Postponed weekend

Being a freelance is a difficult task in a current economic climate but it has its good points: for example you can move your weekend - you work on Sunday but have Monday off. This is exactly what we did today: we had a perfectly relaxed day , I did my Easter card working (?) away in my pyjamas while Simon reluctantly (a photographic proof included) typed his grant application. So do keep your fingers crossed - he is working on a great project now and it would be nice to get some extra funds to be able to take some part of it with a large format camera!



When I have finished my my drawings for today I went to have a look here. It is just worth mentioning that his name is pronounced [Pips] not [Pepis] as I have always thought to be correct. But the funniest bit is mentioning of the temperature on that particular day in 1666!

Turner *

The album of Turner's works we have at home famously states in the preface that Turner's work cannot be reproduced. Even the best print only serves to awaken one's curiosity about the original.

Indeed the reproduction of the painting I found on line does not do much justice to the original but it should give a good impression of what I was saying about Turner's late works. Monika and I we were having a conversation about her pictures of Venice (she goes there almost every year photographying extensively but she is complaining that she still have not managed to grasp the image of the city the way she would liked to) and I think Turner's version could provide her with some inspiration.


Well, she probably knows this image already, but just in case:

Turner

Edinburgh might not be London or Paris (in terms of fashion and grandeur of art exhibitions) but it also has its moments. One of them is definitely a new exhibition in the Scottish National Gallery of Turner's works inspired by Italy.









































Of course we went to have a look this afternoon.

It is one of the best prepared expositions I have seen recently - containing all the right doses of paintings, watercolour sketches (my favourite part of Turner's work), insights into privacy of sketchbooks and works of other artists who inspired the artist (etchings by Piranesi and paintings of Lorraine).













The main thing that strucked us was how many effects Turner used in his paintings were in fact still relevant in modern photography! And how mastermindedly he planned his career!

I am not a big fan of his early oils (especially with figures whose faces he annoyingly limits to two black dots for eyes and red bulging cheeks) where I just would love to crop the most interesting part (like a procession entering the Vatican with a spectacular view of Rome behind it from Turner's 1820 painting Raffaelle, acoompanied by La Fornarina, preparing his Pictures for the Decoration of the Loggia) but his late works form 1840s are simply breathtaking. We were analysing them jokingly "oh! here we have some polarizer and a warm filter" but his minimalistic views of Venice, consisting only of lashings of paint where a silhouette of a familiar building emerges.

Looking for some spring shoes

Dear girlfriends! I am at the lookout for some nice spring shoes. So far I have not managed to find anywhere here a shop stocking latest Camper's collection or at leats nice colourful flats (girls here go for ultra high heels, not quite my thing). So after having a lunch in Urban Angel where a girl behind the counter wore ^ these I am getting more and more inclined to get some white Converse baskets. I should not be too old for that yet...

After working all day long, Simon and I decided to sacrifice our evenings to cinema seances and yestareday we watched Angel by Francois Ozon (non!non!non!) and Au Bout du Souffle with beautiful Jean Seberg (she has inspired my haircut once) and barechested Belmondo. Pas mal.

Tonight we are seeing Hitchcock's Rear Window. The relationship between Grace Kelly and James Stewart was apparently inspired by one between Robert Capa and his girlfriend.

Dear camera

Even though the Easter break has started I am not planning any holiday (as usual). Instead I will be spending these 3 weeks working on my photographic project which recently spinned into quite an unpredicteable direction. Instead of a landscape I am having models in the studio, so the grounds I am feeling much more secure with. At least that!

Unfortunatley I will have this gorgeous (well, let's put it this way: it is better than any shoes I was eyeing recently) MPP camera with a Schneider lens available only for the Easter break so I will be posting only once, maybe twice a week during these busy days.

However you can still meet me more often on my illustration blog which I must keep up to date without any excuses (ups!). See you all very soon!

Springtime!

Finally! Finally! THE END OF TERM! I will have time to work on my college project as postgraduates are allowed to work on the premises even during the Easter break.

I just have to pick up my MPP camera from the college and off I go to work on my landscape project!

