Exercise Three // Helen Flockhart

April 24 2020
Hi  Helen,  to kick off exercise one,  where are you? 

 In what used to be my son’s bedroom, now my workspace

 

How has your process changed since staying at home?

Normally I’d work in studio two thirds of the week and at home one third and alternate with my husband who is also an artist.  Now we are both working at home the whole time, him in the loft, me in the spare bedroom. So far so good. Ask me again in 3 months!

 

Whats last or current song you listened to (no cheating, we all have naughty

comforts)?

 Buckets of Rain, Bob Dylan

  

and the last or current show/film/video you watched ?
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

 

What are you reading right now?
 “Folk”, Zoe Gilbert

 

What’s the last thing you cooked? (recipes welcome!)
Fish finger sandwich with a sensation of ketchup

 

 What's the next thing you are going to cook?

 Pasta puttanesca 

 

If everything in your house was going to be the same colour what colour

would you choose?
 That would be oppressive in any colour but if it had to be only one colour then white.   
 
Which words or phrases do you most overuse  ?
 “Hang on a minute while I get my specs” – Sigh. Eyeroll.
 
Do you have any superstitions?

 I’ve worn the same pair of shoes while painting in studio since my post graduate year at Glasgow School of Art in 1984 - a pair of black Doc Martin Shoes.  I don’t know what will happen when they finally fall apart. It might be like when Samson gets a haircut and I’ll start painting kittens.  

 

What makes you laugh (feel free to share any videos, memes, record a

joke, your pet)
I love Will Anderson’s animations of pidgeons and stick creatures such as “Scroogin’ on a Greg” or “Job Interview”.  Search them on YouTube. Genius
 

 Which artist-living or dead would you like to share your quarantine practice with? Why?

Well I share my quarantine with my husband who is an artist, and my daughter, ditto.  That’s more than enough artists in a confined space to be going on with thank you very much.

  

Exercise 2

Write a drawing prompt you would like someone else to receive:

   If your surroundings have become stultifyingly familiar draw what you would like to see.  Some of my most colour saturated paintings are conceived in the dullest, drab months at the tail end of winter.  

 

We are probably going to get through a lot of these homework sheets - so

write a question for other people that you want to know the answer to ?
 Do you make your pasta sauce according to Clemenza in The Godfather or Vinnie and Paulie in Goodfellas?  Have any other of your culinary staples come from films or literature?
 

We are putting together a mixtape -  what’s your go to song for dancing ?

  1.  Average White Band – Pick Up The Pieces

  2.  Jimmy “Bo” Horne - Spank

  3.  The Fatback Band – Bus Stop

  4.   Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte – I Feel Love

  5.  The Harry J All Stars – Liquidator

  6.   Sam the Sham and the Pharoes – Wooly Bully

  7.  Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag, James Brown;

being in the studio ?
King Creosote – From Scotland with Love
chilling out ?
Elvis – Fool Such As I,  Mystery Train, Blue Moon
falling in love ?

 Faith No More -This Guy’s In Love (1997)

 

 

 

For  Exercise Three, we ask our artists to  pick one of the following subjects as a starting point to make some work using an A5 piece of paper/cloth/whatever you like to the size  with no restriction on media. These will be published on our website and available for £110 each.

  1. Still life: pick 3 items from your surrounding and recreate them

  2. Draw the last text you received/Page 15 from a book you are currently reading 7th sentence down

  3. Draw the last exhibition you saw/in style of the last exhibition you saw

 

 Check out Helen's excerise three piece here