Something new

I've been reassessing what I'm doing, kind of checking I'm going in the right direction. It wasn't a conscious thing - I guess I've been busy too - I stopped posting on flickr and instagram, stopped posting here.

I didn't do the xmas craft fair because I didn't have any new work to share and didn't feel good about taking all my old stuff. I didn't have anything to put in the Tactile Arts xmas show - little wonders. (Which is still on until December 10th)

It has been a bit scary wondering if I'll feel like making art again, wondering who am I if I  don't paint??

Then inspiration turns up - my teenagers make me listen to a lot of music, and sometimes I get hooked on something - I've been watching a YouTube video of DMAs singing Cher's Believe a lot.... and decided I wanted to paint the singer.

I can't really explain why. He's just this little guy in a too big shirt, he looks like that naughty kid who sits at the back of the class causing trouble, and then he opens his mouth and sings so effortlessly. Maybe it's because I have sons and the contrast between how they look and what their potential might be...

I'm so happy to be painting, just following my nose to what I'm interested in, and not worrying about whether it's suitable for a craft fair or whatever. I'm a bit scared to share it here in case everything stops again.

The paintings don't particularly look like the singer, I think of them as 'singing man 1' and 'singing man 2' hopefully there will be more.

The months are flying

Hello blog friends, so now it's October. I haven't been posting because I'm not doing much artwork.

I had a go at Inktober - a daily challenge to do an ink drawing which can be pen and ink, marker, ballpoint, brush and ink, etc. I went into it knowing that I find markers hard to work with - the line is hard and you can't rub them out!! So I managed 7 or 8 days...here are a few of my efforts!

It's just a quick hello to let you know I'm still here, and I'll be back when I have some new paintings to share.

A new routine and growing tomatoes in the tropics 2017

Starting a new job puts a new slant on things. I'd say I'm getting used to a new routine, but it's a casual job and my shifts are different every week. I can start as early as 6.30 am, or finish as late as 9pm. It's a big change for me, and to be honest art making has been on the back burner for the last month or so - not only because of the new job, but also because of renovations still going on around the house that make it hard to sit quietly and create - I'm not complaining, the renovations desperately need doing!!!

It's a beautiful dry season, and I think I've had the best success with growing tomatoes this year.

Here are the seedlings I planted back in June. I planted 4 but in the end only one plant survived. Maybe because of the lack of competition, or maybe because I'm watering in the evening instead of the morning, it's done well, producing plenty of good sized tomatoes and still flowering and setting new fruit in spite of half the foliage browning off.

I only have a little veggie patch because of having to water all through the dry season, and it's limited by the time and energy I have to put into it (and some kind of ratio between how many plants have failed and how hopeful I am!!). Here's a shot of the thai basil in flower - I should snip those off but I love to see the flowers - a pineapple just starting, also parsley, basil seedlings and lemon grass.

So I don't know when I'll be back with new art to show you, I'm happy to accept the lull in creativity and spend some time in the garden or walking at the beach before the build up begins.
Best wishes to you 😃😃😃

Index card art

I'm taking part in the index card a day challenge, which runs through June and July. It's a really fun, low stress, flexible art booster! It's organised by Tammy at daisy yellow blog, and you can find out more about it there.

There are prompts and themes which you can follow, but I tend to ignore those. In fact one of the most exciting things about the challenge for me is discovering what I'm interested in making work about - which can be the basis for more in depth artworks eg paintings or linoprints.

Some of my cards have been based on photos from my holidays. Many have a garden theme. I've been watching an English gardening show on youtube called 'The big allotment challenge', and have been pausing it to draw some of the gardeners. My kids are laughing at me for making 'fan art'.

If all else fails I do a mandala or any kind of doodle so that there's a stepping stone to the next day where I might do something better! I must admit that I haven't made a card everyday, sometimes I get behind, and then have a catch up day and make 2 or 3. It's ok, it's a challenge where anything's allowed as long as you're making art! I've been posting my work on flickr and instagram (which I'm new to but enjoying @fernyhoughkate). You can search #indexcardart or #ICAD2017 to see what everybody's doing.

In my last blogpost I had a bit of a complain about job hunting, since then things suddenly turned around. I had a call back, and an interview, and have been offered a casual job, which is a big relief. After being in limbo for some months it will be great to get on with the next phase of life.

Lifebook week 24 plus the joys of job hunting

At last I've got my art space organised and jumped back into lifebook. The week 24 lesson was with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. I couldn't bear to put down in black and white the bad stuff, so I wrote down positive words about the great job I'm going to get soon! Then it was a matter of doodling to turn the letter shapes into flowers, leaves and butterflies. I worked in acrylics but probably would have done better with watercolour or gouache.

