Teatime

Drawing and painting with teas

I recently purchased a copy of  'The Organic Painter' by Carn Griffiths. He does some fabulous works using tea, coffee or wine stains, mixing with inks, stamps and splatters. His book is quite inspiring and I and my Thursday nighters have been playing around with the techniques.

Preparing paper with tea stains, for the one on the left I used English Breakfast tea and a tea made with saffron threads. The right side is saffron tea and the cranberry rosehip tea. The photo also shows some of the stamps I have made using white PVC (eraser or block), and Sennilier inks in Turquise and Sepia.

Here are some test sheets. Click to enlarge and read the method. Note that the yellow used was a tea made from Tumeric.

Three 'finished' works. Teas, inks, spatter, stencils, stamps - lots of fun.

All paper used in these tests was 300gsm Waterford cold press.

I am travelling for the next few weeks - but hope to have some things to show you when I return. Until then, Happy Drawing and don't forget to sign on for the January workshop in Bathurst!

Summer Workshop

Art Scene School of Arts (Bathurst)

19-25 January, 2020

Come join me in Bathurst for a week of drawing!

Take your drawings even further and expore the world of colour and graphite pencil! Colour pencils have often been associated with childhood, but since the early 20th century artist-quality colour pencils have been produced that turned a child’s toy into a serious medium for artists. Learn to master layering colours over and on top of one another to create colour pencil paintings of a rich and luminous depth. Texture, reflection, form and composition and all your colour pencil questions will be answered in this workshop as well as basic colour theory. Discover the difference between wax/oil pencils and watercolour pencils, how to layer, blend, create texture, wash or not, how to include graphite, which paper to use when, as well as all the basic techniques you need to get the most out of your graphite or colour pencil. You will enjoy step-by-step guidance, and the best part is that these techniques can be learned by anyone – no matter your current skill level!

Subjects this year will include: ‘Glass’ in waxed/standard colour pencil or graphite pencil, ‘Botanical’ in Aquarelle colour pencils, ‘Landscape’ in graphitint and graphite pencil, and an animal subject using colour pencils on coloured paper. All levels of experience welcome.

Sign up today at: The Artscene

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'Tree'
Watersoluble Graphite and Graphite

Spoon Collection - Anna's jam spoon

Anna's Spoon - German .800 silver

Anna’s Jam Spoon* – Unknown German maker, approx. 1886

 When Anna was betrothed to Max in 1887, he presented to her a 12-piece, .800 silver dinner service as betrothal/wedding gift. Max had each piece monogrammed with her new married name initials of A + L. The silver set held pride-of-place in her dining room and was lovingly polished and set out for use every holiday and special occasion. Anna was a great cook and she would spend days in the kitchen stirring jams and jellies in a big iron pot. One spoon from the set was used as her ‘special’ stirring spoon. All through the war years Anna would glean berries from the hedgerows and strawberries from her garden plot to make her jam. If she was lucky, she would have a little bit of ration sugar, if not, she would barter ‘jam on a promise’ with the Schmidt’s for some of the honey from their hives. Anna’s renown as a jam maker meant she seldom had trouble making a trade. After the war, the silver travelled with her granddaughter to the USA, and that spoon was put into many more years of jam service. One day, this spoon with five of it's siblings, left for Australia with Anna’s great-granddaughter – who doesn’t make jam but will stir the occasional custard with this special spoon. Worn down on the edge of the bowl to a point, bent and slightly battered, this treasured spoon has given the women in my family over 130 years of faithful service. And someday the spoon will be handed down to Anna’s Great, great, granddaughter.

*Note: I have drawn this spoon previously (with raspberries) but it is worth drawing again!

Spoon Collection - Georgian

Fiddle back Georgian Spoon

Found in the op-shop cutlery box!  I looked at photos of old coins of the period and included these in the work - tuppence and sixpence.

Fiddle Back Georgian Spoon – John Blake Silversmith (1827)

Nearly 200 years ago, from the finest silver I was made and out of London I sailed. On a colony ship, in the King’s service, we came to tame this land. Round the Horn we laboured and blown by the roaring 40’s we finally landed at a dismal village by swamp named Melbourne. On the Captains table and Officer’s mess my silver had reflected in the candlelight. I came ashore and I passed into use on the sideboards of the elite of the colony. Oh! the sights I have seen and the people I met who admired my glow and used me well. But I was parted from my canteen mates, stolen and pawned, abused and neglected.  Finally, I languished, bashed, battered and dented in the reject jar at the Op Shop where you rescued me. A polish can restore my gleam, but not my youth. Would that I could speak and tell you a tale or two!

Spoon Collection - Queen Bess

More spoon drawings!

If you read my earlier posts, you know I have a collection of spoons I love to draw. I am a bit at a loss between 'big' projects, so am keeping busy by doing some little works. It would be nice to do a large collection of these of maybe 14 or 15 individual drawings.
 Each drawing is done in graphite and graphitint washes on 300 gsm Lana Bristol board, A4 size. All the spoons have a 'story' to go with them. 

