ARC REVIEW FOR JULY, SHORT AND SWEET

This month's review for Darcy's Artful Readers Club is short and sweet, rather like the book itself.  And by sweet I don't mean cloying but tender and loving.  It's MY LIFE by MARC CHAGALL.  For once it's not a Kindle book but a paperback from Amazon at £7.59. 

'My Life' covers the period of Chagall's life from childhood through to 1922.  He finished writing the book in 1922 but it was not available in English until 1965.  He was born in 1887 in Russia as Moyshe Segal, and lived until 1985.  Unlike many artists he died at 98, a respected artist and a millionaire.

I found the book on Amazon when I was about to go on a Summer Art School at the Tate Liverpool in connection with their marvellous Chagall exhibition, and reading it has been a joy.

It's a short book, only 171 pages which include 20 of his black and white sketches from that period of his life, many of them full-page pictures - so you can see why I say it is short and sweet.

The language is simple, the writing unusual like flashes or snapshots of memory, very reminiscent of some of his paintings. It's like poetry, painting pictures with words.  As well as having touches of humour it is tender, touching, sad, so many emotions in this little book.

One of the things I liked was how some of his comments helped me to understand elements of his paintings that are little miniature memories within the painting.  He says of his childhood thoughts:

"Sticks and roofs, beams, fences, and everything that lay behind, delighted me.  And you can see what was there in my picture 'Above the Town', or else, I can tell you ......'

Then there are paintings where a head is detached from its body, floating in the air and it helps to see the links with those paintings when he says:

"At those words, my head gently detaches itself from my body and weeps somewhere near the kitchens where the fish are being prepared."

I had already worked out long ago that when bodies are floating in the air in his paintings he is expressing deep emotions, but it seems he felt and imagined in this way even as a child, a strange and imaginative child who always had his own vision and was determined to paint in his own way.

One more detail that linked so strongly with some of his paintings.  Writing of his schooldays he says:

"What I liked best was geometry.  At that, I was unbeatable.  Lines, angles, triangles, squares, transported me into the realms of delight.  And during the drawing period, I had everything but a throne."

I've always been intrigued by this painting of Chagall's with its geometric circles, arcs, triangles, and though this painting is not in 'My Life' it resonates with his love of geometry.

There is so much more in this book about his life in Paris and the very difficult period he spent back in Russia when he found himself unable to return to Paris because the first World War had started in 1914 and he was only able to return to France in 1922.  If you are at all interested in Chagall and his paintings, I'm sure you would enjoy this strange little book as much as I did.

ARTWORK ..... well I apologise for offering a very unfinished piece of artwork.  Things have been a bit difficult this last month and very busy, and I also apologise for not visiting everybody's June review because of this.  I'm determined to visit everyone this month.

The A4 sketchbook page below is my response to not just the book but my immersion in Chagall recently.

This is NOT a copy of one of his paintings, it's me quickly putting down on paper rough drawings of some of his images starting with the main figure, The Juggler, whose strange position fascinates me.  If I tried that I'd definitely fall over.  Then I changed details, then turned the twisty lady into a mermaid, gave the fish seaweed instead of a bunch of flowers, added bits here and there, and Hey Presto there's something quite unlike my much slower way of working and unlike anything I would normally draw - my vision of a strange circus.  I hope Chagall will forgive me.

I want to colour this somehow - unfortunately the sketchbook paper is not strong enough for watercolour, so it needs some thought, and there's so much detail that it's going to take me ages.  But I'll do it bit by bit over time.

If you are near enough to visit the Tate Liverpool's exhibition of about 60 of Chagall's works, then I recommend it.  Check on the dates (on until October I think) and entry cost first.  Thanks for bearing with me.  Jez

Also linking with Jenn's challenge of producing a black and white line drawing for Artists Play Room - sheer serendipity that this theme appeared just after I had posted my July review!

