Ruth Lathlean

Photos of Ethiopia

2012-02-14T21:48:00.001+11:00

I can't believe it is nearly 4 months since my last post. Since I returned home just before Christmas I have been busy trying to edit and organise my 2,000 images while watching the tennis in January and trying to get the overgrown garden under control. I really have had nothing to put on the blog. But last week my regular printmaking and art groups have started again so maybe I'll produce something to add to this blog.

I took most photos in Ethiopia as it was a photographic trip - a great experience and highly recommended. I've just posted 361 photos of Ethiopia on Flickr and I'll try and post the slideshow from there on this blog. But in case it doesn't work with so many images, here is the link http://www.flickr.com/photos/banksias/sets/72157629280580751/detail/ You can then press slideshow on the Flickr page so you can view in fullscreen mode. Hope you enjoy them.

It appears that I have somehow got some of the pictures to appear below so it will give you a taste of what they are like. So press the link to see them all larger as I mentioned above.

ETHIOPIA

2012-02-14T21:32:00.001+11:00

ETHIOPIA, a set on Flickr.

Floriade - Canberra

2011-10-20T22:09:00.002+11:00

Thought I'd put a few photos of this year's Floriade on this blog - after all the Queen visited Floriade today, although it officially ended last weekend! This will be my last post for a while as tomorrow I leave on my big trip to Ethiopia, Egypt, Jordan, and Israel with a week in the south of Thailand on Phi Phi Island to recover from all the archaeology. I'm going with my friends Gael and Donna and we'll be away nearly 2 months.

For those interested in the trips we are on look up PhotoAdventours.com for Ethiopia, and Peregrine for the middle east countries.

I've been busy getting the house and garden ready for my housesitter - the dogs know something is up and they are not happy. Anyway here are some of the flowers - of course the daffodils and most of the tulips were finished as it's getting quite warm now (27 degrees tomorrow) but there was still plenty of colour when I went last week. I'll try and post these as a slideshow from Flickr.

Pastel Portrait

2011-10-15T23:02:00.000+11:00

I am not very experienced with pastels or portraits so went to a 3 hour class recently with a photo I took of this old woman when I was in the islands east of Lombok, Indonesia. I really enjoyed working in pastels and finished this last week. I think she has a lovely expression on her face.


Old Indonesian woman

What I've been doing

2011-09-20T22:25:00.000+10:00

Nearly a month has passed since my last post and the weather has changed from winter to spring. The daffodils have finished their flowering, the hellebores and polyanthus continue to flower and the bluebells are coming up.

The beautiful Floriade Festival has just begun in Canberra - I must make time to visit ... it has over a million blooms and is the only known free one in the world.

I've been busy trying to restore my front garden which was partly destroyed when the electricity authority dug a 10 metre trench to fix their high voltage cable which just happened to be under my driveway. They were supposed to restore it ..... but we all know how this never really is done to the standard we want. I have planted some small native plants which I hope will be OK when I am overseas for 7 weeks soon.

I have been experimenting with abstract painting each fortnight when I paint with a group of artists who did courses with me in the last two years. This is much harder than I expected. This is one which someone said looks a bit like a map of Europe! It is mainly acrylic but with some collaged paper and board.

I entered six paintings into the ASOC (Artists Society of Canberra) Spring Exhibition just over a week ago. Some were my Greek ones and I also included a couple of watercolours I did some time ago but had never exhibited. Here they are here - I was just learning to paint with watercolours.

Flowers - collage mixed media painting

2011-08-24T15:01:00.002+10:00

I haven't posted for a while as I have been laid low with the flu. I made this painting a little while ago and it's been in an exhibition at the Strathnairn Arts Centre in Canberra. It is only 30cm square on a stretched canvas. I got the idea from Cloth, Paper, Scissors website and really loved scrunching up tissue paper and gluing it with other fancy papers before adding paint and varnish. The texture really stands out. Magenta is not a colour I usually use but I quite like it - gives a happy look.

Rosie & Daisy

2011-07-27T16:41:00.002+10:00

Rosie & Daisy, a photo by banksias on Flickr.

Was looking through the many photos of my two lovely Lhasa Apsos and couldn't resist posting this one even though it was taken a long time ago when I was making a wall hanging and had lots of wool in baskets. Then below is a more recent one - Daisy on the right is the cheeky one.

Recent large painting

2011-06-25T15:18:00.003+10:00

It has been ages since I added anything to this blog but I have finally finished this large acrylic painting I did in the final weeks of Michael Winter's classes this semester. He insisted we get two canvases 700 x 1000 and screw them together to make one large canvas so we could work more freely. I have been learning Aperture photo-editing software recently and today managed to get rid of the crack between the two canvases.

