Tuesday, 14 February 2012

Cerulean Blue ... inspiration and pictures



Dear friends and readers,

This post places some visuals to Cerulean Blue, a fantasy novel...

I am starting the reproof of it because there are the e-pub errors and because I am sending it out to some new agents who have expressed an interest....

but here we go....

The front cover is symbolic of the picture world and Leon's way through, takes from the outside of Hironymous bosch's triptych of 'The garden of Earthly delights.

Below is a detail of the right hand panel from Hell which Leon studies right at the beginning of the book...

Here is the image of the Inn a painting in the National Gallery where they are blamed for breaking the eggs.

Abe the carthorse is a little known painting I found a couple of years ago, hidden in a corner of the gallery. I have tried to refind it but without success...


But the Alchemist lurks in one of the small rooms still.

Leon Manny and Jude hide in a Gauguin painting until they know the gallery is closed, swimming in a coral sea ....

until it is time to find Uchello's George and the dragon where all is not as the painting suggests...

Here is Horace in the Prince's dining room waiting for Manny to be able to step out of the painted world.


While Stubb's whistlejacket the race horsehas very little brains only brawn...


I was inspired by this painting where the snake in the garden of Eden is not really a snake... It enabled me to mix together the characters of mythology and religion. In this case the snake Jormungard and Ouruboros become one lizard-like serpentine creature.

The Prince and Zoe.....

and for Zoe, modelled on the self portrait by Artemesia Gentillesci she is depicted filled with passion sadness and regret when she becomes the weeping woman of Picasso's Jaqueline.

When they arrive at the Louvre Paris, Manny's money changer is this picture


Without telling you the whole story... when they enter a Surrealist picture world, away from the National Gallery and into the Tate Modern, they enter first Miro's painting

... which leads them to Dali's famous clocks...

and the disintegration of the persistence of memory...

Can't tell you any more or I'll give the ending away!

But back to another strand of the story... the mythical gods like Loki, Blake's Urizen, Orc and Albion and the devil

I found more inspiration from lithographs woodcuts and etchings...

which in turn lead me to write of Jude's journey , the narrow escape from Picasso's Minotaur

and later her friend Barney the dog is modelled on this painting

The view over the lake at the Price's palace and it's golden river is this inspiration....

My son gave me made up names and some great images he has created for the Night Tormentors.......

So the major battle scenes.... are of course...

Hell

Fall of the rebel Angels, by Bruegel

and Kandinsky's composition 6, the abyss


I won't give away the ending... but hope you read it!

.... locations with photos will be coming in my next blog and an explanation...

Saturday, 31 December 2011


Dear friends
Fabulous news for 2012 to share with you.

Cerulean Blue ....

my first novel....

is now e-published!


I hope you have some time to chill out and download Cerulean Blue for your new e-reading tablets.
It is available on ibook for ipad/pod/phone and also on kobo, sony and more formats.
It will be available on Amazon very soon ( will keep you posted) but you can download a kindle version from my epublishing site right now... also if you are on a laptop there is a pdf version you can download too.

It's very simple to do.
... go to

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/AndieScott

scroll down and click on Cerulean Blue to download.... It's free to join smashwords and simple to fill in...

or just type my name in to Ibook store or Kobo and you'll find me...yippeee.

It will help my book get noticed by print publishers if I can have 1,000 downloads over the next couple weeks so please please forward these details to your friends so they buy my book too... It's only £1.45 for 110,000 words ... so it's good value....It may be a children's novel, but I know you'll enjoy it too...

A brief description to hopefully hook you....

What happens when you walk into a painting of Hell and find the Devil, and still don't know that it's all your mother's fault? Twelve year old Leon finds his mother missing from her studio and inadvertently becomes tangled up in The Painted World inhabited by Night Tormentors and controlled by the Prince of Tyre who looks set to destroy Earth and make a new world ruled by evil. Leon, together with his two best friends Manny and Jude, embark on a journey through pictures depicting hell in order to rescue his errant mother.
There are many who would help the three friends but also those who want to defeat them.

This is a fantasy novel (11+) weaving together art history and scientific fact with myths and legends to take you into dreams. The philosophies and writings of art in the 20th century are forever present dogging them into a surreal dream world of lost wanderings.
There are no broomsticks or wands but instead writing of plausible future elements of science, art, theology and love... but ultimately just a good story.

It incorporates new advances in modern technology, specifically military inventions which are in keeping with what is happening. Ever heard of Archangel Michael with Paraklete body armour and a submachine gun to fight Lucifer? Or of the new miltary cloaking devices being incorporated with nanotechnology to create an awsome factually plausible invisibility cloak? Inspired and written to uphold the inginuity of masters like HG Wells.

This novel has something to inspire every reader ... Enjoy.... and please please write a review and load it onto a blog/ facebook / tweet it with a link to my publishing site before valentine's day.. or send me your review in an email and I'll post it for you... either way you will then be entered into my prize draw raffle as a thank you and could win an Amazon voucher ... also for under 16's who write a review there will be a separate prize draw for a second voucher ....

