Ceramics

Was invited by a friend last week to an exhibition of ceramic pieces. It was very interesting because I used to throw pots and had thoroughly enjoyed it. These pieces were mostly coiled and hence much heavier than thrown pieces. They had a quirky organic shape and feel. I was particularly intrigued with 2 enormous vases in terra-cotta with a white slip and sgraffitoed figures. On closer inspection, they were of women masturbating! Not exactly lounge room material.


This picture is of a Christmas pressie I bought in the same vein as those vases. I just love it's shape.

Life painting at last!

For ever so long I've wanted to paint figures from life but the time allowed in life drawing classes and sketch clubs are far too short. Pina's last class had a 20m and 40m pose and I prepared A3 watercolor papers especially for this opportunity.


Here is the 20 min pose. Not very detailed as it's too quick. But the trick is to get the colour palette set up before and then it's a matter of applying not mixing or pondering colour combinations. The next one is better because of the extended time. It is very fore shortened as we are studying perspective.

Fiona

Today's model was Fiona who was plump and dark skinned with heavy hooded eyes. Lovely. You wouldn't gather she's dark skinned from my pictures though! Pina introduced colour today and because I paint, this isn't new.


These were done on brown paper using soft conte and charcoal.


Another development is the 2010 Goya (get off your arts) competition. My friend Jodie runs this event and strong-armed me and my daughter to enter. She's also having Sarina as a burlesque model and invited me and a couple of others to draw. We are the 'live' installation so to speak. Bit of a challenge to do art in front of lots of sticky beaks, however must view this as a promotional opportunity. Plus a chance to draw the lovely Sarina for free! For more info see GetOffYourArts

Before The Race

Came across this trio at my favourite people watching spot Wylies Bath; who were going to have a swimming race. The one on the left is an off duty lifeguard and all three look like they are very physically fit.


I snapped a photo of them and only recently dug into the archives because I needed to replace a painting sold from my Coogee series (a blank spot on the wall; recently a common occurrence that I'm enjoying).

Second live drawing class with Pina

Murtim was our male model this week. He's Turkish, young, slender but muscular. Lovely physique. Has hair that is long and wavy which Pina requested he bunched up.

Drawing a man is quite different from a woman, Pina suggested we used straight lines and that was most successful with Murtim. Friends are amused and envious of my legit excuse to purve at a nice male body. Doreen has offered to dangle the bunch of grapes artfully.

Not wanting to focus overly on his dangling bits, I've succeeded only in making the omission obvious!


This last sketch was fairly long pose but it's hard to get the proportions of figures lying down right. That took much of the time with no time for delicate shading.

Land's End Again

Catherine was the kind critic who advised that the house in the Land's End painting needed to be darker. It was the same colour as the sky which made it look queer; as if it were transparent. She also suggested shadows on the house.

Here it is again. It's one of those paintings that I like but not love if you know what I mean.

Last day of exhibition

We took down the paintings today from the gallery cafe. Sold 5 out of 7 and Cath sold 4 out of 7. We did very well all things considered. I'm out of beachscapes aside from the Wylies series that I'm developing further. These were such a bugger to complete due to the structure of the kiosk that I refused to entertain parting with them. Besides they are a series although I'm not sure if anybody would buy the lot in one go.

So what did I learn from a first exhibition?

1. People like beachscapes. It reminds them where they would rather be.

2. People really liked the picture of the kids jumping waves. I always wondered if it was too sentimental but that had wide appeal and I probably could have charged more.

3. The picture of a boulevard of trees went very quickly. The depth of field, perspective and serene feel impressed the audience.

4. Nudes are not as popular. I guess you can't hang it anywhere. Could be offensive.

5. We didn't charge enough. Of course I had no previous yardstick. But we could have upped the price by another 20-30% for many pieces.

6. Reproduction is key to future profit without the pain. Of course the price you can charge is less but the possibility of selling more than one could make this more profitable.

Lands End Kiama

This painting has been a while in gestation and even now I'm unsure if it is complete. A house on the headland in Kiama, South Coast is perched precariously. The sandstone cliff is coloured orangey red and the sea is calm. I would love to live there, the views and the ability to go swimming in ocean pools and beaches. What a lifestyle!

Burlesque live drawing at Double Bay

Received an invitation to attend a free burlesque live drawing session at the Double Bay Food and Art Festival, featuring the lovely Sarina del Feugo and effervescent Tim Gratton. My friend Sue also signed up and we went together.