We were asked to get a photograph of a landscape "looking down" and I thought of this one I took several years ago when taking a hot air balloon ride in autumn. It is the same tiny photo on the right of this blog. The photo was a jumping off point to paint a picture with everything having a soft misty look like the early work of Max Meldrum and Clarice Beckett but I insisted on making the balloons sharp and I'm quite pleased with the result. The sand adds to the texture but wrecks the brushes!

As I have some large paintings around I have decided to change some of the pictures on my walls and this one is now hung. Some smaller prints have been given away to freecyclers.

Macro Photography

2011-05-16T17:40:00.001+10:00

I always like photographing closeup. Here are a few photos of mainly native Australian flowers I have taken when using film and then scanning. I still have a wonderful Minolta 100mm macro lens that I loved but I can no longer use it with digital. As I find the weight of SLR and lenses more than I can easily carry as I'm getting older, I am only using compact cameras and having more trouble getting the really close images that I want. But I will persevere as I know that depth of field with a compact small sensor is actually better than with SLRs.

These 2 photos are of Correa Manii, one of my favourites.

Banksia

Callistemon

To learn more about digital macro I did a one day course recently and photographed weeds closeup along an old river bed - amazing how beautiful the rejects of plants can be!

Stained glass picture and National Museum painting

2011-05-07T09:38:00.000+10:00

I am soon taking part in an exhibition of art inspired by last year's trip to the Greek islands of Leros, Patmos and Lipsos. Several gouache paintings from this were placed on this blog last year, but I decided to do one in glass. The theme is houses in Lipsos. The picture is meant to be hung in a window. I've added two photos of this glass piece - one taken on a light table and one hanging on my deck. The latter of course shows the trees coming through the largely transparent glass. I love working in glass, but this was quite a hard project since there were so many small pieces of glass to handle. All were wrapped in copper foil and soldered in the Tiffany style.

This acrylic painting was another one done in the style of Jeffrey Smart. Although taken from a photograph of mine of part of the National Museum in Canberra, I have changed some aspects to make it more surreal.

Top 50 Tapestry Blogs

2011-05-04T22:20:00.000+10:00

I've recently been notified that my blog has been added to "Sewn Together by a Thread: Top 50 Tapestry Blogs". I am really pleased by this, especially as I am not doing as much tapestry this year and therefore don't have much to display. For those interested in looking up these blogs the link is http://www.liberalartsdegree.com/sewn-together-by-a-thread-top-50-tapestry-blogs/ Many of them are excellent.

Pointillism Painting Process

2011-04-14T22:54:00.003+10:00

Pointillism is a technique of neo-Impressionist painting using tiny dots of various pure colours, which become blended in the viewer's eye. It was developed by Seurat with the aim of producing a greater degree of luminosity and brilliance of color. My idea began with this photograph taken near Adaminaby in the Snowy Mountains, NSW. It was an assignment set in my art class by Michael Winters.

I then made a collage (A2 size) from the photograph using tiny torn up pieces of advertising junk mail. It took many hours to do and was an interpretation especially as junk mail colours were not always what one wanted.

Finally I made this acrylic pointillist painting approximately the same size as the collage on a stretched canvas. The background was first painted with Cadmium Red to warm up the painting. I then used small brushes, both round and square to make the marks. I had spots before the eyes! But looked at from a distance the blending does take place and the colours enhanced.

Photo Reference for Palette Knife Painting

2011-04-08T22:13:00.000+10:00

I was asked to post this photo which was the original idea for the bark painting. Maybe the outline shape reflects the painting but I changed colours and even shapes in many places. I always end up doing this.

Palette Knife Painting

2011-04-01T22:58:00.000+11:00

I have done very little work with a palette knife, and I really enjoyed painting this big painting using one. The canvas is 1000 x 700mm. It was a challenge for many of us in my art class as we had our easels set up. I interpreted the photo I began with quite widely as I love to do, adding colours that were more in my mind than in the photo. The background on the left had fine sand stuck on it in places and then the acrylic paint used like watercolour to create a different kind of finer texture.

Art, monoprint, my garden and cockatoo

2011-03-21T23:46:00.000+11:00

It's been a while since I have posted anything - busy, busy with a range of things - but here are a few pictures I like.

Cliff in the Grampians

This acrylic painting began with a photograph of a landscape and became a semiabstracted one. I was especially interested in shapes, lines. The colours, except for the green, were close on the colour wheel. I'm doing an art class with Michael Winters again this semester and it's called 'Landscape - one step further' to get away from making realistic paintings and putting ones emotions into the painting.

Monoprint
I made this print using soluble wax crayons (Caran d'Arche) to draw the picture onto a piece of polypropylene, then printing on a piece of Arches watercolour paper 185gsm soaked in water for 30 minutes

Sulphur crested cockatoo
These large Australian birds love the seeds on my pistache tree. For the last 2 weeks they have been stripping the tree of seeds and also breaking off branches which is very annoying. They are easy to photograph as they are quite unafraid of people quite close by.

