I'm feeling a little frustrated with the lack of art in my life at the moment. I've had two sick children - one quite ill and I have been very worried about him. Here are the only bits of art I've had in my life in the past couple of weeks and it is not my work - this is my youngest one's 'done at the very last minute' production for his Maths assignment! The only part I played in it was finding the eyes for the little dude - cute isn't he?

I've been busy writing two assignments for uni. One is an Art history paper on Cezanne so that does count for a little art, I suppose. Still writing leaves little time for doing.

I have also been attaching this piece, which you might remember from a while back to a canvas backing. I plan to show it at the Easter Art Show here in Roma. Photos will come along later.

Cinderella is off to the Ball

This is my friend Susan who is going to the Picnic Races Ball tonight. We have been working on this lovely dress for her to wear. Doesn't she look lovely?

We recycled the dress. Originally it had shoestring straps and we decided to make the shoulders the feature of the outfit. Susan found a lovely jacket in organza in a grape colour that worked beautifully when we cut it up and made it into organza rose buds. We added some of the extra chiffon to the shoulder straps and stitched the roses in between. Here is a detailed shot. A few beads and voila!





Match it all with a beautiful machine embroidered bag, elegant shoes and jewellery and she is ready for a wonderfully glamourous evening out.

An Evening Bag

I have taken a break from the Swamp piece to make an evening bag for a friend. Tomorrow night is the Picnic Races Ball here in Roma. The Picnic Races are huge here - it is not unusual to have a crowd of 3000 - 5000 for the weekend. This is the best opportunity for all the glamour and glitz beginning with the Ball on Friday night and then followed by the race meeting on Saturday. Each year there is a Fashions of the Field competition - for both ladies and men - and in my previous life as a dressmaker, one of my clientele actually won the competition one year. Choosing an outfit was a big event and I would start receiving bookings from January onwards, hoping they could find just the right piece of fabric for their outfits. I enjoyed making these wonderful creations, but not the stress of the deadlines.

Here is the first take - throwing down some fabrics for the beginning of the base fabric. I did not have much time so couldn't really go to town.

Since I didn't have a lot of time I did some very simple, but I think effective, machine embroidery over the base fabrics.

And here is the finished item:

And a closer view...

I added some beads just to finish it off. If I had more time I would make it much more elaborate with more beading and a lot more stitching, but that cannot be tonight. I need to sleep!

Swamp piece - progress

Today I have finally been able to work some more on my art. I spent some time early this morning doing some thumbnails for composition of this swamp piece. I decided to use the design pictured here on the top left.

I used water colour pencils in my visual diary but did not wet them - just used them as coloured pencils which was adequate for this exercise.

This is just a rough sketch to check that it would possibly work in this format.

Next step was to paint the background canvas. I have worked through this idea in my mind for many weeks now but it is still a terrifying thing to actually begin working on it. I am an extremely inexperienced painter, inexprienced in working with acrylic and also with brushes and canvas. And now I am attempting to mix all these different media together!

After painting the sky and horizon, I took the printed fabrics that I had transferred from the original photographs and lay them over the canvas. Then added the prepainted trees on the horizon. There are more layers to be added over the trees in the background. This is just the beginning, but maybe there is something there.

Here you can just see the sketch of the fallen log in the foreground of the swamp. I haven't begun to paint it at all yet but it will eventually be making an appearance. You can see a preview sketch in pencil of this log here.

This has been a very exciting challenge today and I am looking forward to working on it a bit more tomorrow.

Please feel free to leave any comments you want to make.

EDM Self Portrait Challenge

Most of the time I am very selective about what I post on this blog. I choose to post the drawings that meet, or partly meet, my expectations and those I am prepared for others to view.

This week on Everyday Matters Group we were challenged to try a self portrait. About three weeks ago my eldest son too this photo of me so I thought it would be a good one to use, or try and use, as a guide for my self portrait.

And so... here it is. I nearly didn't post it, but everyone else in the group has been prepared to share their drawings. It is okay down the the mouth, but that mouth is seriously BAD! Not mine, that's for sure. It is too far to the left and I wish I was as clever as Lisa Jo when it comes to double chins!!

This my second self portrait. The first one I did when I first started drawing 5 years ago. I was working through Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and tried my first self portrait. Once I got to the chapter where you try Blind Contour drawing, I gave up. I still take out the book and glance through it, and sometimes even tell myself that I should continue the exercises but never have. That Blind Contour drawing has never been done - too scary.

Anyway, back to the self portrait - I did go looking for the original one this morning but cannot find it at the moment. I may well have thrown it out in one of my ruthless clean ups. Let me know what you think about this.

On becoming an artist...

Today I decided not to go home for lunch but to stay at work and enjoy the view from the verandah. It was a delightful day - overcast and with the slight promise of a shower of rain later in the afternoon. As I sat eating my lunch I decided to take a few minutes and have a go at drawing the tree in my line of vision. I have never been successful at drawing gum trees and have been constantly frustrated with the Australian landscape. Here is the result:

But... this time I think I might have 'got it'. At least it looks like a tree and even like a gum tree. I am excited.

It brings me to think over once again a comment that someone made at Summer School about how no-one thinks that people just pick up a musical instrument and just play it because they are talented or have a gift. Admittedly on rare occasions there are people who are able to do that but they are indeed rare geniuses. So, if that is the case, why then do people assume that either you can draw or you can't? It takes thousands of hours to become proficient at playing a musical instrument, and that usually means just focussing on one instrument and practising over and over again. Yet as artists we try to master many media and still expect that it can be done on talent alone.

I grew up thinking that I could not draw and always feeling frustrated that I couldn't because I had a very strong NEED to make things. When I was 12 I spent a lot of weeks in hospital and one of the nurses brought me some charcoal and paper and I began to copy pictures. I learnt that there was a whole new world out there, but once home and learning to live again I didn't have the opportunity to pursue art. There was no art at my school after Year 7 which now seems to me to be astounding! I went off into other directions and it wasn't until I was 37 that I began to explore the possibility of being an artist again.

To come back to today - I think I am beginning to see real progress with my drawing. I have practised and practised (and still need to more) and it seems to be working. And... I am happy!!!