I won!

 

Last week was the Mount Eliza Art Exhibition. They ran a competition for the first time called ‘Bringing Words to Life’. The author of Nim’s Island, Wendy Orr, supplied a poem and all the artists were invited to respond to it visually. She was also one of the judges. I was thrilled when she announced my picture as the winning entry as so many of the others were really beautiful and apt. It’s the first time I’ve ever won anything.

Here’s the poem:

‘….if there’s nothing inside, it wouldn’t hurt so much: there must be someone doing the crying. I write it one last time.

I am
Peeling like an onion,
Shedding papery protection,
and superficial skin –
tearing, skinning, ripping off the layers –
the firm and curving flesh
of what onions used to be –
Peeling onions makes me cry.
Shrinking down to nothing,
my shells are disappearing
and there’s nowhere left to hide.
But under all the layers
- a tiny green shoot sprouting -
I’m growing from inside.’

By Wendy Orr

 

‘Fleeting’ for IF

 

Breezy for IF

 

Happy Blogaversary to me!

I can’t believe I let the date of my blogaversary pass unmentioned. Somewhere between doing countless school runs, trips to the gym, cricket, scouts and music classes it slipped my mind. So what should I do to to mark this auspicious occasion…… apart from challenge myself to spell words like auspicious correctly? It’s so good I had to write it twice.

Anyway,  I can’t think of anything special to do so instead there’s……more of the same! Some of the scribbles i’ve done this week and a mention of a fabulous quirky artist. I stumbled upon this wonderful website that made me laugh outloud sometime in November 2008. I immediatly emailed my sister the link because I was to struck. I didn’t know at the time that she’d already posted my Christmas present. She’d been in a book shop with my other sister and they’d agreed that I’d love this book and should be sent it for Christmas. Sisters are just fabulous aren’t they? Well, mine are better than anyones. Don’t waste any more time! Click here right now for  Little People. A Tiny Street Art Project by  Slinkachu I think my favourites are ‘They’re not pets Susan’ and ‘Crappy Christmas’. There are also a bunch of wonderful links to other artists on this site.

This week  I did this little scribbly sketch of my middle daughter sulking over her supper and fiddle about with it with photoshop. There’s other stuff in progress aswell.

 

How long does it take to cook a kangeroo?

It’s been ages since I wrote and things haven’t been very productive on the drawing front. It’s the first week back at college though, so things are warming up again.

Last night we took some overseas visitors to our favourite spot to watch kangeroos. My eldest daughter, the one who wants to be a vet and live in Africa,  took a bag with her in case she found a couple of bones. After seeing heaps of beautiful kangeroos and their cute little joeys hopping about we stumbled upon a complete skeleton. Well, it was like we’d hit the jackpot and it was all I could do to stop her from bringing the whole thing home. We compromised with the skull,  some vertibrae and lower leg bone.  So now I have the grim task of boiling these things, but how long for? The only good thing in this for me is that bones are great to draw…….and I have one very happy eight year old.

 

It’s snowing!

Isn’t this groovy? It’s 27 degrees most days here at the moment but I’m snuggled up next to the fire (virtually) and remembering real Christmas in England. My sisters told me it was snowing there yesterday and I’m envious….a bit. But at least when Christmas is done with we can go surfing.
If you have a wordpress blog this is how you can get snow.

 

Tagged!

I was tagged by Jess. This hasn’t happened to me before, so I hope I get it right. Apparently I have to share seven things about myself…scarey, and then tag seven others…less scarey. I like this idea. Jess is my only regular viewer and commenter and it’s always a joy to hear from her. So here goes!

1. I live in Melbourne, moved here four years ago and it really is the most livable city in the world. I haven’t been to all the others and I should think people are living pretty well there too, but it’s very cool here.

2. I taught English in Eritrea (another very cool place) for a year after finishing uni.

3. I chew the skin around my nails. (oh god, it’s got to get more interesting than this)

4. I love listening to Don McClain, Paul Simon, ABBA and The Carpenters because they remind me of my mother (although I don’t really need to be reminded of her because she lives just down the road) and my childhood and dancing with my wonderful sisters.

5. I had an idylic childhood in Devon.

6. I am a runner…. currently 10km every weekend

7. I drink too much coffee ( sorry, ran out of things to say and the kids need their breakfast)

Check these wonderful people out.