Colombines in my garden

Back garden in summer

This summer has been unusually wet so everything looks so green

Back deck in summer

Printmaking

2011-01-28T19:25:00.001+11:00

I attended an ASOC (Artists Society of Canberra) Summer School two weeks ago and studied printmaking with Jo Hollier. A week learning new techniques and ways of working and building on previous skills was an excellent experience. We all chose our own subjects and this meant a great variety in the prints we made. Some prints were done entirely by hand, and others made by putting through a press. We made monoprints, linocut prints, woodblock prints, drypoint etching and collagraphs. Usually it is very hot and the paper dries out too quickly (which we sometimes need to use damp) but this time it was so cool and wet we had trouble drying the shellac on the collagraph plates so we could make prints.

Here are some photos of our classroom and our displays on the last day.

Some of my work on display on the last day linocuts, woodblock prints, collagraphs and monoprints. (Three were from a previous workshop)

Linocut prints - mine is the large one on the right - Eucalyptus Caesia flowers

Other students work on display

Drypoint etching of my two dogs Rosie & Daisy

Landscape Abstraction

2011-01-22T14:58:00.000+11:00

The photo of Tasmanian forests was made many years ago by the late Peter Dombrovskis. It was part of a calendar and I used it for inspiration to try painting an abstraction of landscape. In a couple of weeks I will be starting a painting class again with Michael Winters - called "Landscape - one step further" which will be looking at abstraction to some extent.

Is This Me? Tapestry Weaving Challenge

2010-12-11T22:21:00.001+11:00

Each year the AuNZ Tapestry Group have a challenge to weave and exhibit in both Australia and New Zealand. "Is this me?" or self-portraits was the 2010 challenge and this is the link to Flickr where they are all displayed.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41841907@N04/

"Tapestry Blues", the challenge from 2009 is also here.

Tapestry Weaving finished at last

2010-11-29T16:47:00.000+11:00

At last I have finished weaving this tapestry, the largest I have done for my Tapestry Diploma course. Is about 46cm wide and 86cm tall. It is based on a part of an abstract collage I did earlier this year. This is the first time I have used mixed thread for the whole work but basically it is a colour study. Mostly woven with 2ply wool, but with a little mohair added to achieve the colours and textures I wanted. I also used some synthetic yarn and some small beads (hard to see) are added to the centres of the dark shapes. Many of the colours are hatched into each other and I should have done more of this in the earlier part at the bottom but I was just feeling my way then. Sewing up vertical slits is not my favourite task but I had some quite long slits to sew as I went.

I have 5cm hems turned under at top and bottom and sewn securely. I have also sewn velcro to the hem at the top and attached an aluminium batten with velcro stuck on to it for mounting. There is a slight shadow line across the photo near the top but this does not show on the actual tapestry.

I really enjoyed the experience of playing with colours and choosing ones to go together in the bobbins I used to weave with.

Tapestry Weaving Progress

2010-11-09T22:46:00.000+11:00

Large Tapestry
It has been a month since my last post but in that time I have been weaving most days trying to complete tapestry weaving assignments for my TAFE diploma. Here is a picture of progress of the large tapestry which I begun some time ago. I have nearly finished then have to do a hem and mount it with a batten and velcro to hang. It has been a lot of fun mixing coloured threads in the bobbins to create effects. But I can't say I like the rolling warp I had to use as it's not possible to get an overall view of the design as I'm working.

Tapestry Technical Sampler (below)


The title says it all - learning to weave straight lines, curves, outlines and points. It was remarkably hard to do (woven from the side) and is not perfect. But then tapestry weaving is a long process to learn - I'm into my 5th year of the course! Tapestry Sampler for Commission (below)


Another assignment was to do a commission for someone's home. I used a friend of mine and she was interested in tree bark patterns for the wall space in her home. This is a sampler to scale of a photograph I took ages ago of snow gum bark when it is very red and green. This is the original photograph of the snow bark and the sampler was done accross part of the top right section. I interpreted it fairly widely although the colours are actually a little closer than they seem here on the screen.

Tapestry Weaving

2010-10-08T22:31:00.001+11:00

I have been quiet on the tapestry front for a while but nevertheless have been busy doing lots of assignments for my Diploma course. I am doing a large tapestry as my final assignment for this year and it is so... slow. I thought I would put this image of it in progress. As I am using a rolling warp, part of it has been rolled under. It is 46cm wide and will be 86cm long excluding the hem. This image shows about the halfway mark.

This is an abstract based originally on a collage of old paintings of mine. But I have had fun playing with colours and mixed thread in a wide interpretation. It's easy to see I love colour!

Pastel Painting

2010-10-05T18:06:00.001+11:00

I haven't used pastels for years but decided to try a painting of an old Greek man I photographed on the seafront on the Greek island of Leros last June. The skin colour looks too red here but he was weather beaten anyway.

