Fascination with Hands

Ever since I was young, I've been extremely interested in the mechanics of our hands. Along with our affinity for speech, our tool-making fingers are perhaps the defining characteristics of humanity. I mean, yes, it's pretty cool that we have an opposable thumb, but the beauty of design doesn't stop at being able to make the OK sign.

Out hands are remarkably strong. Just ask a rock climber. Not only are we able to grasp, pinch, and grip, we have enough prehensile force to hold our body weight in most positions. If you examine the force applied during a grasping motion without knowing it's a hand, you might picture a stocky appendage, bulky with muscle. In fact, the design of the primate hand is pretty spectacular. All the muscles are withdrawn from the precision-like instrument that is the fingers to a position high on the forearm.

As far as I'm concerned the human hand is the most beautiful part of our bodies. It contains nerve bundles that release cortisol and endorphins when damaged as we assume an automatic defense posture. It also, in many ways, is the link to our reality. The hand grasps us to this world as much as the brain defines who we are.

Poor Reptile Girl

A few weeks ago, I was at a bar, playing shuffleboard with an underwear-model-looking guy, who I can only assume my friend-girl brought along to make me jealous. I was explaining the rules when suddenly a large group of extremely tall girls rushed us. They were almost all exclusively blonde, and spoke with a strong Midwestern accent. They swarmed me and basically claimed me as their mascot for the night, because I happened to be wearing their team colours.

You see, these girls formed a volley ball team from Oklahoma State, and I expect they had a good day of spiking V-balls at my Canadian compatriots. They were all in good spirits and quite well on their way to having an incredibly hungover last day of tournament. I have to say that between crossing borders, getting swallowed up in a group mentality, and riding their win to its natural, alcohol-fueled conclusion, these girls were incredibly touchy. As a gentleman (Yes! That's right, "a gentleman"!) I can't say I've ever been able to say this unironically before, but I felt completely objectified. I was passed back and forth between these excessively tall girls like a piece of meat. In vain, I tried to object nicely: "I hope you don't usually treat your mascot like this." Honestly, though, I did get used to it fast, though, once past the tenderizing phase.

Surrounded by a number of blondes with their hands in questionable places, I straight-out told them: "Ok. I gotta say, I've never felt more like a piece of meat before."

One girl quickly responded: "Yeah, yeah! We're girls we know how you feel. When you're in your twenties, you hate it, but as soon as you're over thirty, you can't get enough of it."

There was one girl among them that was different. She was the shortest girl on the team by a significant margin. Now, I've always had a thing for underdogs. I felt a kinship with the short one, so I stuck around her. She was more reserved, and kept her hands to herself.

Now, I was getting more and more inebriated as well, and, at this point I should mention, I'm great at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time -- especially when flirting. (I mean, during a romantic encounter, I once told a girl she had beautiful puce eyes. Puce! A colour the Oxford Dictionary defines as "a purplish brown; a flea-colour.")

Pulled back from the roving horde of Amazonians, we had our first real conversation of the night.

"So a noticed you're not going as crazy as your teammates."

"Yeah, I'm usually the voice of reason."

"Good stuff."

"I gotta say, I don't know how you put up with all the fondling."

"I'm getting used to it, but sometimes it is a bit too much."

"You should tell them."

"I'm pretty sure I made my stance clear, but they are not listening. I guess today is a freebie for you girls."
Awkward eye contact.

"I noticed you're not very touchy-feely. You probably could get away with it tonight." I winked at the short girl.

"Yeah, I mean..." I finish the sentence in my mind a few different ways, before she finally says, "My hands are probably too cold."

And here is where I inexplicably say, just as the rest of the team encroaches on our tete-a-tete, "What are you, a reptile?"

They start chanting "Reptile girl! Reptile girl!"

At that point, I left. Poor Reptile girl never had a chance.

Open Letter to The Governor-General

Right Honourable David Johnston:

I am writing to you in regards to our Prime Minister seeking another prorogation of parliament.  I am well aware that as Governor-General, your duty forbids you to intervene in the democratic process of Canada; however, I feel that this does not mean you should acquiesce to demands that exploit the parliamentary process.  I feel strongly that consistent prorogation is an affront to our democratic system, and sets a terrible precedent that other leaders will continue to use to avoid accountability and to silence critics.  As both debate and responsible government are keystones of our democracy, it falls to you, Sir to uphold these tenets. 

