Experimenting Part 1.

I mentioned recently that I had developed the germ of an idea to incorporate painting and embroidery.  Not five minutes after posting that thought on my blog I discovered Fi at Marmalade Rose had beaten me to it.  This lead to a Google search and the realization that my thought wasn't that original after all....  If you take the time to look at Fi's blog I encourage you to check out more than the post I've linked you to, she is awesomely talented and marvelous.  Not to mention living in one of my favourite places in the world.

Anyway, I decided to just get on with it and start experimenting with my idea.  My initial intention was to do a portrait but somehow that morphed into a rooster. No idea how, the weird and wonderful ways of my mind there...

I began by taping a bit of plain cotton quilters fabric to a piece of scrap cardboard.

I then loosely drew my image onto the fabric with a mechanical pencil. No reason for that choice other than the pencil was near to hand so I used it.

I wet parts of the background with a damp brush and discovered a couple of things.  Firstly the fabric resisted the water (perhaps I need to wash it first). Then I added more water and the fabric stuck to the black cardboard making it difficult to see where I was applying colour. I also think a sturdier fabric would be easier to use. Perhaps calico or maybe I could iron some interfacing to the back of this fabric for future use.

  I used cheapo tube watercolours and tried to get a wash type effect in the background.

I continued to splotch colours on and now I look at it on the computer I realise I have somehow ended up with blue feathers on the chest.... oh well.  I left finer details like the eye, beak detail for the later stages.

 I did experience some bleeding where the colour spread out and started to look smudged and out of shape, particularly around the face.  So I quickly pulled it off the cardboard and hung it out to dry. 

Now I need to work out what to do as my next  step.....I have knit and natter with my sister tomorrow so will take some embroidery floss, needle and hoop and see if I am flumoxed or inspired. 

Today's Ta Da!

Another piece of intuitive art completed.  I still don't know what I am doing with these but they are becoming increasingly appealing and fun to me.  I was tired and didn't feel like painting realistically so I splotched around with this instead.  We have Open Studios coming up from April 25th to 27th so I really need to be making some new art for visitors to see.  It's been a fun afternoon.

Now I just need to think up a name for it......Any ideas?

Acrylic on 76cm x 76cm canvas.

Happy 10th Birthday....

To our dear sweet girl Jessica who has enriched our lives beyond anything we could have imagined.  Wherever I am, she is.  Close by, catching the afternoon light in the studio as I sit and draw. 

 Pool loving, mango thieving (80 this year - she has a midden in the orchard), sock eating, ball loving, cancer sniffing, care taking, mail collecting, compost eating sweetheart.

 

 Beautiful, beautiful girl, you are a delight.

Back from the framers

I finally decided to put my Kakadu series of intuitive paintings to the framers.  I had done them as an experiment and for 'fun' and didn't really take them seriously.  Upon seeing them framed I think I have changed my mind....

Thank you to my sister Susan for taking the photos during our afternoon out at the park.

Fires

We've had a few fires around of late.  No houses lost luckily although it was a very close call for the farm house just up the road from us recently.  Well done to the firies and rural firies who worked to get things under control.

This is the same fire from different viewing points.  It went up and over Mt Tibrogargan or Tibro as we call it locally.

Flora Bowley's e-course

As some of you may recall, I mentioned late last year that I had enrolled in Flora Bowley's e-course.   Our life then went a bit 'high needs' and stressful and I never shared my journey with you.  Flora teaches intuitive painting and her course is very accessible to EVERYONE and is really quite amazing.  This style of painting is unlike anything I've ever done but I have found it is quite a joyous process.  Lots of letting go, playing and being brave.

 Here are three canvases at various stages of completion.  The canvas on the easel at left is finished and the two at right are ready for the final layers and the 'bringing together' of all that chaos!  I worked on the canvas pictured here on the floor to produce the final piece pictured below.

Once it is strung, on the wall and not a cloudy day I'll replace this with a better photograph.  I struggle to let go and trust a bit as I go through Flora's process of making these. It's just such a HUGE shift from my usual style of painting.  Here are some other examples of intuitive paintings I played with after reading Flora's book but before doing her course.  I think these are in fact my favourites.

Making tracks

Life has slowed down somewhat for me of late.  I've been nurturing myself through another flare of  health issues that set me back a bit.  Jeff took me for a walk in a new spot to give me a change of scenery and blow some cobwebs out.  We were only 10 minutes from home and it wasn't a challenging walk but I was spent by the end of it.  Loved it though.  I took my camera for you and saw the following things....

A leaf that looked like fish bones.

 New views of the mountains.  I live at the base of this mountain, hidden in the trees.

 Coonowrin Peeks through. It was hard to take photos as the area is thick with bush and quite wild. I had nose and ears switched on for wild pigs.  They are pretty prevalent around our parts and they make me very shifty.

Mama mountain, Beerwah, standing tall against the skyline (we are walking up on the range and she is still towering above us),  Not that our mountains are really mountains in the real sense. They are volcanic plugs from a mega volcano of old.

Snake track.

Kangaroo track.

I've been slowly making progress in the studio.  Spending time working on the many unfinished canvases left over from last year.  Finishing off my Flora Bowley course.  Making changes to the studio with a new storage unit and moving all of my sewing, embroidery, crochet, and knitting bits and bobs into the studio along with my paints.  All my creativity in one place.  The back burners in my brain are currently trying to work out how to incorporate all of these interests into one piece - possibly a portrait or animal portrait.  Not quite sure how to go about it at this stage so will have a play I think.  I have some artwork to show you tomorrow.