ARC BOOK REVIEW & ART FOR MAY

THE ITALIAN CHAPEL by Philip Paris (Kindle Edition)

A novelised version of the true story of how Italian POWs built a concrete chapel on the Island of Lamb Holm in the Orkneys - islands off the north-eastern tip of Scotland.

It takes place during WW2, but it's not the usual kind of prisoner of war story.

Google 'The Italian Chapel' to find many images and
be quite astonished by what they achieved under great difficulties
and the beautiful art they created.

............

WW2 was an important part of my childhood, and this accounts for my interest in books like this, but I think perhaps you might enjoy it.  Real events were  interspersed with the inclusion of semi-fictionalised 'human interest' elements to keep the reader's interest.  A story of two halves, married together for dramatic effect.

The documentary details were the most interesting for me, and the imagined conversations and events did move the story along and include some humour, but two or three of the fictional events seemed to have  been created just for the story and didn't feel 'right'. When I read the author's notes at the end of the book it turned out these were in fact the sections that had been invented or altered.

The story is told through a few main characters and their experiences, and describe how all the wonderful artwork was created.  The writing is fairly 'ordinary', but very easy reading.

Strangely there was a link to my father's WW2 experiences, as happened in my February review for The Last Telegram.  When my father was in the Royal Navy on the new HMS Prince of Wales at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys, a German submarine sank the HMS Royal Oak at anchor.  833 of the crew died, and survivors were rescued by other RN ships.  My mother told me that many of Dad's friends were on the Royal Oak and he was absolutely broken-hearted for the rest of his life.  This part of the story was told very touchingly through the experiences of the Orkney people.

I'm glad I read it, and pleased that I know about the Italian Chapel both from the book and from being prompted to check out the images and story on the internet.

For readers in the USA it turns out there is an Italian Chapel in Letterkenny, USA.  There is also one in Henllan in North Wales - a little nearer to visit than the Orkneys.   I couldn't find out what these are like, but I doubt if they are as famous and as much visited as the Italian Chapel.

ARTWORK INSPIRED BY THE BOOK

My artwork is far from anything I've done before, and a complete surprise to me because it's definitely not something I would normally even think of painting.  The inspiration that kept coming to mind was that I should make a small painting of St Francis who is mentioned at the beginning and the end of the book.

I forgot to take a photo of the original drawing, and even a quick glance at this half-way stage will show you that I forgot something else as well.

Acrylic on watercolour paper - Jez

I imagine that St Frances at this stage of his life was not in any way vain about his appearance or his shabby robe.  His halo has not photographed on this completed piece as brightly as on the underpainting - no sun that day.  

And the senior moment that led to my great mistake?  In my eagerness to give him untidy curly hair I completely painted over the shaven part of his tonsure.  Lack of time and fear of ruining what I had done made me decide to leave it in the hope that he and you will understand.  I shall definitely put this right when I have more time.

St Frances looks rather pensive in my painting.  Perhaps he's thinking of all the problems being created for wild creatures by man's effect on the environment.

I tried to imagine how the painting would look after centuries of hanging in a secluded corner of a church, with all the effects of smoke from candles and ageing of the paint.  For this digital alteration I added a special effect that gave me just the feeling I wanted, and I think I like this version best.

COLOUR, COLOUR, COLOUR - LOVE IT ..... ARTFUL READER'S CLUB

          

I'd like to tell you about "COLOUR" by Victoria Finlay in pictures as far as possible.  I'll scatter little digital grafitti sketches on the way through, with my artwork inspired by the book at the end.  The graffiti sketches illustrate the colours that Finlay investigates as she travels all around the world to find their origins and history. 

This is a paperback, not a Kindle book, and fortunately the print was of a size I could read.  I bought it for Dev at Christmas, but I had sneaky plans to read it myself as soon as possible.  And what a joy it has been, especially after my problems with my March book.  Finlay is a journalist, and she really knows how to write a readable book on an unusual topic.  

If, as an artist you are interested in colour - and how can you not be - then you will love this book.  It's even better than I expected, and how often can you say that of a book?

