Artists Blog

When we lived waaaay out west on the coast of Perth, our local beach was Beaumaris. It was a tiny little pocket of sand nestled in between jutting limestone cliffs.  Every day I walked past this beach, sometimes in the morning when all was calm, or in the evening when the stiff breeze turned your cheeks bright pink with their bite. When I had to do a Tonal Analysis drawing recently, this photo provided the perfect subject.

First step was to convert the image to black and white, which really helps defines the tones (darks from the lights).

I also prepared the surface of the paper with a thick layer of gesso. This provides texture, and really gives the paper some “tooth”. Once dry, the paper feels like a canvas.

With the photos handy as reference, I lightly sketched in the basic shapes with a thick graphite stick. It’s like a lead pencil without the wood casing. Great for shading large areas. The “Rule of Thirds” was also in my mind whilst drawing (don’t have your horizon line exactly in the middle of the paper).

Once I was happy with the basic outlines, I could start laying down the tones. Some people like to start with the light tones, but I prefer the darks, as you know what the darkest dark will be, and can work backwards from there. A 2B pencil is a good choice for getting the edges sharp.

With the side of the graphite stick I could lay down the large area of the sea with a few broad strokes. The  lovely texture from the gesso was showing through the lighter tones. To prevent unnecessary smudging, I put a tissue under my right hand which keeps it clear of the paper surface.

Short sharp strokes will lay down dark lines. The graphite on gesso really shows up black. The same strokes on plain paper will just leave silvery lines that gouge out the paper. I love gesso!

The finished piece. Note you can edit out anything you don’t want – you don’t have to slavishly follow the photo. I got rid of the man, the rubbish bin and the sign.

Did I mention I love gesso? I also use it as a base for my watercolour paintings of birds.

But we’re not talking about birds today – the finger is decidely unusable still, after yesterday’s encounter. On a happier note, it’s my dad’s 90th birthday today, and I sent him about 200 photos of our new home and it’s local wildlife. We spent over an our today talking about the birds, the wallabies, the goanna and backyayd python. Not hard to see where I got my love of wildlife from.

You know how when you watch telly documentaries about wildlife, and you see the ubiquitous limping gazelle. You just know what’s going to happen next. You wish you could be there on the savannah, distracting the lion pride whilst the gazelle slips away unnoticed, to be lunch again another day.

Well, there’s a been a “limping gazelle” in my front yard each day now for about 2 weeks. It’s actually a cockatoo that can’t fly, with a massively overgrown top beak. You can almost walk right up to him before he tries to climb something, or flapping wildy, getting almost airborne before he hits a fence, tree etc. It looks like both wings have had their flight feathers clipped, so I assume he was maybe someone’s pet. I’ve fed and watered him every day, but thought I should do more (cats, dogs, pythons & lions would have no trouble nabbing him).

So with the best of intentionss, I grabbed him with a crab net, wrapped him in a towel and brought him into the bathroom to detangle him. After about 5 minutes of detangling, he got me. I’m sure you all heard me yowl. He wouldn’t let go, and with that overgrown scalpel sharp beak he went in DEEP on top and below my finger. I was thinking  ”Thank god it’s not my Painting Hand, thank god it’s not my Painting Hand” as blood oozed over the towel, the cockie, the tiles. He wasn’t letting go. I grabbed the bottom beak with the Painting Hand. I was sure the tip of my finger was going down the gullet of that bird. By this time both me & the cockie were screeching at each other, so the Man came in to see what murder was being committed.

My finger was released and yes, it was painful.Very. I was trembling. I cannot stand to see blood, let alone pouring out of a wound. The Man was all calmness and serenity. “You’ll need a tetnus for that” he said.

With a towel over the slasher cockie, we went down to the local vet to have him checked over. They heard us coming about 3 kms away – what a set of lungs that bird has! Had to cut away the crab net to avoid further damaged fingers.

Sorry the shot is out of focus, my hand was still shaking. He looks all sweetness and light, doesn’t he?

The vet has yet to have a good look at him, but the nurse said he was severely underweight (overgrown beak impedes eating as well). All his tail feathers have worn away as he’s been dragging his sorry behind everywhere, unable to fly. I suppose I’ll ring later to find out how he is.

When we got home, the others were still keeping a safe distance.

They must be thinking I’m the lion in “Free Food” human clothing.

Meanwhile, I am typing with 9 fingers. Even a Corona hasn’t taken the sting out of it.

And yay, now my nail is turning purple. Noice.

Linocut prints done in high school are responsible for a lot of impressive hand scars I reckon. So apprehension and the fear of unstoppable bleeding filled my head when I started cutting a new one recently.

The fact that the tools could be used in surgery (yes they are that sharp), had me slicing away from me and my fingers. This block was more like masonite, but is specifically for linocut prints. As it is not flexible, curves and corners were more difficult, but not impossible. I quickly gave up the idea of cutting a bazillion scales on to the barrmundi.

Next step was the inking up. Print ink is a thicker consistency than paint, and tends not to drip. You need to apply it with a special rubber roller that makes that sucking noise as it rolls over the sticky ink. The raised bits that you haven’t cut away will be the areas to hold ink. We didn’t have a big heavy press to roll the paper over the printing plate (the linocut), so results were always going to be sketchy.

I had drawn and quartered my barra, so that I could get a repeating pattern happening, rather than just one stand alone image. I was hoping that if it worked out well, I could print up some fabric for use in the backyard. An interesting aside here is that last month the largest barra was caught in Deep Creek behind our house. Even made the news in the Brisbane newspaper.

Alas, not enough pressure to make a decent print.  Where’s a huge cast iron printing press when you need one!

I had a little Indian woodblock fishstamp, which I used to fill in some gaps.

I used lots of colour combos, but all turned out pretty ordinary. I eneded up liking the printing block more than the print!

To finish on a warm and fuzzy note, there was young feathery love on  my fence…