penwithlit

Choose an artist whose work you admire deeply. This is Step One. Find a specific picture that is a favorite and copy some part of it. If you can find a detail in a book or on the internet, you can focus your attention on a manageable portion of the picture. I chose a detail that includes several apples, but I think I might focus on just one apple later today… because I’m in a Cezanne mood and individual Cezanne apples are deep.

Step Two involves taking chances. Here the apples are circles. Considerable time passed before I noticed that Cezanne apples are not apple shaped. They’re more Platonic. They are beautiful renditions of a kind of ideal roundness with beautiful gradations of red and yellow. So you can put the apples where you think they go. And if…

A random survey of self-portraits created by women through the centuries

Italian painter Adriana Pincherle (1905-1996)

Self-portrait, c.1931-32 / Oil on canvas / Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy

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The crack became a slash

almost splitting her in two.

She could have sought help,

could have driven to heal it,

But after a while she quite liked it.

It had become part of her

and she felt it became her

and who knew what would emerge 

to wriggle 

and squeeze

though the gap.



*First published in The Drabble, May 2021*

About the Poet:

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud ‘War Poetry for Today’ competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Capsule Stories, Light Journal…

A random survey of self-portraits created by women through the centuries

English artist Dame Laura Knight, DBE RA RWS (1877-1970)

1. Laura Knight with model Ella Naper, 1913 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, London, UK

2. Self portrait, 1921 / Oil on canvas / Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa

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Wood Engravings: Eric Ravilious ‘Sussex Landscape.’ 1931. Tirzah Garwood ‘The Wife.’ 1929.

The term woodcut is often used to cover the woodcut proper and wood engraving which came much later, consequently a useful distinction is lost.

With woodcuts the design is drawn on a block and the parts which are white are cut out, cutting with the grain of the wood, leaving the surface in relief. The surface is then covered with ink and printed.

Wood-cuts are the oldest method of Relief Printing, the Chinese practised printing from wood long before moveable type was used in Europe. Just exactly when wood cuts were first used is not known but in the British Museum a Chinese manuscript bears a woodcut dated AD. 868, the earliest known illustration in a printed book. The illustration shows Buddha discoursing to Subhiti amongst a crowd of figures, all drawn in flowing black line.

Wood…