More paintings & photos

2010-09-20T22:37:00.001+10:00

This is a painting in gouache of a door in a town on the Greek Island of Leros. I especialy liked the little bit of lace hanging in the window.

This is a gouache painting of restored flour mills on the Greek Island of Leros

This is spring in my back garden with the prunus in flowers above the BBQ made of convict bricks.
These were obtained years ago from an old demolition site in Sydney.

I couldn't resist another photo of my dogs asleep in their winter knitted jumpers.

New painting and a flower photo

2010-08-31T20:14:00.002+10:00

This is another painting in gouache of an old door on the island of Leros in Greece.

I was in the botanic gardens and I loved this native flower which comes from the terminal stem - it is called Hakea Winter Burgundy.

Greek Islands Painting Trip

2010-08-19T20:29:00.002+10:00

It has been a long time since my last post but at last I have something to put up. There were 15 of us Aussies on a painting trip with artist Michael Winters in the second half of June. We stayed on the island of Leros near Turkey but made day trips to Patmos with its famous monastery and Lipsos, a small island with over 50 churches. We mainly did drawings in pencil, charcoal pencils and coloured pencils with some attempts with gouache/watercolour/pastel. Most of these are still to be developed into proper artworks as there was no time to finish the paintings and drawings. What's more it was too hot to stay outside for too long. I have many photographs I have yet to organise. These four paintings in gouache are from photographs of churches on Leros and Lipsos. I have simplified the backgrounds as I wanted the churches to stand out.

Surreal urban landscape

2010-06-05T16:38:00.002+10:00

Another painting in the style of Jeffrey Smart. It was composed from parts of several photographs around Canberra. I enjoyed playing with the picture elements such as distorting the perspective, adding shadows from outside, blending the colours. At times it was hard in acrylic which tends to dry quickly but it was still possible and a lot of fun. It is now on the wall of my home as I like the bright colours which go well with my large stained glass window. The latter was one of the earliest entries on this blog.

I am leaving soon on a painting holiday to the Greek Islands so hope to bring back lots of sketches, paintings and photographs. Three of us are then going to Malta for a week with a 3 night stopover in Dubai on the way home. So in 5 weeks time I hope to have more to share on this blog - maybe a little later as it will all need organising.

Painting - in the style of Jeffrey Smart

2010-05-14T22:57:00.000+10:00

In my Wednesday painting class with Michael Winters we are now learning more about the Australian artist Jeffrey Smart who paints in an entirely different way to Russell Drysdale. He carefully considers his compositions which are put together from various realities, and then disorted. The urban landscape with a figure is his usual subject. Technical skills are needed to give the smooth grading of paint in large open areas, and careful lines for his subjects. But it is fun to try. This painting is my first effort. It is done in acrylics on an A3 size board from various subjects around Canberra that are totally out of context and scale. It is more my surreal style than Jeffrey Smart's!

Painting

2010-05-01T22:53:00.001+10:00

It's not often I have a photo taken of me, but I decided to post this one for my friends overseas and those I rarely see. My U3A (University of the Third Age) group had rented a studio at Strathnairn (on edge of Canberra) for a day so we could paint and have fun. This was my first use of the French easel, nice and compact for carrying and storing paints and brushes.

In Michael Winter's class we were to make a drawing in the style of Russell Drysdale, a famous Australian painter, and then paint it large in acrylic or oil. I tried using mainly warm colours as he did and put items that are quite different close by with a tiny object out of scale. The natural feature is from a photo of an erosion feature at Mungo Nat. Park. The structure is an old hut on the High Plainsof NSW.

This is the acrylic painting (100 x 80 cm) from the pencil drawing above - with a few changes. I doubt that Drydale would recognise his so-called style, but I enjoyed doing it anyway!

Autumn at home

2010-04-27T13:56:00.001+10:00

I haven't blogged for quite a while since I have had a lot of visitors with the big Paris Masterpieces Exhibition on here in Canberra. I am also working hard on a tapestry for my assignments. I'll post a painting I recently did soon.

The weather is finally cooling down and autumn is so beautiful here with so many deciduous trees - maybe not as many as in Canada where I lived three years, but still a lot for Australia.

This was in early April when the Virginia Creeper is always the first to change colour and herald autumn is on its way. The orange tuberous begonia on the table is a favourite every year.

In late April the leaves from the prunus are falling but many have not yet changed. A cold snap this week will make them turn and fall quickly. My rustic wood BBQ has seen a long life. Convict made bricks are on the walls behind.

I never stop photographing my two little dogs who are now getting older - about 10 and 12. They blend in well with the rug I bought in Morocco years ago.

They sleep near the back door and their food and water dishes. They have placemats made by my housesitters a few years ago. Daisy is the younger one on the left. Rosie, almost certainly Daisy's mother is the darker one. The RSPCA didn't know their details as they were found abandoned in the street 8 years ago when I took them in. Now they are my family.

