Poinsettia drawing
© Mary Adam
|
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Award
My "Sno-Cone Cart" in the recent ASTT Annual November Exhibition received the "Best in Show" award. It was totally unexpected and a great honour.
The painting is from a photograph I took back in 2005. It's the first time I've painted a car for public viewing, something I wouldn't attempt without a photo reference because I'm clueless about cars. I've painted a couple more since then because they are everywhere in our lives. I'm actually getting to like painting them but doubt I'll ever be able to identify makes and models by sight. I'd quicker identify a bird or a flower, cars are a step too far!
Sno-Cone Cart, acrylic on canvas, 18 x 14". © Mary Adam |
Saturday, November 15, 2014
November exhibition
These two are on show in the ASTT annual November exhibition until November 22nd. There's an online catalogue for the exhibition here.
Untitled, 2014, oil on canvas 12 x 12 ins.
© Mary Adam
|
Sno-Cone Cart, 2014, acrylic on canvas 18 x 14 ins.
© Mary Adam
|
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Newsletter due soon
Newsletter #6 is underway and should be emailed out in the next few weeks. If you are not already a subscriber, click here to subscribe (it's free). Sample issues are available here.
The Drawing etc blog has taken a bit of a back seat lately, partly because of the newsletter, and also because of the ASTT quarterly newsletter for which I'm writing a short piece. Somehow there's just less time available for everything. The online courses I've been doing are taking time as well, more about that in the newsletter.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Who shall say ...
Walden Pond, image from Wikipedia |
"Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?"
-- Henry David Thoreau
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/205 for the whole book. The quote is from the first chapter, "Economy".
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Next newsletter soon
Newsletter No. 5 will be going out early next week. If you would like to receive it and are not already subscribed, you can sign up here.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Art Market this Saturday
I will have a table at this Saturday's Easter Art Market with selected work including some new work. Why not come on down, it should be an enjoyable event.
When: Saturday April 26, 2014, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Where: The Trinidad and Tobago Art Society's headquarters, Jamaica Boulevard, Federation Park
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Mystery tree
Mystery seed pod |
http://theplumtree2.blogspot.com/2012/04/mahogany.html
http://www.arkive.org/big-leaf-mahogany/swietenia-macrophylla/image-G15435.html
Evidently mahogany in general has been overlogged and is on the verge of extinction in many areas.
(P.S. If the blog seems to be more about botany than about art lately, this is temporary, just a few observations which I wanted to share).
Monday, March 24, 2014
Reflecting on the time-based Plumbago
This mini-project consisted of taking a photograph of one flower-head every afternoon from about the same place until it finished flowering. Flowering lasted for twelve days and I photographed it every day except Day 11. If the light wasn’t good from one angle I would move slightly to get a better view. The branch moved around a bit too. On one occasion a gust of wind blew it up against another branch where it stuck because of the stickiness of the sepals. Later it freed itself. Also it grew longer and sank down nearer to the ground over the twelve days of observation.
I was curious what the daily photograph would elicit, if
anything. One obvious conclusion is that it’s a form of observation
with the main value being that the photographs form a record. Just the existence
of a record has value because usually there is no record.
I observed something I had not noticed before, which is that
the flowers come out in tiers starting at the base, approximately one tier (or
turn of the spiral) per day. On this flower-head some of the earlier flowers died
off before those at the tip came out. Some of them were knocked off by rain.
On sunny days the
small butterflies noted a few months ago were out in force.
I thought about how plants operate on a different time-scale
to us, how they work over an extended time period of days, months and years,
which makes some changes almost imperceptible without a written or visual record. I thought of Stone Age people in Ireland five
thousand years ago who worked out the movements of the sun throughout the year and recorded their observations and predictions in various structures
and rock drawings, an incredible feat considering they had no sophisticated
instruments. To a Stone Age astronomer, the fact that certain flowers come out
at the rate of one tier a day could be crucial information. All sorts of seemingly
minor changes in the environment could contribute to the ability to arrive at
correct conclusions which would then enable them to predict seasons and
prepare for them. To observe the changes in the angle of the rising
sun over the course of many years, to draw the correct inferences – it’s nothing short
of awe-inspiring.
Back to the Plumbago … the buds opened, the flowers came out
and lasted for a few days before withering. That brings to mind the cycle of
life and the flow of life. Life flows … as long as there’s flow, there’s life.
When the flow stops the organism dies. Everything must keep moving. Can one say
that life equals flow?
Geranium opening by Andrew Dunn, from Wikipedia |
Finally, time lapse photography is a wonderful tool for observing plants. As the Wikipedia article says, “The effect of photographing a subject that changes imperceptibly slowly, creates a smooth impression of motion.” Above, a time-lapse photograph of a geranium courtesy Andrew Dunn. It shows the flower opening over two hours compressed into a few seconds.
Labels:
Ireland,
Plant Life,
plumbago,
Stone Age,
time,
time-lapse
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)