Paintings on Interiors done this year

I attended classes this semester with Michael Winters where we looked at the Australian women artists of Grace Cossington Smith, Margaret Olley and Elizabeth Cummings. The course was about how they treated Interiors as a subject in quite different ways.  The outcome were some acrylic paintings on 100 x 60 canvases using the rooms in my own house.

If interested they have a lot of work on the internet.

After Grace Cossington Smith, a Sydney artist who used lots of broken colour in her interiors.

This shows a Chinese still life on a piece of Paraguayan lace on my dining table.  It is an interior but not in a particular style.  It was supposed to represent Margaret Olley's detail but is nothing like her  work.

Elizabeth Cummings is still alive in her 80s and shows an amazing use of colour, semi-abstract work but very difficult to get a handle on her style.  There are no straight lines but lots of line variation.

This painting is on A3 paper and is emphasising space as well as plain flat colour with some collage. I really enjoyed doing this.

This painting is similar in style but painting in acrylic on canvas.  Fun to do at the end of the course.

My abstract mixed media art

Early this month I went to the Summer Art Experience in Canberra.  It was a 5 day summer school run by the Artists Society of Canberra.  Tracey Creighton was the teacher of my class called "Organic Abstracts."  She was a great teacher and pushed us, so it was a challenging time and we were all exhausted by the end of each day - making gelli prints, using binder medium for collage, acrylic paint, string, cardboard - anything and everything to make our abstracts on canvases.  Between the layers we ran outside to dry layers!

We began with a series of exercises on three small canvases using one colour and black and white.  We kept turning them around to see how they went togther .  Here is my result





Using a larger canvas 60 x 60cm  we had the theme "Circles and Lines".  We had to keep to the same colour we had used in the exercises but could add either a complementary colour or an analagous one.  And of course these could be mixed.  I added red-gold which I love as a contrast.  Some more gelli printing gave me plenty for collage and layering but I had trouble making it unified until I glued rice paper over much of the work, scratched some away and added details in pen/paint.  Here is the result



Another 60 x 60cm canvas was used to paint several layers, scratching them back etc. We divided the canvas into 4 and could use similar colours to the last one.  I added red for the big circle as I always like bright colours!  We also learnt about the use of apps such as "Diana app" to contribute to our art.  But we didn't actually use them in the class as there was no wifi available and not everyone had a smart phone.  But the demo showed what could be done. and sure gave some inspiration.

Some Mixed Media Paintings

My canvas was covered in glue and sand sprinkled on it  to give a rough texture when painted with acrylic paints.  The idea was to give a feeling of Edward Hopper's work.  He was a mainly urban painter and often at dusk or night.  I only had a photo of houses in the daytime so I have attempted here to give a night look by making the sky dark and light in the windows.  It was fun to do.



I had covered a canvas with crushed tissue paper and painted the whole area in yellow ochre.  It had been sitting around for a few months.  I was searching for a design idea and began drawing flasks.  To contrast with the curves of the flasks I began drawing triangles and using different colours for decoration. Most of the yellow ochre was covered although this was not the original intention. Another piece of work that was fun to do.




This collage was made for the Squares Exhibition that has just finished at Strathnairn Gallery.  I always love this opportunity each year to do something different on a small canvas.  I decided to do a collage using all the advertising stuff that comes in the mailbox and newspaper every day. The  background at the top has painted paper covered with semitransparent Lutradur polyester sheet.  I have called it Baubles Collage. 

What I've been doing

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

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.

Pointillism Painting Process

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.

Abstract Paintings

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.

Drawing & Collage

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.