Photobook on Namibia

I travelled to Namibia in 2000 with my friend Janice Redpath and took many colour slides.  I have recently scanned them and just completed this book using Blurb software.  Here is the book you can look at by clicking the arrow.  Use the full screen icon to see it clearly. I hope  you enjoy it. It is one of my favourite African countries and is not as well known as it should be.

Namibia by Ruth Lathlean
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Landscape paintings - Monet inspired

Once more I am doing a painting class this semester with Michael Winters.  He always pushes the boundaries and I do art that I would never usually consider.  We have been looking at the work of Claude Monet, such a famous Impressionist painter. Colour and light were so important in his paintings.  I visited his garden at Giverny near Paris, several years ago and this first painting in acrylic was inspired by a photo I took there.  It is 100 x 70cm in size.

This second painting was done as a diptych - on two canvases put together (140 x 70cm).  The inspiration was from various photos I have taken over several years in the National Botanic Gardens.  This is one of my favourite spots - the rock garden and pond.  Sand was put on the canvas with PVA and then painted with gesso giving a more textured appearance which works well for the rocks.

Botswana photobook

I travelled with my good friend Janice Redpath to Botswana and Namibia in the year 2000, just after I retired from teaching.  This is my book on Botswana made from colour slides I scanned. Click on the arrow on book and the fullscreen symbol below to see all the book. Hope you enjoy it.  It is for sale as are my other books.
 
 
   

     
     

 

Linocuts

Recently I made three different linocuts of trees with sinuous branches and then printed them one on top of the other in different colours.  I think I need to do some more with different colours and a different order as there are so many variations that can be made.  It is a fun thing to do.

Painting showing colour of Fauves

It has been a long time since I posted on this blog as I have been overseas in Scotland and England for 2 months, seeing the Scottish Isles and renting a car to visit many friends in England.

I am now settling back into the routine of printmaking and painting each week.  This large painting (100x70cm) on stretched canvas is painted in acrylic.  I have composed it to reflect the style of the three artists we studied in last semester -  Andre Derain's amazing colour, Dorrit Black's hills with shading, and a little bit of scribble from Michael Shannon.

I intend to put it on my wall after giving others on the walls a rest - no room for any extra paintings.  My walls are full!

Art after Andre Derain

The third artist we are studying with Michael Winters is Andre Derain, from the Fauve Movement - "Wild Beasts" in French. It was a loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism.

Since I love colour, this suited me really well and I have made two artworks so far - the first using pastel pencils (stronger colours than coloured pencils) and the second acrylic on canvas.  The photo I worked from was one I took near Adaminaby some years ago.

More landscape paintings

Spinifex landscape in Western Queensland.  I used scribble for the pebbles in the style of Michael Shannon

Palette knife painting of rough textured melaleucas

Painting of a dead tree in the bush

I have just finished this painting today.    It is fairly large on canvas and the idea was to paint it in the style of Michael Shannon, an Australian painter whose work is generally loose, often begun with scribble.  Most of the foliage was put on with a sponge.  A palette knife was used for some white areas.  It was finished with glazing to delineate the warm and cool areas.

Portrait in pastel

I have finally finished  the soft pastel portrait I began in Lyn Diefenbach's class in January.  I chose to work from a photo I took of an old Indonesian woman many years ago in the Lesser Sunda Islands. I think her face has lots of character and her hair is more blond than grey, a feature of old age.

Landscape Drawings and Painting

This semester I am doing another painting course (through the Centre for Continuing Education at ANU)  with Michael Winters, a well-known Canberra artist.  He always challenges me to push boundaries and sometimes attempt work to which I don't feel an immediate attraction.  The course is

Landscape Painting - Shape, Form Colour and Texture

We are looking at the work of three artists in this course - Dorrit Black (Australian), Michael Shannon (Australian) and Andre Derain (European).

We have just finished doing work with the influence of Dorrit Black, an Australian painter and printmaker.  We were interested in form and shape with landscapes of rolling hills with the shading of colours and tones.  I really love her work as it pushes realism into graphic and more simple forms.

I took several photos of the Canberra Arboretum with its hills and the artworks are based on these.

The first was a black and white drawing using a 2B graphite pencil.  The Margaret Whitlam Pavillion at the Arboretum was a dominant contrasting feature.