Tapestry Weaving Ergonomics

2010-03-29T20:19:00.000+11:00

This is a tip for those tapestry weavers who have trouble getting low enough to see what they are weaving at the bottom of a frame on a table. I thought I would join Tapestry Share Blog and add it there but couldn't find out how to do it.

To weave low down on a frame attach it to an ironing board which can then be easily raised high so you can look carefully at the work you are doing without doing damage to your back. Likewise you can lower the ironing board to easily weave at the top of the frame and see closely what you are doing. Hope this is useful - it may be posted to the other blog by Jennifer.

Weaving a Shaped Tapestry

2010-03-12T22:49:00.001+11:00

This was an assignment for my Diploma of Tapestry Weaving and the first shaped tapestry I have made. The first photo shows it in progress on the loom. I wove it sideways so the black shapes would be smooth. The design was based on a journey towards mountains - a memory from living in Canada for three years some time ago and visiting the Rockies at every opportunity. It is mainly woven using 2ply wool with a cotton thread in some bobbins and some glittery thread in the white areas.

The curve at the left side and the sharper shapes at the right side had pieces of cardboard placed in them and taped in place so the half hitches wouldn't move down the warps. These were removed later and the warps carefully pulled through into the spaces to give enough length when they were cut and turned back. This was quite hard to do. Double half hitches were worked on each warp and these were turned back and stitched after the tapestry was cut from the loom and cardboard discarded.

A piece of foamcore was cut carefully in the shape of the tapestry and covered with a piece of stretchy black fabric. The tapestry was stretched slightly and pinned to the foamcore and slip- stitched around the edges into the black cloth.

It is so light it can be hung with two pins and a thread. It was photographed on a textured yellow-green chair but I thought this background looked OK.

Abstract Paintings

2010-02-08T22:04:00.000+11:00

In mid January I did a week workshop with Peter Griffen at the Summer Art Experience run by the Artists Society of Canberra. It was a lot of fun freeing me up to learn to paint abstractly with acrylic paint - literally pouring it on paper at times, adding water, varnish and other things to create collage - a study in colour, shape and texture. A lot of fun! We were working on up to six at a time - often on the floor! It is hard to know when a painting is finished as the layers increase and what way up it should be. Some I cut up to create new paintings. Here are eight in a slideshow from Flickr. I'd be interested in any comments as I am not sure which ones I like best and whether they should be displayed vertically or sideways.

Bark of the snow gum tree

2010-01-09T15:07:00.000+11:00

These photographs were taken as slides several years ago when I was staying at the ski resort of Charlottes Pass in the Snowy Mountains. This was summer and some of us rose very early and walked in the mountains to an area where we knew these snow gums were displaying their beautiful colours for the season. As the sun rose the water on the trees increased the saturation of the colours. I still love these shots and scanned them.

Paintings - designs of everyday tableware

2009-12-14T22:19:00.002+11:00

These paintings were part of my final painting assignment for a unit in the Diploma of Tapestry course I am studying by correspondence from SW TAFE (see link at right)

The detailed designs in this painting are influenced by my love of Australian artist, Richard Larter's paintings.

I enjoyed designing and painting these designs as the cutlery, dishes etc looked as though they were dancing. I tried to make the overlapping parts be unclear as to whether they were in front or behind.

Abstract Painting

2009-11-30T21:55:00.000+11:00

This is the first time I have tried painting an abstract. I found it quite hard to do and need to learn more about how to go about it. I used acrylic paint with some impasto medium to give it some body.

I'm reasonably happy with it. I enjoyed layering various colours and creating several small areas with their own atmosphere.

My Garden

2009-11-02T17:07:00.001+11:00

These are some photos of my garden in the spring. I love to wander around and takes photos in the different seasons. My front path has one of my favourite native plants - Prostanthera Ovalifolia which is purple. Alpine Phlox are the ground covers. Azaleas have been blooming beside my house for nearly 30 years. Then there is a camellia, pansy, rhododendron, polyanthus and euphorbia.

My dogs

2009-10-30T22:46:00.001+11:00

It is a long time since I have put an image of my gorgeous little dogs on my blog. They have just had their hair cut and are in their favourite place on the lounge. Daisy is on the left and she is almost certainly the daughter of Rosie. Uncertainty remains as they came from the RSPCA since they were found abandoned in the street seven years ago. They had been abused and were not housetrained but now they seem pretty relaxed. Lhasa Apsos are supposed to have very long hair since they are from Tibet but I like to keep it shorter, especially as summer is beginning.

Drawing & Collage

2009-10-26T21:21:00.002+11:00

This was a pen and ink sketch I did from my front window looking from my garden across the street to other houses. Most of my garden is native Australian trees and other plants and is covered in tan bark as a mulch to retain moisture. This is especially important with summers getting hotter and drier.