Sarina was clad in corsetry, fishnet, long gloves and feathers. She looked remarkably saucy. Because we were late, we ended up at the side but that was actually good as interesting foreshortening results. Of course such poses are generally acknowledged as being a challenge to a novice but I like to think that I've moved on from a beginner. The angles from a sideview are also usually more interesting.

Sue told Tim, who was rushing around giving tips to all, about my success with painting water which Tim said "but I taught you how to!" Rightly so... He did!

We also spoke to a woman from Queensland who was entering a body painting contest. Curious to know who her 'canvas' is, we found out that it was her hubby. The poor man went through a full body wax (ouch!) so that he'd be a better canvas! I am sure my husband would never consent to do the same for me!!! I'm quite certain also that no nudity would be permitted at a public festival, so the bodies would have to at least leave their knickers on. She assured us that her dearest would wear proper knickers to hide his buns of steel....

These few frenetic artistic days have made me lose several items; misplaced my hat and thermos mug and probably lost several more things that I haven't discovered yet. Meantime I've been painting a scene inspired by a house in Kiama which is slowly coming along. I hope to post it up soon!

Life Drawing with Pina

Enrolled myself in another life drawing class mainly to jumpstart my creative efforts. This one was taught my Pina who taught portrait drawing at the SCC. She asked us to try 3 techniques: continuous line which produces some funky results, block shading to get the mass in and basic shapes eg circles and ellipses to build up the figure. It has been so long since I've been tutored I'd forgotten these techniques.


Pina says that drawing is a good discipline for the artist: like Barr exercises to the ballerina. Ground work and practice. I tend to agree with her.


Love the figure; just can't work out how to turn them into sellable art works that's all. I intended to paint but couldn't get my act together in the end. These fortnightly classes are perfect for me as it affords time in between to get going on other creative ventures.

First Exhibition Opening

After much preparation, Cath and I made it to the Opening Night. It was a huge social event which was well attended. Many of our friends and family turned up and the place got very busy at one stage.

Our art was exposed to the public eye and it was lovely to be congratulated and be told which paintings were favourites with friends and why. At the end of the night, I sold 4 paintings (50%) and Cath sold 2. There were numerous leads to commissions and requests for other paintings seen at our house and on this blog: "why isn't that here?". All excellent publicity and a big boost to ones self confidence as an artist: that the art was appreciated and saleable. These pictures were taken before everybody arrived - just so that I don't publish photos of others without their permission!

As well, I enjoyed catching up with friends and acquaintances - Roger and I appear to have a vast network and we don't have enough time or energy to catch up with one and all so it was a perfect opportunity to at least see people. To those who came, a big thank you for your support.
As for the analysis of what people liked: they liked the beachscapes. These evoked good times and warm weather. Just exactly what I like about Sydney and why I live here.

The hanging

Cath and I spent 3 hours last night hanging the paintings up for the exhibition. We had to conquer the gallery's system and get up a precariously unstable step ladder to adjust each piece. We were aided by Andrew, Cath's partner and the owner who gave some good advice on placement.

Anyway they are all up and I have 8 paintings and Cath has 6. They look great but must say it's given me another perspective of gallery work. There was also the lighting to consider and it made me realise that it is harder to hang pictures on a long wall : things cannot be so easily grouped.

Preparations are now well advanced though owing to the pianist ill health the jazz interlude has had to be cancelled. Looking forward to a great social night!

Sunbathers

By far my favourite setting is the beach, water and rocks. These inspire paintings much more than other subjects. What is more, I seem to paint them from the heart and picture myself once more enjoying summer.

This painting was done from a series of photos I took of Wylies Bath. These sunbathers are languidly warming themselves before plunging into the inviting baths. I believe that these are the first figures I've painted for quite a while. I really enjoy drawing and painting figures but stopped because my sister-in-law the art teacher said my landscapes were better.

She is probably right. I have a tendency to paint like I draw, which means lines and detail. Painting is of course, based on getting tones right. Here I've deliberately ignored details and focussed on tones and it has worked out well.


The Australian sun is very bright which means that there is high key: great contrasts between light and shadows.

Upcoming exhibition invitation

For those who browse my blog, I'd like to extend the invitation to our up-coming exhibition.

Cath, my exhibition partner and I work very differently. I'd gotten the main body of work ready last term and so been cruising along. Cath on the other hand, probably need pressure to get going because when we met last month she had several incomplete works. Since then, she has completed quite a few and is sending me action lists regularly. Luckily somebody is on the ball as otherwise it would be a last minute rush.