I implore you not to prorogue parliament this time.  Doing so would be tantamount to intervening in the democratic process.  I beg you to consider this action deeply.  Maintaining a functional, exuberant democracy is the only right path.  As a Canadian citizen yourself, please do what is right: see that our parliamentary system is not abused and exploited.  Stand up for honour, and most importantly for the correct procedures of governance.

Sincerely,

Graeme Lottering

Using Copper Oxides in a Painting

It's nice to finally be abe to work outside. I started a new painting, inspired by the pine forest. In this painting, my challenge is to use homemade verdigris or malachite, both of which are copper oxides. Since those minerals require a highly potent ammonia (read: rank-stankerously filthy smell), it has to be done outside.

Mala is investigating the stink!

In case I ever want to do this again, I'm experimenting to see which treated copper plate provides the most pigment. Here are the coppers I prepared:

• immaculate plate, in other words, the control;
• engraved marks with a blade;
• bent and wrinkled;
• sanded with fine paper.

I made the sky over a few days. Right, now I'm working on getting a copper pine-needle carpet going for my landscape. If everything works out according to plan, the malachite will be sprinkled on top to give it more depth. 

While I'm waiting for the washes to dry, I varnished this piece of wood, and another miscellaneous object I found in the forest. It could be some sort of farm machine part, I don't know. You'll get to see it eventually. For now, I'm keeping it under wraps. But here's the wood. Yeah, definitely enjoy the wood. At least there's that.

My Rules for Creation

This is a post inspired by Liz Worth's post on 'A Creative Manifesta'.

In 2009 when I visited my uncle in South Africa, he told me that you gain a clearer understanding of who you are when you write down the things you believe in. It was advice that stuck, and on the 22 hour return flight, I recorded the things I value most in life. The list has definitely formed a guideline on how I act ever since.

So I'm hoping that the things I list here will do the same from a creative point-of-view.


1. Let your intuition guide you, but depend on logic to set you on the right path.

2. Discover and explore the overarching psychological themes in your own life.

3. Keep an open mind to everything from silly YouTube videos to overheard conversations.

4. Value your dreams, they will help you solve creative problems if you ask them.

5. Give up on projects that bore you, and focus on those that give you energy.

6. Work hard!

7. Never let your mind idle too long, inertia will catch you.

8. Forget everything society tells you about genius being linked to crazy.

9. Make associations between unlikely things.

10. Believe in your projects, regardless of what others say.

11. Find a method that works for you and perfect it.

12. Go for walks when you feel stuck.

"Dear Lucky Agent" Contest

I like the idea of a contest like this. Writers of Sci-Fi or YA can submit to a contest judged by a Literary Agent.

See Details here: "Dear Lucky Agent" Contest

The genre changes from time to time, so keep checking back.

The Big Red Button

Here is another Paper Trails comic I drew a  long time ago. This one features a Big Red Button. I love the idea of a button that has unexpected consequences.

In 2011, Pulpit Magazine published a story I wrote that includes a magic machine, operated, of course, by a Big Red Button.

It's called 'The Transcendence Machine'. The website is like time-travelling to the 1990s, so you'll have to scroll down a bit to get it.

Paper Trails #1

When I was in university, I illustrated a series of absurdist cartoons. The paper kept most of the originals, but I found a folder with some scans. I figure I will fix one up a week (maybe more frequently) and post them here.

It was called 'Paper Trails'. Enjoy the first one.

Straddling the Ephemeral

There are certain sights that pull my feet off the ground and leave me feeling like a specter in the world of the living. Most of they include things that I know I would have trouble representing visually. Like if I had my sketchbook, I could only draw the image by blowing sand across the pages.

In Canada, those sights include the first time you can see your breath, or when hoarfrost turns a skeletal tree into an icy feather duster. In Afrika it was the glowing embers shining like gems after a field fire, or just smoke. There is always a lot of thick, black smoke in Afrika.

St. Lawrence Ice Floe by Deline Lottering

While in Quebec City last winter, I remember seeing ice floes on the St. Lawrence Seaway. I remember staring at them because it was neither liquid nor solid. Standing there, the river seemed to me like a road built out of clouds. Like an earthly version of the Milky Way, snaking around the isle of Stadacona.

Light House by Julienne Lottering

In a family of visual artists, one thing we all have in common is the desperation of trying to capture those ephemeral images that somehow seem to straddle different worlds. I can already see the next series of paintings I will make. Here's a sample pic:

Gold Leaf

So, after a hiatus, during which I’ve been crazy busy with author events and workshops, I’m back for the last lap on the painting. In fact, I ran our of resin and had to wait until the hardware store could order the industrial quantity that I needed.

