also go with the shape of the land or the foliage. In this case it’s banks of heather so an arc shape movement works best.

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​Step 8: Add the path. I used a palette knife – good for coverage and you can get good effects by smoothing and stippling and scarping with it. It’s not just black, white and grey either. Look at all the other colours that are in there – yellow, cerise, purple, green, etc. Nothing is ever a block colour. There are always at least two other colours involved too.

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​​Step 9: Now briefly smooth – but only a minute amount – and then stipple using the varying shades of the heather banks, following the line of the foliage. Sweep grass and underlying stalks upwards with a small fan brush to give the effect of stems.

​ 
Step 10: Finalise the background, and you’re done … "
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​Actually, I should really call this ‘Ten Steps to Heather’, shouldn’t I? 
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Inspired to pen a poem

11/3/2018

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Capturing our Creativity

​LiterArties vision unites us. Each of us is 'Capturing our Creativity' through many modes and mediums. Change is a feature of every moment and as creative people we strive to 'capture' the essence of  a moment, or moments, in our transient lives using our 'creativity' in words, images, music, clay,... any vehicle possible. Not only is this creative process very rewarding, but through it we can share our inner worlds and experiences with others, hopefully to make their life more pleasurable as well. 

Inspirational images

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So often a painting will resonate so much with us that it will inspire poetry to flow! It seems this happens frequently.

This blog was initiated as a result of meeting author Sylvia Veta at a recent Writers in Oxford Social (held jointly with the Society of Authors). Sylvia is a freelance writer on art, antiquities and history. She was showing us her latest project, An Anthology of Poems Inspired by Art. Syvia had approached some, mostly Oxford based, poets to contribute to this anthology. The idea is that all proceeds from direct sales will go to Standing Voice for the art summer school they run on the island of Ukerewe in the training centre built by Standing Voice.  

Sylvia's latest book also has an artistic theme to it. Called Brushstrokes in Time it is a fictional memoir of a Chinese artist.


Dennis Hamley's Anthology

LiterArties' Dennis Hamley scoured the internet and his own shelves to search out other examples of art inspired poetry and found 21 examples! A book in itself and maybe he will publish it.

From his wide ranging and inspirational selection here are three examples. The first is about the experience of visiting the Tate Gallery:
​Leaving the Tate
Fleur Adcock
 
Coming out with your clutch of postcards
in a Tate gallery bag and another clutch
of images packed into your head you pause
on the steps to look across the river
 
and there's a new one: light bright buildings,
a streak of brown water, and such a sky
you wonder who painted it - Constable? No:
too brilliant. Crome? No: too ecstatic -
 
a madly pure Pre-Raphaelite sky,
perhaps, sheer blue apart from the white plumes
rushing up it (today, that is,
April. Another day would be different
 
but it wouldn't matter. All skies work.)
Cut to the lower right for a detail:
seagulls pecking on mud, below
two office blocks and a Georgian terrace.
 
Now swing to the left, and take in plane-trees
bobbled with seeds, and that brick building,
and a red bus...Cut it off just there,
by the lamp-post. Leave the scaffolding in.
 
That's your next one. Curious how
these outdoor pictures didn't exist
before you'd looked at the indoor pictures,
the ones on the walls. But here they are now,
 
marching out of their panorama
and queuing up for the viewfinder
your eye's become. You can isolate them
by holding your optic muscles still.
 
You can zoom in on figure studies
(that boy with the rucksack), or still lives,
abstracts, townscapes. No one made them.
The light painted them. You're in charge
 
of the hanging committee. Put what space
you like around the ones you fix on,
and gloat. Art multiplies itself.
Art's whatever you choose to frame. 
This second example was chosen as it gives a humorous insight into the challenges of creating a masterpiece in cramped physical conditions, in fact the Sistine Chapel.
Picture
​"When the Author Was Painting the Vault of the Sistine Chapel”
​Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, 1509
(translated from the Italian by Gail Mazur)
 
I've already grown a goitre from this torture,
hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy
(or anywhere else where the stagnant water's poison).
My stomach's squashed under my chin, my beard's
pointing at heaven, my brain's crushed in a casket,
my breast twists like a harpy's. My brush,
above me all the time, dribbles paint
so my face makes a fine floor for droppings!
My haunches are grinding into my guts,
my poor ass strains to work as a counterweight,
every gesture I make is blind and aimless.
My skin hangs loose below me, my spine's
all knotted from folding over itself.
I'm bent taut as a Syrian bow.
Because I'm stuck like this, my thoughts
are crazy, perfidious tripe:
anyone shoots badly through a crooked blowpipe.
My painting is dead.
Defend it for me, Giovanni, protect my honour.
I am not in the right place—I am not a painter.
And thirdly, a short poem that encapsulates how a painting captures the moment:
​The Painting
John Balaban
 
The stream runs clear to its stones;
the fish swim in sharp outline.
Girl, turn your face for me to draw.
Tomorrow, if we should drift apart,
I shall find you by this picture.

'Being Seen and Known' by Karen L French

LiterArties' Karen L French  - "It was a great honour, and moving, to have a poem created by Liz Everett for my expressionistic painting Being Seen and Known, about allowing others to see you for who you really are rather than creating a facade to hide yourself. Having words to complement a work of art really brings home its message. It was really insightful to hear, in her own poetic words, how my artwork had influenced her, personally and creatively." 
Picture
'Being Seen and Known' by Karen L French
I dropped the façade, 
I let down my guard,
The veil was lifted it was 2012, 
I couldn't hide no longer, illusions no longer.

The truth, tell no lies
I've come out of my shell; I cried.
I wished to be born again,
It didn't matter in the end.

I could wipe away the fears,
And tear away those rotten years.
I filled that gaping hole,
And looked deep down in my soul.

I strip back the layers one by one,
And find the cause behind it.
The truth lies deep within my soul,
I've nothing to hide, I'm energised.

Revealing myself, tell the truth, no lies.
And now I stand before you,
This is the real me for infinity.

When I pass away, my soul is saved,
And carries on – another journey.


Liz Everett: Author of An Inner Light That Shines So Bright
ISBN 9781906 954055
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