Grimm Visions comes to Town

 I am very pleased to announce that Grimm Visions, an exhibition of exquisite drawings based on the stories collected by the Grimm Brothers, will be on show at Tacit Gallery from 14 September until 1 October, 2022.

Those who were unable to view this exhibition early in the year due to distance (Port Fairy) or Covid lock downs can now see this here in Collingwood. 14 works in total, including several new works will be on display, showing that not all fairy tales are sweet!!

Would love to see you there on opening night!

Hakea Laurina: Cranbourne Workshop #2

 Hi all! Well, this Wednesday past was another great day at Cranbourne Botanical Gardens with the Botanical Illustrators Group. This workshop was a continuation from the previous Wednesday and artists developed their graphite techniques further, building up to an A3 drawing on Hot Press paper. I was really impressed and delighted with the results all the members created. From absolute beginner to quite advanced exhibiting artist, each seemed to enjoy experimenting and developing their technical and artistic skills with graphite. 

My workshop demonstration was of Hakea Laurina seed pods. The reference was supplied to me by the Group from their treasure box of botanical bits and pieces:

Photo of Hakea Laurina reference
(ignore the Coastal Banksia cone in front, not included in the drawing)

Part of the lesson from week 1 was to sketch your subject and create a composition. I had done this during the workshop and decided to 'trim' a few of the the branches, remove a few leaves and added the little seed cast by the pods. An outline drawing of this sketch composition was created which was then transferred onto Art Spectrum 300gsm Hot Press paper.

I began drawing the work before the 2nd workshop so I would have progress and techniques to show the class. But boy, did I struggle! Although I had really enjoyed working on that paper with the little banksia cone in water soluble pencil (see last post), with dry graphite I found I was fighting with the paper. I didn't like the grain mesh that was appearing, and I felt the paper wasn't holding a line as sharply as I liked. So after 2 hours of drawing I abandoned that work and began again!

My second attempt uses Fabriano Artistico Hot Press 300gsm and I was much happier with the feel and result. I was able to complete the far left pods, stems and several leaves before the workshop. This gave me a good demonstration piece to show the students while explaining and demonstrating on the rest of the work how I had achieved those results. I was able to continue working on the drawing off and on during the day with the group, finishing the work bar the cast shadow. The cast shadow was added in my home studio - and here is the final piece:

Hakea Laurina by Linda Weil © 2022

Anyway, I hope to show this in the upcoming AGRA AAEA show in November - probably along with the little banksia as well. So watch this space for notice of that show when it comes up.

And thank you to the Cranbourne Garden Botanical Illustrators Group for a great workshop!

Coastal Banksia - RBG Cranbourne workshop #1

 This past Wednesday I had the great pleasure of  running the first of two workshops with the Botanical Illustrators group at the Cranbourne Royal Botanic Gardens. This group meet every first and third Wednesday of the month in the Elliot Centre at Cranbourne and are an integral part of the Friends of the RGB. 

The theme for this two day workshop is 'Nuts About Graphite' and is exploring all the different ways and techniques to use graphite pencils in your botanical drawing. Our subject is 'nuts and cones' - primarily things like Banksia, Hakea, Casuarina, etc - but no eucalyptus or gum nuts due to the danger of bringing the Myrtle Rust fungus into the gardens. It was a full class of 12 which is great to see - and although it was a little squishy room-wise, everyone gets on well and are wonderful artist friends.

We began with a series of basic exercises in different graphite techniques including both 'dry' graphite and water soluble graphite. I did a little demonstration work to show how these can work together:

'Coastal Banksia' Demonstration in 4B w/s graphite, Graphitint and graphite pencils on Art Spectrum 300gsm hot press paper.
by Linda Weil ©2022

 From there we moved onto discussion of our subject, composition and planning. To scale planning sketches were created in our workbooks at A4 size to be transferred to A3 300gsm hot press paper. Next week we will proceed with this finished work using all the graphite techniques we explored during the first day. I will be working on a hakea laurina drawing based on a specimen supplied by the Group.

This is a fun collection of artists who are very involved with the Gardens and its' conservation. They have several workshops a year featuring different artists - Geoff Sergeant will be doing a color pencil workshop in Grevilleas there soon. If you are interested in botanical art or taking part in any of the Friends activities please click the links below for more information:

Botanical Illustrators Information 

Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne

Substrate Opening

What a great opening last night at Tacit Gallery for Substrate22! Some fantastic works with interesting approaches to the surface. Many treated the surface like a standard canvas, but some worked it in other ways, printing/silkscreen onto the surface, building up materials into 3D forms, scratching and etching to reveal the shiny aluminum underneath and even cutting it up and creating a sculpture from the square pieces.

Gallery hang of works by Linda Weil

My works are positioned in one of the best spots in the gallery, visible just as you enter. Right next to Lana De Jager's beautiful somewhat Pre-Raphaelite work 'Study for Repose'. 

It was lovely to see a couple of you there and have a chat. Thank you for coming, it is wonderful when 'my team' come along and support me as opening nights can be a bit fraught. Your presence makes the night much more enjoyable.

And for those of you who Instagram, Asheg Brom, Australian author and blogger has posted my work on his Instagram account and you can see his review HERE.