This was one of the final paintings done in my painting class on Wednesdays with Michael Winters. It was finally warm enough to go outside and draw some trees and a pond. Then we used string, torn newspaper and card to glue onto the canvas to recreate the picture. When this was dry some acrylic paint was added to complete the picture. It was harder to do than it looks - really interesting and challenging.

Botanical Painting

2009-10-25T22:25:00.003+11:00

I have not worked in watercolour for many years and found a lot of the paints dried out. But I couldn't resist responding to an ad in the newspaper for a weekend in Botanical Painting held quite close to where I live. The old Tuggeranong Homestead had a beautiful garden and I picked a couple of hellebore flowers and a spig of lavender to work with. Generally I was quite happy with my first effort painting such detail, especially as I have been doing so many big acrylic paintings.

More paintings

2009-10-10T19:52:00.004+11:00

This is a painting of a photo I made in Lawn Hill National Park on the border of Queensland and the Northern Territory last May. We had climbed up a rocky track to a high point looking over the gorge. I only used Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna, learning to paint with a limited palette in Michael Winter's class. Moving the brush a lot enhanced the texture on the trunk.

This is another quite small painting using the same limited palette. The tones were painted on roughly first and the details added later. I walk in these gardens most weeks and take lots of photos to use in paintings. It's amazing how such dark tones can be made without using black which tends to deaden paintings.

Linocuts and Acrylic Painting

2009-09-16T20:29:00.007+10:00

I painted this tree using sand glued onto the trunk thereby creating texture when acrylic paint was added. The background was painted using the acrylics like watercolour so showing the contrast with the big tree. Smooth skinned shoots strangely come out of the trunk.

I drew these Red Hot Pokers in a vase from life. Then I cut a lino block and printed the image on light textured Japanese paper. It was then hand coloured with gouache.

I drew these gum blossoms with some nuts and then cut a lino block. After printing on light Japanese paper, it was hand coloured somewhat like Margaret Preston's work.

More paintings

2009-08-22T13:43:00.006+10:00

This is another painting from the Looking at Landscape course I am doing. We are now onto texture as well as tone so the paint is put on fairly thickly. This picture of the corner of my back garden was begun by painting the whole canvas red so that this shows through and gives some dynamic to the bright colours.
This painting was done for an assignment and is in response to an historic event or news item. A few weeks ago it was both - celebrating the 1969 moon landing. The collage was made from a newspaper supplement of the old newspapers from 40 years ago.

Learning to Paint Landscapes with Acrylics

2009-08-02T22:07:00.005+10:00

This semester I have joined Wednesday morning classes with Michael Winters, a well known Canberra artist and printmaker. We have been working on tonal studies with a limited palette and trying to blend the edges of shapes and lines in a similar way to the early Australian painters from the Tonalist Movement 1915-1950. Two significant painters were Max Meldrum and Clarice Beckett. A recent exhibition I saw is called "Misty Moderns". At first only burnt umber and white could be used, then Ultramarine Blue was added to the palette. Photos used for paintings were reduced to black and white to emphasise the tones since colour is so dominant to the eye.

My front garden path and the statue by my pond featured in many of these paintings.

Yellow was then added to the palette extending the range of colours as well as tones.

Finally Cadmium Red was added to the palette. Black was never used as it flattens colours.

This was an experimental picture using a highly textured background.
Click on the picture to see more details of the method.

Knitting as Graffiti & Another Painting

2009-07-13T22:02:00.006+10:00

I still visit galleries quite a lot as there are so many in Canberra to see. Yesterday I saw something very unusual - it is using Knitting as Graffiti and here are a couple of photos I took at the Australian National Gallery where it was on display in conjunction with the Soft Sculpture Exhibition. People from everywhere, including a couple of my friends, have knitted scarf like pieces or used unfinished kntting projects, that are wrapped around poles and sculptures in the gallery garden. They are so colourful and fun - and unlike other graffiti can be removed easily without defacing anything. Apparently this is a street art phenomenon spreading around the world.

I was going to paint another still life using a blue background rather than the red one I had done earlier, but got sidetracked into a design with lines, shapes and colours as that is what I really like doing. It started out as leaf shapes on the diagonal - a lot of fun.

I've been spending more time on the computer than painting in the last few weeks but have just joined a Michael Winter's painting class called "Looking at Landscape" so will be going out to Strathnairn Art Centre where it is held every Wednesday Morning for the next 15 weeks. I must get outside and do my homework of a tonal sketch in pencil of part of my garden. A bit cold out there in July - ugh! Only 12 degrees today.

Recent Acrylic Paintings

2009-05-31T22:01:00.005+10:00

These two paintings were done while visiting my artist friend Chris Hobel on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Her blog is in a link on this page. As I had no art materials with me I painted sheets of cartridge paper with gesso the night before, and they became quite suitable for painting.

"Desert Town" became an exercise in colour and shape after a saw a photo of a similar place. I have also been to such places myself and I had fun using the memories to invent this picture. "Poppy fields" was another composite from looking at several fields of poppies.

