Tapestry Weaving

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

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

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

  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

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

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

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

 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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.