It was with great sadness that I learned that Jan Blake, a long-time contributor to The Kick-About, had died. Her friend Francesca Maxwell, who shared the news with me, wrote:
“Donati’s Comet has been in my mind a lot in the last few days. My dear friend Jan Blake, who loved the Kick-About so much, died just two months after being diagnosed with cancer. She went like a comet, and I hope to be able to paint her as such someday.”
This edition concludes with a small selection of Jan’s work, celebrating the inventiveness she brought to The Kick-About.
This week, we turn to the paintings of Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, whose intricate compositions draw on architecture, cities, libraries, and interior spaces. As always, the works that follow were made in a short time. For all previous editions of The Kick-About, go here.
Tom Beg
“I’ve not been around for quite a while, but I’m sending these ones through for this week’s prompt.”
Charly Skilling
“I have never lived or worked in a city, so my perspective on city life has always been that of a day-tripper — street-level, peering through crowds and staring up at huge buildings. Even so, Vieira da Silva’s work gave me a real sense of being immersed in a city. My first response was in oil pastels on graph paper, but it felt too “bricks and mortar”, so I isolated a section across the middle of the image and used that as the reference for grids of light and dark, using cellophane, vellum, and sticky-backed felt. Once the image was backlit on a light pad, I began to feel I was getting somewhere. I think I’ll probably come back to develop this further.”
Graeme Daly
“I was a bit pushed for time with this week’s Kick-About and would love to do more of these! In Photoshop, I drew lots of black lines criss-crossing each other and then proceeded to fill the little squares with a limited colour palette to create a pattern. It was relaxing, rather like colouring by numbers. I then smudged and painted over areas to make it feel a bit less digital and a little more imperfect. I like how Vieira da Silva’s work has a sense of depth, and I feel that, if you were viewing it in person, you could trace the lines to particular points. I tried to bring a little of that into my own response.“
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.ie
Gary Thorne
“Fascinating discipline in the work of Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, something I’m trying hard not to do, so this challenge pushed me to finish this version of the island of Ortigia in Syracuse from memory, something I’d half-heartedly started three months ago.”
Phil Gomm
“I love de Silva’s paintings; they have the quality of care-worn tapestries or bedcovers faded with use. Such rich surfaces and terrains. I got some 12″ x 12″ artist boards and, without too much thought, I went about creating the conditions by which I could produce some evocative surfaces of my own. The resulting paintings were created using metal stove paint, grey primer, acrylic paint, paint stripper, varnish, masking tape and sand paper – in short, a bit of a free-for-all in terms of media, but the goal was always to work-up these surfaces that hinted at architectural forms. I spent as much time taking paint off the boards as applying it, and I kept going through multiple rounds of painting, masking, sanding, stripping, varnishing, and painting until I got what I wanted. I enjoyed myself.”
philgomm.com / behance.net/Phil_Gomm
James Randall
“I had taken some street photographs, and this little loading dock always makes me stop. Just a quick line drawing, expressing its volumes.”
Kerfe Roig
“I was at the beach last week, but before I left I did a couple of quick paintings, attracted, as always, to the grid-inspired work of Vieira da Silva. It was a rainy week, so I had plenty of time to embroider. Having found an old gridded placemat, I proceeded to stitch lines over it to form another grid. It needs more colour, including some filled-in squares, but it’s a good start. The back is just as interesting as the front and perhaps more in the spirit of Vieira da Silva.”
Francesca Maxwell
“Jan Blake was an artist who lived art profoundly. Every act, every gesture, every encounter was guided by her creativity. Her art was alive in every aspect of her life. Her creativity was always driven by a great sense of wonder, joy, and fun. Her work found expression in many different materials and forms, but most often in three-dimensional space: from theatre design to large public sculptures in metal and silk, to smaller creations in cardboard, and everything in between. I am taking the opportunity of this prompt, inspired by Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, and Jan’s love of cardboard to make this humble homage to a dear friend and fellow Kick-Abouter.”
In memory and celebration of Jan Blake
Next time, we turn our attention to a small work by Alexander Calder, in which wire and movement come together in a playful piece of sculpture.
Red's Kingdom 
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