I then did another picture in black and white with a charcoal pencil showing the graphic nature of the scene.  The Telstra Tower in Canberra raises above the background hills.

The third black and white work was done in acrylic paint and was an enlarged section of a drawing.  I made at attempt at some vertical lines to show the cubist influence on Dorrit's work when she was in Europe.

Finally a canvas was used with acrylic colour to show shape and form in the landscape. I like the colours and tones in this painting.

Photobook on my Africa Overland trip

This is my latest photo book on my Overland trip through Africa in 1974-75.  Click on the arrow  and it should take you to the Blurb Bookstore where my books are available for viewing and for sale.  Hope you enjoy it.

This book has 649 photos and 240 pages with slides scanned and text gleaned from the photos and my diary.  It was an amazing adventure which I'm glad I did when in my early thirties.

AFRICA OVERLAND by Ruth Lathlean
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Pastel Paintings

These are two soft pastel paintings I did at Lyn Diefenbach's workshop in January.  Her demos on technique were excellent.  I'm still working on a portrait painting.

From a photograph of waves breaking on sand

From a photo of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park

Map of countries I've visited

Create your own travel map - TravBuddy

Linocuts made mainly in the last year

I have been making linocuts as well as other prints for some time so thought I would display these before my Printmaking Group starts again next week for 2015.

This first one is printed black on white and handcoloured with gouache.  It shows some Australian native plants.

This is an abstract begun years ago on a piece of really hard lino.  It is printed in red ink on green paper

An abstract based on leaves

Hot air balloons

Linocut abstract design based on a simple flower and printed in black ink

Geometric spires design.  Printed in black ink and the red is handcoloured acrylic

Pastel Paintings

Although I am still missing Rosie, I am doing more art as this helps to keep my mind away from the sorrow of missing her.  These are the last pastels I made in 2014.  Last week I did a workshop for three days and the pastels from that are yet to be finished.

Kangaroos under trees

Northern Afghanistan mountains from Tajikistan

Vale - my Rosie and Daisy

Sadly last week I had to take Rosie to the vet as she was beginning to suffer.  At 17 she was blind and deaf and her back legs were starting to go.  She still liked to eat but I was worried she would fall off the edge of the deck where she sometimes wandered bumping into things.  Daisy was also blind and her life ceased last year when she was often lost in the garden at night in the freezing cold of winter.  She was probably the offspring of Rosie and a couple of years younger.  Both came from the RSPCA - they were found together wandering the streets of a Canberra suburb with their long hair all matted.  I took them both as they were clearly dependent on each other.

They are both now in doggy heaven as they were such gorgeous little dogs who were my family.  I miss them very much.  These photos were taken 4 years ago but show their personalities.

Daisy

Rosie

Daisy & Rosie with knitted jumpers in their beds

Book on my recent travels to Central Asia

Hope you enjoy my book that I have just uploaded to Blurb for printing and PDF.   Click on the icon for full screen display to see it clearly.

Central Asia by Ruth Lathlean
 

My Garden this spring

I have not posted for a long time - largely because I have been away for several weeks on a trip in Central Asia.  I have yet to organise my pictures and make a photo book.  But my garden has been looking nice this spring so thought I would post some photos here.

My back deck - the hanging baskets were only just planted.

My Photobook on South America

I have just finished my photobook on South America where with two Aussie friends, Janice and Val,  I spent three months travelling, partly on our own and partly on a Penn Overland trip by bus.  We also had 10 days on an old boat seeing the Galapagos Islands.  This was in 1973.  I have scanned all my slides and have 635 photos in the book.

We had been teaching in Canada for three years and were finally moving again to see more of the world,  as Australians often did in those days.

Hope you enjoy this book.  It can be purchased on the  Blurb website
by entering my name in the search box.  All my books are available for viewing and purchasing there. 

The book is best viewed here in fullscreen mode which is available with the far right icon below.

SOUTH AMERICA by Ruth Lathlean | Make Your Own Book

Recent pastel paintings

These are two soft pastel paintings I have done recently on Wednesdays when I meet with others to paint.  I am enjoying returning to pastels, my favourite medium.

I photographed this still life set up under the trees at Floriade many years ago and decided to paint my interpretation of it with bright colours which I love.






This grevillea flower closeup was waiting to be painted.