Artists Blog

Detail of river reeds from “Silent Waters”, acrylic 40″ x 40″, currently on exhibit at

 The Blender Gallery, Joondalup

I have had quite a few “how do you paint that?” queries with my river reeds, so here is a basic step by step.

With a broad hake brush (size 4), sweep neat from the tube vermillion and/or burnt orange from the bottom of the canvas up.

Starting from about halfway along the vermillion and orange, sweep some broad strokes of cadmium yellow deep upwards.

Follow with emerald green, but do not go all the way to the top. You can also drop down a brush size in the hakes. I used a No.1 here.

Finally a deep green (Hookers mixed with Pthalo) is laid on top. Here you can see I have now switched to a thin rigger to put in the thin reeds. I use a brush head length of 1inch so I don’t have to reload with paint halfway through a reed. Continue to build up thin reeds in a reverse order of colours, finishing with a lemon tinged yellow on top.

Tip: When you get to the rigger brush  stage, place lots of newspaper down and around your easel, otherwise there will be a paint carpet of “hundreds and thousands” everywhere!

Hope everyone has a chance to get creative over the weekend.

Hang onto something long enough and it’ll be cool again one day.

My 60′s Minolta SR1, bought as an old second camera back when I was a teenager (1/4 century ago!) has now found it’s way into my teenage son’s hands. “Wow! Why didn’t you tell me you had this before!” he said. Now armed with film, he’s becoming familiar with all the manual camera settings that were so frustrating back then. Manual focusing for one. More on that later.

At a recent garage sale I picked up an old A3 leather portfolio and a tiny hardback copy of a how to sketch book from 1950. Beautiful gestural drawings from the ballets of New York and London in the 40′s.

It brought back all the memories of life drawing sketches at uni – 2 and 1 minute sketches, the terrifying 30 second capture, and drawing without looking at the paper. I wished I had kept some now, but thought at the time they were best left at uni.

“Economy of Line” is something that has stuck in my head from those days – I need to practise it more. This little treasure of a book (picked up for 99cents), is adamant that you should not sacrifice movement for detail in your sketches. If using your eye to take a “snapshot” of an image to draw from memory, capture the essence of action, not the superfluous detail.

Later on the Swan river, another ballet was taking place.

So many passes in front of the city – she must have practised for over an hour just whilst we were there.

The Swan river is a great place for the camera. I with my digitals, and Jez with the fully manual (but cool) “antique”, below. I’ll share the results once we get the film developed.

It’s been a whirlwind in the studio -painting, drawing and calligraphing furiously, stopping only for coffee top ups. Scheduling time and jobs has been the real challenge – I’ve promised myself that 2011 organisation takes priority. My 2 foot wide Planner has been a blessing, and I’ve already pencilled in slabs of time for projects until the end of the year and even into January.

Acrylic on canvas 101 cm x 101 cm (40″ x 40″)

Above is my entry for the the City of Bayswater Art Awards & Exhibition which opens today at Noranda Village, Benara Rd. Exhibition runs until 25 September.

Acyrlic on canvas 101 cm x 101 cm (40″ x 40″)

The second painting is for the City of Bassendean’s Art Awards and Exhibition which runs from the 23rd – 29 September, at Cyril Jackson Recreation Centre, Fisher Rd.

Unfortunately these painting photos are a bit washed out – I took them outside after the sun had set, such was my hurry.

detail

 It is always helpful for me to hang a recently finished piece where I will walk past it several times a day. Undoubetedly there will be something that jumps out at me that needs to be changed. Some of the water hues were altered after the cat kindly pointed them out.

Can you feel that “rush” in the air? It’s as if a switch has been flicked and everyone has shifted up a gear. Busy-ness everywhere – in the people, the places, even the animals and birds. The garden is an explosion of activity – flowers busting to get out, bees & birds busting to get in. Spring, and the Christmas countdown has begun.

Now for me it’s literally back to the Drawing Board!

Swan river at Bayswater, acrylic on canvas, 101cm x 101cm (40″ x 40″) 

I love saying those words – “It’s finished!”

Sometimes it’s hard to know when you’ve reached that point, and it’s so easy to go into “Overkill” mode when painting. Stepping waaay back and even looking at the piece in the mirror can all help.

Detail

I’ll have to wait until all the thunderstorms and rain to clear before I can varnish.

