Mx.D.P

A sentence from my PhD study statement says, ‘Crip theory rejects the normative medical model of ‘dis’-abled. Crips are disabled only as a result of societal barriers and attitudes.’

After Borthfest this year, we had a debrief and asked interested parties to come and say what worked and what didn’t. One of the fantastic folks that went to the festival was the Comic Com team from the south coast of England; they told us about the Inkclusion guide for events.

https://www.inklusionguide.org/

Also at our debrief was a professional events organiser who works for the Mach Comedy and Hay festivals. They pointed out that some folks were ‘dis’ abled even by us holding an in-person debrief and that it should also be online.

Once you start to look at inclusion, you realise how the most basic elements of any gathering can quickly become toxic and hurtful if you don’t address these issues.

So, with that in mind, if Big Wave and BorthFest are to be inclusive, it is essential to have some workshops and events online as well as in person.

Inclusivity has been the ethos for investigating online workshops and art-based learning.

So, for the next five days, I am taking a social media advertised painting course on Zoom.

I selected this course because it’s cheap, £8 for five 1-hour daily sessions, it covers craft-based abstract painting techniques that I am not familiar with, and it’s aimed at a general audience similar to the type we might garner at our festivals.

The course has it’s own Facebook group and it has supply lists as visuals with Amazon links, spreadsheet and video.

I liked the inclusive idea of you don’t have to get the supplies.

However, if you did want to buy them it had a ‘lovely’ sponsored Amazon link!

Obviously, I had most items already, but I didn’t have a Princeton blending brush but repurposed an old brush using the cat clippers! Looks similar!!! Maybe it needs more of a trim?

I didn’t have any Japanese watercolours, alcohol ink or liquid water colour concentrate so I went against my, ‘make art using up supplies I already have’ and… clicked the link… I see it as supporting ‘Glo’bal warming and the Bezos Space Programme!

I bought a small set of the Japanese ‘watercolours’ (I’ve always wanted to try this brand) I have made and sold my own watercolour paint I was interested to see what this brand was was like.

I think it’s really a soft binder gouache opposed to an actual watercolour. But I won’t know until I’ve painted more with it, not just a tiny swatch the manufacture recommended in the small English instruction sheet. All the ingredients are in Japanese.

Western Gouache paint is a water based opaque paint made using petroleum based binders instead of the traditional gum Arabic, because gouche contains chalk, propylene glycol is added to help it wet and stop the top layer of paint cracking. The instructions did say the pans need spraying with water and may crack in the pan, so this makes sense.

Western Gouache generally dries to a different tonal value than when it’s freshly painted. Lights dry darker and darks dry lighter which makes mixing colours in multiple session paintings tricky. I don’t think that will bother us tonight.

I bought a smaller pallet than the larger one suggested, but I must say the colours are beautiful and the paint was very creamy once wet.

I also bought one bottle of liquid water colour concentrate in ‘Agender’ apple green. I already have the indian ink as I use that for painting the tattoo flash sheets.

I did buy a cheap set of Alcohol ink, but also made my own from a recipe on the internet using some old sharpies recycled with Iso alcohol, which turned out quite decent so looking forward to comparing it with the commercially made set.

I already have the acrylic paint, watercolour paper, primed and raw canvas.

First lesson is tonight at 6pm UK time.

Edit: well disappointedly but not a shock it was a sales pitch for an art course. That said I enjoyed the first lesson and although I went off piste, I had made alcohol ink from recycled markers and came up for an idea for an upcoming series of workshops for Gwyl Carrid and the Climate Conversation week.