I have also jumped back into looking for work. I've discovered that job hunting in the 21st century is a whole new ball game. Most jobs are advertised and have to be applied for online, even jobs I've seen in shop windows still have to be applied for online. After that you get an automated email to say they got your application, and then you never hear from them again unless you're one of the lucky ones who's shortlisted for interview.

It's discouraging to apply for jobs everyday and not hear back anything. I was told about a company up here who advertised for a receptionist and had over 100 applicants, so competition is fierce! I'm lucky that I've had some bits of casual work - which is good for my morale - and might be a better way of advertising my skills than sending out my resume!

In the meantime I've been busy adding a few new cards to my etsy shop, and getting ready for the next craft fair which is at a new location this year - on the Esplanade in Darwin city, on Sun 9th July.

Holiday sketching

Last time I went on holiday to England - about 8 years ago - I came back with 3 sketches. This time I was determined to do better, and I  did, though I  still didn't do a lot...

I made a tiny sketch pad with pink pages. It was light to carry and I didn't feel precious about it at all. I drew with a ballpoint pen and pulled out sketches and glued them in my journal.

I did this little sketch at the cafe at Saltaire, I took a couple of photos too, and then did this version back at my Mum's, using watercolour pencils and a little bit of watercolour wash.

I also did some drawings at Mum's of the views out of the window from different rooms. It's the house I grew up in so the views although slightly changed over the years, are so familiar to me. I really wanted to make a record of them this time.

This one I drew one evening while we were watching tv, and a blazing sunset was going on outside!

I wish I had made the time to do more, photos are wonderful, but a sketch is something different, it means I've really spent time looking, and putting down the elements that are important to me - quite an emotional thing.

Back home

Hello blog friends. I'm back from my holidays in England. I'm not the kind of person who looks forward to holidays!!! In fact I dread the long flights and being out of my routine. But once I was there I had a wonderful time. Here are a few photos to give you a taste.

Canal side walk at Saltaire.

Wonderful David Hockney exhibition at Saltaire.

Spring flowers in the rose garden at Gotts Park.

Beautiful gardens at Harlow Carr near Harrogate.

Amazing rainbow when we got off the bus one evening!

We did a lot of walking, talking and drinking tea, which is my idea of a perfect holiday! I did manage to do a tiny bit of sketching, and might post some of those next time.

While I was away my partner took the opportunity to paint the verandah which is also my studio. All my art stuff is packed up in boxes, and will be in chaos for a while as other bits of the house are being painted and the verandah will be a bit of a store room.... So it might take a while to get back into the full swing of painting. 

I am doing the ICAD (index card a day) challenge through June and July. It's organised by Tammy at daisy yellow blog. I took part last year and it was great to do a little drawing, painting, something everyday, some of those little quick pieces were the basis for lino prints and cards that kept me busy for months afterwards, so I'm excited to see what will happen this time.

I hope your May was great and your June has got off to a good start!

Lifebook wek 13 and 15

Here are my latest lifebook pieces. Week 13 with Annie Hamman was probably my favourite lesson so far. She talked a lot about working intuitively and letting the piece evolve, such as letting words or collage elements from the under layers to be seen and add to the story of the work. The techniques of blending the charcoal drawing with a wet brush, and activating watersoluble crayons with watered down acrylic meant that it fell somewhere between painting and drawing. For the longest time I've been wishing for a way for a way for painting to be more like drawing for me - more fluid I guess. Well this lesson turned on a little light bulb in my brain!!! It's definitely one I'll come back to.

Week 15 with Jodi Ohl was a lesson about using lettering. I went off on my own tangent with a piece about looking after my back when I'm gardening - it has a bit of lettering, but not much.

I've just finished a second attempt at the class, following it a bit more closely. It feels a bit like a graffiti wall! It's a long way outside my comfort zone, and as a piece of art I prefer my first version, but I'm glad to have a go at something new.

I'm a few weeks behind on lifebook, but that's ok. When I signed up I thought if I get value out of half a dozen classes I'll be happy. Well, I've already done more than that, and we're only a third of the way through. Next month (next week!!!) I'll be going on holiday to England to see my mum, so I won't have time for Lifebook for a few weeks, that's ok, I can jump back in when I get back.

I'd like to send you over to my friend Nat's blog, she's in the same group exhibition as me and has written a couple of excellent posts about some of her gorgeous work that's on show.

