Tag Archives: Art

Bacon

February 11, 2013 By in Art, Life Tags: , , 2 Comments

imagesI spent the morning at the Art Gallery of NSW’s Francis Bacon exhibition.

It amazes me that each time I go to an exhibition of famous painters that I find pieces I expect to enthrall me don’t, yet others take my breath away.

Today two pieces which are poles apart captivated me. This ‘running dog’ was blurry yet crisp. It was just enough to suggest and blurry enough to be masterful. It may seem like a strange choice. I can only say that the picture doesn’t do it justice.

The second piece, is quite the opposite of the first and I cannot even tell you what I like about it. The intensity of the orange was stunning. The scratchiness of the texture, the haphazard nature of the flowers – it was one of those pieces which from a distance hung together beautifully and up close revealed all these little mysteries. Francis_Bacon_Figure_Study_I_X2011_6_37_press_jpg_940x2000_q85

The exhibition made me want to come home and paint the most vivid orange I could find – not that I’m sure I could get one stronger than Bacon’s.

The other thing I took away from the exhibition was a new found admiration for how much a few lines can do to add depth to the painting. Bacon’s cage, box, rooms were ever present.

Instead I’ve come home and looked at my most recent art effort. I’ve picked up a crayon and coloured a few areas before I’ve realised that ‘ship has sailed.’

This piece is smaller than an A3 page. Working small, I can finish a piece in one night, or one week. When I work small and quickly, then I get a raw reflection of just that particular moment. If I continue working on the piece after the moment has gone, the painting becomes something else. So I’m leaving this one as is.
Untitled Feb 2013

Art quilt update

January 14, 2013 By in Alice in Wonderland, Art, Art Quilt Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

It’s been a week of dealing with Saffron having cystitis again combined with the first full week back at week and very hot weather that leaves you drained of energy. When I let Saffron out of the bathroom I was watching her like a hawk to ensure there weren’t any accidents outside the tray. The shower recess became a favoured spot but, quite frankly, I was happy with anywhere in the bathroom. That’s what mops are for! She is improved but still not back to normal.

Needless to say with a full week of work and sick cat, there has been little ‘art-ing’ or quilting going on. So I’m uploading photos of what I did in between Christmas and New Year. I tried to take a photo of a larger area and encountered cat assistance. I think it won’t be until I have some humans to help hold it up that I can get a wider shot… so I’ve gone for the detail instead!

Tree Roots in free motion
Tree roots Free motion and I are not good friends. In fact weren’t not even acquaintances. Every time I try to meet free motion, I end up meeting my unpicker instead!

I, like many others, have trouble keeping the stitches even. When it came to tree roots I figured that even wasn’t important. I went over them quite a bit as I didn’t want them to appear too delicate – it’s a bloody big tree they are holding up! Also doing this, unpicking was not an option. Perhaps when you just have to go for it, the result is better?

The chequerboard floor

Details of chequer board floorI needed an quilting pattern which would fill that expanse of purple around the bottom of the tree. I also needed something matching my level of quilting yet still in keeping with the quilt being about Andrew and I.

A chequerboard pattern seemed a great option at the time – I only had to sew straight lines! It was pretty easy, just length with all the tying off. The chequerboard pattern also fit with me. I have been known to throw the odd chequerboard into a painting:

"In Time": Completed work

I supposed it’s related to Alice in Wonderland and the chess pieces. It could also be because I’ve seen them used so beautifully in the work of artist James Christensen, one of my first art book acquisitions and still a favourite. He often puts a fish in his paintings. (If your not familiar with Christensen’s work, the link I’ve included is to a slideshow of his art). I’ve just realised looking at the above painting of mine, that perhaps I’m getting a thing for teacups! The one above has a hippo in it. The one in the quilt has a lizard… and a licorice allsort…

French Knots
Lastly, a photograph of my French knots. I’ve never done these before I think they look a little more like French grubs than knots, but never mind! They are a little added texture. Most of them are 1 strand of brown silk and 1 of reddish-brown cotton. (I was told not to mix n match but it seemed to work ok). There are a few which are just two strands of cotton. I really can’t see any difference in ‘grub’ quality between the silk-cotton mix and just the cotton. So mix n match it will be!

