Back from a looong break!

 It's been a very long time between posts, mainly because I stopped making art for a big chunk of the year...from May to October really. 

When the pandemic arrived and exhibitions and craft fairs stopped, there was little motivation to make work, and then I discovered that I liked the peace in my mind without that critical voice that always questions whether my art is any good, whether there is any point in doing this. 

So I enjoyed my time gardening, I got good at growing basil from seed! And I focused on my twins in their final year of school, driving them here and there, being around to talk to and make snacks!!

We're very lucky in Darwin, we've had very few cases of coronavirus, we had a brief, lockdown in April/May after that life gradually returned to fairly normal except for restrictions on travel. So the thing that got me started again art making was the xmas craft fair. I decided in October to take part, and then had 6 weeks of madly getting prepared! The craft fair was at the end of November, here's the paintings I took along.

Since then I've set aside some time on Sunday mornings to paint. I hope I can stick with it and enjoy it without getting into that critical headspace again. I've also treated myself to the online art course Lifebook 2021 to keep me playing and trying new things. If you're curious about lifebook there are some taster sessions which I think have been reopened to try for a week, go to visit willowing.org to find out more.

Sending my best wishes to you, I'm sorry if you've had a hard year and I hope 2021 will be better.

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.

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....

Ebb and flow of art

I think I've mentioned a couple of posts ago, that I haven't been feeling like making art for the last few months. I'm still doing little stuff, making cards and jotting things in sketchbooks, but have no enthusiasm to get paint on canvas...no big ideas!!

I'm trying not to stress out about it too much. I have a great quote in my journal for times like these.
I've quit and started again and again and I now know that starting is not better than quitting - it's just different. It's a circular dance of quitting and starting over and over again. - by Sark from her book Making your creative dreams real.
That's in my journal from 2009, so I know I've been here before!

The downside of this is that I'm part of a group show next month - Memory Dream Myth at Tactile arts, I have a handful of little paintings that I made at the beginning of the year, and they will have to do. Luckily there are 9 of us in the exhibition and everyone else is madly creating, so more wall space for them! I'm sure it'll be a lovely exhibition.

Here are a couple of journal pages on the memory theme that never made it out of the sketchbook!

Romford Rd mid 1980s. The day I bought my first Doc Martens and walked until I had blisters!

Gotts Park rose garden, part of the park we visited often as kids, now apparently neglected and possibly to become a community veggie garden if things I've read on the internet are correct.

Now it's the dry season I'm really happy to get outside as much as possible, walking at the beach and pottering in the garden - there are a lot of wet season weeds to deal with! I'm also thinking about taking part in the ICAD challenge (an index card a day challenge) which should be small enough to be doable, and no pressure to make capital A art, just to get back in the habit of doing a little something everyday. You can find out more about ICAD on the daisy yellow blog. So with any luck I'll be back with more of that soon!

Fire works exhibition at Tactile Arts

The first members show for the year opens at Tactile Arts this evening. The theme is Fire Works - which is a great theme for glass artists and potters, whose work has been fired in the kiln! I have entered 2 little paintings that loosely fit the theme. Apparently there were heaps of entries, so not everything was squeezed in...so I'll see if both of mine are on the wall tonight.

This one was a bit of a cheat, of flame tree flowers!

This one was based on an old sketchbook drawing of a bird I saw on fireworks night. We have fireworks on 1st July for Territory Day.

more menagerie...

I've been meaning to show you the other pieces I made for the dream menagerie exhibition. Again I was inspired by the designs on my indian skirts, and made some felt camels, a palm tree and a woman (camel herder!)

I'm not skilled enough to make a 4 legged animal that stands up!! So I made them as a wall piece. Working on these kind of projects is very much 'PLAY' I don't really know what I'm doing and just start somewhere and hope for the best! I love that I get to indulge in different materials to my usual paint and lino, especially to be playing with bold colour. You can see work by some of the other artists in the exhibition over on the smallest forest blog - here and here...Nat's photos are infinitely better than mine!!

It's been a busy few weeks, I also had a stall at the craft fair at Tactile Arts 2 weeks ago. Here's a photo of some of the paintings I took along, this was in my garden when I was getting everything organised...

It was a lovely day, perfect weather, lots of visitors, lovely tea and cake!! It was great to make some sales, get good comments, and come home inspired to get to work in the studio. July is whizzing past, the kids go back to school next week, I've started on some garden paintings and hope to show you some next time.

Hope you're having a creative month :)

200th blog post and a giveaway!!!