Zen and art

Toddled off to see the exhibition at the Art Gallery Abstractions last week. This was not an exhibition of abstract works but rather the evolution from figurative art to abstract art. In other words, it translated into layman terms the journey for plebs like me. Very impressive collection of impressionist and modern art. Lovely Cezanne, Matisse, Derain and Picasso. We are very lucky to live in a country where great art can be enjoyed.

Abstract art is surprisingly difficult to do well because the essence of the subject is extracted and depicted. For abstract art to be good, (and not merely a collection of shapes and colours) I think what it is depicting should be clear to the viewer.

Speaking to Sue my sister in law and art teacher, it is apparent there are two extreme approaches to art; either plan and execute a work painstakingly or do lots and be prepared to throw most out but these will have that spontaneity and freshness that the other lacks. This is such a succinct way of putting my current struggle!

The media does dictate how free one can be. Painting on stretched canvas tends to restrict me - the composition has to be fully determined as you can't easily cut off a section as you can with paper. Furthermore, the time one has to do the work also plays a part. Many of my best works were done at a life modeling session, where poses are short. The trick is therefore find the happy middle where you plan without stifling serendipity (allow zen to play it's part).

Orchids

My mother in law grows these wonderful orchids that are in bloom now and lasts for weeks as cut flowers. She cuts some for me every year and I thought I'd paint them expressively as practice. So that the brush strokes are clear, I magnified the orchids and cropped the composition.

I textured the background ala Vincent and indicated the leaves. Resisted as best as I could the impulse to smoothen and blend colours on the petals. It's rather therapeutic to paint still life. They don't move and if you put an artificial light source on, it doesn't suffer the problems of landscape either.

Thoughts on expressive art

At the life drawing session at Art Est I was struck by the ease with which I was able to draw 'expressively' when this evaded me with painting. I thought about it and am now convinced that time constraints and the choice of media forces one to become expressive : simplification is key. The other thing I observed is that I draw much better than I paint, familiarity with the media may account for this. And so perhaps the choice of pastels is the right one. I only gave it up because of the expense in framing pictures.


Here are a few sketches of the model Rose who is from Luxembourg. Rose has a lovely rounded figure and expressive hands.

Cattle in country

Despite the one day course, I feel that I've lost my painting mojo (to use an Austin Powers term). Nothing turns out quite as I envisaged in my mind's eye although that eye is rather exacting. I started this painting at Norma's class before my break and finally got it to a near complete stage.


I'm not satisfied that it's there but have to leave it for the present. I think the background is fine and evokes the wind blowing the grasses but am unsure about the cattle.

Expressive acrylics

Those of you following my ramblings must think that the art production has gone into a hiatus of late, and you are not wrong!  Since my break and trip overseas, I have been diverted into other activities, chief of all playing the keyboard.  It is nearly as satisfying and frustrating as visual art.  I learnt the organ as a child and so can read notes but was not taught classical piano although my sister learnt it, so the many pieces for piano exams is familiar.  I have since taught myself to play a couple of Sonatinas and am very pleased with my progress but this is of course, at the expense of painting....

To get going again, I persuaded Jennifer of Art Est to let me do the Contemporary Acrylics course as a casual.  Larissa who runs the course tells me that its aim is to help artists become more expressive.  Art works that are expressive are seldom as easy as they look - I've tried to loosen up but it still does not come easy.  Larissa also reminded me the basics of painting - block in your colours first and cover the canvas before getting into detail, darks should be laid down before light colours, etc.  She said she preferred to use a warm colour as a background wash as that gave the paintings a lovely glow.  Good tip.

To loosen up, she suggested the use of big brushes as that way it is hard to be precise.  I must say I struggled with the palette in this picture of a house set high on the hill with the wineyard before it.  It is a simple composition with those converging lines drawing attention to the house.  This painting was based on a photo I took in Milthorpe.  I am not sure I like my painting - it is certainly more expressive than my other works in the brushstroke.  But what I got out of the class was the spark to do more paintings.  I believe that if I copied a few works in expressive styles that I admire, I would learn much from the exercise.  A lady in the class did a work ala Charles Blackman and it was very colourful but beautifully done.  I would love to try something of that sort. 

Exhibition!

