Exhibitions!

It's so nice to see things starting up again - and I am pleased to let you all know I have work in two local shows and two solo exhibitions happening!

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First up, my most exciting solo is the upcoming Grimm Visions at Blarney Books and Art in Port Fairy,  5 March - 1 April. It is fantastic that the exhibition is running at the same time as the Port Fairy Folk Festival, so you can enjoy both aural and visual delights! There will be a Launch event on 5 March at 4pm. And don't forget the Fantasy Creatures workshop I will also be running at Blarney on 5 March, 12.30 - 4 pm. Workshop bookings HERE. Come join me in the beautiful part of Victoria.

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Running concurrently in the VAS Eileen Mackley Members Room is my second solo, a redux showing of Steam: 20,000 Leagues. Ten works of the original 18 will be featured in the Members Room at the Victorian Artists Society, 2 March - 14 March. There will be a Meet the Artist evening, date to be announced soon. For more information visit VAS.

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Currently the Summer Seasonal exhibition at the Victorian Artists Gallery here in Melbourne opens Saturday. Hugo will be making an appearance, as well as my latest small sculpture, The Echidna.
12 - 28 February in the VAS galleries.

The Echidna. Polymer Clay miniature sculpture by Linda Weil©

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And if you miss the chance to see Steam at VAS, I have been asked by the Blairgowrie Yacht Club Art Show to be their feature artist this year, and I will be showing a selection of 8 of the 20,000 Leagues art works. The BYS art show runs over the Easter weekend with Opening Night on Friday April 15. The show finishes on Monday April 18 and features a wide and varied selection of  different styles of art and is one of the most prestigious Art Shows on the Mornington Peninsula. I was delighted and honored to receive the Best in Show award last year! It really is a excellent exhibition to visit over Easter. Further information: HERE

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So, a busy couple of months! I hope to see you at one, or all! of these exhibitions. 

Hugo... plus Inktober52 #5

 I've been branching out over the past couple of months - into small format sculpture! I have a plan to do resin cast sculptures based on my MechEgg range of drawings, but before I started I thought I should play with wax and clay first.

Not having done any clay work since Play Doh days as a child it has been a learning experience. I found that wax was self-supporting but really difficult to see detail with as it is slightly translucent and quite reflective. Then I bought some Staedtler Mars FIMO Air Basic - an air dry clay, and had a go at doing a statuette of my nephew's dog, Hugo.

This is Hugo - a lovely tempered rescue dog of mixed parentage

 Steep learning curve... as after a slumping failed first attempt I realized I needed to build up an armature in wire and foil or Styrofoam. Luckily I had some copper 20 gauge wire handy and I raided the kitchen for alfoil. After sketching a plan and taking measurements I created an armature with those materials:

Step one: planning and armature. You can see the planning sketch slightly at the bottom of the paper. Also the back of my first wax sculpture attempt of Riley.

Step Two: Additional bulk added to create a firmer base to lay on clay.

Next I began to lay on clay, forming and building up the form of the dog. I did not worry about surface texture at this time, concentrating on the shape. Once I was satisfied I set it aside to dry. It takes a good 24 hours to dry this clay and for thick areas of clay it can take even longer - several days.

Step 3: Clay build up. Waiting for Hugo to dry out a bit....

After a good 24 hours of drying time I then scored the dry surface, added some clay slip and then proceeded to build up with wet clay furry textures. This took a bit of work as Hugo has a huge fluffy tail and ears. And as Hugo often wears a neckerchief, I added that as well. Now I had to wait another 24-36 hours for him to fully dry, inside and out.

Step Four: Finished unpainted model of Hugo

I debated keeping Hugo in the white clay and just sealing that as is - but he has such distinctive markings and as this was an experimental project I decided to paint and varnish him. MORE online research! Again, luckily I had some Liquidtex Acrylic paint available and could cheerfully paint away taking care to place his white markings correctly. I did try painting in eyes, but that made him look like a zombie dog so I just left the eye hollows instead. Once the acrylic paint had dried (ANOTHER 24 hours!) I then varnished him first with Krylon Spray Gloss varnish to get it into all those nooks and crannies... waited 12 hours.... and top coated with FIMO varnish.