Gypsies vagabonds and wild mad women

I have work in a group show that opens on Thursday 5.30 at Tactile Arts - Gypsies vagabonds and wild mad women!!

One of the pieces I'm showing is a handmade concertina book of dancing girls. I think I blogged about this a couple of months ago, and it did take weeks and weeks to come together. I'm so pleased I got it finished in time! Here are a few photos.

The girls are painted in acrylics with collaged paper dresses a bit like paper dolls, the front cover is a lino cut. On the reverse are silhouettes of the girls cut from scrapbooking papers.

April has been a bit of a disaster health wise. At the start of the month I strained my back pulling out weeds in the garden, and had to spend a couple of days in bed. Every time I start to get better I tweak it again, so over a week later I'm back in bed again. I think I have to admit defeat and really rest properly....

Lifebook weeks 10 and 12

Week 10 was a lovely lesson from Effy Wild - a tree created with lots of layering and glazing. I folowed the demonstration videos very closely for this lesson, so I can't take any credit for the design right down to the colour choices. The glazing was amazingly effective, it's a technique where you have to plan ahead - creating underpainting to glaze over. When I paint on canvas it's usually not very planned, I kind of do a random underpainting just to cover the blank canvas, and then see what that suggests and turn it into something! There is a lot of relying on chance and hoping that inspiration will appear... On the other hand when I do a linocut it's carefully drawn out and planned in advance, so maybe I could get my head around planning out a painting to use glazing!

I spent so long on week 10 that I didn't get around to the week 11 lesson.

Week 12 was a watercolour with Susana Tavares. Watercolour is a medium I'm not confident with - particularly because you can't go over your mistakes! So I  was surprised how much I enjoyed this lesson and learned a lot. Again I followed the demonstration very closely.

I do feel a bit ambivalent about copying the lessons so closely. I guess in the past that's how artists learned to paint, by copying old masters. These days it's all about being original, doing something new, it's hard to put that attitude aside. If nothing else I'm putting together a folder of techniques that will be a great reference for me in the future.

Lifebook weeks 7 and 9 - pat pats and flowers

Week 7 of lifebook was a little bonus lesson called Pat pats taught by Donna Mulholland. You had to think of things you'd like to pat yourself on the back for from the past week (not that easy!) And incorporate those into a page with collaged paper. Making the sheet for collage was lovely, just playing freely with watercolour and acrylics, masking out areas, it was amazing how good it looked once cut up - and will be a good technique to use to make papers for cards.

I skipped week 8, partly because it didn't grab me and partly because I had a busy week - I did a week and a half of work at one of my old jobs filling in for a friend who was on leave!

For week 9 there are two bonus lessons - I've only done one so far - flowers of gratitude with Tamara Laporte. This was based on some of Tam's sketchbook pages, working with a limited range of materials eg that you might take on holiday
.

I worked with a handful of markers - scribbling onto a plastic palette and then picking up the colour with a wet brush and painting it onto the paper. I did use some watercolour at the end for the strong colour of the hair and parts of the background. It was interesting to see what could be done with basic materials like kids quality markers.

Often I will make the excuse that I don't have time to get all my paints out... it was lovely to get a peep into another artists journals and to be reminded that you don't need a whole studio of gear to make an artwork.

Lifebook week 6 - Dreamboard

Here's my week 6 piece for Lifebook. It's supposed to be a self portrait, and is painted over a photocopy of a photo of me, but it has so many layers it's not me anymore.

The collage elements are to represent dreams or wishes. I included gardening/ growing veggies, the bunting is like the flags I make for craft fairs and represents creativity. The girl with the bike is about exercise and spending time outdoors, also freedom and maybe I will get my bike fixed and go for a ride! The pink cushion is about having a comfy home, and is a bit of a long shot as my house is always in chaos, I'm always saying I'll declutter, but it's easier said than done!

The composition is a bit of a muddle with all those collage elements, so I didn't worry about pushing it to a 'finished' state. This one was more about ideas for me.

I love the Mark Twain quote I recently came across and included - Worrying is like paying a debt you don't owe.

I'm trying to keep that in mind through the job hunting process... I've decided that sending off applications and getting knock backs is like chipping away at a sculpture, getting rid of the things that aren't right, to uncover the perfect role (hopefully!)

Here's a sneak peek at a painting for the group show I'm part of in April..... a vagabond!!

Lifebook 2017 - week 5 - abstract

This weeks lesson was a many layered abstract with Wendy Brightbill. Mine has watercolours, acrylics and coloured pencils. I missed out the layers of inks and gel pens because I don't have them.