In that time I worked on the lungs and heart, adding gold leaf and bits of detail here and there.




The lungs needed a more organic feel, and I also added some golden veins to the heart.

With all the glare it’s hard to really get the gist of it, but there are several layers going on, and some pretty wild reflections. As my good friend Benjamin once said: “Some things are just better in person. Like side-boob.” And yeah, just like side-boob, for this painting you definitely need a good vantage point. The effect does change depending how close you get and from which angle you view it from.

CuO3

The Copper Patina Experiment

It's been about 24 hours since I sprayed the disgusting and incredibly noxious vinegar-ammonia solution onto the copper to test. And It looks like the medieval formula beats out modern chemistry. The Muriatic Acid, a pool cleaning chemical you can buy at any hardware store, has actually dissolved the top layer of copper before it started oxidizing, leaving it much cleaner looking at first, then kind of discoloured and blackish. That black patina is actually a different kind of rust happening on the copper—one that I want to avoid. The black oxide is what happens on pennies when you touch one with your grubby ball-scratching fingers.



What I want is the verdigris, the green tint. Although I now know it is possible, I have decided to avoid using a weathered copper for this painting in particular. I want the heart as shiny as possible. Next time I will try a nail polish resist with the patina I made. You could do some interesting stuff!

I poured the 2nd layer and now I'm waiting for it to cure.

The Circulatory System

So the image I want to work with is the circulatory system. I love the idea of the heart as a pump. Haloed around the pump are the lungs.

Here you can see the connections from the veins and arteries to capillaries. In my mind I see a wing. I'm really not sure why, but I'm a sucker for bending metals. These are mostly copper plate and guitar strings.

Detail of capillaries

I get a feeling this is going to be a heavy painting. with a bit more relief than any of the other resin cast paintings I've done in the past.




Here it is, sitting on the table waiting for its next coating. I always want to do it so soon, but this time I have to wait until my copper patina experiment has worked out.

The Patina

I am experimenting with different acids and oxidizing agents to see if I can give this copper plate a greenish-blue patina. Basically I'm trying to force the process of weathering which turns copper that nice Statue-of-Liberty colour into an overnight event. The right side is muriatic acid, into which the piece was dipped. It looks cleaner than the original, but maybe it takes some time.

The rest of the plate is a sprayed on agent I made from vinegar, salt and ammonia. (This is basically a medieval recipe for making malachite, a blueish tone) The mixture smells terrible, and literally put me out of the house for a few minutes as it vented, but it is looking better than the straight up acid. I'll check tomorrow and see if it is feasible or appropriate to weather the copper a bit.

The Curing Process

I separate the layers by pouring epoxy resin on top. It's a finicky process that needs to be done in a sealed room. Over the next 14 hours the hardener catalyses, giving off a bit of heat in the corner of the studio.






So now, while I'm waiting, I'm trying to catch wasps. It's the yellow jackets I'm interested in. If I can catch enough of them, I will definitely use them in the painting. I need at least 3 yellow ones. I have two so far, but I had to left one go since it was brown, not yellow. :(

Wish me luck!

The Fused Glass Experiment

At the end of the night, this is the first layer. I arranged some fused glass pieces as the first part of the composition.

Here are some close-ups of the glass. It's very smooth and flowy, which contrasts nicely with the rough epidermis I've been working on.

 You can see that I've added some gold washes as well, and the blue-black shard is impressive. It's all about shine over here in Graeme's world these days.

The right side negative space

The background almost looks like a map. I would love to do another one of these as a straight up fantasy map. So I will cast the first layer of resin tonight, which should bind everything together. It takes a long time to cure and needs a sealed room to work well.
 

My tool kit includes the beer!

The Copper Landscapes of Mars

So I've started staining the background with copper. There are some very nice unexpectant results. Yes, none of the results are having babies, much to the chagrin of their parents, yet they are results welcomed into the arms of their relieved boyfriends.

Following are some details of the coppery textures:

The background is almost done. The next step is to set upon my milk-crate of materials, which, as I mentioned, contains a magical bag filled with many spools of broken guitar strings. Perhaps a metaphor secreted away for many years. Perhaps not.

Magic beans!

Staining! Staining!

So I'm still staining away. The next picture is after a yellow stain. You can especially see it in the upper left corner. The background is still much to light, so I did another phthalo blue stain. 'Phthalo' clearly being one of the best words in the English language, by the way.

As it stands right now, with 4 stains over it, it's getting much closer to what I want.  I have the image I want to work with, but I'll keep it a secret for now, since the idea is still evolving. Like I said before, you got to keep that balance between intuition and planning.

