Sparks and Art Round 2: In the Gallery Room

 Hello everyone, so glad to be back here and writing. If you are new here, I am Jack/Noodle and my pronouns are he/they and this is my blog where I write up things around Sparks and Autism, Queer Identity and my Art. When I was dry on material and tired from my work in university I wrote a piece which I feel was well deserved the lack of attention it had gotten as I feel I should’ve said a lot more around my art instead of jump straight into it. So this is Part 2 of that post, this one I particularly enjoyed because my work is featured in an exhibition. Yes this will be a quick and informal posting, but I just wanted to take this moment to talk about who I am and my processes and inspirations in my illustration work. Without further waiting let’s grab some paint and brushes and sit down with a tea and begin making. 

(Work in the Gallery, by Me) 

So the exhibition is called ‘Come As You Really Are’ and is curated by the amazing Hetain Patel and he is a Spider-Man obsessed artist. This exhibition will be touring the UK, however, each stop features the local artists/creatives and hobbyists. So my stop features works from fellow creatives and hobbyists from near and around me. I went to the launch on Friday with my fellow friends who were all impressed at my work being on show in a gallery, in this gallery I found my friends dads Dalek model which was life sized and made from wood, I also found my friends crochet collection which had its own amazing set up. At the launch Hetain gave a powerful speech on how important it is to have art and hobby’s that are different from your own life and to keep being passionate and creative with them, me and my best friend felt this immensely, my best friend currently is planning to study games art soon and I’m graduating this summer so we both know this summer is a chance for us to be creative without fences. Being autistic means I get places early because I’m anxious so when I was waiting I did a bit of doodling and soon my friends arrived and we kept each other close by. I also challenged myself to talk to at least one new person as I am currently working on making my communication skills better, I managed a brief conversation with Hetain about how much I related to his speech and that I was a university student and he was impressed with my work and hoped to see more in the future. 

(Me with my friends dads dalek, I felt like a child again seeing this dalek and immediately asked my friend to get a photo of me with it) 

The work I submitted for this gallery was hefty, I sent in 2 sketchbooks (which they didn’t display) and 4 paintings (which they’re showing). When I look at these paintings I see myself having fun and experimenting with both colour and my own feelings. One of the paintings is a full colour Russell Mael from when I was testing Jelly Gouache for the first time and I can feel the playfulness and freedom I had on the painting. I also have two A5 gouache pieces from when I wanted to create uniquely colourful pieces. I personally prefer the yellow/orange one as I always seem to favour warmer tones. The 4th piece is my Ron Mael in a wedding dress watercolour piece. This I created specially for the exhibition, both to show my flexibility as a creative and also because I adore watercolour as it is a patience piece. I also wanted to reflect some love for Ron as he is equally, if not more important, than Russell. I feel the sketchbooks would be impossible to display without someone flicking through and/or not liking how I am a working creative who draws other things asides Sparks. Plus at the exhibition they've got ‘No Touching’ signs everywhere so it is unfortunate they may have glass cased my books I would love people to read

(Me with my works, photo from my best friend) 

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I said earlier I’d discuss my process, aka the secrets everyone wants to know about. So take these paintings as examples. I start by either doom scrolling for a good reference picture on Pinterest or I’m actually doodling some I’ve seen in a sketchbook. I also get music on in the background as that’s how I feel my work, I said briefly last year to Monte that certain songs have colours and/or colours attached to them, especially Sparks songs. Unfortunately I do not have a dedicated playlist for my art hours, I have tried several times to make one but I don't like how it boxes me in so most the time I play certain playlists when I want to do a certain piece. When it comes to the colouring process, I am very sloppy as I will start with the base colours and then build up gradually as I find seeing the piece flat coloured can help in determining shading and the background depending on if I have no clue where I’m going with the piece. I also really love when it comes to colouring trying to match it with either the music or the feeling I feel as I can look back and remember better the time of my life I made this in. If I’m making several paintings at the same time I may do contrasting colours to help them stand out together as well as on their own. When I do line art I either do it after or before colouring, this is because I feel if I have something to work inside it refines the image better, sometimes I do it after if I’m painting or want the line art defined. I sometimes do the lines straight away if I’m wanting to do something free hand or digitally colour it. Right now in fact, I did some freehand fineliner work for colouring digitally for a new profile picture on my art account on instagram. 

(Said line art I did freehand) 

I am honestly so happy to see my works in a gallery with some other amazing objects and pieces. I also have two other works I worked with in my art collective in said gallery, those being the Proggy pride mat and Celebrate Different banner. The Proggy Pride mat was paired with a Proggy Frog we named Oggy and was created at our first official pride event in 2023, for my younger or unaware audience Proggy is an old craft where people used cut up rags and old clothes to create either rugs or blankets using Proggy to keep themselves warm, since I live in an ex mining city Proggy was a huge part of life for citizens. The Banner was recently produced to celebrate our group and to have something to show off and promote who the group are. We celebrate queer, trans, neurodivergent and disability differences and make crafts and host events around that.

This is the end of the post, I do apologise for it being a short one and it only centring around my works, I will be back making deep dives soon as Easter Break should start in 2 weeks time and I want to have something to do that isn’t just my work and me relaxing. I wanted to write a bigger post, however, last week I suffered with burnout quite badly as unfortunately I don’t know my own limits and yes it will happen again. But huge shoutout to my friends who came to the exhibition launch last week, also to my dad’s girlfriend’s youngest kid who I will be seeing this week sometime to take to the exhibition. Also before I forget (if I haven’t mentioned it) the exhibition is in Northern Contemporary Gallery, Sunderland UK and it’s open until July between Monday-Saturdays. Once again, I’ve been Jack/Noodle and you’ve been the reader, I hope to catch you in the comments here or on Facebook or in my messages.