Artists Blog

Whilst visiting another lovely blog by Doda, I found myself getting that adrenlin rush from 2 loves of mine - collections and their boxes. I am a Hopeless Beachcomber. I can wander for hours with my eyes fixed on the minutae in the sand. Others dash into the sea and surf, watch the skies, sunbathe. I fill my pockets and hands with sandy (often smelly) treasures.

The absolute best time to beachcomb in Perth was after a wild winter storm - what bounty was thrown up on shore! Each beach along the coast had it’s own special secrets to throw up - the beach north of Hillarys Marina speacialised in sea urchin tests of all colours ad sizes. Mullaloo, Ram’s Horn spirals. North Cottesloe has violet shells, which in ancient times was the only source of the colour purple for royalty.

I once completed a Calligraphy piece for the Royal Show which was centered on my beachcombing expeditions. It allowed me to “use” up some of my huge collection.

The finished piece was many, many metres long, but came to an untimely and soggy end whilst I was photographing it late last year. I think there’s a whole other post that needs to be devoted to it’s demise….

Anyway, getting back to my other love/addiction are the boxes that houses these collections. Wooden display/museum boxes. I go weak at the knees when I see them. I have a secret desire to be a Natural History Museum Curator I’m sure. I have quite a few of these wooden boxes. And some Perspex ones as well. They are filled with all sorts of treasures - nests, skeletons, seeds, shells, fossils, feathers, skins, eggshells, nuts, bark. You name it, if it’s been on the ground, fallen off a creature, or just plain smelly, I’ve got it in a box.

Getting back to Doda, she has some exquisite paintings of Collection Boxes. Hailing form Scotland, I told her of my beachcombing finds on a shoally beach at St Andrews that now reside in one of my boxes.

Jez entertained Moss and Jem (Border Collies that couldn’t get enough of the frigid waters) whilst I searched the shoreline. Apart from the beautiful sea glass, tiny crabs and unusual northen hemisphere shells, I found a piece of old china that made my heart skip a beat. Rubbing away the grime from the crest, I read my family name printed there. Amazes me to this day.

One thing I miss living up here in the tropics are the long, lanquid twilight times. And sunsets over the ocean.

Blink, and twilight is over up here - once that sun dips behinds the mountains it draws the curtains immediately and it’s dark.

When I used to walk in the evenings along the ocean path in Perth, I would always make it a habit to stop and watch that glorious golden orb sink into the waves. Lots of others did the same, with loud “oohs” and “aaahs” as the last rays spiked up over the horizon.

Feeling melancholic as I flick through digital memories. That’s a pic of my once local beach, Beaumaris. Endings and beginnings always make me wistful.

2 friends visited yesterday. As we sat on my couch, one asked” So what are you going to do now that uni is over?” Hmmm.

“Well”, I began. “At 5 pm Friday I took off the Full time Uni Student’s hat”. As from 8am this morning, I put on my Artist’s hat.” So it’s offically my new occupation. Sounds strange.Feels weirder.

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.

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…