Artful Readers Club May Read - The Military Experience in the Age of Reason by Christopher Duffy

This month's Artful Readers Club book is a factual book describing the state of the military during the years 1650 - 1790.
An odd choice you may think but I have to confess to being a bit of an anorak concerning military matters, especially during the Napoleonic Wars.  This book, however, introduced me to a period of history I knew very little about and one that was left untouched by my school education.  In short, I learned something new!

The Age of Reason was a cultural movement of intellectuals in 17th and 18th centuries which began first in Europe and later in the American colonies.  Its purpose was to reform society using reason; challenge ideas grounded in tradition and faith and advance knowledge by scientific method.
Unfortunately, apart from the Prussians, almost none of this philosophy applied to the military during this period.  The armies of Europe were structured almost exclusively on wealth, privilege and noblesse oblige rather than ability, experience and knowledge.  In fact, if you were high born, wealthy and well connected you could purchase the highest rank in the best regiment - experience in matters military not necessary.  A good upbringing involving hunting, shooting and fox hunting was all that was considered necessary to become a high ranking army officer. Lower born or poorer officers were constantly passed over for promotion and consequently stagnated in the ranks causing great resentment.  The experienced soldiers were generally the NCO's (non commissioned officers) and, particularly in the French army, were left to run things on a practical level in time of crisis. This had an impact when the French Revolution of 1789 took place as many of the very experienced battle-hardy NCO's took charge of civilian armies and rounded on their military grandees.  Score:  Peasants 1  -  Fops 0.
The Prussians took a much more sensible approach to their armed forces by equipping them well, training them constantly and valuing their service.  They also permitted personnel to be promoted by merit shown on the battlefield.

For my art piece this month,  I have gone well out of my comfort zone,  and painted a scene showing a Prussian Army regiment being directed into battle by a mounted officer wielding his sword.  It is painted with acrylic paints onto acrylic paper.

In summary, I found this book extremely interesting, informative and easy to read.  Well worth a look at if you are interested in military history.

Thank you for visiting and I do hope you will have a look at the lovely Darcy's blog and the other book reviews and wonderful artwork.  Your kind comments are encouraging and much appreciated.

Artful Readers Club - January Read

This is the first monthly post for the Artful Readers Club, run and organized by the very talented Darcy of Art N' Sole .  Each month we read a book (see bookshelf in sidebar) and then do a short review and some artwork that was inspired by our read.  I am well out of my comfort zone here as I am no longer a regular reader and I am going to try to draw and paint as much as I can for the artwork.  I normally rely on rubber stamping for my artistic release but for this challenge I am trying to extend my horizons.

My book for January is The Call of the Wild by Jack London. This book was first published in 1903 and came into my possession,  via  a sale at our local health centre, as I wanted to alter it to make a photo album of our two German Shepherd bitches Heidi and Lottie whom we bought as 13 week old pups in October 2011.

I loved this story.   It is about a dog called Buck who is stolen  from his comfortable southern home and sent north to Canada/Alaska, during the gold rush, to work as a sledge dog.  Jack London truly understood the hierarchical structure of a canine pack and how they fitted in to the different environments in which they found themselves.  I could relate my dogs' behaviour to the descriptions he gave in his narrative and it has helped me to appreciate the complexity of their interaction with humans. I chose this story for my first read as it is really only a long short story but I found myself page turning to find out what was going to happen next.  If you like nature, the outdoors and dogs then this is a story for you.

"Here a yellow stream flows from rotted moose-hide sacks and sinks into the ground, with long grasses growing through it and vegetable mould over running it and hiding its yellow from the sun."

My painting, in acrylics, is of the gold panners' river.  I have used gold leaf in between the boulders.  Apologies for the large crease in the mixed media paper I used.  It wasn't there when I started but appeared later when I had applied the paint.  Does anyone know why this should happen?

Thank you for stopping by and do feel free to leave a comment - I appreciate them all.

DragonsDream TIO #115 - Behind the Mask

The chipboard tag was painted in white acrylic paint and then I pressed some bubble wrap into the surface when the paint was wet, the bubble wrap had been used previously with silver paint. I then painted some lilac through sequin waste and then stamped a small script stamp from PaperArtsy with aquamarine Archival Ink.
The butterflies are from a Stewart Gill stencil and I used magenta and lilac acrylic paint to pick out the design.  I then doodled with silver pen on the images to bring out the colours.
Thank you Elizabeth for this most interesting challenge.  I got covered in paint and had a thoroughly enjoyable time.  Thanks for stopping by and do feel free to leave a comment - all are most appreciated.

Postcard Travels with Roland Poland - Week 12 Israel

The Xong's are booked in for hydrotherapy at a spar on the Dead Sea, accompanied by Roland Poland.  As usual, things haven't turned out quite as he expected.
He writes to his half-brother Malcolm,

Quiet week, Malcolm.
Went with Xui and Co. for treatment at the Dead Sea.  Cured the frost pad and reduced the bruising from when the Dutch Fire Brigade pulled my arm out of the wall.
Unfortunately, the Dead Sea Salt made my eyes sore and I have to have drops in now.
This is the way I see the view from the hotel window in Jerusalem.
RP

Painted with acrylics  from this photograph

Here is the page in Roland Poland's travel book

Thank you for visiting and for your encouraging comments.  I look forward to repaying the compliment and would say that this Postcard Challenge is pushing us all every week to try harder and get out of our comfort zone!.