Way back in September 2009 I nervously wrote my first blogpost (after reading the whole of blogging for dummies!). I never imagined I'd plod along at this for over 4 years, or that I'd get to 200 posts.

To celebrate I have a giveaway of a trio of my lino print cards. Just leave a comment on this post to enter, I'll pick a name out of the hat on 10th May.

I had intended to write a bit more about my blogging experience, but my son's laptop is at the repair shop and I'm lucky to get 5 minutes to check my emails this week so I'm keeping it brief!

If you're in Darwin there's plenty on this Saturday. The opening of the art of tea exhibition, combined with a morning tea fundraiser for the cancer council is on at Tactile Arts. In the afternoon - and on into the evening - is my favorite little festival, the Nightcliff Sea Breeze festival. All along my regular walking track by the sea, there will be stages, an exhibition and stalls. I'm hoping to spend some time at the dance stage before I get dragged by my family past all the music stages to find the food!!

Hope you're having a great week!

from life

So it seems that the things I'm doing in life are the things that turn up in my artwork - drinking tea...

flags/hangings in progress

pottering in the garden, or bringing pots in from the garden to draw...

walking...

this tiny one inspired by Alison's umbrella from 48 walks

Cups of tea turns out to be a good thing!! as the first members show of the year at Tactile Arts is themed 'the art of tea' and will coincide with the Cancer Council's Biggest Morning Tea fundraiser - more info on this closer to the time April I think!

The next exhibition that I need to get working on has an animal theme, so I need to start paying attention to animals...dogs down at the beach, horses in the paddock near the creek, my own cat like a tiger in our jungly garden, and of course birds everywhere. Perhaps to choose my walks with that subject in mind, perhaps to get my sketchbook out more often.

Hope you're having a great week, best wishes!!

Craft fair tomorrow!!

Just a quick reminder for those in Darwin, that it's the Dragonfly craft fair tomorrow 10 til 3 down at the Museum grounds at Tactile Arts.

Here's a sneak peek at the happiness flags I've been making over the last month or so. I will try to remember my camera tomorrow and take some shots....

I hope you're having a great weekend wherever you are!

Using up the stash again

Yesterday I got out my folder of papers and my tray of foam prints and had a play!!

 Those folders of card making stuff are like the magic porridge pot!!! they never seem to be used up. I guess I'm always adding things like wrapping paper or japanese papers I can't resist, along with my new prints. All there, waiting to be put together in the right combination - it's lovely when a little piece that's been waiting for years finds its place on a card!

Here's my third piece for the çurrent' exhibition, which opened last week at Tactile arts. The members shows are always an interesting mix. There are some lovely sculptural pieces, and jewelry using electrical components!

Today I went on a gallery hop around Darwin (to catch up on a bunch of exhibitions where I've missed the openings). The one that blew me away was Wendy Sharpe at Muk Muk Gallery - she's a Sydney artist so we're pretty lucky to see her stuff. Just wonderful exuberant use of paint!!

I have also been doing a bit of blog hopping, I loved this thought at daisy yellow blog - to think that there are six months of the year ahead to achieve something!! (instead of worrying that half the year is over).
I hope you're having a great weekend!!

Friday painting, and a little rave on drawing

Here's a peek at the verandah table on Friday morning with a painting in progress. I have lots of books and sketchbooks open to get my visual juice flowing! (Matisse and Gauguin keeping me company this week) Notice our ginger cat hanging out with me, he showed up in this week's painting too!

The next members show at Tactile Arts has the them of çurrent'. I wanted to do a still life with lamp inspired by Picasso's amazing lino-cut...then I got caught up with the idea of a lava lamp.

A quick charcoal sketch to think about composition.

The painting in progress.

And finished I think! It's very grey!!! and I think the composition is odd with that strong line cutting through the middle dividing what's on the table and the cat under it.

Here's something from my notebook about drawing -
Last night I did a couple of little drawings, but nothing good. Everything doesn't have to be finished and perfect and ready to photograph and put on flickr (!) There can be drawings that are ugly or a dead end, drawings that are feeling a way towards an idea but not necessarily there yet, drawings that tell me I need to do more drawing!! There are drawings that are a careful study of something real and drawings that are an open-ended digging to unearth who knows what! Drawings which are just play. What I know is I need to do more of all of these...

If you're in Darwin don't miss the exhibition Évery Picture Tells A Story' by Sandra Kendall at Tactile Arts. It brings together all her illustration work (for 5 children's books I think) a really beautiful and impressive collection.

I've been pottering in the garden now, it's the cool dry season, hope to show you some photos of that next time.