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.

New year, new little paintings!

I always find the end of the year a bit too hectic for my liking! In November I'm madly getting ready for the xmas craft fair, and once that's out of the way I have to think about xmas presents, putting the tree up, Kriskringles and xmas get togethers...this year I got the flu at the beginning of December and took weeks to really get over it, so xmas was pretty low key at my house (my kids are almost adults, so they didn't care as long as there was good food to eat!).

So thank goodness it's January, life goes at a slower pace now, and I can make time for some painting. I'm working on tiny 4x4 inch canvas boards, so far they are all of evening in the suburbs, based on the odd photos I take now and again - I go out to the washing line, or to water the garden at dusk, and notice the sky is doing something amazing, so I run inside to get my tablet and take a photo or 2. Most of the time the photos are not that great but they help me remember. I'm enjoying working with more reference material after previously working mostly from imagination/memory.

I hope your new year has got off to a good start. Thanks for dropping by :)

How I'm going with lifebook - April 2018

This is my 2nd year of doing the 'art course' Lifebook, I wasn't sure whether to take it again as last year I pretty much dropped out of the second half of the year. The thing that swayed me was lifelong access to the lessons, so even if I don't complete things through the year I can go back anytime and watch the videos and have a go.

One thing I'm doing differently this year is I'm not visiting the facebook group or posting my work to it - though I am posting on instagram. So I'm less influenced by the work other lifebookers are doing, and I'm not comparing my work to theirs. This year I'm much more on my own journey. Sometimes I follow the instructions closely. Sometimes I watch the first video and then go off on my own tangent and never watch the end of the lessson!! What matters to me is that I'm doing some art and trying new approaches.

I'm lagging behind, I've just started my week 12 piece, when the week 16 lesson is now available, and there are lots of lessons I've missed, some because they needed equipment I don't have- a gelliplate, or encaustic wax materials - some because another lesson grabbed my attention more. Some weeks there are 2 lessons. So as the year unfolds there's a real smorgasbord to choose from, you'd have to be very dedicated to do them all!!

The week 6 lesson was one where I went my own way - A heart full of happy with Tamara Laporte- was a whimsical girl in w/c and markers. The face was in 3/4 pose and I have a photo of my mum in that pose on my desk, so I used that as a reference for my piece, and it turned out very different in style and feeling to the lesson. Sometimes I think I'm just contrary, and that if the lesson had been to work from a photo of a family member I'd have decided to do something completely different.

The week 9 lesson - Friends are the flowers in life's garden with Effy Wild- was one that I followed closely except I left out the lettering.

Week 10 was a lovely lesson with (Aussie!) Laura Horn, laying down a loose background and then drawing in natural elements in ink using a satay stick. I loved the unexpected expressive mark making that reults from drawing with a stick, and I've been inspired to make some cards and do some sketchbook work based on this lesson...it's exciting to feel inspired!!!

The week 11 lesson was Grateful Heart with Annie Hamman. Annie was probably my favourite teacher from last year, and this was another lovely lesson. It's a very simple composition, but the texture and layering bring such richness to the piece. Her philosophy is to allow the piece to unfold, that once you start intuition and the expression of feelings will change the direction the work goes in. As she says - let's be brave and go ahead.

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.

September paintings

I'm glad to say I seem to have got back into the routine of painting on Friday mornings. I felt that I'd come to a bit of a dead end with the work I had been doing - working from memory and the imagination had become stale, repeating the same motifs. So I have gone back to basics working from life, some of the pot plants from my garden. I don't think this is the end of my old way of working but hopefully I  will go back to it revitalised when I do.

These are all acrylics on canvas 5x7 inch except for the little square one which is 4x4 inch.

We have a big thunderstorm coming over so I'll post this now incase we lose power or internet !!

August paintings

So better late than never, here's a look at what I've been doing in the studio in August.

I wanted to try to keep up the momentum of the ICAD challenge, but also to change things up a bit. So I decided to work on some index card dividers using acrylics, and trying to work in a non-representational way playing with colour and mark making. I certainly haven't done one a day, but have worked on 2 or 3 at a time, once or twice a week, often going back over them with more layers (painting over things I don't like). I have maybe a dozen done. It has been great to get the paints out and play even if I'm not thrilled with the results!

Once there's paint on the palette I hate to waste it, so I'll base coat some journal pages, or get a little canvas out and start painting...

These little 4x4 inch canvas boards are both of begonia plants I have in pots in the garden - could be an excuse to go shopping for some new plants if I'll get some paintings out of them!!!

This one (actually painted in September not August) is of an agave baby, I've potted up a few that were sprouting from two big ones we have in the front yard. So gardening and painting are going hand in hand which makes me happy!!

And a bonus, 2 haiku after a long, long drought of no poetry.

High tide is splashing
the sea wall, seagulls perch on
the tips of mangroves.


My yoga mat spread
on the verandah, geese cross
the sky honking.

 Best wishes, and thanks for dropping by my blog, have a great September.

Tomatoes, walking shoes, and using up the scraps

I can't believe it's a month since I posted, and yet I've very little to show artwise, so here's some of the other stuff that's going on!

Here are my tomato plants. My partner had to make a cage to go round them because the possum ate the first 2 ripe tomatoes and probably would've eaten the lot. They have nearly all split their skins - I don't know why that happens - they don't look like perfect shop tomatoes, but they taste good!!

