TIM BAKER

I have been working on this series of Zebra abstracts for a while, spurred on by the purchase of a couple of Hake brushes, 2 1/2 inch and 3 inches. Hake brushes are originally Japanese and are soft goat’s hair brushes with a plain wooden or bamboo handle, and are used in pottery and furniture restoration as well as traditional painting. They hold a lot of water/ink/pigment so are great for swooping washes and strokes.

Also at the same time Ryman’s was having a 3 for 2 sale on their already really cheap Daler Graduate brushes – Protip! – so I got a couple of goat’s hair mops, and a flat 1″ pony/synthetic mix brush which I love because it’s clear plastic handle is ideal for sgraffito.

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So I was aching to try these, with ink and watercolour so in one night did these four ZEBRA pieces…including the now ever-present wax resist. I’ve not really done much abstract watercolour, and after a failed attempt I did Eye IIXX – the eyes have it with this series, a common theme – which is on A2 cartridge paper. Looked amazing, less so when dried – next time I’ll use the proper paper but this was just a test!

Also expert err, eyes will spot one is not an abstract, it’s a portrait of John. Well this piece feels a part of this series, even if it’s not abstract. And #4 I felt was better just as black and white, I feel the addition of colour was a mistake, so decided to restrict the colour scheme from this point on. Also I realise that the Negative Space series has not received much love recently, but just realised this wax resist/blind technique is definitely an extension of that series.

Why ZEBRA? Well I liked the red, black and white in the last piece so I restricted the palette to that – well to be more accurate magenta, black and white. And it reminded me of the old kid’s joke, ‘What black and white and re(a)d all over?’. Now the classic response is ‘Newspaper’ but I prefer the sicker version: ‘A Zebra in a road traffic accident!’. Well it amused me!

So I regrouped in the garden which is more appropriate to splashing ink around – this was on a nice evening before The Deluge™, and it also meant I could work larger on A1 cartridge paper. I used the Molotow one4All white ink, the FW magenta and black inks, and I think I might have also used the cheapy Classmates Drawing Ink on one of them – thick and gloopy, it’s good for sgraffito AND it’s amazingly lightfast. (At some point I will post my ink lightfastness tests that have been going since June).

I attacked these with the Hake brushes, the Graduate brushes, drips, splatters, sgraffito with the end of the brush and my trusty standby, a pointed stick that lives in the garden. Swoops and crosses and drip trails seem to be the order of the day and my current obsessions along with spirals.

I let CZXX III drip out because this one got the wettest and the Classmates ink takes ages to dry – but I had to leave most of them out til late. This meant that a slug decided to make some art and trail over one of the pieces, and wanted to stay there…it got ejected but gave that piece it’s name. Also the dropped ink looked like blood or bullet holes, I like a double meaning!

Finally I think Four Eyes is the best in the series so far, it has a chaotic harmony, but I am not sure where I am going with this, that’s the beauty but also fear in explorations like this. I definitely want to take this further – space and weather allowing – especially the abstract watercolour.

You might have noticed that creeping back into my landscapes again after going rather detailed, I feel that I need to go looser and more expressive again. And it’s even influenced the fourth day of my Inktober piece ‘Spin’. I am doing my own alternative Inktober called Mynktober this year, with my own prompts selected by random word generator…vaguer ones without fantasy themes where I can go more abstract with my ink pieces.

I invented the Mynktober tag and name btw – it was amazingly a complete Google Whack, unused, so proud that others are using it now 🙂

This DIY protest inspired by Stuart Semple’s Pinktober is very much a reaction to the commercial nature that Inktober has become and the various scandals and endless promotions – I mean they are now selling the prompts to unrelated massive corporates? I don’t mind art companies and related gear, but not prompts plugging animated TV shows about dinosaurs!

And I can’t really get behind a company that flogs tracing devices to beginners under the tag of professional art or illustration? :-/ Beginners will learn very little from tracing. Copying by eye can be fun and does help your art – I used to copy Asterix and TinTin as a kid, it was my party trick! Direct tracing on the other hand does very little to help promote skills that will be useful later. And also copyright, much?

And here is an earlier abstract called Laococoon – Laocoon meets Cocoon, it’s definitely a precursor to the series.

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