sketchbook stuff

I'm glad to say a little bit of sketchbook work is happening! I love drawing with charcoal but I'm trying to push on with adding colour too. Here's a charcoal drawing then with soft pastel added. I think I like the black and white stage better!

This was inspired by doodling flowers from a gardening book and then there was a big gap in the composition so I filled it with the cat!

I've been having a break from choir, we had a very busy first half of the year and I thought I'd take a rest and am trying to focus more on art. (Just for a couple of months, I'll be back once the current production is over in October.) I am missing singing of course and sometimes find myself singing my favourite songs from the gospel concert as I walk through the park!!

The season is changing, it's getting warmer, more humid, we've even had some showers of rain, it feels very early but I suppose it's almost October which is the real start of the build up... have a great weekend.

2 tiny paintings

Two new little paintings 4x4 inch acrylic on canvas board. Very happy to have something to show at last!!

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!!

On my walk this morning

My most favourite walk is along the seafront at Nightcliff, but another regular walk I take is to the local park down the hill from my house. This morning I remembered to take my camera, so here are a few shots of the amazing foliage!

The last few days have been freezing, it feels crazy to write it! We've had temperatures that would be considered a perfect summers day in most places around the world - up around 28 or 29 in the day and down to 16 at night, brrr!! I've been chilling out in other ways too, with the craft fair over and my exhibition packed up, I'm enjoying having no deadlines to work towards, hoping to get back to my sketchbook and interested to see where my work might meander. I hope I'll have some new things to post soon...

new cards

Just a quick hello, to show you some new cards I've been making ready for the craft fair next Sunday (at Tactile Arts next to the museum 10-3).

These are monoprints that turned out very dark and blotchy so I worked back into them with coloured pencils, and thought they turned out well (if I do say so myself!!)

It's school holidays so I'm not getting much other artwork done...the weather is beautiful...my first ripe tomato was snaffled by the local wildlife - probably a possum!

Unexpected

The surprising piece of work I made for the Tropical Delirium exhibition was a sculpture - I almost never work in 3D, but after I made a little painting of a gardener and a drawing, I really wanted to get rid of the background and just focus on her.

I'd have loved to do a woodcarving or stone carving - but I didn't have the materials, and it might have taken me 10 years to learn the skills!! - so I made her out of paper mache. I made the basic form out of rolled up newspaper pulled into shape with masking tape, and then layer after layer of newspaper and diluted pva glue, and then brown paper to give it a bit more strength. I painted it with acrylics. It was a complete experiment, and I was pretty happy with how it turned out - the finish is fairly rough, if I made another I'd pay more attention to the face, to get it smoother and easier to paint!

Here's the little painting it goes with.

Big for me.

Last Friday was the opening of the group exhibition I’m part of called ‘Lost in Tropical Delirium’. I didn’t wander too far from my favourite subjects of gardening, parks, beach and birds, my experience of life in the tropics. I challenged myself to work a bit bigger than usual.

This one I think is 60x60cm – ‘Mother and daughter reading’. I posted the sketches for this one last time. It’s not based on real life, my daughter doesn’t come walking down the beach with me (too boring), and neither of the figures looks like us. But we do both read a lot, my daughter usually reads on an I-pad, one day she told me she was reading an manga called ‘Death Note’ (a fairly dark and edgy tale), and I was reading something at the other end of the spectrum ‘The Miniaturist’ set in 17^th century Amsterdam. I guess this is the moment that sparked the painting.

The other biggish painting I did is approx. 60x80cm is called ‘The Cloud Dress’. It’s based on a little doodle in my sketchbook. The crotons in the background of the painting and the bush chooks at the front are very characteristic of Darwin gardens…

I’ll show you some of my other exhibition pieces next time.

I’m looking forward to a lovely weekend of singing. Dynes Austin is musical director of The Café of the Gate of Salvation Choir in Sydney, he’s coming to Darwin to lead a weekend of workshops which ends with a free concert on Sunday at 4.30 at Christchurch Cathedral. (workshops are open to anyone so if you’re interested contact Darwin Chorale) We’ll be singing thiskind of music – have a listen!