I had a lot of fun doing these as I hadn't painted anything for quite some time and I want to get back into it as I am going to study an acrylic painting unit in the Tapestry Diploma I am doing next semester.

Last week at my U3A art group we tried an easy but different picture. I think the idea came from Michael Winters, a local well-known artist who runs classes. Firstly the canvas was stained with red (can be several different reds), then willow charcoal was used to draw a still life. The shadows were filled in darkly, then acrylic paint was used to complete the picture within the charcoal lines. Some areas were left blank and some just allowed part of the red through. I quite like the strong shapes and colours that result. Maybe this week I'll try a blue background.

Design from photographs

2009-05-22T21:38:00.004+10:00

This is the first more complex design I have made from photographs using Photoshop. I have used some of the photos from the National Folk Festival from my last post as well as others. I am a very amateur Photoshop worker but have learnt a few things quite well from doing this design.

The idea was to do a design for a tapestry weaving but it is really too complex unless the weaving was huge. My teacher suggested it be divided into four different ones.

National Folk Festival

2009-04-16T22:44:00.007+10:00

I had another wonderful four days at Easter at the National Folk Festival in Canberra, my home city. I drove the 30km to the other side of the city and when I had my wristband ticket scanned and entered the gates I felt as though I was in another world - folkies of all ages and from every State in Australia and overseas. Over 10,000 came every day. There were hundreds of musicians and dancers, instrument makers, street performers, stalls selling food and everything else, and people just having fun. And the festival always wins the award for the best recycling - hardly any rubbish is seen anywhere. I tried taking a few pics inside the venues - without flash - some turned out quite well, others were more 'artistic'.

The belly dancers were great and performed on a stage in the Piazza where you could sit around, eat & drink and watch dancing. Sometimes you could join in and learn too. There were lots of workshops. The local belly dancing group had its own band and here is a photo of two drummers - Richard & Frances.

One picture shows Anita George singing and playing guitar. A South American band called Inca Marka had this amazing guy playing 2 instruments at once. And Michael Kennedy, from Castlemaine, Victoria was a fantastic song writer and singer. I heard him several times.

Collagraphs by Hand

2009-04-08T20:34:00.002+10:00

I made a design from a picture in a European city to show the urban environment with lots of different shapes and textures . But as I no longer had access to an etching press these prints show my attempts at making collagraphs by hand, that is, without a press. The plates were made entirely from cardboard, paper, masking tape and tissue paper. One is printed on yellow Japanese paper which is quite absorbent, the other on thicker Japanese paper which was dampened to make it softer.

It was much harder applying ink, wiping off ink where I had applied varnish to make lighter tones and rubbing on the back by hand when it wasn't possible to see exactly what you were rubbing. Of course trying to print with two colours on the same plate was also quite hard as it wasn't possible to blend the colours in the design. Nevertheless there are some interesting shapes and textures and it was fun spending an autumn day working on the prints.

Collagraphs

2009-04-04T22:50:00.005+11:00

I have just spent two Saturdays learning how to make a collagraph plate and prints from it. A collagraph print is a collage printmaking technique and a form of Intaglio printing. The collagraph plate is printed the same way as etchings, but also include the basic principle of relief printing.

Five of us went to Marianne's studio at Araluen (nearly 2 hours drive from home) where we had access to a good teacher and an etching press. My subject was "Abstract" - I made a background plate (A4 size) which I painted in yellow and the main plate which I painted cobalt blue - this of course became green when it was printed over the yellow. The red was added as hand colouring later. It was fun glueing all sorts of things like string, mesh, cardboard, tissue paper and lace to a base of matboard to make the plate. Waterproofing was thoroughly done with gesso and a coat of shellac. The plate cannot be very high as it has to fit through the press, and the lower as well as the higher part prints. Great variation in texture can be obtained but it's not easy working out the amount of ink (oil based) to leave on the plate for good printing. Tones can be adjusted by the strenth of the ink and the nature of the materials. Varnish on the parts one wants lighter makes it easier to reduce the ink there before printing. A form of registration is essential when printing more than one plate to make a print - hard work but very satisfying. I now have to print another plate at home without a press, so it will be interesting how it looks when completely hand done.

Summer at home in my garden

2009-03-07T22:38:00.010+11:00

February has been very hot and dry and staying inside in the air conditioning has been a major activity - plenty to do with assignments for my course. But the sulphur crested white cockatoos have been busy this time of year eating the berries from my pistache tree and effectively pruning leaves and branches and dropping them everywhere.

It's so dry some of the Virginia Creeper leaves are changing colour already. My dogs, Rosie and Daisy need a haircut but enjoy being on the back deck and watching what I'm doing. I've been having fun photographing the centre of some of the flowers in my garden. They have potential for tapestry designs. Amongst some of the greenery the Snake Woman sculpture rises out to survey the scene.

