Ready for exhibition

 

The exhibition work for Close to Home, is all sitting ready on my studio bench. Fifteen pieces are mounted and the rest, on paper, will be attached to the walls with magnets, making hanging much simpler.

The mounted works are on painted board and to protect them I spray them over and over again with a matt spray, then leave them out to dry, a slow and tedious task. This time I took some photos while the work was drying in the studio. The small ones are monotypes (image painted onto a board and then printed once) and the larger ones collagraphs (plate made of cardboard with shellac coating on which the image is made and which can then then be printed multiple times) or linocuts. Since I prefer variety to a lot of identical prints, I use different colours and then work on the print with pencil and watercolour later as well.

 

Close to Home

 

A few examples of the Close to Home work: 

Collagraph + watercolour + aquarel

Linocut + watercolour

Monotype + aquarel

Print collage

The theme of my current body of work is By the Sea. I have been working on this theme since 2019. There was supposed to be an exhibition of the work in 2021, but that did not happen due to Covid.

Now, mid-way through 2022, everything is finally complete and ready for an exhibition at the Firestation Print Studio from August 10 – 27th.

(Above - Paintings)

The work is a mixture of prints, drawings and paintings as always. The paintings are in oils and incorporate string. The drawings are simple HB pencil, worked up and back in layers, and with the aid of a pencil eraser. I did a series of small monoprints during our various Lockdowns and the other prints are collagraphs or linocuts incorporating watercolour or coloured pencil.

(Above - Collagraphs + linocuts)

Once again, the works are referenced from photos I take when out walking. Many of the references this time were from photos around Inverloch and Lorne.

(Below - monotype)

(Below - Drawings)

A new theme

Life has been very busy and time for creativity severely curtailed. Some progress does continue to be made each week, but nothing especially worthy of comment and things have been rather silent.

After my exhibition late last year, exploring detail in Australia's High Country, it was time to re-start, with a new theme. Although I have touched on aspects of our coastline before, I wanted to examine the intricacies of "By the Sea" in more detail, so the new theme was born.

Everyone approaches creativity differently. Some explore through interrelated works and others have one off, bright ideas. Probably because of my Strategic Planning background and my very nature, I have a very organised approach, which seems to have become even more organised as time passes. It involves choosing a theme or topic and then creating a body of work based on that theme over a period of two years and culminating in a solo exhibition.

After two years of absorption and exploration of the detail of one aspect of nature, I always find it hard to get started on the new theme. For me, it involves firstly a lot of research and photograph taking, followed by a flurry of sketching in my visual diary. Once this is done I can get a good idea of particular things in my theme that appeal to me and which I want to pursue further in art works as well as the medium I would choose for each. I can’t say that I decide on every single painting, print and drawing at this stage, but it motivates me to begin and things evolve along the way.

I’m at that stage now. I took many photos during solitary early morning walks while on a week’s beach holiday in January and added those to my folder of existing “beach photo” references. There is seaweed, sand patterns, driftwood, shells and all sorts of grasses and greenery. I have drawn and drawn in my visual diary and now I have begun on a series of collagraph plates and made rough drafts for a series of HB pencil drawings, which I am slowly developing up. 

So “art time” is slowly returning to normal.

Exhibition time

My constant fascination, and the subject of my work, has been intricate detail in nature. The works, are mostly inspired by photos that I take while out walking in the Australian landscape. The photos range from very close up views, using a macro lens, photos for example of the structure of a leaf, a seed head or a fungus, to views of groups of objects, taken from a few metres away. Because of the view, the work can appear either seemingly abstract, or reasonably recognisable.

Over the past few years I have chosen a particular facet of nature and then created a body of work which explores that facet, every 2 years, exhibiting the results in a solo exhibition. Four years ago, the work was all about patterns in shore platforms while two years ago, I explored the intricacies of the leaf. Now, having been working away since that time, my latest pieces, on the theme of Australia’s High Country are ready for exhibition (see invitation below).

Whilst the majority of the photos I have used for reference were taken in Victoria and around Mt Erica, north of Moe, some are from NSW and others from Tasmania. Working on this exhibition has been an opportunity to revel in exploring and then sharing my delight in the enormous diversity and beauty of the surface textures, summer flowers, fruit and foliage and above all the stunning bark of the Snow Gums that the High Country has to offer.

I have never wanted to work in only 1 medium and so have always chosen to create a variety of different types of works, within my chosen theme, including prints (lino cuts and collagraphs), drawings, paintings and mixed media works, as the photos illustrate.