Knock Knock

Yesterday was an extremely productive art day with my buddy Mignon. I finished the painting I was working on and started on a new one. It was such a good day we decided to have two art days this week with the next one scheduled for Sunday.

As you know I have a love of dilapidated buildings and recently became inspired by ghost signs. I wanted to try and capture the essence of ghost signs and incorporated them into my dilapidated building series. However as you can see below I zoomed in much too far and left no room for the ghost sign. So your role in all of this is to imagine the ghost sign somewhere up above the painting to the right hehehe. Can you see it??? It seems to be a trade mark of mine to zoom in on the details and make them larger than life. Maybe the ghosts signs will emerge somewhere down the track in another painting. And if not that's ok too as long as I'm painting.

The Red Door

mixed media on canvas

60.9x50.8cm (24"x20")

Its Festival Time

The Adelaide Festival of Arts is here again. Performing and visual art everywhere. In every nook and cranny, wherever there is a little space something is going on. Of course if the festival is here then so is The Fringe where the weird and the wonderful come from all over the globe to fill our little city and show us what they can do. Adelaide is alive with the buzz of performing and visual art literally everywhere. Friday night was the opening parade of The Adelaide Fringe.

80,000 people flocked to the city on a hot and balmy evening

Julia, Zoe and I were among them

descendants of the original owners of the land sang and played didgeridoo

the reason Zoe wanted to go to the opening - the roller derby girls

she wants to join roller derby when she's old enough

she practises every Saturday and keeps skating even with blisters

is she old enough yet???

big dinosaurs

a bit scary Zoe thought

is that Marilyn???

inside a bubble

disabled people joined the parade

smiling and waving and having a great time

different performers enticing you to come to their show

yes! say it with art woo!!!

oh my, their mothers must hold their breath

that was fun!

and Zoe even got a butterfly with flashing lights

Grumpy Me

There has been a lot of personal stuff still taking up my time. That means less time in the studio and less time in the studio makes for one grumpy me, ROAR!!!!! Being a Leo I feel I'm entitled to let out a 'roar' now and again hehehe. I left the story last time with a big new canvas 152.4x101.6cm (60"x40") sitting on my easel. Well its still there all blank and white. I haven't been able to get in the studio but I have however been working on the planning stages of a couple of paintings. I have been researching dilapidated buildings and have acquired a passion for ghost signs. I found some great sites that deal with documenting old hand painted signs on buildings before they are lost forever. The layers and textures are divine and I want to try to re-create these effects on my dilapidated buildings series. Its always about layers, textures and text with me. I think the layers are like history with people's personal lives and stories being added to each layer. This of course causes change with some things being covered while others are revealed thus creating a new story. And every viewer adds their own story or connotations to it so its forever evolving and changing. Gee I'm not sure I understand what I just said hehehe, but I know what I mean even if I can't put it into words. So while all this is going on inside my head I am also still trying to improve my skills with portraiture. I know in my mind what I want to achieve but the hands are a bit slow in understanding and tend to do their own thing. It will get better in time. I just have to keep going.

Art, Text and Dilapidated Buildings

My Mum always told me the older you get the quicker time goes. I remember when I was a child and my birthdays took so long to come around and Christmas felt like it came every two years instead of one. Now in my fifties whoosh another day flies by and whoosh another month, another year. So far this year has been a year of caring for others and not much time for art.

Things have to change. There are art ideas bubbling up inside me and they will explode out the top of my head if I don't get some paint on canvas soon. I did go and buy a large canvas. I have never painted one this big before. Its nearly as tall as me reaching to just under my nose from the ground 152.4x101.6cm (60"x40"). I only have a little car so getting it home was amusing. I'm still on the abandoned or run down building theme so a dilapidated door, peeling paint, padlock, keep out signs could be on the cards, watch this space hehehe.

Along with my dilapidated building series I will also continue with developing my skills in the art of portraiture. I went to an exhibition and was inspired by a portrait I saw there. Up close you could see the paint daubs that depicted the features. The shapes and light and shade that all together formed the image of a person's face. That's what I'm aspiring to. Looser shapes and experimenting with different colours and of course text, I always like to add text. I am very hopeful that we will have some cooler days in the coming week so I can spend time in my otherwise too hot studio. That big canvas is calling me .....

First for 2010

I am on top of the world tonight and all it took to lift me to such heights is a good session in my studio with my art buddy Mignon. Yes its Thursday and that means its art day hehehe. I do some art on most days but Thursday is a full day with someone who knows my art speak. I can talk textures, colours, layers, composition, concepts and Mignon talks back. Her eyes don't glaze over and she understands what I am talking about. Of course you can't have an art day with an art buddy without some girl talk as well hehehe. I have been working on a portrait. As I'm new to portraiture its been giving me some grief. Parts of it are good and working well while other parts have been worked, scrubbed back, worked again and so on and so forth. I think its really been holding me back and attacking my confidence. Well last week I decided to put it aside and start a new painting. I'm not giving up, just putting it out of the way for a little bit. I thought I would return to something a little simpler to build my confidence again. And here is my first completed painting for 2010.

Abandoned

mixed media on canvas

100x75cm (40"x30")