Tuesday, 5 November 2019

Inktober 2019

Frustrations with technology

Third time lucky. I started writing this post a couple of weeks ago, halfway through Inktober. Life got in the way and I forgot to finish it. Then yesterday I resumed writing while out having coffee using an app Blog Touch. Usually the app works well but the app crashed and suddenly the page was blank - no text and no images - just the heading!!!

Foolishly I hadn’t done a draft in iPages and copied it over but had written directly in the app. I’m not taking any chances today.

Inktober 2019


So back to Inktober 2019. I decided ahead of the challenge that I would go rogue and not try to adhere to any of the official prompts but to create my own theme. I wanted to use this time of daily drawing to explore paintings done previously to see if the images would lend themselves to a new series.


I returned to the original images used for the paintings and did a series of ink drawings, experimenting with composition and values. 



Riverside Trees - and below the original painting in oils.I really like the sparse, clean look of this drawing - the white space is very relaxing and quite a contrast to the original painting Riverside Trees which has very saturated colour. 












Pumula Rocks is one of a series painted when I did a Professional Process Course in South Africa. Revisiting the photographs of these rocks gave me inspiration for a few Inktober drawings.

This drawing was done in ink on grey gesso with fountain pens and a dip pen with white ink. 


And another in the Pumula Rocks series...





Bunya Riverside - ink detail above and oil on canvas below






Nymphaea -  Water lilies were the inspiration for a couple of paintings so it was natural when I wanted a break from monochrome to use coloured ballpoint pens for this drawing.




The positive aspect of being in charge of one’s own prompts is that some days an simple Notan drawing is sufficient to lay the basis for a later abstract series. My plan is to use these as a kick start for small watercolour abstract paintings. Now that I have rekindled the daily drawing habit it makes sense to continue and expand the practice.

AN APOLOGY:
The sizes of the images are all over the place - those that were uploaded in Blog touch refuse to be resized in Blogger and I don't want to tempt fate and loose the whole post AGAIN if I try to correct the sizing in Blog Touch!





Tuesday, 8 October 2019

Sktchy Retrospective

The Sktchy online community is one of the best - everyone is so supportive, generous with encouragement as well as sharing tips and techniques. One artist posted a collection of her portraits starting with her very first ever and then one from each subsequent year. She invited us to do the same. It’s really interesting to see the development of the artists and their wide range of styles and techniques. 

 Here are a few portraits from the past five years that I have been part of Sktchy. 





This portrait using graphite combined with watercolour is a favourite. I have
also used the image as a collage element in another painting - see below.

















This Mixed Media painting incorporates a couple of portraits, stencils and collage.








As I scrolled through my gallery of portraits I came across all the ones that had been chosen as Sktchy “Picks” over the years. ‘Picks’ are chosen as featured portraits and are rewarded with a star. 

These three portraits show the dramatic use of vibrant watercolour with ink - the combination works really well. 







Sunday, 1 September 2019

Nundah Village Art Exhibition

The annual Nundah Art Exhibition will be on  Saturday and Sunday 7th - 8th September. The Nundah Now Village Street Festival is held on Sunday from 9.00 am to 3.00 pm with live music, street entertainers as well as the usual street stalls.

It’s a great show in an unusual venue - the Northside Honda workshop. A few vehicles are raised up out of the way on hoists, and screens are set up to display the paintings. There is always a wide variety of excellent work. As a bonus, the opening soiree on Saturday evening  is a lot of fun.  

I will have four paintings on the show. 



The Wind Scatters the golden leaves - oil on canvas 610 mm x 610 mm. 



Wild weather - Tasman Peninsula - oil and cold wax on panel 610 mm x 610 mm


Still Beautiful  - watercolour on paper 


Proteas with a jug - oil and cold wax on paper.