code cherry

2011-09-03T14:44:00.000-07:00

Arm warmers: scottish lambswool and silk, handmade, available from http://cherrybrixx.eu/

2011-08-18T03:33:00.000-07:00

Cloche hat: pattern available on Ravelry

2011-08-18T02:40:00.000-07:00

Grassmarket Jazz and Blues Festival 2011

2011-08-18T02:37:00.000-07:00

Meadows Festival Wares...2011

2011-08-18T02:30:00.000-07:00

Chocolate Lime Cardigan in Alpaca: pattern available

2011-08-18T02:25:00.000-07:00

Gauguin again, done!

2011-02-28T05:08:00.001-08:00

New Projects!

2011-02-28T04:59:00.000-08:00

I am delighted to announce that the esteemed firm Sir Robert McAlpine's Communication and Liaison Manager is supporting my latest project.

For the last few months I have been watching and recording images of the construction of the EICC extension on Morrison Street, with a view to creating a series of photographs and paintings based on and inspired by the works going on there. This week I shall be kitted out in high vis jacket, steel toed boots and safety hat, for a ground level visit, the first of many over the next two years till completion. In a few months I will be displaying large scale prints across the boardings around the site, and more images on a for-purpose boarding will be constructed.

I am honoured to be so supported and encouraged by the Communications Manager Andrew Day and extend my gratitude for his participation, enthusiasm, support and co-operation.

Some time lapse videos on the EICC site show the development of the project with a pretty funky soundtrack to boot!

So I'm ripping off Gauguin again...

2010-10-28T03:14:00.001-07:00

Cutting

2010-10-28T02:41:00.000-07:00

Hair Dressing

2010-10-28T02:40:00.000-07:00

expression

2009-07-13T14:56:00.000-07:00

IS difficult to render with any amount of dynamism. so static... unlike teh original charcoal sketch... maybe this is the price to pay for paint, or i need to work harder... anyway, on with the extremeties!

riba riba riba!

2009-07-12T02:20:00.001-07:00

...and so.... the end is nigh....neigh...nigh...

riba riba riba!

2009-07-12T02:20:00.000-07:00

...and so.... the end is nigh....neigh...nigh...

paint paint paint

2009-07-12T01:00:00.001-07:00

Palette knife, white oil paint, toned down background, losing definition and finding light and shadow, now it all hangs on the execution of the face and body, and the mulberries, and bloody smears all over it all... nice...

sorrow (father) joy (horse) and fear (girl)

2009-07-05T06:57:00.000-07:00

Atmosphere is everything with this piece! Such a macabre story requires a special touch with colour and light to convey the variety of intense emotions of the three principal characters. Adding the flesh tones and beginning to work on the Mulberry tree foliage and fruit, and the peonies in the fore. I like the way my yukka almost blends into the picture. Thinking will need some texturising agent for the horsehide to really emphasize its leathery drape.

Begin to think that this story is not so much a legend of the silkworm but a deeply disturbed tale of a fathers fears for his daughter...

flowering foliage batman!

2009-07-01T12:15:00.000-07:00

I decided a more yellow garb for the father would bring a sunnier aspect to the peice, so adding layers of ochre and sunflower yellow. Decided on a pink robe for the foolish lassie and a purple obi to echo the father's. The next image will feature the transformation of the girl starting at her feet and fingertips, illustrating the phasing of her into a silkworm, and the hair of the horse wrapping itself into a cocoon around her. Also the peonies in the foreground echo the pink of the obi and the texture of the mountains. As the foliage grows around her a similar effect will manifest in the integration of human to animal.

more depth

2009-06-29T09:28:00.001-07:00

...and the macabre tone really starts to show with eerily contrasting colours, is it day or night? light or dark? why is father so still with his bloody scimitar? ...and of course the flayed and bloody insides of the horse hide detract from its previous beauty

Let the pigment commence!

2009-06-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

I just love oil paints! the smell, the texture, the colour! Am trying to take my time but darn! it's so exciting seeing a picture in the mind manifest. Starting with the bg as I ran out of white already for the skin tones and this is the way it is done, after all...

New Work in Progress

2009-06-27T02:30:00.000-07:00

many of you know, I have been reading many many many Chinese Ghost Stories and Fairytales. On the way to designing some 3d pieces I have started painting from one story, the Horse and the Mulberry, a classic fable of silk origins.

In brief, the story goes thus: a daddy goes to war, a girl weeps on her horse, she will marry whomsoever brings her daddy home, the horse runs off and comes back with papa, the horse stops eating when the girl ignores him, eventually the father divines the truth of the matter from the girl, and slays and skins the horse for its impertinence and impropriety, but the horsehide whips off the drying line, wraps up the girl and flies off.... to a Mulberry bush where the horsehide and the girl become a silkworm and cocoon, she spinning silk whenever she thinks of her father, for all eternity... Here is the cartoon in progress... the first composition above, underneath, the current development. The finished piece will feature several plants and flowers, either specific to the story or significant in traditional culture or meaning.

revolution

2009-03-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

Outside the gym I went to today (first time in over a year?!) was a great peice of stencilled graffiti with what looked like Pres Obama and text stating (sic) "Start a revolution, stop hating your body!" got me thinking yes.... was I going to work out my stress, anger and frustrations in the gym, work off my fat wobbly bits that don't fit into my clothes anymore because I hate it? Do you?

