Lil Ashton's PTBM Research Journal

cute lil babies

I've been making these cute and very similar little paintings:

I've found a style that is so easy and comfortable and fast, and that makes me feel really good. It's so good for my mood and makes me feel like a kid, or like I'm being my real and raw self.

I have collected a bunch of artists who I love who have this cute sort of aesthetic, and who influence me and encourage me and uplift me greatly. I'll showcase a bunch of their work below:

http://sleepyberry.tumblr.com/

http://minipete.tumblr.com/

http://milkbbi.com/

Mogu Takahashi

The Ruling Passion/Reading Aloud (colour & mood)

These are some more paintings from Kelvingrove museum which I think have beautiful tone and colouring. In the first, below, I particularly like the variation in hair colour, and the expression and form of the people. I'm particularly interested in the girl on the left, and her distance from the scene. She looks more subdued than the rest. Colder? I felt like I can sit in her place. There's this strange feeling of relation that I have towards her. This has great value to my work, it's a very interesting emotional response. I see myself in this girl, but why? It's not just because I like her hair (although you know, that's compelling). I think she looks like later she'll run away across a field, although that may just be evidence of me having seen too many dramatic Jane Austen dramas.

The Ruling Passion (or The Ornithologist), 1885
John Everett Millais

The second painting I saw has a similarity to the first in that it depicts rest. It's a bit different though. Again I'm drawn to the humanity of these women. The one on the right looks relaxed, maybe, but the others seem as if they could be having a lot of hurried thoughts. The colours here are amazing, very pale and delicate sort of ethereal. I feel again, as if I want to be them. I see the painting through such a strong relational feeling (as in the first painting).

"This is one of Albert Moore's best paintings. There is no hidden meaning, no story to tell. Moore wanted to create a decorative harmony in pink, white and grey."
Reading Aloud, about 1884
Albert Joseph Moore

Wikipedia says of Albert Joseph Moore:

"[He was] known for his depictions of languorous female figures set against the luxury and decadence of the classical world."

"[...]every picture was the result of a carefully thought out and elaborated harmony in pose and colour, having as its basis the human form, studied in the true Hellenic spirit."

"The chief charm of Moore's pictures lay in the delicate low tones of the diaphanous, tissue-like garments in which the figures were draped."

Other paintings echo the ethereal, ideal sense of "Reading Alone" - they're very cinematic, and I feel a sense of childlike awe looking at their soft peachy colours and depiction of sheer fabric.

Silver

The Glasgow Boys (colour & mood)

Looking at the work of The Glasgow Boys at Kelvingrove, I was struck by the bright, sunny hues present in many of their paintings. Lots of them depict beautiful rural scenery, very much idyllic. I've been thinking about possible restorative/soothing qualities of art, and art as a sort of therapy or activity of self-care, as well as art encouraging happy feelings in others. Colour inevitably is important when considering this, and I felt that the light (but somehow rich, buttery?) use of colour in many of these paintings was really encouraging and pleasing and conducive to a pleasant feeling, much like nature or light or something else can make me feel very soft and grateful to be able to experience whatever it is I'm experiencing. So I want to focus on what effect my colour palette gives, and how this affects FEELINGS.

My pictures don't convey how sweet and delicate and light these colour palettes are to their full extent, but anyway:

"The Boys developed their own painting styles individually. In the 1890s Kennedy created a powdery effect by smoothly blending his colours. This gave his rural scenes an overall softness and shimmering quality."
Homewards, about 1981
William Kennedy

A Surrey Meadow - Morning, 1880
EA Walton

The Coming of Spring (detail), 1899
EA Hornel

The Coming of Spring, 1899
EA Hornel

"Hornel painted these figures and their background with such sweeping curves and brilliant colours that the whole picture seems to symbolise the joy and exuberance of spring,"
The Dance of Spring (detail), about 1892-3
EA Hornel

Autumn, 1895
John Reid Murray

Black and Blue - Carol Mavor (moments, and bruises as their symbol)

I picked up this sweet and lovely book from the college library after failing to find a copy of Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida. Mavor's text heavily references Barthes. The book's purpose seems to be exploring the markedness of people, things, etc, after some impact of history, life, or experience. An exploration of happening which is framed within the two colours, black and blue, predominantly here a symbol of bruising. The book is very visceral in it's exploration of this, and for that reason I like it very much. It feels like a very artistic work in itself, like mist in a book form. It has a lot of fascinating pictures too, and I like books with pictures.

