#29 and #30

Urban Script

mixed media on canvas

101.6x76.2cm (40"x30")

Street Culture

mixed media on canvas

101.6x76.2cm (40"x30")

Since posting these on my Red Bubble site http://www.redbubble.com/people/utam I have had a lot of favourable comments. Both have been featured in certain groups and a lot of people have put them on their favourites list. Wasn't sure how a bunch of old advertising poster pieces would be perceived hehehe. I had fun collecting them and fun creating with them and people enjoy them. What more can a girl want???

Fears, Doubts and Slipping Confidence

Have I really not posted since last Thursday? Time is flying by. Its two weeks until our work has to be delivered to the gallery. TWO WEEKS!!! There are still two more paintings that I want to do. One is part of the way through and the other one hasn't been started. I'm having trouble getting things to work for me as the fears and doubts are setting in. My confidence is slipping as the exhibition gets closer. Anyway I thought I'd share with you what I have been doing with the layers of advertising posters. This canvas is on the large side 101.6x76.2cm (40"x30")

some advertising poster, book pages, found paper, acrylic paint and some stamping

some altered paper and some tie dyed paper towel added with more stamping

more of the same, nearly covered the canvas

the canvas is all covered and now a protective coat of matte varnish is applied

once the matte varnish is dry I covered the whole thing with white gesso

water is sprayed on and I start scrubbing back the gesso with a toothbrush

a very light wash of black

then a very light wash of raw sienna to age it a bit

a bit more stamping on the boring bits

Late One Night

Sunday Arts, one of my favourite programs on tv, had a segment about an artist (Bill Luke) who goes on nocturnal explorations through the streets of Melbourne collecting swathes of advertising posters from the city's walls. In his studio Bill strips back layers from the posters to reveal scraps of pictures and text. With careful composition they become new works of art. As most of the backgrounds in my work are inspired by old bill boards I was totally in awe of this and had to have some old advertising posters too. I enlisted the help of my nocturnal daughter, Julia. We have been on two heists now and below are some of the treasures.

I want to use scraps of text, images and textures with layers of paint and gesso, some stamping and other mark making and see where that leads me. I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself. Maybe its the naughty nocturnal jaunts that I'm excited about hehehe hahaha hehehe.