Experimental days

Time to take a look at my bold, experimental stage of art. By experimental, I mean a combination of textures as well as subject matter. This period mainly focused on the decade commencing around 1999 and up. I will go through each picture one by one, and they aren't in any particular order.

The above picture is currently hanging in a creche at C3 Kingscliff. I went through a stage of wanting to create design based fantasy works. This scene was pieced together using birds I love, and it wasn't until someone pointed it out, all the birds are daylight seekers yet I have painted a moonlit scene. That wasn't done consciously. I just loved the idea of having a lush garden with a waterfall on a moonlit lake, butterflies and birds. 

I can't remember the artist's name, but around the time of this painting, I had an unusually beautiful calendar of works with animals, birds, rainbow rocks and stunning scenery. I absolutely loved the work, both detailed yet also a bit naive, and for a while, created from this as inspiration.

Tree of Life: This work was also a direct result of my inspiration from the above mentioned artist whose name currently escapes me! A friend had given me a large framed oil painting of a rather drab pride of lions at a waterhole scene. Not wanting to waste, I applied nail polish remover to the picture, grabbed a kitchen scourer, and scrubbed like crazy. This worked well, and after a few attempts, I got most of the oil painting off.

The next stage was to turn the painting upside down, and commence the repaint. Using acrylics, this is the result. My work hung briefly at The Sheoak Shak before becoming part of Carol Comerford's private collection.

I had never painted ocean scenes before, and this was a lucky attempt. I painted the sand in watery acrylic, washed over it with the turquoise blue, then tilted the canvas to blend the colours. It worked well, so I added a hint of detail of the foam, darkened the sky, highlighted the clouds and placed palm leaves. This work sold for $250 to a private collector. The image was also used as a greeting card for Christian City Church at Kingscliff.

This is a copy from a wildlife series. I used pastels for the background leaves and  glitter T-Shirt paint to highlight the dragonfly wings and body. 

This is another one of my attempts at design and texture. I love lilies, and colour. To highlight this petals, I again used glitter T-Shirt paint.

This was a commissioned work. I wasn't entirely sure of my brief, except that my client absolutely loves Australian native birds and flowers. I really wasn't entirely convinced on my background colour, but my client was over the moon with the result- yay! This sold for $250.

This work is called Reflecting. This artwork was from my 'soul' period where I painted healing works that expressed deep emotion due to a relationship breakdown and major life change. 

The background is blue, symbolising deep emotion and sadness. The woman is looking out, not making eye contact with the viewer. The roses represent different friendships; some are in full bloom, some are just starting, some are dying, and some lay faded and out of sight. The reality is though, this is all  too much, and her soul just wants to be free.

This work is still part of my private collection.

The Only Way To Live: This is based on a self portrait I had to do to get into a design course at Kingscliff Tafe, and is an acrylic and mixed media  artwork. This picture literally described how I felt: It's a brand new day and I'm fearless, confident and leaping into a bright new future. 

This is now in a private collection.

                                   

I have chosen to respect the journalist who wrote this piece by covering their name as I don't like the way the article is written- it's very disjointed and a difficult read. However, it does serve to illustrate my involvement with supporting the community and not hiding from my past. I prefer to let my past  be a driving force in my creativity today.

The painting I am holding is called Freedom. It is now in a private collection, purchased by a friend for her daughter. The painting I did submit to the art show was one of my first soul paintings. Imagine a sun-baked desert background. In this background, I kneel naked on the parched earth, holding my heart to heaven, and a dove of peace to my chest in its place. My eyes are closed and tears are falling, and where they fall, new life is growing...greenery that is attracting birds and life. 

This picture sold at auction at the event.

I hope you have enjoyed looking through my experimental works. Until next time :)

Candy Land stage prop, part 2

Now, to get back to business and show you the final process of this massive project. This section will be a commentary beneath each picture to give you an idea of each stage.

Detail of the fairy floss tree. I liked it but felt it needed a little something more.

So I painted and cut out individual love hearts. I also added an extra section of 'bush' to extend the prop. 

No Candy Land would be complete without candy-canes!