Quotes:

"I was once an infant, without speech, marked by (a black and white) image from the womb."
- Introduction, First Things: Two Black and Blue Thoughts, pg. 2

"When I first watched A Patch of Blue I was a nine-year-old white girl enjoying the freedom of being just a little sick, of missing school, of drinking ginger ale in the morning and sucking on red, triangular-shaped, deliciously artificially flavored cough drops."
- Introduction, First Things: Two Black and Blue Thoughts, pg. 5

"One only needs to sink into the wistful longings of Proust: unalloyed blues of the azure sky, beryl blues of the ocean, and melancholic dusky sapphires of the midnight hours."
- Introduction, First Things: Two Black and Blue Thoughts, pg. 11

"Sometimes, between the time of the pain and when the bruise presents itself, we forget the injury. I am trying to not forget. Bruises are the before-time wounds of always-falling childhood and the after-time of growing old."
- Introduction, First Things: Two Black and Blue Thoughts, pg. 16.

"This moving image of three Icelandic children in 1965 wounds me. It bruises me with that Barthesian black-and-blue feeling of that which has been."
- Chapter 3, Happiness with a Long Piece of Black Leader: Chris Marker's Sans Soleil, pg. 81

"I am eight years old. The Chandelier Tree, with its hidden rings of time and its huge branches, like lamps that light the way to the past, has lived and will live far outside the parameters of my lifetime."
- Chapter 3, Happiness with a Long Piece of Black Leader: Chris Marker's Sans Soleil, pg. 109

"I remember the darkened classroom, the sound of the film moving through the sprockets of the reel, the constellation of bits of dust dancing in the projector's light (like a dandelion blown), the shock of seeing fellow students crying, even boys. Still, I can hear the words from the film, especially the bit about the atomic flowers."
- Chapter 4, "Summer Was inside the Marble": Alain Resnais's and Magurite Duras's Hiroshima mon amour, pg. 123

becoming paint

Continuing with my concentration on "the" "moment", I printed out these two sweet 'n' personal photos and I wanted to paint all over them. It's layering moments. A new comment on an old thing. I like altering the realness of photographs by physically tearing them or painting them. It rather creates a whole new realness. A new layer of personality and personal connection. V. special.

And as I have touched on before, the potentially over-personal comes into play here. The overshare that the internet makes too easy. I don't know if I'm being gross or beautiful.

bulk art / texture / moments

Wanted to be really scribbly like a child or someone in a rush. It's fun to use up materials and it feels (much like collaging, for its speed and method) cathartic, expressive. It feels really natural and probably does a lot for my mood. It seems diary-like too, in a way. My favourites here are the more scribbly, mad pages. The thoughtlessness of them.

Video collage, musical persona, and being the sum of your experiences

I always find collage quite cathartic, as it is a hurried slamming down of stuff that I have been in contact with. It's a quick, momentous collection of myself at a particular time. It's more odd and textural than a photograph, but it does the same thing in terms of capturing a moment. It's sort of like instead of capturing what I am or what I see at one time, it's capturing more of an abstract mood. It's more complex and chosen. It's a strange expression of my inner self. Things I don't even understand.
Everyone wishes to know who they really are, and ultimately that's impossible. We can never understand ourselves fully, but we still try. Collage combines an endless desire within me to know myself, with a delicious output / collection created hurriedly and alive.
Video collage carries all of these traits too, but possibly seems more involved with the addition of movement and sound. Following is a video of visuals for my band. The music is our own, but is a cover version (of Roxette).

They include snippets from films, adverts and video games I've been inspired by or interested in, or that made me laugh. There's a lot of Japanese content here too, which represents my exposure to and interest in Japanese media, I guess. This wasn't a conscious decision really. That's what I like about collages. For me, they are very spontaneous. At the same time they are expressive. I need to record and represent tiny moments. It's the most important thing in the world right now.

As these are visuals for a music video, the concept of the band persona, or my persona within that (?) are also relevant. We are partially constructing something here. It's a little more blurred than my purely personal collage.