Some prints at last

There is a lot of work on the go but until now I have not had any “High Country” work complete and ready to share.

The drawings are detailed and slow to finish as I work in layers, building up the blacks for depth and the whites for highlights, just using a HB pencil and a pencil eraser. There are 12 drawings roughed out and I collect one from the studio regularly in the evening and “doodle” away at it under a very bright LED light, while I listen to an audio book (one of my other addictions – definitely better for the mind and soul than TV). It will be months before any are complete.

I have also prepared a lot of plates and am now working my way through printing them one at a time. Plate 1 is done (see attached plate and print). This too is a slow process (something at which I seem to excel), as each plate is worked up in stages. The first stage is to create an impasto gel “texture” on the plate for the flower and leaf colours. Once these colours are printed I then paste paper over them as a “mask,” create the background with textured impasto gel and print the plate in a dark colour. Finally, I use a coloured pencil to provide greater definition and depth to my satisfaction.

The most tedious part of the process, is cutting, testing for size and finally

pasting on all of the fiddly little shapes after the colours have been printed. Despite having a tracing of the plate, I frequently find that I have to draw and cut a shape 2 or 3 times before it completely covers the impasto gel texture beneath it. The image of the plate (attached) shows why I find this process difficult. There are after all lots of very small pieces of paper to attach and yes, I know, many would say that I am crazy…..

A nine panel monotype and coloured pencil work, inspired by Snow Gum bark, is another thing completed recently (see panel egs below)

Progress on the new theme

There has been a prolonged silence while I have been researching my new “high country” theme. There was a lot of drawing in my visual diary, after which the ideas came tumbling and I decided on a series of prints, drawings, paintings and collages for the theme. The images here are drawings of snow gum bark from my visual diary. They have such amazing an colourful bark.

There is little to see, other than the visual diary sketches at the moment. I have rough drafts of a series of 30 x 30 cm drawings and have also started some collagraph plates but I am all geared up for a productive 2018, so that is a start.

Moving On

After the euphoria of an exhibition, moving on to a new body of work is quite hard. While there can be the temptation to just do more on the old theme, it feels instinctively right to move on to a new challenge and build up a new fascination and absorption. It is not as if the shift is massive. The media and techniques are all familiar and only the subject matter will be different, so I have taken the plunge. The new theme is about the "high country." While I appreciate that Australia is not over-endowed with mountains, it is a part of the country that we have walked in extensively over the years.

Earlier in the year, before the winter set in and the snow fell, and in anticipation of my new theme, we had a day walk to Mt Erica, at the lower end of the Victorian Alps, so that I could take lots of photos to add to ones I already have on file.

With the exhibition over I was all ready to go. Drawing seems to me a good way to examine and get to know an object so I have been drawing all sorts of different details from the alpine environment, using my photo references. When I feel that I have enough understanding and enough material, then I will move on to thinking about making art from this “drawing.” 

On the Walls

The exhibition is up. It is in the gallery (where fire engines used to park - a small intimate space), the printing studio and the back room. 

It is always really satisfying to see all of the hard work for the previous 2 years, in one place. The art looks quite different from when works are seen singly in the studio. It is also really satisfying to be able to share the work with others and answer the inevitable question, “How did you do that?”

My fiddly gluing, cutting and HB pencil drawing techniques, once explained, do lead to much eye rolling and questioning of my sanity and yes, I do agree, I am a bit nuts, but making art is so relaxing and meditative that I don’t think about how long or how messy the process can be.

The Opening Celebration went well with a good crowd and many glowing comments plus an unexpected rash of red dots.

Anyone working alone, like I do, must suffer from self doubt from time to time, so having an exhibition when you get feedback from others can be very reassuring. I will enjoy the experience for the next 2 weeks.

Exhibition time

How time flies. I have been working away at another body of work. After nearly two years, it is all coming together and so it is time to share what I have learnt in an exhibition.

My overall theme and fascination continues to be “Detail in Nature” and this time the work is all about the intricacies of the leaf. Initially I spent a lot of time photographing, examining, and drawing leaves from many Australian native plants and then developed a series of prints, drawings and paintings based on my explorations.

There was a lot of cutting delicate shapes with tiny scissors and a lot of very sticky gluing of string and embroidery cotton onto canvases for the paintings as well as a lot of slow building up of lights and darks with a HB pencil for the drawings. Below are the last 2 of the very fiddly thread and oil on canvas paintings, finally finished.

I now know a lot more about the insides of leaves and am generally happy with the works I have created.

 

As the attached invitation indicates, the exhibition is once again at the Firestation in Armadale. It will run from Wednesday August 9^th to Saturday August 26^th with the Opening Celebration on Thursday August 10^th from 6 – 8 pm. Come along.