The lollipop flowers were extremely fiddly & time consuming to paint, and were painted directly onto the background, as apposed to the candy-canes which were cut out and stuck on. The flowers weren't as bold as I'd hoped, but they added to the overall image. 

The white daisies were left-overs from a mural project. Details of that to follow in another post later on. 

I should mention that before adding the candy canes, I had to turn the whole prop face down and glue each section together with off cuts and liquid nails. At this stage, it hadn't been sealed, so the process was harder than I expected. I decided next time, it would be better if I cut, glued, and propped the set design up before painting.

To stand the prop and still keep it lightweight, simple garden stakes were used. My fiance assisted by made basic frames for me (nailing isn't my strongest skill) and I glued them to the backing with liquid nails.  

Success! A freestanding, lightweight prop section :) This piece, due to its size, was designed to be put together on stage. The piece on the ground has a protruding candy cane, designed to overlap and help join the pieces.

At last, one half of the stage prop sealed and completed. To get to this point, weeks had passed. 

Work starting on the opposite single piece now. I decided go with cutting, gluing sections together and attaching the stands first after challenges with the first sections. Here, everything heavy and on hand was used to weigh the wood down to help it stick as it was a bit warped.

Now that this piece was up, I had a blank canvas. But here lies the problem. An upright surface with runny paint (I used Dulux Design Silk), and with only a basic frame as a backing, made painting on it a nightmare- it wobbled and it dripped. A lot. After all this, I realised that I was on the right track, but should have gone with just cutting the shape, gluing it but still painting it on the floor.

The framework was secure enough that each piece didn't require a huge amount. This made it very light, and very flexible.

Some dripping present, but thankfully, the green would cover that.

A laborious effort, but getting there. Never again painting lollipop flowers on an upright flimsy surface!

A garage filled with Candy Land :)

Now, to get it to the stage! I won't go into that, as it's a whole other story. Rest assured, I learnt what not to do, and how to do things better, by completing this project. So, in effect, it was a complete success.

The stage was huge, and considering my limitations, I was pleased with the outcome and what it added to the night.

I hope that keeps you satisfied for now :)

Candy Land stage prop, part 1

Back again, much sooner than usual :)

Today, before I get into my experimental work, I want to show a recent large project I did for KPA, Kingscliff Performing Arts (check out their website at www.kingscliffperformingarts.com.au), for their end of year performance last December, 2012.

KPA Principal, Kristy Godfrey, asked me if I could create a backdrop for the junior performance, with the theme being Candy Land. The previous year, I had created Cinderalla's coach, which consisted of light weight 'pumpkin' over a more solid, wooden 'magic coach'. Though this worked well, this year, the challenge was to create something lightweight and easily transportable.

First things first- I needed to know what she wanted. After sitting down with Kristy and hearing her ideas, I got to drawing up some rough sketches. Here are some of the early ones.

After showing these to Kristy, she explained how she had imagined fairy floss trees, so, I went back to the drawing board. The key here is to listen, constantly keep in communication and adapt to what the person wants. I find this stage the hardest yet most exciting part of the project, other than completion of course :) 

This is what I next came up with...

This simplified sketch was definitely on the right track. Kristy loved the idea of the fairy floss trees and now that I knew that, it helped me come up with the final design to work from. 

I decided to simplify the design. Afterall, it had to be seen clearly from a distance, and, to be honest, painting giant swirl lollipops did seem a tad too challenging!

With the design set, the next challenge was to enlarge an A3 design onto my backing. Did I have any idea of what I was doing? Honestly, no. But I learn by doing. 

The material I chose is corflute, pictured above from Bunnings. Last year, I had used it as the removable pumpkin for the Cinderella coach, so I knew it was easy to paint on. However, I wasn't sure how structurally strong it would be as a stage prop. However, that was a risk I had to take considering the budget.

I decided the best option would be to place the sheets on my garage floor (the largest space I have) and start enlarging my base design onto it. I went approximately 1.8 metres high and several metres wide. This was a big project! Maneuvering around it was also very challenging, but I had to work with what I had, and I was determined to make it work.

