Horse in the Alhambra 2

The painting of Trabag is in its first stage, just monochrome colouring, but everything is at its place. From now on it’s just a lot of work. I sometimes start an oil-painting this way too, but this is going to be in gouache.

The whole series is very much inspired on Mughal Miniatures from the British Museum. I never go there without having a look at my particular favorites. They are often quite flat, space-wise,but I’m noticing the space in the paintings is getting deeper. Trabag has quite a lot of depth.

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The Alhambra horses are also quite small, 15cm by 15cm, and painted with gouache, and embellished with real gold and silver leaf. I sometimes put them into real space, and sometimes I just use tiles or a stone-grid as a background.

This is the ”Quarto Dorado”

And different ways the horses are put in:

Book meme

I’ve been tagged by Amina Ae Sook: ”Umm-LOL-Cats”!!!

And Thanks. Pfffff…..

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages) (I will add to this, for the visitors benefit: an english one)
2. Open the book on page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the next three sentences
5. Tag five people

Here is my book page:

”This work makes explicit the dislike and fear of female sexual power which features in the works of the period, the animal nature of femininity becoming literal as wel as metaphorical. However, in his notorious play Salome of 1892, Wilde expands his vision to equate female sexuality with destruction and death. One of his chief inspirations was Joris-Karl Huysmans’ description in A Rebours of Salome as portrayed in an oil painting by Gustave Moreau: ”the symbolic incarnation of undying lust…” . Moreau, inspired by Indian and Persian miniatures for many of his incandescent paintings, achieved the effect of emphasizing the dangerous seductiveness of Salome by the concentration of glittering colour and the play of light on her jewellery and skin (plate 7.9).” From: ”Art Nouveau 1890-1914”

I have to admit, I am really amazed. I look up towards my bookshelves, pick the first english book I see, and I get a quote that somehow just seems to be related to half of the stuff I’ve been reading the past few days, on several blogs, and the book I’m currently reading (in another room): Women, Art and Society. This is really weird!

Male readers: please explain why men are só scared of women. And what nonsense: ”emphasizing the dangerous seductiveness of Salome..” As if any man, anywhere, minds being seduced. Duuhhh. And what danger? Are we going to eat them? No, please, man-bozo’s, explain this, please.

And here is the painting this excerpt was mentioning. If you really did read all that arty-b…sh.t, you are entitled to see it:

I now have a problem: I don’t like chain-mail. And I don’t know who to tag anyway. Tasmaniac has been pre-tagged by Lofter, (thank you Lofter; usurper) most blogs I visit are by really serious intelligent bloggers who probably will be irritated by being tagged by an upstart silly blogger like me.

Will you let me off if I give you a Manga-version of ”Umm-LOL-cats, Superhero-ine” Amina? (Just adding another dangerous, seductive, female to the universe)

A Horse in the Alhambra

Where shall I start… When I was 10 years old my parents took us to Spain, and, to do something cultural, they took us to the Alhambra Palace, Granada. I was completely wiped out, boiled over, and in love. I had many dreams about it.

The Alhambra Palace

I went back some time ago, armed with three cameras and 30 rolls of film!!!

The best dream went thus: I was a cook. In the Alhambra. But I didn’t know what to cook, and I didn’t have any food. I was led to a courtyard, there were a couple of zebras and ponies. No go, I’m not going to cook horses and zebras!

Then a fat Arab came, he showed me the cutest horse: half horse, half zebra. And so cheerful! Never! This horse was not going to be cooked either!

So, no dinner. But a very nice dream, good party, and everybody was very happy, and it started a series of Gouache paintings which one day will be: ”One Hundred Horses in the Alhambra”

This is Rabhar in the Alhambra

A white Arab in the Alhambra

A frisian!

And this is going to be the next one: A spotted Arab called Trabag. I found an old picture of this horse in a book, must be some weird genetic anomaly because there are no pure spotted Arabs. (the Americans like to breed near pure Arabs which are spotted, but they are never truly Asil) I like weird coloured horses for the ”One Hundred Horses”

And tomorrow I’ll start on this one, perhaps a new post then to show you, dear visitors, how it is progressing.

Saddlemaking

So why do I do it?

Because it would be a great job if I didn’t get all that flak. And if I could make a basic income out of it. It is great to make something which is good, beautiful, and useful. And sometimes I can express myself as an artist too.

It started with Tarq’s saddle. Which gives no trouble by the way, it has even survived Tarq’s swimming adventure. It has protected his back when he slid down the dike, and bumped on his back over the iron border of the canal. I had to dry it, brush it up, and although clearly has been through the works, is still beautiful and perfectly serviceable.

With Tarq’s saddle I let my worst imaginations loose. design, tooling, colouring, and sowing and construction did take three months.

But definitely worth it. And worthy of The Tarq!

I’m now working on an endurance saddle. The X-treme! I’m leaving everything off which isn’t absolutely necessary. Maximal comfort for the horse; minimal comfort for the rider! It’s still only half finished.

Besides. There is something of a message here: one doesn’t have to buy badly made saddles, that don’t fit and damage your horse. And I spend a lot of time and effort in giving clinics, and lectures, about the importance of, and how to make sure, that your saddle fits reasonably well.

Probably all a waste of time and effort.

CopperMonday

It is an ancient tradition in The Netherlands for printers to have a celebration on the first Monday of the year. The printers would make a special print for the owners of the printing-studio’s, and they in return would give the workers presents, and lots of alcohol.

The result of this practice was that there was very little, or none at all, printing done in the first week of the year. Multatuli, a famous nineteenth-century writer complained that one of his books wouldn’t be ready to be published due to Coppermonday.

As I am a member of the ”Graphic Centre of Groningen” where coppermonday is an ongoing tradition, I had a very nice Monday evening. As we are all artist-printers we also give specially made prints to each other. There is an official coppermonday-print which is being sold via the local newspaper, and a Graphic center print, which is made by one of the members. This year it’s a very good one made by Wim. I know him well as we work on the same lithography-course on Tuesday.

As I leave these things to the last minute, (I know: Shame on me) and I’ve been ”the complete invalid” for the last five weeks of 2007, I had nothing to give out. Luckily I still got quite a good haul from my friends 🙂

After the speech and unveiling of the prints, time for meeting and greeting, and drinking! Luckily there were non-alcoholic drinks too, but I saw the box of empty bottles next day, and the tradition seems fully alive still ! I couldn’t stay long though; I didn’t want to bother to take my crotches with me on my bicycle, and that was a mistake, because I started to hurt very much and had to go home early. But: good evening!

Update: By ”printers” I mean: the men & women who use very oldfashioned printing presses, to make art or do typography in a very oldfashioned way! 🙂 🙂 🙂 With ink, and paper, and a lot of blood, sweat and tears! 🙂