Here's wishing you peace for 2012 ... and happy reading...

much love
andie
xxx

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

James you are an amazing man.



photo by Mike Taylor showing Sylvan Glade, Keston Park designed by Spaced Out

So this is what my man James gets up to. Designing my dream home in Keston Park for Paul and Penny Denby. The building of Sylvan Glade was filmed by Grand Designs and will be shown tomorrow (Wednesday 21st Sept) on Channel 4 at 9pm. Grand Designs always makes a drama out of something... so knocking down your old house you've lived in for twenty years and building your architect designed dream home is pretty dramatic. Usually in this programme something is late or someone gets fired... and Kevin has his own personal opinion on everything...
Somehow I can't see how they are going to make a crisis out of anything with Sylvan Glade, From design phases through to completion things were good. Now, Penny and Paul are family friends, Modillion Homes and Spaced Out are planning to work on more projects together and the house is fabulous, built on budget and time.


What astonishes me about James is how hard he works for every single client, meticulously, with great care, like a doctor on call for buildings. He manages to understand and enable his clients to get what they want, change their lives with space and light offering them a gift of well being once the building is finished and becomes a home ... Interestingly, many clients have become friends and friends who became clients are still friends too.

James designs beautiful buildings with attention to detail and his genuine concern for people(whether they are the client or the joiner) makes him a master of his craft at a very young age for an architect. I don't think there are many architects that can combine all those skills, run an office full of wonderful young architects and still be completely excited by his profession.

Amazing.
xxx


Designed by Spaced Out
RIBA Chartered Architects
first screening 9pm Weds 21st Sept
available on 4oD Series 7 Episode 31
The new series of Channel 4 show,
Grand Designs*, features ‘Sylvan
Glade’ - the first overtly contemporary
house in Keston Park.


James writes of Sylvan Glade:

The design is inspired by the light
and space of a woodland clearing.
Centred on a double height lounge
with gallery, the house is full of
curves and wonderful framed views
of the parkland setting. State-of-
the-art passive technology supports
the comfort and well being of the
family occupants.

Sylvan Glade, Keston Park © Spaced Out 2011
Photographer: Mike Taylor
spaced out architecture studio
www.spacedout.co.uk
contractor: modillion homes
www.modillionhomes.com
glazing technology: cantifix
www.cantifix.co.uk

Friday, 1 July 2011

Aung San Suu Kyi - 1100 Tokens


Sometimes friends ask me why on earth I pursue my 'World Tragedy ' series of installations and paintings when I am myself trying to recover from breast cancer and the fallout of it's treatment. It simple really. I feel things so very deeply I have to express them and communicate in a way that other people see why I can't walk away from it.


‘World Tragedy’, a series which challenges the way the news and media moves from one tragic situation to another filling us with emotions and a desire to act. The “ sound bites “ of the world move on and so do we. My aim is to make sure we remember the event and that although the world has moved on it is still part of every day life for the people affected by it . Burma is one of those media sound bites that has had little press since the 2007 demonstrations.

1100 monks and political activists were arrested in Mayanmar ( Burma) between August and November 2007. I felt compelled to produce an installation to express how BBC web images were used by the military dictatorship to assist with arrests. The number of political activists in prisons and work camps now stands in excess of 2200

'1100 Tokens' is an installation portraits of the monks and activists. It focuses on how the media while highlighting a cause may hinder it too. Around 700 portraits have been completed to date I am still drawing prisoners. 127 of those are of prisoners who died in prison or very shortly after leaving.


The work is not to shock you, the colours are of the saffron robes, from yellow to oranges through to burgundies. The portraits are all taken from news pictures and those posted on aappb website. It has been exhibited in galleries in London, Brighton, Paris and Peterborough.

I am currently applying for funding to complete it's production and tour it to raise awareness for this indescribable abuse of human rights.


Right now, prisoners in Insein Prion are on hunger strike, some of these have since been transferred and their whereabouts is not known. Others have been locked into tiny dog cages. So this installation is more relevant today than ever.

The golden Buddhas are for sale and contain a prayer of protection.

Wednesday, 11 May 2011

Monday, 9 May 2011

book of haikus - rainbow portraits




Book of Haikus - Rainbow Portraits
by
Andie Scott © 2011




I sew a garden in my heart exotic flowers flourish - woven love


My haiku book is poems from text messages I sent inspired by the people and places around me.

I started writing them when I couldn’t think clearly after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
I felt very alone and spent many nights pacing the floor. But through the year of treatment they were my way of expressing my love for my life partner, friends and family.

Rather than use traditional abbreviations to send a text, I made the messages succinct and found that they turned in to haikus.


Misty morning my dreams of you leave only traces in bright sunlight

They express complexity rather than simplicity and therefore needed taming. I chose the traditional 17 syllable haiku renga rather than Basho’s ‘Soun’ (free verse) because my haikus are mainly about people rather than nature.

I have tried to include the lightness of touch and kireji (cutting word) .



A world of fragile falling petals my imaginings of you float



They are a moment, crystallised and snatched from time’s flow. Sometimes a mundane text from a friend will elicit a haiku in that moment or ‘muga’.



Your lips on mine - reach in and turn the most secret parts of me to fire


The images in this blog are of paintings I create. The orchids are a series I produced through the cancer treatment and exhibited in a number of shows in London.


Words tumble from my fingers
You touch me

Creativity flows


silky clear sky full of bright stars I draw your face in this velvet night



my life
a patchwork of scars hidden by intricate embroidery


Transform the image of the muse- dance in the energy fields of desire


Scent of first cut lawn to signal spring
distracts me from you but briefly


Rainbow
refracting light
reaching my prism of dreams about you



Ephemeral embrace
lost wanderings through words and dreams
my heart sings


24 hour passion
exotic flower uncurled
your fragile beauty

Heart-shaped pebbles
wet on the shore
sea caresses play -
tumbling them