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Beck

@fenellafirescales

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A 52yr old tree-hugging oddball in Plymouth, UK. I do some art and then I share it 💚

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Japan - this week's theme @plymouthcollagecollective where I refused to exclude anything that I wanted to be in the final image even if it looked like the exact moment that a lucky cat who had swallowed every object within a 5 mile radius explosively puked it all up. Not gonna lie - I like it 🤣 by @fenellafirescales

1/2 As this account is really a visual diary of my higgledy-piggledy art journey I'm posting this, even though when I look at it again I think it's a bit dangerously grown up 😆. Last weekend, despite doing my finest mental gymnastics beforehand to avoid it, I entered the Paint Out competition @royalwilliamyd and very much enjoyed the experience, mostly because of all the brilliant and kind people I met. Also, I was able to create a piece I felt proud of, using a process I've been playing with lately but in a more intentional way. Fueled by iced coffee and nerves, I had a lot of acrylic fun with the Saucepan Scraper aka catalyst wedge, my chromaflow pencils and a devil-may-care attitude. Amazingly, I won a prize for getting into the top 5 after the blind judging but even more exciting than that, it's going in an exhibition at the end of the month which meant I didn't have to lug it home on the bus! 😁

2/2 Did a quick lil sketch at the beginning and promptly ditched it in the Big Bag of Things when I started painting because I couldn't balance it anywhere without it falling on the lovely ground every 2 seconds 😂 It still helped though because whilst drawing I temporarily calmed down and noticed things about the view in front of me; how much I liked the pattern of the stonework, the size and position of everything in relation to everything else, deciding what I cared about showing in the painting and what I didn't. by @fenellafirescales

Pot and Not - Two unlikely pals; neither make much sense yet fully understand eachother. Birthed from the same process, the same hand, the very same weird little brain. by @fenellafirescales

'Immanence' - I've always felt that I'm not alone, whether it feels like everything is falling apart or if there's nothing wrong at all. Today, while playing with pencil over acrylic paint, this Being emerged. I could see her with me on the paper and also watching over me. by @fenellafirescales

'Me Before Brew' - A journey into the present energy of the Fire Horse, created @plymouthcollagecollective 🖤 A4 analogue collage with a teaspoon of AGGH! by @fenellafirescales

Where’s your Head At? – this is a question I often ask myself but rarely get sensible answer 😆 I can usually rely on my curiosity for all things Bronze Age though, no matter what’s going on in the space between my ears. In this case, the people of Andronovo culture who wandered the lands Kazakhstan with their livestock and were responsible for carving the first sets of petroglyphs into the rocks of the Tamgaly/ Tanbaly Gorge, around 1400BC. A number of these early carvings feature a figure with what has been described as a Sun head but of course open to interpretation. I was compelled to try to connect to the powerful and otherworldly energy of these figures- I chose one of my abstract painted papers and started to mindfully draw one. Once I’d felt my way into the form I let myself expand on it, carrying that feeling outward. I also got all excited at one point when I realised how beautiful the @derwentartofficial chromaflow pencils work over acrylic paint! 😁 Definitely trying this again because it was such a joyful process 💛✨ by @fenellafirescales

''My Tribe" - Analogue collage created for @the.message.of.hope exhibition and fundraiser, taking place @almanac.cafe.plymouth from 17th to 19th September. Be there OR be a bit sad that you missed the hive of creativity, community and cuisine. Last year I ended up buying 2 collages by @_agazart_ because I couldn't choose between them 😍 This event is a lovely and welcoming vibe, whether you're a loud or quiet soul, in one of my favourite cafés and I hope it raises even more money this year 💖✨ by @fenellafirescales

‘The Living Image’ in response to an inspirational open call from @collageandculture on the theme ‘Lapis Lazuli’ 💙 Bear with me on the symbolism for this one, more proof of my overthinking😆 The young ruler of Egypt circa 1332-1323BC, left behind his old name and became Tutankhamun ‘The Living Image of Amun’. His lavish tomb included a gold death mask, weighing 22.5 pounds and encrusted with semi-precious stones, including lapis lazuli. This beautiful blue stone flecked with gold pyrite evokes the night sky, the glittering realm of the Gods, particularly Amun, later Amun-Ra. According to Vedic astrology, lapis lazuli is ruled by the planet Jupiter and after Rome annexed Egypt around 30BC they merged Amun with their equivalent God Jupiter to become Jupiter-Ammon. Also, lapis lazuli is said to be linked to the third eye and in numerology the number 3 represents Jupiter. Tutenkhamun had 3 coffins and 3 shrines. I’ve tried to honour these connections, as best I can, in one A4 analogue collage. by @fenellafirescales

'Correspondence' - I've long been drawn to hooded figures in the same way that a cat wants to go through the door they made you open and yet doesn't. I'm on the threshold, defying all passive aggressive attempts to get me to choose 'in' or 'out'. The cat and me, we have our reasons 😆 The hooded figures here are Genii Culcullati, carved hooded spirits found at a Roman fort in Northumberland and there isn't clarity over who or what exactly they represent. My collage is a musing on that subject - as a carving isn't usually believed to be the Being itself but a devotional representation, how does the connection and communication work between us and those that are not us but something greater, via this object? What do the carvings, the statues, the paintings, the talismans hold of a Being themselves? In my mind there was a relationship, a reflection and signs if you like, there are gifts offered and received. by @fenellafirescales

'Land, Sea and Sky'
“My parents said they had to make a lot of sacrifices to pay for my education, because they were both druids” Milton Jones
A5 analogue collage by @fenellafirescales

'In the Frame' - My favourite Pre-Raphaelite painting is (or maybe was) 'The Beguiling of Merlin' by Edward Burne-Jones. It shows the moment that Merlin is betrayed by Nimue, his apprentice and the Lady of the Lake when she casts his own spell on him and traps him forever in a hawthorn tree. Ah poor Merlin, except is he? In this painting, created a while after their tumultuous affair had come to an end, Edward Burne-Jones casts Maria Zambaco (artist and sculptor) as Nimue, the temptress with medusa-like hair. She had been his student and model muse when they fell in love and he tricked her into thinking he would leave his wife, Georgina, another beautiful artist. Maria was distraught when she realised he had no real intention of this and threatened to drown herself in Regent's Canal. Witnesses watched him wrestle with her on the muddy banks to stop her from going in. Maria's name is not mentioned once in Georgina's lengthy and detailed biography of her husband Edward Burne-Jones, perhaps unsurprisingly. It was probably 'complicated', no one's life is Disney after all and what are we to know truly what each person's experience was. Again though, the woman is enchantress, the man powerless against her charms. It just made me see a painting I love in a whole different light. by @fenellafirescales

'You Will Never Be The Same' - There are some doors that once passed through, change you forever 🤍🗝️
A5 #analoguecollage by @fenellafirescales