Krisztina

Kristin

Dudadaze

Irisz

Matt Phelan

Keszeg

The Green Telephone

 

Inspiration

We have come to end of the college year. It all happened in a mad panic of last minute assignments in the same week as the art exhibition at school which demands alot of time. The opening night was a wonderful evening. We sold alot of paintings. The feature artist, Rose Knight, did very well. I had the huge honour of selling this portrait to a man who has been a portrait artist for a long time and does really beautiful work. I was also able to have a chat with Janine Daddo who was wonderfully encouraging.

All this good feeling and encouragment should leave me full of motivation of course, but I’ve barely picked up a pencil in two weeks. Christmas is coming and I’ve done nothing towards getting that organised…….this is a line I say about a million times during Nov and Dec and it drives everyone around me nuts. SO, it’s time to get a grip and find some inspiration!

A few weeks ago we visited the McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park. This is one of the absolute jewels of the peninsula. I know I sound like a tourist board brochure, but honestly it’s beautiful. The sculpture artist Ron Muek was exhibiting. It completely blew me away. A quick google of the name will bring up images of his work. The mixed emotions it evokes range from humour and  familiarity with the figures to feeling disturbed and confused. He plays alot with scale so the figures are not accurate in that sense but they are earily realistic in every other way.  Just brilliant.

 

Portraiture

I haven’t written for ages because I had an ear operation which sent me into a dazey state for quite a while. I did some interesting drawing during the time though and it was fabulous to get back into reading. It’s just about all you can do when you can’t hold your head up. I’ve nearly finished Tim Winton’s ‘Dirt Music’ and have absolutely loved it. His writing is like poetry and puts you right into the vast, beautiful WA scenery.

Anyway, that wasn’t supposed to be the subject of this post. My Mum came back from London last week with a copy of The BP Portraiture Awards catelogue and I have been pouring over it ever since. It got me into looking at other portraiture awards, especially Australian ones, and the fascianting politics that surrounds them. A wonderful blog named ‘The Art Life‘ is wonderful reading on this subject and has some good links to different newspaper articles with varying opinions. I picked out the picture of the Archibald Prize winner this year from a magazine a while ago and put it on my offce wall. I didn’t know it’s significance, I just liked the picture. I was really surprised when I found out its significance though, and having read a bit more about it and others it was up against I’m looking at it in a different light and I’m not even sure I think much of it anymore. As a decorative piece it’s pretty and interesting but the more you look at it the more obscure it seems. As a portrait I think the subjects appear lifeless and still. The skin colour choice and the huge staring eyes remind me of an ugly doll and are comic-bookish….without the dynamic element of a comic. I suppose I just prefer to look at images that are full of life and energy.

This is titled ‘Ying-Ying’ by Jun Chen and is one of the finalists for  The Moran Portraiture Award I just love this loaded painting style. It achieves a lightness in contrasting light and shade and the subject’s features and pose but at the same time the paint is piled on and thickly daubed which gives it so much life. I just think it’s great.

Here are some of my self-portrait sketches from a week in bed with a very sore ear and round of codeine, brufen and panadol. That’s my excuse anyway. It’s been an interesting week, maybe I’ll do something with these one day.

 

Bird Sketches

 

Jump

Last week was just horrible with a big capital ‘H’. I had a car accident (no one injured, though god knows how). All three of the kids had gastro and vomitted horribly in their beds and in the car. I lost my purse and had to cancel all my cards. Then I discovered another headlice on the head of the yougest so we’ll have to go through all that nonsense again. By Friday I was losing the plot and feeling thoroughly sorry for myself. I went to college and had a project to complete. It was an illustration for a magazine cover. I thought my idea was good. It was supposed to be a young fashion mag and I thought I’d go with the sport angle but do someone street jumping with an urban background and emphesising the sport shoes. It went hopelessly badly. Here is the evidence. But then on the weekend I went for a long run in the freezing cold rain and I’ve been feeling better ever since. I don’t like to think that my art work is governed by how I feel but it seems in this case it was. Today I did the fourth one here. I still think there’s alot of room for improvement but I’ve made progrees and it’s time to move on. So far this week is going very well. The kids and I walked to school this morning which is always fabulous as it’s so beautiful watching them running through the trees and splashing in the mud.

 

‘Canned’ for IF

 

Finished

I have been working on this for too long now but finally it came together. I’ve decided that it’s best to try a watercolour painting at least three times before expecting it to start going well. The assigment was to paint three portraits of unknown people and include an indication of their profession. I handed the other two in, but this one was late. I’m glad I decided to hand it in late in order to get it right though. It’s been good practice and I’m just loving water colour at the moment.

