Drawing No Conclusions

Recently I sold one of my watercolours at the Warranwood Art Show. I had a ceramic piece in the exhibition as well but Avis Gardner had a much more intriguing little treasure and deservedly scooped the ceramic award.

I love drawing and painting and years ago went through a crisis of confidence when I decided no one was buying 2d art so I stopped doing it. I felt that ceramics were more useful and functional and of course there would be a market for them. There is somewhere.

But I miss drawing and painting and it is a heck of a lot easier to store. I received a book on egg tempera many decades ago and fell in love with the images but felt the discipline of it was too daunting for a flibbertigibbet like me. Recently I came across a beautiful blog http://altoonsultan.blogspot.com.au/  by an egg tempera painter who also loves his garden and the food he can produce from it. I still felt overwhelmed reading through the instructions on egg tempera but there was one brief mention about milk tempera.

 I didn’t wait to find details but raced off to play in the studio and experiment.

 I think what appeals to me about it was that there was nothing to lose. I always feel a greater sense of achievement in producing something from nothing by just adding effort. Like the production of this grass basket from a grass that grows at my back door and delightfully sheds shafts with seed heads in autumn.

  A tablespoon or two full of milk and a sprinkle of 3 different food dyes will last for hours and every layer is exciting to develop. So this week I have had fun and feel inspired to keep going and experimenting.

The first experiment was just on good quality recycled printer paper and was just to see if it was possible to do. The paper warped and bubbled but a lovely sheen built up very quickly. The milk dries quickly between layers and subsequent layers can be built up without disturbing the underlying layers too much.

 Milk has fat in it which combines with the pigment to form a suspension. It also has casein in it which is an early ingredient in plastics. We have all seen milk drips spilt on tabletops dry to a sheen. What you end up with is a sort of primitive acrylic watercolour surface.

 With egg tempera it is important to have a stable surface on which to paint so wood panels have traditionally been used and gessoed with a toothy surface for the paint  to hold onto. Gesso is a mixture of whiting and a binder. Traditionally rabbit glue was used but that all started sounded complicated until I read that you could use gelatin as the binder. Gelatine, milk, whiting, pigments (especially earth) were all within my spheres of knowledge and interest. I haven’t got to the stage of gesso but that is on the agenda. I have made one experiment with clay and milk and will be on the lookout for different coloured soils to use as pigments from now on.

I have also done a preliminary test on some bisqued work to see if it has a similar effect to terra sigillata, something that I have done for some time now with my work. Terra sigillata is an application of the finest particles of clay which are applied in several thin layers. The tiny particles fill in the minute pits on the clay surface and develop a refractive sheen. I will try this on an unfired piece(greenware) and see if it is effective.

I have been happy with just experimenting on thicker quality cartridge to prevent the warping problem but will progress to gesso on Masonite for a more formal painting when I understand more of the qualities of the paint.

There is a dreamy 60s picture book texture to the images.


And my paintings are tiny. I found some old A7 sample paper pads that I bought in an art shop a few years ago and since I no longer remember the price of the bundle they have lost their overwhelming preciousness which always daunts me in experimenting.

Gozer and Forward Movement

Back in March I started this blog after winning an award at Warranwood Art Show from one of the sponsors, Gozer. Thanks Gozer! It was encouraging and inspirational in my little world to receive some tiny recognition.

In my upbringing, windfalls were few and far between, so I always wanted to convert them into something memorable or significant. There was one occasion, where I remember this thinking first began. My brother had a winning ticket in the Grey Sisters charity raffle and won a 2 metre Christmas stocking which was delivered to our house on a trailer. It was wrapped in orange mesh and bulging with gaudy gifts and a toxic assortment of sugary treats. We had collectively never even conceived of something so magical in our fantasy filled lives.

Technically it was Tom’s ticket that won but since none of us actually had any money to buy tickets and were unaware that any were bought on our behalf it was an uncomfortable boast for him. It seemed the monstrosity of greedy indulgence sat in our back room (leaned at an awkward angle to fit under the low ceiling) for only a couple of days, and was the subject of much late night parental discourse and during the daylight hours kept us children occupied with much selfish squabbling and “baggsing “of items under the mesh.

Eventually superstition won over, and our mother convinced us that it was unhealthy for us to have such an object in our midst and to create envy amongst all the neighbours so we were to choose one object each and the rest would be shared with the children at...wherever! The frenzied panic of making a single choice began and somehow nothing looked quite as beautiful or substantial on closer scrutiny. Our choices were final and I cannot for the life of me remember what I chose because I was still full of envy about everybody else’s choices and their wonderful sense of discernment. I remember being enchanted by the plastic holly so maybe that was what I chose!

A few days later our annual Christmas card from Grandma came and we all got the same thing-$1.00.

 

It was a much anticipated dollar and in my little head it had been spent a million times and grown to epic proportions. I had saved all the children in Africa, I had bought a tin of 72 Derwents and I had still had enough to buy the most economical selection of lollies at the milk bar with a few coins over to tide me through to next Christmas and Grandma’s  next dollar. The dollar was so much more valued than the gaudy stocking because it was in a dimension equivalent with my imagination and allowed my imagination to grow with it. I did manage to eke it out for the summer and spare a coin for the collection plate at church and then reverted back to world of fantasy and empty pockets in a world of wild fruit trees.

The Gozer prize was just the right size to say “Someone believes in you this time so make that grow.”

 I have taken the responsibility of a prize and converted it into a year of growing. This blog has now reached nearly 60 postings. Some people read it and I send a special thank you to all the Latvian robots that register on my stats!

I have had to learn to manipulate images and connect links. I have developed a facebook page for my ceramics, designed and developed a business card, connected with other bloggers and artists around the world.

My image manipulation skills have developed slowly but consistently, and are helping me breathe new life into a passion I have held since childhood -that of creating images.

 

 I put a wish out there earlier to collaborate with someone, and 2weeks ago I collaborated in a small way to help the children of Africa to get some education, by holding a sale of ceramics with my friend Rosy who is going to climb Mt Kilimanjaro to raise funds for UNICEF.
Another little collaboration is coming to fruition this week in the release of merchandise for Opera Australia’s Ring Cycle produced by Ingrid Tufts and carrying some of my little images.

There have been ups and down and flat, flat feelings but there has been forward movement that is shaping itself slowly out of the great big cloud of imagination out there.

Maybe tomorrow the next tiny step in my plan will bear fruit.

 

 

 

Gone to a Good Home

The natural cycle of making artwork is that it will go out into the world at some stage and start a new life. It contains some of the artist's mental DNA and sometimes it is sad to part with a piece, which of course is better than being glad to ged rid of it!

 

This piece went to a good home on the weekend after The Warranwood Steiner Art Show and I am very grateful for that. It was a great show with a high clearance rate and a vibrant buzz. Beautiful afternoon tea and room for families to mingle. I love seeing children exposed to art exhibitions. They develop a vocabulary specific to art and become more competent in discussing their responses which in turn helps them to develop their own higher concepts.