Coming down from cloud nine

ridiculously bright autumn leaf

After Unbearable Lightness, a body of work created in joy at being free from studies,  I guess it is inevitable that I was going to come back down from cloud nine after quitting my course in book art.


Part of me is still angry inside, and determined to create works of colour and happiness. The other part is still mentally studying and getting hung up on the artist's marks, be it pen or ink on paper, paint on canvas or scratchy textures on my photographs.

I find myself creeping back to conceptual work, which I guess will never leave me now that I have been 'educated'.


For my printmaking course I made some blots of ink with a sponge on paper, with the idea to use these as a stencil.

Then I saw mini worlds in these spots, and wanted to go closer. I could envisage making these into giant prints of imaginary worlds.

I got the idea for these after a screenprinting workshop with David Holah at CityLit in London.

I basically played with paint and a few brushstrokes on my screen. I went for the brightest, happiest colours that I could find, and got quite excited by the overlapping effect of layers of paint. A bit like multiple exposure photography; random and unplanned being the key to having fun.

screenprint

screenprint

I like that the print is just about the way the paint is layered, and the brush strokes making the image rather than being hidden within a picture of something. A bit of abstract art.

It is very hit and miss.





This one is mostly a miss, but has a duck.

Where did he come from?

screenprint with duck

I am seeing creatures in photographs too.

These prints ( below) are mounted on wood, and I see animals in them also.

They are images of sunlight on water; completely random again. A reminder of sunny days.

print on Kozo paper, mounted on board; a sunlight story

stories from the sun

And I almost forgot to mention the Rye Winter Salon exhibition exhibition which I am delighted to be a part of.

works in Rye Winter Salon

Rye Winter Salon exhibition

Amber Rudd, home secretary, came to visit the exhibition and Feast of Delights designer maker fair. She shook my hand, and then carefully avoided looking at any of my work. 

Amber was about as interested in my photos as this dog who had a quiet lie down in my booth.

dog

 The fair kept me out of trouble for a whole weekend, and was a lot of fun. There was cake and a lot of love between fellow artists and makers.

Happily though, I sold some of my new works to some very enthusastic folk.

sold

And some old favourites too.

Kite surfers, camber sands

And when I wasn't selling my wares I popped to the beach to take some measurements....

measuring the beach at Camber Sands

OK, so it wasn't my tape measure, but it really reminded me of happy days in Wales on my school  zoology field trip counting barnacles inside a 1metre square grid.

Next job; to make a calendar for 2018.

OH and I have already double booked ourselves for next year due to a lack of said item.


Here's a sneak preview....

Namibian dunes

But don't tell OH as it is part of his his Christmas present.

As you can see there is absolutely nothing conceptual about it.

Unless you are into geometry in the natural landscape.......

Namibian bush

curl custard and placenta powder; some beauty treatment back at the ranch

 My other half is away.

swanning around the world apparently doing some 'work'

meanwhile back at the ranch the buidlers are here again.

A new loo.

It is progressing slowly, as building always does.


I need cheering up.

It is lonely in the empty house . Even the mice are dead.

I have decided to attend to my hair......to spruce up my ageing locks a little.

Give OH a bit of a surprise on his return.

Starting with curl custard.

Everyone loves custard.

 then some placenta

 so much choice

what colour shall I be?

and who do I want to look like?

a bit of fertilizer of course

and a dash of mayonnaise

I hope I look happier, and less disdainful than these ladies by the end of all this. Some of them have a nasty case of alopecia.

I will have some luscious curls

locked in with some gel

and maybe a bit of orange too

or green..... goes with the fertiliser

and then some lovely nails

so that when OH returns, I can open the door and fill him with wonder at my new look,

and fetch his pipe and slippers.

'complete the piece' - an experiment at the School Creative Centre - on the theme of the colour blue

real art

I told you about the project at The School Creative centre to complete another artists's work. I was given this painting, with blue waves in real paint and brush strokes. What to do with it?

part of the incomplete painting

I had promised do do a drawing/painting.

Then I chickened out and took some photos of the paint.

...........and played around with them in Photoshop. Blue is the colour favoured by the artist that started my painting. She paints in blue and wears almost exclusively blue clothes.


I felt compelled to play with the colour blue, using digital technology to distort my photographs of the paint.

Blue, according to colormatters , a colour psychology site means;

Dark blue: trust, dignity, intelligence, authority

Bright blue: cleanliness, strength, dependability, coolness
(The origin of these meanings arise from the qualities of the ocean and inland waters, most of which are more tangible.)

Light (sky) blue: peace, serenity, ethereal, spiritual, infinity
(The origin of these meanings is the intangible aspects of the sky.)

Lapis Lazuli was a precious commodity in the Middle Ages , used by renaissance artists and exported from Afghanistan to Europe to be ground into the very expensive ultramarine pigment.

Ultramarine pigment

It was often used for painting the robes of angels and the virgin Mary.

I am not good at angels or virgins.