Back from the overseas trip, I've deliberately not enrolled in art classes this term so that I can devote time to the looming exhibition. For those who do not know, Catherine and I are exhibiting our works at Cafe Yuga in Glebe opening on Fri 1 Oct. It will be my first so I'm nervous. But at the same time, I long to put part 2 of art in practice: the commercial aspects of showing and (hopefully) selling paintings. Few can make a living from art alone however, the prospect of testing my ideas of what sells and why actually excites me(!). Yes, I acknowledge that I'm a freak as most artists are only interested in creating not selling. Catherine and I had a project status meeting (consultant talk for a catch up) and we had an agenda plus action items for both of us. So far so good. My objective is to get a number of artworks off my wall and create space for future paintings. The pricing strategy is to make it affordable but not too much of a bargain (I saw a painting I liked for $50 once but was too suspicious to buy it). Paintings that I was loathed to part with I will put a high price on so that I'd be consoled if it sold. Catherine is of the opinion that such paintings should not be sold else it ends in regrets. As a veteran exhibitor she should know!

Plane trees in autumn

This is my last post for a little while as I've an overseas visitor staying and will be socially preoccupied. We are also all going to Malaysia for a fortnight's vacation, taking advantage of the school holidays. For the last few weeks I've been working on another painting of autumn leaves. Taking a cue from the old master Vincent, I decided to paint plane trees. There was an avenue of plane trees in Milthorpe that was very pretty but when I was there the leaves were still green. It's not difficult to find plane trees in Sydney; our townplanners have obvious Parisian inclinations. (I've noticed that we don't make topiaries out of our plane trees quite like the French do.) So this painting is a sort of hybrid : I used the country background and modelled the leaves on a Sydney avenue.


To lend it further interest, I traced the shadows on the road. Norma has been on my case to 'free up' my strokes and this painting relies on palette knife techniques. I doubt I will ever get to the free strokes of Ada in Milthorpe as I'm trained as an architect... Drawing buildings isn't the same as painting, the detail counts! But I've had fun slapping on the paint here.

Reflections 2

I took my unsatisfactory water painting to Norma who said I was to apply the palette knife on the water as well and brighten it. After which she said to apply a thin glaze over to give the water a voluminous feel. Here is the result: it definitely is an improvement.

Reflections on water

This painting is a study of reflection on water. Water is one of the hardest subject to do well, it ripples, it reflects but only partially, it is both translucent and opaque in parts. I have always loved the challenge of depicting it and this study is based very loosely on a painting for sale at Norma's gallery.



The water here is very still and reflects the sandstone partially. There is more I can do but as I started on a oil sketch paper, I'm not sure it will tolerate any further rubbing: it might all disintegrate in a heap!

Coledale rockpools

A couple of months ago, we spent a weekend at Coledale, down the south coast. I was really impressed with the Illawarra coast, it is truly where the sandstone cliffs meet the sea. This painting is of the rockpools on the beach. This place is truly magical, full of rockpools that can be explored and reflections on the water... It is one of the special places in my heart.


As Art Est did not have an acrylic class this term, I found myself a class at Gallery NTK in Croydon. The proprietor and art teacher Norma has revolving exhibitions. It is a nice group. The fellow artists and the exhibits provide the artistic touchstone I needed.

Pin up girls of 1940s, 50s and 60s

Sarina invited me to a drawing session at East Sydney which was held every month. The session was focussed on the pin up girls of the 1940's and 50's.


Pin up, as Barry Dean, the teacher explained, was a wartime genre, a precursor to today's Playboy magazine. They were more conservative then, and the girls were mostly clad, with some underwear and stockings/ suspenders showing. Mostly, reasons were invented for this slip: from skirts blown by wind (eat your heart out Marilyn) to inadvertently placed fishing hooks or golf clubs. Pin ups were originally sent to fighting troops to remind them why they were doing the fighting. This was actually a very successful genre for some artists, the best known of whom are Vargas and Elvgren. The session was focussed on Elvgren, with Sarina recreating the poses complete with props and a cheeky grin. As a burlesque dancer, Sarina has a number of dresses and outfits that were of the era. So, complete with songs from the period, I felt like I was transported back to the 1940's! The group was fairly accomplished with some outstanding artists, I enjoyed looking at their art and got some great ideas. Here is one I did using pastels and the original Elvgren for reference.





The second one I thought worth posting is of the sweater girl. Both these were done in 30 mins.





I am fascinated by this genre for although I like nudes, clothed people presents a greater not reduced challenge. Sarina kindly agreed to let me photograph her so I am intending to develop one or two into acrylics on canvas.