French Knots

Mixed Media Method

December 26, 2012 By in Art Tags: , , , 5 Comments

Spliced Collage 2I recently read a post by Lahgitana about her first exposure to mixed media following a slight lull in her mosaic work. Collage was one of my first artistic endeavours and it remains a true love.

When I get myself into an artistic lull, I have a mixed media method that I employ. I’ve had friends try it as well and it can produce fun results.

Here it is.

Step One: Image Selection

My get out of a rut method is very simple. I go to my collage stash and start to look through it – quickly. When I see something which catches my eye – I pull it out. Speed is important here. I’m looking for that instant gut feel that says ‘Pick me!’

I usually pick between 5 – 10 images and know that I won’t use all of them. The collage above I think uses just 4, although often it’s about 6-8 pieces together. While those familiar with Dover PIctorial’s re-use policy may think this target number is because you can use up to 10 of their images in your project copyright free, it’s more because too many pictures and I get a little lost in the process of pulling out all the imagery.

Step Two: No refining

Having selected my 5-10 images, there is a temptation to ‘assess’ them. I could say that I can’t have a hand that’s just as big as the woman. Or I have a background which looks to be indoors but I have a rhinoceros. The whole point of my quick selection process is to stop making predictable combinations. If there is any refining to be done, it will only be culling a few of the images I have chosen. Selecting more is not an option.

Step Three: Putting it together

The lovely part about collage is shuffling the bits around before deciding to stick! There are entire blog posts dedicated to the best ‘glue’ for collage. Personally, I love matt medium. I see no reason to look at anything else.

These days most of my collages will be couple with some other media – whether that’s acrylic glazes, charcoal or – my favourite – Caran D’ache Neocolor I wax oil pastels (a very long way of saying ‘expensive swiss crayons).

Yet looking at the collage above, going back to just black and white collage may be fun. I’m off work until January 2nd, I feel a collage coming on.

If you’re in a rut, give the above a go! It may not result in your best artwork of all time but I can assure you, fun will be had and something will get created.

Handpainted quilting fabric: what not to do!

October 21, 2012 By in Art, Art Quilt, Sewing Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
Piecing the handmade fabric into the quilt

Silk screen printing, hand carved spiral stamp and bird created by covering an applicut in lumiere paint and then pressing into fabric. (Applicuts are made for easy applique to a quilt – see http://www.applicuts.com)

I think I’ve finally cracked it! I’ve tried a number of different mediums to combine with my regular acrylic paint to make them into ‘fabric paints’ with very mixed success. At last, I have found that print paste is my new best friend.

If you are thinking of creating your fabric for quilting then here’s a few of my ‘what not to do tips.’

Golden GAC 900

You can have too much of a good thing! I found that when I combined my paint with GAC 900, the result was often sticky. Perhaps I put too much but it seemed to be a fine line. For me, I want something that’s not as sensitive. That I didn’t have great success with this Golden product really surprised me. I am very attached to my golden paints and many of their mediums – they are simply a joy to use! However GAC 900 is being crossed off my list. Others my get it to work. I’m not that patient!

Permaset Supercover

Supercover = supertacky! I actually didn’t realise when I bought my black permaset textile paint that I had chosen Supercover. (Their paints come in standard and supercover). I think the idea is for a product which has a greater opacity. Unfortunately it gets a tacky feel which I really don’t like.

Believe your silk screen will stay clean

Every site I’ve read says it – don’t let your paint dry on your screen; clean it quickly. Well, it doesn’t seem to matter how speedy gonzales I am at getting the silk screen washed, my screen is not ‘clean’. What I soon discovered (after fretting I’d ruined my screen) is that it is more stained than dirty. I can still get really clear prints through it but I do have marks – particularly from phthalo green!

Believe you can stop at just one piece!