The above picture illustrates the space challenge I faced. Another issue was the fact that as corflute had to be placed side by side before joining it, I needed to be careful with lining up my sheets whilst painting. To further add to the struggle was mixing the right shade, and amount, of paint. 

After painting the base coat and being happy with the colour, I cut around the design. That was not as easy as it sounds. The corflute is ribbed and was difficult to maneuver a blade around some shapes, causing some mis-alignments. I had to get rid of the perfectionist here- who really would see that from a seat?! I experimented on the fairy floss trees too. I initially swirled the paint around during the first application. I liked the effect, but it wasn't strong enough to be seen at a distance, so I added more swirls in a lighter shade. 

This process wasn't a lengthy one to actually paint- the surface is smooth and  the paint glides on- just the drying time takes a while. But now that I had committed to painting on the floor, I realised that in itself had limits, as well as being a tiny bit taxing on the body, especially bending over to reach sections. Surprisingly, the corflute is pretty strong and could take my weight to reach difficult sections. However, the paint does need sealing and can rip or peel, as I discovered when cutting around shapes. In hindsight, next time I would cut the shape before painting.

I will leave you there for now. Part 2 coming soon!

Again, thanks for reading :)

The Early Days cont.....

Here at last are some more pictures to complete the early days. Though not an exhaustive list, this should give you a very good idea of where I started in my teens and how I have developed.

In the early days, I discovered I was a great copy artist. I found sketching easy and mainly stuck to black & white drawings, as pictured in this Cobb & Co Coach. I was fascinated with the Australian bush as a teen, probably as a result of travelling through so much of it as a child. When I saw this coach, I had to draw it!

This sort of drawing would take me several hours to a day to draw for an A3 size picture. The one shown is not the original drawing- it's a far inferior one to the original copy I did from a small picture out of the Women's Weekly, Australian Bush, Then & Now. I was 19 when I first attempted this and it took several hours to complete. But poor storage and a lot of moving ruined my first attempt. Still, I was happy with how this turned out, using very basic lead pencils. 

Though I heavily focused on black & white drawings, I did want to learn how to master mediums. Above is a horse head I did at age 16 in around 15 minutes or so with a cheap packet of water colour paints I had just purchased. I haven't touched up the missing section of the horse- it's a scar from many years of travelling with me!

Another experiment, this time with ink and a brush. My mother gave me a sketch book with heads and figures to encourage my creativity, and I remember attempting this one as I loved the way the light hit her face. As with the horse head, this work was created very quickly, and also bears scars from poor storage :)

People who knew me knew I was horse mad as a child & teen, so would often give me horse themed cards. I copied this one off a birthday card using the only available things at hand: a black felt tip pen, white liquid paper and a HB pencil. Working with felt tip pen is a great way to become a disciplined drawer- it's very unforgiving! I think that's where the liquid paper came in!

Though I got good at copying, I did feel limited and bored with my art. I wanted to create meaningful pictures and give a little more depth to my drawings and not just have heads or objects 'floating' on a page. In my early twenties, as a mother, I had found a subject matter that inspired me!

Top is the original drawing, and above is the restored picture ready for the charity auction. 

On a holiday with my mum and two daughters to Coochiemudlo Island off Brisbane, I snapped my youngest digging in the sand. I loved the picture so much, I had to recreate it. This was really the first time I can remember attempting distance in a picture. I used watercolour pencils as I loved the ability to draw and wash over certain sections for effect. 

I kept this picture for years before restoring it recently, and donating it to a charity, Wrapped in Angels, for auction last year, where it sold, framed, for around $120.

The picture below was another favourite captured memory: my two babies at Broom's Head, NSW. I loved this scene so much, and it was a bold attempt for me to recreate such depth and texture with watercolour pencils. It is, however, incomplete, but I was thrilled with the outcome none the less. 

The original below is what I used as my guide. Though I didn't succeed in being exact, I was happy with the outcome. I was challenged by the water to the left and the bottom right corner. Still, I was improving, and that's all that matters :)

There it is, a very condensed history of my art. More to follow- we're getting close to recent projects. I aim to show you my experimental art soon, and where that has lead me :)

Until next post, thanks for reading!