The first decision I made was that I was allowed to write in it.  I know I'm a big girl now, but the rules of childhood start to echo in the brain as soon as a pen gets anywhere near a book, but I was strong and scribbled as much as I liked.

From this photo of the contents page you can see the structure of the book.  I realised that each chapter stood alone, and that I didn't need to take them in order, and I numbered the order of the colours as I read about them.

I planned to read about one colour at a time and alternate the book with a novel, but I became so involved that I couldn't stop and read the whole book before moving on to my May novel.  But it is the type of book you can pick up now and then to read about one of the colours.

The preface is fairly technical and a little hard going, but very worth the effort of reading it to set the scene for the book itself.  This is such good writing and easy reading - Victoria Finlay is a reporter and knows how to interest the reader.

I also decided to mark any sections that I would want to refer to again, and you can see from this double page spread what happened nearly all the way through!  You can also see the wonderful bookmarks I seem to use - torn pieces of post-it notes and a paper serviette - no matter how many I have painted or been given.

        

     

Black and Brown are dealt with together in the same chapter, and these were my fifth choice of colour because I thought, quite wrongly, that there wouldn't be too much of interest in reading about these colours.   What do I know!   I would never have expected to be reading about Egyptian mummys in the section about Brown.  

Obviously the subject of charcoal came up in the Black chapter, and I didn't know that the ancient charcoal willow is quite a different tree from our popular weeping willow which was only imported into the country in the eighteenth century. 

                        

There is a surprise in every chapter.  I've been reminded of things I knew -  I did know that the cochineal I used to use for making pink cake mix was from an insect, but I was surprised that it was so interesting to read about the cochineal bug.  I also learnt things I didn't know, enjoyed the stories she told and was surprised that a writer could make me chuckle so much just talking about colour.

    

                            

The section on Yellow, entranced me, with its stories about saffron.  I knew saffron was yellow and often wondered how Saffron Walden in Essex got its name - sadly there are no Essex saffron fields now.  The images Finlay brought into my mind of saffron fields in other parts of the world are still a pleasure in my mind.

The saffron fields of purple flowers open for one day only and must be picked in the morning, the yellow pistils most carefully removed and the purple flowers thrown away.  Even the heaps of discarded flowers must be beautiful.

                                                   

I think perhaps you've got the message that I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It is the best non-fiction book I have read for many, many years.  I do recommend it to anyone who enjoys non-fiction and who may have wondered about the history of colour.

Now for my artwork inspired by the book.  When I thought about representing the book in a single painting, I realised that although I enjoyed all of it, the chapter that had left a lasting impression on me was the first one I read - Ochre, in all its different shades of colour, and particularly the cave paintings of Australia.

I have a number of books about folk art and the art of ancient civilisations.  In one called simply Folk Art I found a picture of a cave painting about 3,000 years old at a site near Darwin, Australia.  What surprised me most was the use of blue paint which contrasted so well with the ochre of the rocks.

This is not a copy of the cave painting, it is inspired  by it, and is a combination of digital background with the collaged fish drawn with brown Pitt Artist's pen and coloured with Inktense pencils.  I wanted to use the blue and ochre together for the contrast. I have used the general idea of the fish, but adapted their shapes to make the picture my own.  I'm quite pleased with it, and it will be a happy memory of the book.

IT'S ALL MY OWN FAULT - MARCH BOOK REVIEW AND ARTWORK FOR A.P.R.

The 'frieze' above is a Photoshop montage/colour-change of one of the artwork images for my March book for the Artful Reading Club.  For some obscure reason I had downloaded to my Kindle "The Secret History of the Pink Carnation" by Lauren Willig.

WHAT ON EARTH HAPPENED TO ME!  Was I so entranced by the title and price of 99p that I didn't read the reviews and 'look inside the book' facility on the Kindle Daily Deal?  I think so, fool that I am.  It's exactly the sort of book I take care to steer well clear of. 

To help you (and me) through this review I'll scatter the sketches I painted for the artwork - and they are relevant ... (ish) ....  