Piecing the handmade fabric into the quilt IIOriginally I’d only planned to put a small piece of my handpainted fabric into the quilt. I thought given I hadn’t put pieces in the centre parts that it would look like I’d tacked them on! With a dwindling supply of the fabrics already in the quilt, I’ve had to supplement. (At least that’s my excuse!)

Thinking starting with coloured fabric is a good idea! 

There are fiber artists out there who like to start with fabric which is already coloured – Lynn Krawczyk is one. She says she got tired of filling in the white spots! Perhaps it is because I’ve painted on paper and canvas first and fabric second, that I seem very attached to starting on white. I know how one colour layered on top of another will behave when I’m using paint. When I’m starting with a fabric colour, I’ve taken my art colour theory and adapted it – with very mixed results. I think it is because it’s hard to know the properties of the colour you are painting on. I stared at it for a while trying to decide whether it was a green or purple leaning blue; I deliberately chose a red loaded with crimson as usually you can make a beautiful purple out of a blue and red where each leans towards purple in it’s colour. I got dark mud instead! So, I’m sticking to start on white.

Forget to put gloves on

A lot of people recommend gloves whenever using any kind of paint for health reasons. In the case of silk screen printing, I’ve discovered that for reasons of ‘messiness’, the gloves are essentially. Somehow I regress back to a 2 year old and get it not only on my fingers but up my arms, elbows and on my clothes.

Think the cat will leave you alone

Wait until your cat is in a very deep sleep or suffer their curiousity you will!

So what is working?

Permaset Print Paste in combination with any of my acrylic paints seems to be producing a very consistent result. I like the Golden Fluid Acrylics the best but I think that’s just a result of my passion for them generally! Thicker paint does work and other brands seem fine – e.g. Matisse.

Lumiere Paints

As you need a fair bit of paint for silk screening, I’ve taken to using the lumieres for some embellishment on the top (see bird at top of this post) rather than using them through the screen. They do work beautifully as a screen print; it’s just me being stingy on my paint!

Waterproof Calligraphy pens

I’m loving the nice crisp line I can introduce with a calligraphy pen – especially amid the chaos that is my painting style! Now my quilt has the words ‘mad as a hatter’ up one side. It’s subtle enough that you can’ easily read it however still detectable.

I’m trying a few other things but I’ve yet to wash them so will let you know if they are a success!

Saffron and Yellow Handpainted and silkscreened fabric

Still in progress

A quilting collaboration

September 26, 2012 By in Art, Cats, Sewing Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

‘Why don’t we make a quilt which is our story?’

Detail of Quilt centre piece

Bronze metallic lumiere paint on purple cotton quilting; unfortunately photograph doesn’t show true colour of paint – see below for a better likeness

Ever since then, I’ve been playing around with different paints on pieces of fabric. It took some weeks before I summoned up the courage to just start painting. In the end, I opted for one of the easy options by using the lumiere paint. I didn’t need to put any additives to make it suitable for fabric. Also it had a thick enough consistency that it took to stenciling and freehand painting well where other options bleed. Still, I was tentative about starting.

To mitigate my nervousness I chose an affordable plain purple cotton quilting fabric as the backing.

The tree stencil, Andrew and I chose together. It came from Stencil Kingdom in the UK and it is enormous (over 40 inches wide) but spectacular. The original stencil is wider than it is long, however, in order to suit  being part of a quilt, we’ve altered it slightly to reduce the width and increase the length. Much to Andrew’s delight, I volunteered him to do all the freehand joining bits!

Quilt centre piece

The colour here is a better likeness

In return, I got the task of hand-stitching on the black cat in the tree. Mister had a go at hand stitching and after a few moments complained that his hands hurt – a likely story! If anyone is wondering whether this cat is Licorice or Saffron, I can tell you it is neither. The reason for the black cat is that Andrew keeps telling me he needs a black one to go with the white and ginger one. He thinks then he will have one of each colour. Everytime he says this I point out that cats come in more than just 3 colours and our fur family is complete! So, to humour him, I have provided him with a black cat in spirit – or stitch! End of argument.

