Resolutions

It's the last day of the year today - and a good time to review the artwork I've done over the year that I've posted in here.
(...much internal machination going on as I do this, so read on without me)

In a week I'm going to summer school again, and this year's goals for myself are shaping up already. I've chosen to take a class titled 'Fun with Fotocopiers' (yes spelt like that) and it's given me a few nightmares already. If it turns out to be decoupage with nail scissors and photocopies I'll be pretty gutted!
I suspect, since the tutor's the same inspirational character I had last year, that the photocopy aspect will be a means of starting and abstracting and inspiring work which hopefully will primarily be painting. Fingers crossed.

I really need to fan the creative flame, which was a little dimmed by too much thinking and work lately, so I'm looking forward to the stimulation, the sweat and the pace of a weeks intensive painting. (Not to mention the sunshine please... there's been none in Welly to speak of more than a day at a time and I feel like I'm beginning to suffer from SAD).

OK time for some resolutions for myself for 2007:

• Believe in yourself and trust what you do. This is probably the hardest one for me to maintain as a constant. But I bet I'm not the only one with this goal either, so it might as well be right up here first
• allow the work to change and develop, don't fret so much about variation. Who makes those rules??
• draw more - take an advanced life class, draw for longer and explore the edges. Get weird
• Bruce Mau's no. 5 - Go deep (more often) - look the hard stuff in the eye and try to describe it
• repeat things more often - sometimes they'll work and sometimes repeating will take the work somewhere else entirely which is OK
• contrary to Bruce Mau's no.26 Do enter competitions - they provide great small goals
• work outside more (but not in the rain!). Be mobile
• push through the torpid times and paint anyway
• submit work, look for guerilla gallery space or show to friends, but look for a way to get the work Out There

And lastly:
• finish that collaborative sculpture - it's cool and it needs to be completed

(I haven't added the usual 'have fun' because since I began this blog to record my art explorations I can honestly say I haven't stopped having fun - every single time I'm in the studio)

Ten resolutions. I think that's plenty !
Happy New Year everyone, I'm certainly looking forward to it.

Dream image

Last time I posted in here I was thinking about portable kingdoms and how to express the idea that we carry our space/place/culture with us where ever we go.
This idea is more about looking at personal space of an internal kind. I played about with the idea in some unsuccessful sketches (see below) but everything looked so hard edged and what I have in mind is hazy and soft. I've started a painting of a group of figures that I hope links back in to the idea of crowds (funny how things get circular) and incorporates the concept of space as a kind of mist.

You know how sometimes really strong images come in a dream and you wake up really excited and carrying that 'eureka' feeling around ? This one was like that, and so far it's working out to be as I imagined, with the figures pretty indistinct and nothing linear happening, which is great.
I struggled when I realised that culture is part of what we carry around, allowing myself to get bogged in how I was going to express that huge concept. I've decided not to get too hooked up in it, and to keep the mystery alive for the viewer to come to their own conclusions about the blue aura.

I'll post a pic of the painting and progress on the sculpture.

I've had a quiet month or two in a creative sense, though I drew and entered my drawing into the National Drawing Award a couple of weeks ago. The works are all A4 and will be hung in Artspace in Auckland and The Physics Room in Christchurch.
I won't post it here - the internet is a funny place and it was a nude (and an axolotyl), so I don't really want the spam traffic. That's my excuse anyway. ( It was black on white embossed wallpaper and white on black painted paper) I haven't heard that it wasn't accepted for exhibition, so that's a good thing - I guess it might be 'in'.

I'm enjoying the return of the creative buzz - I think I've been thinking too much!

Portable kingdoms

There's lots of painting going on at the moment that doesn't involve paint.
I'm thinking about how to describe the concept of transferrable transient personal space, as in the space we carry with us.

Here's some thinking I've been playing with...

None of the sketches here quite express what I want to say. And I hastily add, none are images I want to paint yet - at this stage they're just explorations of a concept. They all play with the idea of space as a tangible place, a transferrable experience ( like space mist) some kind of personal experiential environs (a personal bubble or caul) but as yet I haven't envisaged imagry for the culture or the history that we carry with us inside that 'bubble'. There's something interesting about the idea of a membrane that separates as well as allows transfer.

Getting Wordy

I messed about for ages trying to get all the whites in this drawing to be white without losing the pencil linework- it's so long I had to photograph it individually, and I'm afraid I gave up in exasperation. To view this, screw up your face and imagine the paper is all a snowy uniform white !

This drawing that spans five pieces of Incisioni paper using just a couple of colours and a range of black graphite/charcoal blend pencils.
I've been thinking quite a lot about forgrounding and backgrounding information - Renée it's your article that started me down this little track, thank you.