Autumn leaves success at last

Having enjoyed a long Indian summer, autumn has finally arrived in Sydney. Our autumn leaves are no way as fine as Canberra or Melbourne. However, this grove of plum trees at Peace Park near my house caught my eye on a walk one day. It was magnificent: well, it was for Sydney. So I resolved to paint these trees but because the camera never captures the colours like life, I decided to paint plein air. Thanks to my friend Doreen taking Miss 6 year old out, I had the opportunity last Saturday, which was a lovely warm day. Plein air or studio, I had to have my iPod play music and was set up with a small table for brushes and paint.



At first there were few at the park and nobody took much notice except for one guy with a dog who conspired to peer at my attempt from the back. Then a woman came with her daughter and talked. I did my best to ignore them but they were persistent. The kid was very chatty and asked lots of questions. She also volunteered a lot of info which further convinced me that school teachers know all family secrets. I had to come back the following day as the light was fading fast.

The following day attracted more mothers with their children and I ignored them best as I could as I was desperate to complete this as quickly as possible, due to the hot sun. But I think that the results are worth the pain of curious passerbys. When painting on the scene, the beauty of the original inspires the painting. Painting from a photo is another step removed. Does this attempt look like a golden autumnal afternoon? 

Haystacks revisited

Many friends who have seen the haystack picture at Young have said how much they like it. I was encouraged to do a tryptich. Unfortunately as I embarked on the exercise sometime after the original was completed, I had to remix and match the colours. This was far harder than I had anticipated. First of all, this was best done in daylight as my studio light was not bright enough and was not the right colour. Finding free time in the day was pretty difficult with school holidays and long weekends and a school age child demanding attention.


The trytitch is a panaroma of the haystacks near Young, as observed from the roadside. The haystacks are machine made of course, and their placement in the landscape is really regular, neat and surreal.  The distant views includes some more paddocks, fields and mountains.  Now that it is complete and hanging on my wall, it looks pretty amazing because of its size (approximately 1.2m x 0.6m).  My husband wants to charge a lot for it, but possibly it just means he wants to keep it for himself!

Portrait of mum by Sam

This is a picture that Sam drew of mum, in a naive fashion. She's a budding artist at age 6 and draws on restaurant paper tablecloths.

Life drawing with ink

Over the weekend I attended the sketch club at ArtEst. The model was a man, which was an exception and rather refreshing. I decided to attempt these sessions with ink. At first I used charcoal to outline then a confident brush strokes. Erasing the charcoal left marks.


So I decided to go without the charcoal. Maybe because it was the last session and I was warmed up, the result was better.


An opportunity to sketch Sarina came up in the week. She lives in a house right on the waterfront in the eastern suburbs. What a view! The waves lapped gently and there were boats on the water. She certainly lives well. Anyway we had a lovely time although my sketches were, I thought, mediocre. The best one is this 3 min sketch with loose lines.


I believe that the best sketches in ink are the ones done quickly. The lines are looser and impressionistic. Longer poses end up over worked.

Botanical ink drawings

Following on from my experiments with ink and wash, I've decided to try some botanical art. Subjects are easy to find : my garden is blooming. The magnolia little gem has these wonderfully waxy leaves that are rust brown underneath. The flower is a delicate white with a pungent scent.


The frangipani tree is just outside my studio which makes it very handy to draw: just open the window. The tree us still in bloom and lush. In another month, the leaves start to drop. Our flowers are white with a yellow heart. There are those that are pink with yellow hearts.

Red rocks in gold country

On our recent trip to the Central West NSW, I was amazed at the colour of the rocks. Over the Blue Mountains the escarpments are sandstone and that fabulous yellowy orange. Near the old mining town of Sofala and Hill End, the rocks become red-orange. My hubby who once was a geophysicist, tell me that 'them hills have gold'. Especially where rivers run through and the gold sediments are leached out of the rocks. I was also amazed that eucalyptus trees grow on virtually nothing, or else how does one explain trees clinging to rock cliffs? This painting attempts to depict the scenery on our drive, rock face in the most vivid colours, with sheer drops on the other side of the road.


Another spot with red escarpments is along the Turon River on Hill End Road, past Sofala. A camping spot exists on the river, the escarpment is wonderfully red. I would challenge the automatic snapper to capture this colour faithfully. Photos flatten the colours and sometimes the features too. But a painter has no such restriction!

A loose line style

Inspired by Ada I returned to a subject I abandoned using acrylic and decided to experiment with water colour washes and ink outlines. The subject was my daughter and friend on a carousel. This is a dynamic scene whirling and kids laughing which actually lends itself quite well to this technique. The difficulty is deciding when to stop.