Of course, Licorice, Saffron, Pickle and Gesso will have to make an appearance somewhere in this collaborative effort. At this stage, Gesso will arrive in the form of a squirrel – one of his nicknames. He’ll be purple as white would stand out too much. I think it’s fine that Gesso is going to be an odd colour. He has painted himself with enough colours to date that he clearly doesn’t want to be white! As there was no way I was going to stitch a squirrel, I’ve ordered one from Applicuts.

As for the other three… well, time will tell how they appear in this piece!

Rhino on a tightrope

September 9, 2012 By in Alice in Wonderland, Art, Waffle and Nonsense Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment


Rhino on a tightrope (unfinished)Forgive the dodgy photography, for some reason I have trouble keeping my iphone steady at times. It’s been a LONG day, so maybe I’m just very tired.

Here’s the piece I started working on these last few days. I was having great fun with it too until I added the dodo bird. Unfortunately at that point I started to think too hard – what colour is a dodo bird?  Given it’s Tenniel’s drawing of the bird and it is in wonderland, perhaps it could be purple? In wonderland do things really have to be their true ‘local colour?’

I know what you’re thinking – how can a girl who put a rhino on a tightrope be worried whether she is painting a bird the appropriate colour? Well, perhaps my left brain kicked in at that point.

So, I’m having a vote…

A sweet detour

August 30, 2012 By in Art Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

The last few weeks have been a jumble of long work hours, fundraising planning, smashed garages and mish-mash of other things I can’t remember. Hectic!

So today, I got a sweet detour from the running around, and wandering through a few art galleries. My entry fee was pushing Andrew around some very uneven footpaths. Most of the galleries were at 2 Dank Street Waterloo including the Brenda May Gallery. Here I encountered the work of  James Guppy in their stockroom. A few of his piece remind me of the whimsy of James Christensen, especially this piece called: A Tussle of Pastries!

James Guppy: A Tussle of Pastries.
Acrylic on Canvas 46 X 31cm

The other piece which caught my eye included an owl so I thought of you mum!

Here it is:

James Guppy: Blodeuwedd
Acrylic on Linen, 180.5 X 90cm

The things I do

June 11, 2012 By in Art, Disability, Photography Tags: , , , , , 3 Comments

href=”http://thescroobiouspip.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/img_9538_2_2.jpg”>I’ve said before if you’re going to date someone in a wheelchair then you best like heights, DIY, moving stuff etc. Today I was co-opted into helping complete a TAFE project.

The task: create a photo triptych of an icon. The photographs should portray what the icon means to you. Andrew’s choice? The wheelchair symbol. The first two photographs, he took himself. (One of which is pictured on the right). The third required a little assistance to stage the photograph. Enter flip, stage left.

Today’s task was to move the coffin (a stage prop) from the bedroom into the living room and lay it flat on the floor. The thing is unwieldy and heavy so this was not the easiest task. I finally get it into the living room and with Andrew’s help lay it down on the ground. At this point he decides to assist me in positioning the coffin ready to be photographed.

YIKES!!!

My third and fourth toes are throbbing. They have been run over!

Not content with squishing my toes, Andrew with his camera and tripod at the ready instructs me to climb in the coffin.

What? I thought you were just going to take a photo of it.

‘No’ he replies. A coffin needs a body, so go get a sheet and wrap yourself up and jump in.

Sure. What else does one normally do?

Before I can get in the coffin, Gesso and Pickle decide it’s a great big box worth exploring. Gesso even decides to ‘eat’ one of the coffin keys and escapes with it. Oh well, at least Andrew can’t lock me in if the cat has stolen the key!

Finally I climb in. Now I tell you that trying to wrap yourself in a sheet and climb into a coffin is not the easiest thing to do.

I hear the click of the camera and climb back out.

It’s time to put the coffin back. Thankfully I seem to have improved my technique and it wasn’t so difficult to ‘walk’ it back into the bedroom.

In the meantime Andrew has downloaded the photos. After all that, he has pronounced the coffin shots a dud.

Grrr.

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