On my walks I've started pushing myself to walk a bit further, an extra lap of the park (or a sidetrack past the horses!), or a little further along the foreshore. I'm partly inspired by my Mum who's in her late 70's and walks for miles. And partly because I seem to be putting on weight!! I don't know if that's a result of sitting in front of the computer all day at work, or to do with turning 50 and my metabolism slowing down. I even bought myself some new walking shoes...

It's been a gorgeous dry season, lovely cool morning walks, I hope I can keep it up when the humidity sets in.

I did start 2 little paintings but then painted over them - I guess I'm a bit discouraged but trying not to worry about it!!! I always think when I have no deadlines I'll be able to get some real work done, but when it comes to the crunch I think I need those deadlines - exhibitions and craft fairs to get me moving and producing. After my painting sessions I've used up the leftover paint on my palette on some off-cuts of paper. Just playing with colour and patterns. I hope to use these for cardmaking/collage.

August is flying, we've completely missed the Darwin festival this year... I hope your month is going well!!

Hello May!

Better late than never, here is the 2nd painting I did for the Don Whyte 'Offcuts"show - which I blogged about last time.

So April flew past and May is going the same way. I'm working towards a group show that opens on the 5th June, I'll keep the finished work under wraps for now, but here are some of my drawings working out ideas.

As always I've been finding it hard to knuckle down and get things finished, so I'm hoping a few things will come together at the last minute!!

The dry season is here with beautiful cool nights - I planted some tomato seedlings about a month ago and they're on the verge of flowering...

My oldest son is in year 12 at school, I feel him flexing his wings, about to launch into adulthood, imagining possibilities beyond 'boring Darwin'. (Wherever you grew up seems boring I suppose!) During poetry month I got a Sharon Olds poem "High School Senior" in my inbox, which expresses beautifully some of what I'm feeling.

I've been reading, reading, reading. Favorite reads of the year so far are -
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell - (just finished last night and loved it)
Also recommended -
We are all completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
I'd love to hear what you've been reading.

This Sunday I'll be at the waterfront craft fair, do drop by and say hello.

I hope you've had a wonderful long weekend!

Here are a few shots from my studio - a bench on the veranda - there's a still life painting in progress. I've used cut out paper shapes of the plant pot and vase to play around with the composition. It's kind of an imaginary still life, but I did bring a plant in from the garden and a vase from the kitchen for reference.

The painting is for the Don Whyte Framing offcuts show. It's an annual fundraising exhibition which I try to get involved with -tho I blew it last year! If you're in Darwin it opens next Saturday and is always a buying frenzy!! There's a great write up about it here.

Here's a shot of the painting in progress, and the finished work, below.

Fear of mucking up

Last weekend I did a bit of playful painting on two 5x7 inch canvases. They already had the beginnings of paintings on them that I didn't like, so I worked over the top. I like how the previous layers still come through to a certain extent, adding interest to the paint surface.

The last version of what was on them sat there for a week or two because I didn't like them and decided not to go on with them. Ironically these have sat for a week untouched because I like them too much. I'm scared to work into them and muck them up!!

I've done a foam print version of each, in the hope that it will let me be more playful when I get back to the canvas with paint. I have the idea down on paper now in the foam print, and can do as many different version s as I like working over the prints. It means I don't have to be so tied to that idea when I start painting, I can let it evolve the way it wants to.

I'd love to hear any tips or tricks you use to get around that fear.

little gouaches

After I finished the acrylic paintings for the garden exhibition, I dug out my gouache paints with the idea of doing regular little post card sized paintings... of course I've only done about half a dozen before other projects have intervened, but I hope to get back to these in the christmas holidays.

this one done in the nick of time for the garden exhibition!

this one inspired a lino cut I'll show you next time.

Coming up next month is the Tactile Arts members show - on the theme of Cyclone Tracy, and the Christmas Craft Fair down at the waterfront, not to mention a customer request I'm working on, so I'm very busy in the studio at the moment!

pain and pleasure of painting

There hasn't been much evidence of painting on my blog this year, and I guess that's because I haven't been doing much! I've been really dissatisfied with most of the paintings I've started, and ended up discarding them or painting over them. It got to the point where I was avoiding the studio, going for a walk or baking muffins instead!!

I had a chat about all this with a friend who was visiting Darwin last month. Marita is an amazing painter, her work is exuberant, colouful, wild, playful....and she's prolific!! Her advice was to stop worrying about the end result, to set aside some time each week to paint for the fun of it, just to see what happens, not to censor it before it's started, to play!...

I've tried to hold onto this idea of play as I've started these garden paintings over the last month. I'm still dissatisfied, they fall a long way short of what's in my head! But at least I have something to show you, and a beginning to work on, or develop further in the next painting... and something to show in an exhibition coming up at the end of the month.

These are small 6x6 inch canvases, inspired by things I glimpse in gardens on my walks around the suburbs!
Best wishes to blogland, xxx

The sad tale of last Monday's painting!

It started off as a tiny sketch

Then I sketched out the idea on canvas

The more I worked on it the worse it got!

I waited to show my daughter when she got home from school - she's 11 and is my honest critic! - then I painted it out, and now it's a blank canvas but with history...ready to start again.

Start now!

I think my motto this year should be 'don't panic'.
It's taking a while to get used to my new job, and some days I'd like to run back to the old one where I felt comfortable (after 19 years!). I've also been beating myself up about not getting any painting done with my extra day at home - although I know the school hols always throws a spanner in the works - the last two Mondays I've got all the gear out, paints and canvases, sketch books and art books for inspiration...and then sat there for half an hour or more before I could overcome the inertia, the fear and put paint to canvas. So here they are, small ones, but at least a start!!