I really like the drops of blue in the yellow area at the bottom.

The Making of a Painting: Part 1

Well, I haven't written anything here in a while. So here's to new beginnings!

PHASE 1: Organize your materials

After cleaning my brushes, I decide to give the ol' work table a good sponging. The assembled crew of ins-and-outs consists of: clay area to the left; an array of containers of various materials in states ranging from liquid to solid; 2 jars of 'sludge', which is basically a crude mixture of the residual acrylix accumulated between batches of making colours at the paint factory; the pallet and tubes on the right side of the table; a wooden board with spray colours; and the magical milk crate filled with all the metallic goodies I could scrounge, including, much to my amusement, a bag of broken guitar strings.

PHASE 2: The Sludge

The first step forward is covering up the first layer with something called 'sludge'. It's basically the run off end bits of the acrylic plastic they used as a matrix for artificial colours. So basically it's the Tim bits of the paint world. It's those coloured bits all thrown into a jar together, and sold as a sculptural medium.  It's thick, but not very cohesive—something like a foamy, butter-like texture.

I tend to work intuitively in general, but working in layers requires planning. It's like balancing between extroversion and introversion, not at all like interrupting someone at a party by saying: "Mark! Your crotch is on fire!" Nothing like that at all.

Yes, that is me throwing up the ol' devil's horns, moonlighting as the Shadow King. And yes, that is the puppy, Mala pouncing on something. She's a terror.

PHASE 3: Staining

Over the next few days, I will be staining the sludge in the primary colours. Hopefully the end result will be a much darker underpainting. I want there to be a lot of texture to support the sheets of metal I will be working with.

Check out the awesomeness above!

Kyoto Sakura

Well, it's that time of the year again...Cherry blossom time! This was the first time I saw the blossoms in Kyoto. The whole area around my apartment and my work exploded into a pale pink canopy above the street. There are whole neighbourhoods where it seems the only tree ever planted is the beloved Cherry. This year, they were whiter than I remember.

I've seen them about 5 times now, but they are still just as magical as the first time I saw them. Wow! Taking sakura pictures is addictive!


This is Kiyamachi street. It runs along a little canal and is one of the most beautiful places to see the blossoms. I think it has such a stunning effect because the trees here are right in the middle of the city.

I like the street sign here that says: "Hey son, let's run into
the middle of the road to check out the sakura!"

People tend to have picnics under the trees during spring. This is Maruyama Park and there were so many people that it was hard to find a place to sit down. The whole area was filled with drunken businessmen, tourists, and college kids skipping school. Wouldn't you?

There were a tonne of stalls selling food. This takoyaki-ya san hung his lantern in the branches. It was a good way to get free advertising.


Many women wore kimonos. This was also common in Kanazawa. But the designs in Kyoto take the cake!
After eating some delicious Japanese junk food in the park, I left to go to Nijo Palace to see nighttime blossoms. Nijo Palace is one of Kyoto's many world heritage sites. The illumination was incredible. You can't capture the magic on film...or digitally, even...But I tried! Here are my two best attempts.

The people are so small beneath the ancient trees. It's hard to imagine Japan's first Shogun also walked in the same garden so many years ago.

Everyone had their cameras out. It was irresistible.

The shrine of good humour!

yes, his junk is hanging out

It's a little know shrine in Kyoto, which shares real estate with some kind of noodle shop, but the Shrine of Good Humour is a popular place to visit for pranksters, funnymen, and others seeking the holy grail of gags, puns, and punchlines. The pantsing god, seems like a 'punny' acronym for the panting dog, but he is, in fact, the mascot for the shrine.


The shrine itself is actually comedy size as well. Shrines usually have large torii gates at the entrance, but this shrine has tiny wee things leading to a miniature matchbox building inside a little niche in the corner of the shop. It is a real shrine and people pray for a good sense of humour, and then make a joke.

I tried making a twitter joke: 100 characters of less. "Two men walk into a bar...Ouch."

As in all religions, if your prayers are answered (in this case with a hillarious punchline, a la business man in a suit slipping on a banana, or a cat fail), then you bring a votive plaque to show your appreciation.

I couldn't read them, but one lady is watering her garden with breast-milk

The shrine in renowned for turning greasy dullards into comedic supermen. And this can be seen in the large amount of dirty jokes painted on the votives.

If you have a good twitter joke, please leave it in the comments. Mine was kinda lame, but I was under pressure. There was a big nerd behind me that wanted a transformance into a Charlie Sheen-type winning machine!