Apart from all that waiting time it was a lot of fun and for my first attempt I am fairly happy. 

Hugo complete, painted and varnished. He stands about 10cm high. Although he is free-standing I do have a slice of wood he will sit on... currently being varnished... sigh, more drying time....

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And sorry I forgot to post earlier, but this week's prompt is Squash! The Inktober team have taken that to mean a type of pumpkin, but I have another idea or two. You can see some of their work here: Squash

Inktober52: #4 Frog Prince from Grimm Visions exhibition

 

The Frog Prince, by Linda Weil©

I have drawn this smirking chappie before, in fact he appears on the new invitation for Grimm, so it was fun to try and translate him into ink. And that is a perfect segue into posting this invitation to you all. Grimm Visions at Blarney Books/Art in Port Fairy was cancelled and delayed last year due to Covid restrictions. We are now launching this exhibition on March 6 and it will run until the the end of the month. What is really exciting is that Grimm will on during the Port Fairy Folk Festival! So now you have two good reasons to visit this beautiful part of Victoria - drop into my exhibition and listen to some great music!

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And a couple of you have sent me your #3 Stripes Inktober52. Great stuff! Keep it coming!

 Striped Neonatal Beanie by EM©

Treble Clef by OLE©

Inktober52: #4 Prompt

First up, check out SW's take on 'Stripes'. I really like the strong graphic nature and pleasing composition of this work. The repeating forms of the curves and wild sea hold it all together nicely. Great reaction to the prompt!

'Stripes by SW©

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I think everyone will find this one easier this week!

Inktober52 - #3 'Stripes'

 I thought an animal like a Zebra or Raccoon was too obvious, so for this prompt 'Stripes' I tried to think laterally and came up with the idea of the striped effect of plowed fields. This is based on a couple of images I found on line of the Cotswold region of the UK.

'Stripes' by Linda Weil ©

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Watch out for #4 prompt tomorrow!

Inktober52 - Your works (and #3 prompt)

 A couple of my Inky friends have joined in with Inktober52! Thought you would like to see the wonderful and individual works that SW and EM have been doing.

'Wilde Jagd' by SW©

This is a rather fantastic drawing done with only horizontal line work depicting the Wild Hunt, a common folklore story in various Northern European cultures. Never heard of the Wild Hunt? You can read some fascinating history about it on Wikipedia.

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'Wild' by EM©

EM's garden has gone a bit wild! I wonder if this is where she found her subject for Decay?

'Decay' by EM©

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Feel free to join in! Use the contact form on the right to get in touch with me with your work. This week's prompt is 'Stripes'. The Inktober52 site suggests: 

"With this week's prompt Stripes, think outside the box on how you'll interpret its application. What animal doesn't usually wear stripes but would look great wearing them? "

Inktober52 'Decay'

 Thursday's prompt made me scratch my head a bit. I really didn't want to draw skulls or graves or dead things (which is what a lot have done). Instead, I drew one of the more remarkable aspects of decay, Fungi. With a worldwide distribution, fungi grow in a wide range of habitats on every continent except Antarctica. As of 2022 around 148,000 species of fungi have been described by taxonomists. Fungi are everywhere, the soil, the air, in lakes, rivers and seas, and and within plants, animals, in food and clothing and in your body. Together with bacteria, fungi are responsible for the breaking down (decay) of organic matter to build healthy soil.

Fungi are important and essential decomposers in our ecosystem - the earth would be a dead place without fungi. So next time you have a plate of mushrooms, give thanks for this humble, hard working miracle organism!

White Wood Fungus #2 Inktober 'Decay' by Linda Weil©

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2022 classes resume soon!