 

Inspiring Artists

I love discovering artists by just finding images of their work by chance and because i am somehow drawn to it….as apposed to being told it is good or held in regard by others. I was looking through my new book ‘The Picture Book’ and particularly loved the work of an illustrator named Nomoco. It is beautiful and compelling in its simplicity and the kind of thing I could just stare at for hours.

I’ve also recently been looking at the work of Chris Rowe. This particular image struck me. It’s called ‘Last Conversation’ and depicts her 109 year old grandmother. I thought it was a beautiful homage to a woman she clearly held in high regard.

I found an advert for the new works of Craig Ruddy in the Art Almanac and have to admit that I didn’t know the name before looking it up. Of course I recognised one of his paintings immediatly. He won the Archibald Prize for his portrait of aboriginal actor David Gulpilil in 2004. I just love all his work because of its energy.

I was going to include some of my own work here but I just can’t after mentioning these fabulous people so I’ll start another post.

 

Rock and Roll

I have been hiding from the computer recently and I’m not sure why. The same old excuse of being busy I suppose. I was doing this last week for the kinder rock and roll dance. Then the Derinya Art Show was on last weekend and I sold another picture! It was this one. Friday night was full of celebraton and delight for us as it was the first picture to go. The whole business of getting things framed and delivered for a weekend event can make you wonder what on earth you’re doing until something like that occurs.

The weekend led to a few delightful discoveries of local artists. Jenny Gould, Carol Foster and Rose Knight are three names that immediatly spring to mind.

 

New discoveries and inspiration

I had the best birthday recently and recieved some wonderful books. My fabulous husband gave me The Picture Book which is packed with amazingly inspiring stuff. I almost launched myself into something mixed media, collage and conceptual for IF this week, but realised the week would be up before I got round to doing that. So I stuck to the same formula. It’s good to work from direct experience though I think. The kids and I had the best trip to the supermarket this week. I was proud of the way they worked as a team to trip up the elderly people of Mornington and get in the way of their trollies. Who in their right mind shops during the school holidays anyway? The best thing was that I didn’t get up tight and upset with the kids throughout the trip and the only thing that upset me was the sour faced check-out girl. Clearly she felt she didn’t need help from a three year old.

Anyway, I have gone off the subject with a bit of a rant there. Back to all the wonderful inspiration. The other book I recieved was ‘How to grow as an illustrator‘. Of course I haven’t tried to read it yet, just looked through all the pictures. And I’m really glad I did because I googled one of the featured artists and discovered a truely beautiful collection of work. Sarajo Frieden is a name I have never com across before but I can tell you I was immediatly driven to get the paint and ink out after looking at this site. My intention was to redesign my header picture but I made a mess of it. I will be revisiting this site regularly to give me a boost again. Really beautiful. Here’s an example.

 

‘Sour’ for IF

School Holidays…a time when check-out girls can remind themselves of the love they have for small children.

 

‘Punchline’ for IF

Wombat loved a good party, but his jokes were rubbish.

 

AAAAHH! Chocolate!

Can you tell what this is? No, neither can I and I drew it! We were given an assignment to draw six different forms of chocolate in six different mediums. So today I headed off to college with my little bag of yummy chocolate and made a total mess of it. I don’t know if it was the subject matter, the fact that it was small and fiddly or that I skipped lunch and kept eating the subject matter….but the afternoon was a disaster. This looks like something I’ve pulled out of my ear during a particularly bad ear infection.

I did get some really good marks back this morning for my portfolio though, and it’s Friday, and I’ve had a shedful of chocolate so I don’t care any more.

My lttle girls with feet are finished but I can’t take a pictue of them because my husband has inconsideratly gone to The Northern Territory with my camera for four days. I love them to bits which is a very unusual thing for me to feel after completing a painting so  there may be many more to come. They’re going into The Derinya Art Show along with a couple of other things. It’s a beautiful show and I’m thrilled to be a  part of it – if a bit scared.  It’s on Friday 25th to 27th July.

 

Procrastination

Procrastination is a disease. I had the opportunity to make some good progress on a college assignment this afternoon and make my life a lot easier this evening and tomorrow. But I did this instead. Those of you who know this person can assess the likeness. Don’t look too closely at the nose. I have to stop fiddling about with it now. I’ve told myself it’s finished about fifty times.