 Detail

On the weekend we dined at Marmion Beach at sunset, just gorgeous.

I can feel another pastel painting bubbling up….

Last night we attended the Angelico Exhibition opening night in the city. Artists are selected secondary school students from all over the state.

Jez really had to push his own boundaries with this piece – the largest he’s ever done as well as being a self-portrait. A while back I photographed the art students at his school under dramatic stage lighting. From these they painted self portraits. Jez’s piece was selected for the exhibition.

There are some amazing pieces created by such talented artists who happen to be high school students. Everything from puppets, books, clothing, huge sculptures and evocative paintings and drawings. If you get a chance, pop in and have a look.

Exhibition until Friday 27th August 2010, Foyer, Forrest Centre, 221 St George’s Tce, Perth.

Meanwhile, I’m dancing with the brushes again – Work In Progress report:

 Orange underwash to lay down my tonal blocks.

Watercolour effects are possible with acrylic and canvas.

I keep my reference photos standing upright in a perspex display stand – one way to keep the paint splatters off them!

“Quietly” acrylic on canvas 100cm x100cm (40″ x 40″)

Finally finished! I’ve been working non-stop on this river painting and am finally happy with it.

Lots of experimenting with bold colour and big brushwork, trying to achieve big swathes of movement.

Breaking away from my usual realist, representational mode is still not easy, but I’m working on it. The mindset when painting on this scale is worlds away from my much, much smaller birds.

Exhibition runs from next Monday 18 August until Saturday 28 August at  The Park Centre, East Victoria Park.

I’ve been spending a lot of time by the banks of the Swan, following it along the South Perth, Victoria Park, Belmont, Bayswater and Swan Valley foreshores. Soon I hope to follow it along it’s Bassendean  (of Rolf Harris fame) banks.

A pair of labs were having a fabulous time retrieving not one, but two, balls at the same time. During the middle of winter, swimming across the Swan was a superb effort!

See them?

Winter in Perth means rainfall, if we’re lucky. Up in the Hills to the east are an abundance of brooks, creeks, dams, weirs and dams.

Exploring Jane Brook on a crisp winter morning was quite the adventure.

The brook has been dammed with a weir and is a popular swimming spot in warmer months.

Jez and his mate found many ways to amuse themselves.

If it could be walked across, they would try it, no fear of consequences.

There were so MANY birds there is not enough room in this post for them all. But the Splendid Fairy Wrens were so cheeky I had to show them to you here.

Here is the jewel coloured male

And here showing his bib

Not far behind was a little blur in the bush, the more discreetly coloured female.

Inspired by such wonderful waterways I hit the canvas, and here’s a snippet of my current Work In Progress (undoubtedly influenced by a certain Fairy Wren’s colours….)

“Whispers” Acrylic on canvas 100cm x 100cm (40″ x 40″)

Years and years ago I remember the absolute horror I felt when someone stuck a 3inch hake brush in my hand and said “A whole painting with just this brush.” It was watercolour,I did it, but hated it. I never picked up a big brush again, unless it was to paint the house or undercoat a canvas. Well recently I have been feeling I need to “loosen up”, and take a break from the fine work with 20/0 brushes.

This acyrlic painting has so many layers of watercolour-like washes, with me battling to get away from fiddling. I would feel good about a section I had been working on until I stepped back away from it. If I couldn’t see brushstrokes at 20 feet away I wasn’t happy. Back to the big brush to paint over details. Also, as this was for an a exhibition recording a particular place, I needed to identify it with the city landscape in the distance. Painting city buildings is definately NOT in my comfort zone! In fact I can’t ever recall having painted landscape structures at all.

It wasn’t unitl the final stages of the painting that I allowed myself to go down to a size 5 round brush.

Exhibition on now until August 7 at Belmont Forum

Here are some of my original reference photos, taken at the Swan River foreshore in Belmont. My interpretation is not a direct copy of the photos, but more my spin on the colours and atmosphere I felt. So different to how I usually paint!

Lots of squabbly chatter from the White Cheeked Honeyeaters around the foreshore.

Just around the bend of the river is the Garratt Road Bridge, a lovely old wooden bridge with lots of character.

Rivers have been in front of my lense a lot lately – painful as it initailly was, I can feel more “Big Brush” paintings coming on!