Meanwhile - Spring has arrived. Actually it has been like this (see the image) since weeks already. Beautiful sunshine, Scots in tshirts (well, it is going to be +15 for next several months anyway) my weekly walks down to Leith where I am getting my films developped have become more pleasant. There are elderly ladies listening to Classical Radio while they tent to their gardens. There are crocuses everywhere. Twitting birds.Kissing couples.

Just find me in the image - there are flowers sprouting from my head and it is exactly how I feel!

Moonlight

Sometimes the Castle looks like it needs a Rapuntzel!

A very special trace

There is nothing better than a smooth cooperator, one that follows your every thought, movement and that provides always a satysfying result.

My cooperation with Pilot Pen is exactly like that - I cannot draw with anything else, because all the other traces seem to be too harsh, too uneven, too rough. Only this pen provides a delicate but well visible line that reflects my hand movemet exactly the way I want.

I assume that also the fact that it is extremely difficult to find in shops and if you do find it, it is quite expensive so that I always take only 2 or 3 and then regret not having taken more. I have brought some of these pens in reserve from Krakow (where a little paper shop in Dluga that stocks them sometimes) but I have not been able to find them here ever since. Finally Simon decided to end my misery and bought these pens for me online. The whole box! Merci mon cheri!

Artist Rooms

If I ever had an option of another choice in life I would love to be an art collector who later genrusly donates their collection to the Nation. This is exactly what Anthony d'Offay did and now over 700 items from his collection are going to provide a new resource of contemporary art for the UK audience.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art decided to display their part in form of the Artist Rooms so Hirst, Katz, Woddman, Warhol, Celins and Gallagher are going to share the same flat.

image by F.Woodman, via http://www.heenan.net/woodman/

Mystery of the Uggly boots

The extent of the popularity of these awful shoes amongst Scottish women astonishes me each time when I see someone wearing them in weather like that. Especially that they are indecently expensive (prices start at 170 pounds! WHAT?!) and are usually worn on bare feet. They are also accompanied by a fashionably noisy shuffle along the pavement. They just make me cringe. No matter how charming their owner is. All I can think of is an image of sweaty, stinky feet working on catching fungus. How could one wear them in Australia's climate where they originally came from?

Last breath of winter

This was the weather last weekend - I was meeting a friend at Starbucks (yes, "at the Starbucks across from the Starbucks" as William Langley put it nicely) in Princes Street which wasnow closed for tramworks and did not want to be late. I reached the cafe with a spectacular view of the Castle just when the sun came out again, dried the melting snow and provided a beautifully springy rest of the day.

The girl behind the counter with whom I discussed the peculiarities of Scottish weather told me glumly that if I had decided to wait before coming until after the blizzard passed and had decided to be late for the meeting the snowstorm would have probably lasted the whole day.

My friend was late but not because of the weather but because she went into the wrong Starbucks - one a couple of doors away. I had some extra time to flick through my pile of Sunday newspapers.

Animal friends

I am a dog lover.

A dog's company always provides me with joy, I could play with one (or more) for hours and apart from a wombat - the dog is my favourite animal on Earth!


This sweet little girl resides at a hairdressers next door and even though we have to sometimes dodge her bobki on the pavement in front of our entrance door I love her dearly and I am not only considering using her in a photoshoot but also having a haircut at her owner's salon!

Animation Dept. 2

We are sharing the same student space and I like to use fellow animation students as my models - they are very hard working and adventurous in front of the camera. Sometimes they also have an inspiring note stuck to their work desk at the department:

Animation department

Busy, late and exhausted

I am a master in wasting time. Unfortunately not only mine but also the one of others. I try to do a thousand things at the same time and I often get tangled in the process. Or I stop to do a minute of research and this minute turns in 2 hours. Just like that.

It has been a busy week but have I achieved anything significant? 3000 words of the critical study does not really count. I did couple of photoshoots one of which went pear-shaped as taking pictures with a rangefinder I have forgotten to take off a lens cap. Luckily Simon's children were very understanding and we were able to repeat the photoshoot this weekend.

I am exhausted, sleepy and behind with everything. Though I have finally managed to do my nails with a dark purple nailvarnish. Finally as I have bought it more than 4 weeks ago and have not yet had time to use it.

P.S. I am looking forward to having a look at a new exhibition at ECA - we have spotted it walking back home from Alexandra Demenkova's talk in Stills.