I don't often work in abstract - the figure and moments from my life are really at the heart of what makes me paint... so it was hard not to turn these shapes into leaves, flowers, etc! I'm not sure if it works as a whole composition, but there are details that I love, and it was a lot of fun to do. I'd love to get this kind of  richness of layering into my normal painting.

I'm surprised how much I'm enjoying working on paper (instead of canvas). I'm using a heavyweight cartridge paper 220gsm, it's surprisingly sturdy - it buckles a bit with very wet watercolour but seems to flatten out once it's dry. Once you start adding layers of gesso, collage, acrylics, etc, it becomes leather tough.

I have just added these 3 little still life paintings to my etsy shop. They are tiny 4x4 inch canvases I did last year. Have a great Sunday.

Dancing girls - a concertina book in progress

My last few posts have been about lifebook 2017, but I'm also trying to get some work done for a group exhibition I'll be taking part in in April.

Here is one of my works in progress, which will hopefully become a small concertina book

The first two pages finished.

Two more girls in progress.

Some backgrounds.

When I  started out I was thinking of those paper dolls you cut out of folded paper and they open out like a chain all holding hands. I was also thinking about paper dolls with paper outfits that we played with as kids. Once the pages are done I still have to work out what will go on the back and how to make the covers, so there's still a way to go!!

I took a break from lifebook this week as the lesson didn't appeal to me, each leson is separate so you can do as many or few as you like - it's nice not to feel that pressure to do it all.

Lifebook week 3 - self portrait

This weeks lesson with Misty Mawn, called the person I know best, was a self portrait in acrylics. It was a real challenge on many levels. The first step was to do a pencil sketch from a photo.

Then to do a version in acrylics using a limited palette of red, yellow, blue, white and brown - it was tricky mixing the skin tones, I usually use yelow ochre in mine, and the turned out a bit hot.

The third step was to work back into it experimentally, in bold colour, in a sense to remake yourself.

So one of the challenges of the lesson was vulnerability - to be face to face with yourself, the lines and imperfect features, and then to post that to the facebook group - I think for many of us it took a bit of courage. The other challenge was to destroy what you've made - to take that third step and work back into a finished painting, to deal with that fear of ruining it so that you can get to something (hopefully) better, richer, more interesting.

Henri Matisse The Green Line 1905

The remaking of my painting is loosely based on the Matisse portrait 'The Green Line' - though my colours are not as wild as his!!  I do love how the original self portrait isn't completely lost, and comes through as underpainting in places. I wouldn't have got to this result without the inspiration of seeing other people's portraits online which inspired me to just jump in and have a go.

I'm looking forward to what next week brings.

Life book week 2 - cards and hummingbirds

Just a quick hello to show you my week 2 pieces for Lifebook. There were 2x bonus lessons this week, so they were relatively quick and easy to do with just one video to watch for each.

The first was affirmation cards - I have only made 4 so far, other people have made whole decks of 52 !! It's a great way to experiment with materials and then turn it into something, so I'm really hoping to get back to this and make more when I have time!

The second lesson was a hummingbird, the tail and wing feathers are collaged on and there are affirmations written on the back of the feathers (not visible).

This weeks lesson has just arrived so I'll be settling in to watch some videos this evening!

Hello 2017, hello lifebook

2017 has got off to a creative start! The first Lifebook 2017 lessons arrived on the 1st - a beautiful guided meditation, a warm up lesson, and a full lesson. The pieces are about setting your intention for the year, the negative things you want to leave behind and positive things you want to carry forward with you.

The main lesson was 5x 40 minute videos, one of the big challenges for me will be to slow down and allow myself the time to watch and then do the artwork. This week I've been on holiday from work, so I  watched a video a day and worked on the piece each day, but I wonder how I'll sqeeze it all in once the kids are back at school and all the normal routines kick in....

There is a bit of me that feels - why do I need to do this? I've been artmaking for 25 or more years, I should beable to just get on with my stuff. But I've been very uninspired in 2016 to the point where art was one more chore I should do... So it's wonderful to feel inspired about art making, to be learning new techniques and approaches. I want to feel whole- hearted about doing the course and see where it takes me.

2017 is shaping up to be a year of change, there has been restructuring at work and I will be made redundant at the end of January. And my oldest son has been working and saving hard for a year now, and is planning to move down south in a couple of months time.

Lifebook may well be a lifeboat for me through these changes!!!

One of the blogs that inspired me to join Lifebook was Inky Dinky Doodle - do follow the link to see her post about her week one artworks.

Happy New Year 😊