Just a short quick one from me today. I’ve been arting the last few days quite a bit and wanted to share with you some of my WIPs.
Read More ›
Life has been busy of late, but there has been art. There have also been business developments, a piece of artwork I can’t share as I’ve submitted it to a competition, and various explorations in both bubblepainting and Pollock-esque paint delivery. More on those later, but now…The Squid Report!
An art book recommendation, a watercolour palette, a new painting, a thunderstorm encounter and inspiring sea glass. It has been an interesting week.
The other arty thing that happened this week was me being suddenly struck by an undefined inspiration that ended up with my youngest daughter falling off the couch.
It has been a week of calamari here in my studio. All other projects have been suspended by my current obsession with this giant squid painting.
Met an artist, listened to an illustrator, ate dinner with an arty friend, received an arty book and painted a giant squid. Yeah, a very arty week.
It is so wonderful to have some sunny weather to paint in. Last weekend I grabbed my acrylics and set up on the back porch and threw together to beginnings of a randomish painting (mainly because the canvas I’m using has a thread pull in it and I had to wait for the other two I’d gessoed to dry). Didn’t know what I wanted to paint, I just slapped it down. It is wonderfully freeing, especially since the canvas was a dud one so it didn’t matter what I did to it, I couldn’t use it to make saleable art anyway.
It is final. It is complete (well, except for its second coat of varnish which I will do today). My first paper and jewels mosaic is done!
Earlier this year I was introduced to the concept of an art journal. I’ve kept sketchbooks of my work all my life, but art journalling is slightly different. In March I started a journal of my own. A simple cheap bound sketchbook that within its pages I have permission to royally stuff up with abandon. I’ve been using it to experiment with my watercolours of late and that is where you will find all the originals for my Life Inspired series. I’ve found it extremely liberating to have this place to just play. I’ve never painted in a sketchbook before. All my paintings have been big events where I have tried to create something that will grace a wall someday. I can’t tear pages out of this book.
So would you believe that I actually did some art at the hairdressers on Tuesday? I now have purple hair and a painting to show for it. Yes, I took my iPad to the hairdressers. Getting colour put in my hair takes ages and I bore easily, so between writing some copy for work and perusing Facebook, I opened up my Brushes app and started drawing. Just drawing. I had no real intention and what little evolved then evolved into something completely different. The result is no masterpiece, but it is art and it is painting and it is all I have to show for this week outside of a Festival program and a school holiday program which I have been designing at work, so here it be 😀