On consideration, and after a few hours of sweating (gym) sweating (sauna) swimming (a little) I feel relaxed, healthy, in touch with my physical needs, calm and happy that my body is starting again to look and feel as supple and healthy as it did when I was 17. (I have been eating porridge for breakfast for a few winter months, cuting out the crapola, drinking lots of health teas, quit smoking and drinking through acupuncture and started doing Cher Fitness videos in the house again, as well as eating mostly home made or fresh healthy food, rather than chowing down on takeaways and pizzas all weekend, it wasn't one session in the gym that made the transformation) ...so did I do it because I hate my body? Au contraire mon amie, but because I LOVE my body! I am taking care of it, reminding it how to work at its optimum, to generate energy from appropriate fuel, to be in balance, is this not love? So it hurts a little to do that last set of crunches, or those last few repetition sof the killer inner thigh reps, but those endorphins make up for it, and I feel great. Ilove my body, and we 'll be doing it all again next week. Better for my mental and physical health than a night out collecting liver disease, bruises, halitosis, throat cancer and agro. Oh yes...

Buddha Box

2009-03-04T12:34:00.000-08:00

Ok Ok SO it's cheap spirituality!  .. or is it?  I'm so
relaxed I think I'm in a health spa with a full body
massage just around the corner!

I have the wall on at the moment, happily playing
 away and mixing various sounds reminsicent of
whales singing, birds calling, pan pipes... ok too
far?! You get the idea anyway, I am putting my feet
up,, right,,,, now......

Beautiful On The Inside

2009-02-15T10:23:00.000-08:00

Some indiscriminate time ago, a fine young specimen told me that a woman "..should be beautiful on the inside as well as the outside." Leaving aside, for another more vitriolic post, the arrogance of an assumption about more than 50% of the world's population and the arrogance of the notion that one can dictate preferred qualities on an entire gender, I got to wondering... what would a woman be like on the inside, that is beautiful, that would do any good at all? Universally considered beautiful: a rose; a white dew dropp'd rose... how simple a thing to crush it! To render it bereft of all that made it beautiful! So delicate, so unable to resist ownership, accumulation, admiration and desecration! Useless, in other words, for a woman to be as beautiful as a rose, on the inside... So what, I wonder, would be beautiful yet able to survive the wrath of life? The universally brutal travails of existence? The insects would survive a nuclear war, more so than any other life form, but not the irridescent butterflies, the autumnal moths or spectrolite dragonflies... but the cockroaches, dung beetles and such hard cased scavenging things. Conifers, pine trees, smell beautiful, never lose their needles, are well worth striving to climb though they leave a sticky mess hard to remove! Providing excellent shelter, food and bedding, they are however relentlessly harvested annually for decoration, to be made beautiful, to fill our homes with scent and magic before being discarded on a kerbside or recycled in the great circle of consumerism. A fitting analagy then? A woman ought not to wish for such a fate! So what, 'should' a woman be like?

Felted Panto Bag!

2009-01-26T10:38:00.000-08:00

Based on Nicky Epstein's wonderful and stylish Shibori Bag, this unique effort was made using 20mm needles and "Biggy Print" yarn to the same dimensions. I used a blanket stitch edging to join the sides and handles, and continued the contrasting chocolate-shade wool by overstitching with a crochet chain (thanks mum!) twice to bind. The result? Interestingly the stitches shrank by about 50% vertically but only by about 15% horizontally... resulting in this... I trimmed the corners off the top flap because it was really banana house shaped, while still keeping the curved effect when shoulder slung. Not quite what I had in mind, but the felting (twice round a short cycle on my daily machine wash) was fun and exciting (!) sorry I didn't take before and after pictures, which would have been much more illuminating. Next felting project coming up, and this time, I shall :)

Cabled Cloche Hat

2009-01-21T08:52:00.000-08:00

Here's my newest project, and my first from scratch! My next task is to knit another from the pattern to ensure it's viability!

Code: Knit

2009-01-21T06:36:00.000-08:00

Ah, how easy it is to criticise the work of others!

Recently I paid for a download pattern pdf of a lovely knitted jacket... only to find out I had to translate the american terminology, and still, wasn't working so have given up home while I read and re-read american and english knitting patterns in the hopes of insight! Cursing all the while.... I have to admit it's probably me that's the problem. This proves even more likely now that I have attempted my first full scale arran pattern..ye gods... I can't count to 4!

In the process I have written my first pattern. I'm a regular trawler of the free knitting pattern websites, but realising now the amount of work that goes into them, and producing a better quality of knitwear, I am becoming much more amenable to paying for the patternwork of others.

Having knitted several eclectic thingies with a "hold it up and see if it fits" method, this very methodical way of working (writing every row as it's knitted) I found tiresomely timesome, and not at all relaxing to do with coffee...BUT STIMULATING in other areas... Indeed the resultant scribblings resemble more thermodynamic physics than a lovely cosy hat! Still, results and variations will be posted hence... and, if anyone would like to test the pattern for me after I have finalised it, please do drop me a line to julie at cherrybrixx dot eu. Pictures to follow...