So I did squares and octagons instead.

I abstracted the paint using just the colours.

I then played around with grids from the paint and paper.

paint abstacted

I turned the blue squares into a T-shirt.

 the colours didn't look as vibrant as I had hoped. 

And then today, I felt bad that I hadn't finished the piece as promised. I don't have any paints, so I used my old chalks.

I scribbled and drew like a five year old child.

It was fun.

It was not impressive.

I was drowning, not waving..............


But the whole process had given me hours of fun, and really made me think, discuss and experiment.

So now, if you would like a T-shirt , I know how to make one.

Just ask.

And if you would like a very childlike drawing, I can probably oblige too.

All I will need is a blank piece of paper.

Paper whites

I think I like this one best.......

what colour would you like your sky?

I am going for something a little joyfully outrageous today, as it reflects my mood after yesterday's results, getting my studio ready for visitors today, and the incredible beauty of Camber Sands on a warm September afternoon.

come and say hello today

what's on your mantlepiece - episode 2, in which mine gets onto the front page of The Guardian

Here is the front page of today's Guardian, on the topic of mantlepieces, with a colourful photo of my very own mantlepiece. If you look very carefully I am in the photo shown on the mantlepiece as a baby wrapped in a shawl, held by my grandmother.

mantlepiece for the Guardian

You may remember I wrote on this topic some months back; well probably you won't as I checked and it was over 2 years ago, back when I was exploring 'home' as a topic for my photography.

See the original post here.

Now the Guardian newspaper has become interested in the topic too; asking 'what does your mantelpiece say about you?' as one of their 'witness series'

You can make you own contribution here and you will be in with a chance of getting your photo shown at the Photographers gallery in London.

mantlepiece © caroline fraser

This is my original contribution to the Guardian Witness site.

The image is from my bedroom, and features artwork in clay from my youngest when he was much much younger, some candlesticks that were a gift from my aunt and uncle, a heart shaped stone, and a bottle that my sister gave me.

All very personal items. All treasured and all have been there for years. Comfort in familiarity and a link to the past. Colour, clay and candlesticks. Nothing worth much at all............except to me who considers them irreplaceable.

you can take a horse to water................

but you can't make it drink.........................


I am physically unable to take a photo of a waterfall and gain pleasure from the experience. I can only think of calendars, and supersaturated images with long exposures that leave me cold.

Iceland has many very spectacular waterfalls, but I will never be able to do them justice. Instead you will find me turning my back, looking at the ground, and seeing what I can find.

At the site above ( see if you can spot the photographer up at the top) there was a little mass hysteria from some of the fairer sex on our Icelandic adventure, who had reached their saturation point where waterfalls were concerned. We wandered around, and admired the concrete bridge that made this particular waterfall a little less attractive than some others ; the intended perfect photo being in the other direction with a mountain in the background..........


I really don't like being told how other people do it, just as I don't like reading about places before I get there, in order not to have preconceived ideas about what a place will be like. I had a mini rebellion, taking out my smallest camera , a tiny Lumix, and making some double exposures of the colourful plants beneath my feet. I didn't compose, just snapped away, more concerned with the colour than the forms.

The rebellious girls  mused on the idea of a girls only photo tour that allowed stops whenever someone requested one, be it for a flower, mountain, sheep, cat, dog, house or just to go shopping. It seems that someone has already taken up this idea , offering a tour  for women only with tuition and hiking, but no shopping. But what fun we had with a balance of sexes. I am not sure I could manage without some male entertainment; we had yoga demonstrations, ice-cream eating and endless logging into phones, laptops and iPads to amuse us. It transpires that some groups of male photographers don't feel the need to talk to each other at meals, preferring to interact with their apple devices at the table.

There was so much that we saw that we would like to return to capture. The waterfalls were impressive but not what I came for. Men with massive back-packs dutifully composed the "standard" shot which I didn't attempt,  and went home happy...............

Iceland is a photographer's dream. Whether you like the bigger or the smaller picture you cannot fail to be overwhelmed by the beauty of the landscape.  The mosses and lichens are worthy of a tour in themselves. Dawn at the glacial lagoon is to die for, with low light on the fragments of glacial ice.

We vowed to come back. I would have returned already if I had any annual leave left from my day job.

I have started having nightmares in which I am on my way back, but the plane is overbooked, and I am offered a flight to Vienna or Paris instead.

 It seems that I have been hooked by this beautiful landscape, and I know that I will be back next year.


 I am well and truly smitten.

We had a great time, thanks to Daniel Bergmann, author of Iceland Landscapes our expert local guide and lover of nature.

The colours are extraordinary,  and I hardly know where to begin in creating something meaningful from the 1000 images that sit on my laptop waiting for the editing process to begin.

I will have to make do with listening to the music of Sigur Ros which transports me back there, and working on my images during the long winter evenings that lie ahead. In writing this I find that I can see the results of their Valtari mystery film experiment at the NFT next week; something to really look forward to as I have fallen in love with their music.