So the choice of book was all my own fault.  I respect the fact that many people enjoy this type of book, but it's just not for me.

But as a true blue member of the ARC I gritted my teeth and read every page when I would otherwise have ditched it on page 10. 

It's a historical romance, linked with a modern-day equivalent romance, and with the emphasis on ROMANCE.  

GOOD POINTS:

I'm a very fast reader and, to face the challenge of getting through it, I put my skates on.  Because of the 'quality' of the writing I was able to whizz through the pages so quickly the page-turn button got hot.  

In fact I was able to start my April book halfway through February, so that must be a good point.

Another good point - you DON'T have to add this to your own ever-growing list of books to read.

BAD POINTS

Researching and writing a book is not easy, and I don't like to be too dismissive of what is clearly a very popular book.  It's simply that I was the wrong audience.  

The author had done her research, but it was the way she used it that grated on me - the flippant tone and constant anachronisms,  silly unreal situations, and her writing style.

When I was a very young teenager I read everything I could find of Georgette Heyer and loved it, but that was a long, long time ago.

This was Georgette Heyer meets Barbara Cartland (not read any of hers) on a really, REALLY bad day.  

Here are a couple of samples, describing the heroine:  "With a toss of her mahogany curls '' and "her face was a talented engraver's etching, small and decisive, her cupid's bow of a mouth in constant movement, exclaiming, talking, laughing".  

I really haven't the patience to describe the horribility of my experience with this book.  Suffice it to say the real finishers for me were the ridiculous passionate sex scenes (what my Eng Lit teacher used to call 'purple painted patches'). 

The only way I got through it all was to read it as though it were a farce/comedy.  I deserve an A.R.C. medal at the least.

The link of my artwork  to the story is that Napoleon's collection of Egyptian Antiquities is constantly referred to.

I'm bonkers about ancient Egyptian history and artwork, and Napoleon's collection gave me an excuse to refer to my ancient Egypt books and do a bit of Egyptian doodling as well.

So, here's the actual artwork - just a page of sketches in a large sketchbook, but I enjoyed myself greatly with these.  Hope you like them.   

THE ARTFUL READERS CLUB - THE TWELVE BOOKS OF 2013

Having seen a couple of booklists on other people's blogs, I can see mine is a very lightweight list - entertainment reading - but variety is the spice of life.

So here are my twelve books for the Artful Readers Club

(I'm a sucker for an interesting title)

and I've decided that these two will be the books I read in January and February.

THE LAST TELEGRAM
Liz Trenow
Pub: Avon    ISBN 0007480822

A FISH TRAPPED INSIDE THE WIND
Christien Cholson
Pub: Parthian Books     ISBN 1906998906

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE PINK CARNATION
- Lauren Willig
Pub: Allison & Busby     ISBN 0749007613

THE DRAWING BOOK
Sarah Simblet
Pub: Dorling Kindersley     ISBN 9781405341233

THE HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT OF THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED
Jonas Jonasson
Pub: Hesperus Press Ltd     ISBN  1843913720

THE TELLING
Jo Baker
Pub: Portobello Books Ltd     ISBN 1846271401

THE CURIOSITY CABINET
Catherine Czerkawska
Pub:  Polygon, an Imprint of Birlinn Limited     ISBN 1904598420

WHERE THE WEAVER BIRDS FLY
John Ellwood Nicholson
Pub: Acorn Independent Press     ISBN 1908318317

A PLACE OF MEADOWS AND TALL TREES
Clare Dudman
Pub: Seren     1854115189

THE ITALIAN CHAPEL
Philip Paris
Pub: Black & White Publishing     ISBN  184502303X

A DANGEROUS TALENT
Charlotte Elking and Aaron Elking
Pub: Thomas & Mercer     ISBN  1612182739

COLOUR: TRAVELS THROUGH THE PAINTBOX
Victoria Finlay
Pub: Sceptre     ISBN  0340733295

All but two of them are Kindle books 99p or less
Quite a varied selection