Here is the first, titled 'Queen Bess'

Plan drawing with actual 'Queen Bess' teaspoon

WIP

Finished work

The Story of  the Queen Bess teaspoon:

Queen Bess EPNS teaspoon - Oneida USA 1946

At last the times were good and the New Deal had slowly turned the country around. Prosperity and growth grew out of the dark days.  Aunt had waited through all the long years of the war for her niece to return. And now Niece was soon to be married! Aunt saved every Betty Crocker coupon she could, collected together and sent them off. An offer too good to refuse, ‘Tudor’ plate silverware at a bargain price. How surprized and delighted was Niece to receive the velvet lined rosewood box filled with the 48 piece setting of ‘Queen Bess’ as a wedding gift! And the sweet little ‘Forget-me-not’ flowers would remind Niece of Aunt every time she used the silver.

Biblio Art Prize

 Illustrating 'The Wolf in the Whale'

Port Fairy Bookseller and Art Gallery, Blarney Books run the annual Biblio Art Prize. I entered last year with a graphite pencil work and have just completed this year's entry. 

Each entrant is given a book to base an artwork on, the more literary the better (it is a bookshop after all). I am afraid I am not very 'literary' in my artwork, but I have certainly enjoyed reading 'The Wolf in the Whale' by Jordanna Max Brodske. Creating an artwork for this exciting novel has been a bit of a head scratch. 

I wanted to show the Arctic environment, the drama of conflict and the relationship between the Inuit gods and Norse invading gods. I decided to work in inks as I felt that this medium was bolder and would strongly emulate the ice fields and cold landscape. 

So I created a work using the Raven as the theme and incorporated various other elements from the book - wolf prints and blood in the snow, lunar eclipse, Inuksuk (Inuit stone statues) and elements of Norse influence - a quote from the book transcribed into long branch Younger Futhark runes. Thank you Google and 'The Viking Rune' website! 

So this is what I did:

...and its a bit 'meh'. Or rather, I don't think it is all that great. Its okay, has all the elements, but leaves me cold (pun not intended). Just a bit too fussy, too literal and didn't really make me happy. It's going into the 'Nope' folio.

So I thought on it for awhile, and then started sketching and doodling about. I love the clean, simple lines of Inuit sculpture, and began to draw shapes and forms of the Arctic animal/gods to emulate that sort of pared back minimalist form. But my drawings had to be my own as I am very aware of the dangers of cultural borrowing and appropriation.

As I worked I started to have more and more fun, eventually incorporating all the elements into a frieze effect, each figure merging into the next and forming new shapes. Lots of cutting out shapes and positioning or flipping and redrawing to come to a final composition. All the Gods are there to defeat the approaching Ragnarok! Plus the ice floes and the trapped Norse ship... even the symbol for Loki makes and appearance.

The final work has been done in Art Spectrum Black acrylic ink which has a lovely matt black finish. Drawn and painted onto Lana 250gsm Bristol Board, the sharp contrast between the black and white works well to create the feel of the frozen north I wanted. I am a lot happier with this second work than the first.

But not to give away the entire thing just yet...  I am only showing here are a couple of details from the final work - I will post the entire piece closer to the final deadline of the competition. Here is hoping it gets accepted!

'Flights of Fancy' continues'

Extended! 

I am very pleased that Tacit Galleries has extended the run of my solo exhibition 'Flights of Fancy' by a further two weeks. The show will now be available until September 1 in Gallery 7 at Tacit - so if you have not yet had the opportunity to visit now is your chance!

Perhaps you would like to come along and chat with me about my work? I will be at the opening event on Wednesday 21, 6.30 to 8 pm.  Would love to see you there!

'Eyrie' : Graphite pencil on paper from 'Flights of Fancy'

Three views

Nest Study - Macro to Micro

My Wednesday and Friday classes have been working with graphite pencil in small format drawings that show 3 views of one subject - macro to micro. Each student selected their own subject and worked on one drawing per session (A5 size) aiming to completed it within the 2 hour session. My drawings/demos took a little longer than 2 hours, perhaps 3 hours each, zooming in on a view of an old blackbird nest in a winter street tree. The above image shows the three works mounted together. Below are the individual pieces.

Second Opening

Tonight, Wednesday August 7 6.30 - 8pm

If you missed the opening of 'Flights of Fancy', this evening there is a second late-night opportunity to view these works. I am very pleased to have had several sales - so if there was a work you were interested don't miss out! Check out Tacit's FB page here.

Tacit will be showcasing 4 new artists while mine continues another 2 weeks. One of the artists' featured is Terry Beer - he one of my favourite contemporary graphite pencil artists. He does fabulous work with reflections, flowers and fruit - a must see.

So why not pop along tonight, have a look around and say hello?

'Bubbles' - graphite and colour pencil on rag paper
SOLD - thank you Glenda!

Opening night

Tacit Galleries 'Flights of Fancy'

It was a great night last night at the opening - I arrived early and took a few shots of the gallery before it got too crowded to show you how the exhibition looks - fabulous! I was really pleased with how Tim and Keith hung and curated the works. The space is excellent and showcases my drawings well. And it did get crowed 10 minutes later! Thank you to all my friends and supporters who came, your being there was much appreciated.