Mentone/Mordialloc Art Group
Drawing Classes:
Instructional class: Thursday 1.30 - 3.30 pm. Term 1, Beginner to Intermediate
Social Drawing: Thursday 7.30 - 9.30 pm. All levels - come along and join our friendly group! There are no formal lessons, but individual one-on-one tutoring to help you achieve your art goal.
Book HERE

Victorian Artists Society, East Melbourne
Monday Night Drawing classes: 4pm - 6.30pm
'Drawing Wet and Wild!'
All levels: Book HERE

Jack

 I had a great time over the past two days running my 'Animal Portrait in Pastel Pencil' workshop. It was a nice group of friendly ladies, each of whom created a wonderful and individual work. We spent a lot of time trying out different techniques using the pencils to blend, mix, wash and make marks and textures on a sanded support before beginning our piece:

A sample of some of the tests we did © Linda Weil

I did a demonstration work progressively over the two days to show how these techniques work and to illustrate 'dark to light' pastel pencil drawing. I choose an open source reference photo of a Jack Rabbit. I have seen these critters on my trips through the US mid-west and love the long ears and loping hop-walk they have. The work was drawn on Art Spectrum ColourFix medium paper. The background was created using soft pastel pencils that was then blended and lightly washed using a stippling brush. The hare was drawn with CarbOthello pastel pencils and touched up with a bright white Sennelier pastel stick.

'Jack' by Linda Weil ©

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And for those who like ink! This week's Inktober52 prompt is a tricky one:

...I need to think about this one for a day or so! Watch this blog....

Ink! Wild!

 Inktober 52 - Week 1

I enjoyed doing 'Inktober' last year during October, but I do admit that sometimes doing a drawing everyday became difficult at times. But ink is so much fun, and I really like playing around with it in different and imaginative ways... so... I thought I would try and see if I could do the Inktober52 challenge this year. No promises, but will see how I go. Surely a drawing a week would be easier?

Why not join along? Each Thursday a new prompt appears on the Inktober website and the Instagram page - or emailed to you if you have signed up. You have the whole week to think about it and do a drawing! As well a talented artist will be featured each week. The works appear on Instagram, but you can see them without joining (although they do nag you to sign up). HERE is this week's featured artist.

And this week's prompt is 'WILD'. Go wild and have fun with ink!

Week 1: Inktober52 'Wild' by Linda Weil(d)©

Pastel Pencils - and where to buy

Happy 2022 to you all!

'Tyger! tyger...' © Linda Weil

 Have you tried Pastel Pencils yet? If, like me, you find the dust created by soft pastels irritating, but like the rapidity and wonderful hues of pastels, why not try the pencils? You can achieve some really fabulous results and details with these versatile pastels. And because they are pencils they are immediately familiar to handle and use. As noted previously on this blog, I am running a pastel pencil workshop 12/13 January here in Melbourne at the Victorian Artists Society. Places are still available and you can book HERE.

But maybe you were considering taking the class but thought 'where to get the materials?'. Yes, I found that I needed to restock some supplies - and then found that I would be travelling to 3 or 4 different art shops to get everything I needed. What a hassle that would be!

But I did a bit of further research online and found this fabulous place up in NSW that has all the materials for pastels in one place - with a prompt delivery service!
Soft Pastels Australia. Your Number One Source for Soft Pastels

They have everything you could possibly want here! All the sanded papers, even PastelMatte. Every type of pastels and pencils - and if you just need to replace that single CarbOthello they sell singletons. And guess what? They are having a sale! I am very tempted by the Julia Woning 10 Pan pastel set... hmm, maybe a New Year's Gift?

So if you are still debating about the workshop, or even just want to purchase some pastel materials, get on line - if you order in the next day or so it should get to your door before the 12th. Tell Renae you are doing my workshop and I sent you - she is very helpful and sent my order promptly. Hope to see you all soon.