At last in March temperatures are finally under 30C and the weather is fantastic, if only it would rain. All the rain has been in northern Australia with the monsoon flooding, the worst for many years. And everyone has heard of the shocking bushfires in Victoria where over 200 people have died and thousands of homes lost. Australia sure is a land of extremes.

Tapestry Camp

2009-02-03T21:17:00.009+11:00

I have just returned home from a 5 day camp at Hall's Gap in Western Victoria where some students doing the Diploma of Tapestry at SW TAFE by correspondence meet once a year. It is 1,000km and 2 days drive from my home but worth it to meet with the tutors and other students. It is important to see what others are doing as well as get an introduction to this year's units. Betty Woolf is holding up her tapestry of tulips which I saw her designing 2 years ago. Pat Scholz is showing her fingers working on a small tapestry with a blue background. And the last picture shows a bluff of the Grampian Mountains taken from the verandah at Norval where we were staying. Luckily the building was airconditioned as heatweave conditions up to 45 degrees Celsius were being experienced.

This year I am studying units in Painting, Printmaking, Photography and History of Tapestry. There will be lots of assignments to complete but they are so interesting and usually a lot of fun.

Japanese Woodblock Printing

2009-01-22T09:15:00.005+11:00

Last week I went to the Summer Art Experience run by the Artists Society of Canberra and for 5 days immersed myself in learning the Japanese way of creating woodblocks and printing them. It was a fantastic course and the two images here show my results. Marianne Courtenay was our tutor - her website is in the Links on this page. I have done courses in lino printing with her before and all have been excellent. The mountain view was done as a reduction woodblock print, whereas the leaves print was made with two woodblocks superimposed, one cut down to make the background and the other raised. As we were having a heatwave when making these prints and had the air conditioning on, it was quite challenging to keep the paper damp. We needed the humidity of Japan. I really liked using gouache as the paint medium rather than the oil based inks for lino which is much messier in cleanup. The Japanese method of registration was very interesting as we cut a Kento block to do this.

Tapestry Weaving

2009-01-08T19:52:00.006+11:00

These are some of the tapestry weavings I have done as assignments in the correspondence course I have been studying for the last 3 years.... and will continue for at least another 3 years. It began as a Diploma of Arts (Tapestry) but has recently been changed to a Diploma of Tapestry. It is offered by SW TAFE, Warrnambool, a city in western Victoria. The course has been offered for over 20 years and several students from overseas are enrolled.

I am not an expert as there is much to learn technically and in designing. It is a very slow process and one where you spend a lot of time working alone.... can be quite meditative.

Click on the photos to find out more information on each one.

Botanic Gardens

2009-01-02T20:15:00.005+11:00

This morning I went walking with friends in the Botanic Gardens. This is something we do every Friday morning. The National Botanic Gardens only have Australian native plants in them and I love to watch their developments over time and often photograph the flowers. Here are a few. The first is Eucalyptus Caesia, the next is Bulbine Bulbosa and the third is a straw flower (forgotten botanical name)

New Year 2009

2009-01-01T12:23:00.003+11:00

Last night for New Year's Eve I went to a friend's place where she was hosting a Burmese Banquet in her garden to raise money for Burmese orphans on the Thai - Burma border. Burmese students cooked amazing dishes which we all enjoyed in a lovely setting on a balmy evening. We could see some fireworks in the sky from the lake in central Canberra which was quite close.

Today I've been working in the garden and in an hour's time will be going with a friend to see the movie "Australia" which has generally got poor reviews but I know many people who have enjoyed it.

Later: really enjoyed the movie but think it could have been cut - nearly 3 hours is too long. Fantastic scenery of the outback.

My Garden

2008-12-27T15:34:00.019+11:00

This grevillea, an Australian native plant, is grown in my garden. There are many varieties and colours but always very distinctive in form.

My back deck is a great place for entertaining and enjoying garden views. The pergola is covered by Virginia Creeper.

The azaleas always look colourful near the side gate in spring.

As my house is on a sloping block, this is a view down into the back garden

My stained glass window

2008-12-26T12:34:00.001+11:00

I have been several years working on the design and making of this window in my lounge room. I have a raked ceiling with beams sloping down. As it is summer there is a vine growing outside at the top left.

In the late afternoon there are lovely abstract patterns reflected on the carpet and the wall as the sun is round to the west.

As it is cold in Canberra winters I have left the original glass on the outside so the new window pane acts as double glazing.

Dogs on Berber carpet

2008-05-05T21:30:00.000+10:00

MY DOGS

2008-05-04T22:31:00.001+10:00

Rosie and Daisy are my Lhasa Apsos rescued by the RSPCA. They were found wandering in the street with their long hair all matted. No one claimed them so I gave them new names and a home but I'm not sure of their ages. I have had them 6 years - Daisy on the left is the youngest and most likely the offspring of Rosie who had had a litter. They now get their haircut every 3-4 months, especially in summer as it is so hot.