I wanted to describe the snatches of imagry and sensory information that wash over and absorb me as I walk the wharf space each (sunny) day with all the other pedestrians. There's the patterns of light cast and reflected, the architectural and sculptural forms that abound down there - (from the light balls to the cranes and the pole forrest), the sense of urban spaciousness... and pervading all, the knowedge of 'the edge' - and the water which is everywhere you are.
I realise I'm fascinated by patterns. Take for example a steel panel from the 'feathers' bridge; sometimes I'm looking at the form, sometimes I see the array of holes punched in it, sometimes I'm looking through the holes to a vista or a cyclist beyond - and sometimes it's the cast shadows that I focus on, on the ground. My brain is simultaneously taking ALL these things in and absorbing them, Geeze it's smart.
In this piece, I guess I'm wanting to guide the viewer to look this way too. If I'm successful, I'll have retained the sense of space in the work (loooots of white paper) and the forgrounding /backgrounding will be obvious to the vewer.

The sense and the presence of the water has been an interesting conundrum - we haven't introduced it in any of the work to date other than as a view window (in our collaborative sculpture -which I'm still working on). To me it defines the purpose of the space - and so I can't ignore it. I want to say that it is inescapable, but without superimposing it as a motif or respresentation over the top of all the other imagery. Interesting.

It's nice to be drawing again. Six months ago I lamented that drawing was what comprised my work, and painting without mark making was nigh impossible to me. I'm over that - how cool!

The Dog and the Tinderbox

I've been thinking a lot about the practice of drawing lately... realising how narrow my own concept of drawing is, and questioning it roundly.
As part of that I've been reading heaps and absorbing images and information,like the fish that I am.

I draw for several reasons,(probably more, but two main reasons spring to mind) the first is to map out an idea (so this is one of the definitions of drawing for me) - loosely, quickly and with an immediacy that hopes to trap the idea and fix it to the paper before it's lost. I seldom complete these drawings and often their value to me is fleeting. (Why does this drive mothers mad? Mine used to retrieve all my scraps and press them smooth!)
I also draw to render an image as finished art and my practice as an illustrator has defined my understanding of 'finished' as being ready for publication or release, amongst other things. (This is a fish hook for me - and I guess I'm trying to get to the bottom of it, to toss out some old precepts and develop a new broader understanding). This is the area of drawing that interests me at the moment, though not in reference to illustration. I'm focussing on both the artwork itsself and the process by which it's made; which I'm exploring with eyes the size of dinner plates, like the biggest dog on the treasure chest.

What do I mean by that odd word finished? (And for that matter, by what set of definitions do other artists define their drawing practice?) For example 'erasers are verboten' is one that belongs to my studio mate Steve.
Why do I constrain what I do this way?
What constitutes a drawing and how can marks on a jotter pad in an art shop be a collaborative drawing (of course they are but ...?)

Browsing around some artists blog sites tonight I came across this link to an exhibition of 'trees drawing' (yes that's right - trees).

As part of exploring drawing I've been reading about the figurative drawing of Ralph Hotere (an emminent and prolific New Zealand artist) and poring over the beauty of his expressive irregular line, the simplicity and the elloquence of it. I found this lovely description in the chapter titled 'Woman (1962 -1964) The early works', which I shared today with a friend, so I'll add it here as part of my thinking around this.

" ... Since he has lived in Carey's Bay, Dunedin Hotere has had a favourite tree at the end of his garden. He will often take a small section of shed twigs, in lengths of approximately 300 -400 millimeters, carefully testing each one for it's flexibility and rejecting those that do not quite suit his purpose. He will then cut the tip and break the wood up by mashing it so that the end becomes fibrous, working it until it's exactly as he wants. His method of applying the paint from this point, for both the figurative images and the abstract works is quite meditative. With the figure drawings he will start with a blank piece of paper laid flat on a table, pick up the drawing instrument and after some minutes of looking at the model, draw in the air above the surface of the paper and then, returning to look at the model, trace her outline in the air. He will repeat this process at least twice before committing a mark to the paper. The pauses and periods of time spent carefully assessing the figure can take anywhere from five to ten minutes. He will then finally look down at the paper, draw in the air above it one last time and very rapidly and intuitively draw the figure in the space of a few breaths. It is a process almost like a dance, with the image pouring onto the paper.
This is the same method he uses for the abstract works. Before applying paint, ink, or graphite to a surface there are always these long meditative pauses followed by a series of rapid movements. Each long drip of white paint, every skeinlike fleck and every contour of the figure is carefully balanced in his mind before it is resolved on the ground of the image."

From 'The Desire of the Line' Ralph Hotere Figurative Works by Kriselle Baker published by Auckland University Press

And the amazing thing to me is the freshess and sensuality that he captures in his drawings - they fairly drip with it !

Through Space

One day in another life I'll take up photography - not. You can tell I've had a couple of wines by now when you look at this.
This is a picture of our sculpture as it is today. I've been adding layers to it all week - first gesso and then acrylic paint. It's going to be gooood !

All of a sudden our rendering of the concept of figures moving through space, and of spacial planes moving through figures - is working well.
Once I add the receding diamond pattern to the base, the sense of space will be amplified too. To come still is the height element - a wire frame of the view our figure group is passing (the sea). I'm thinking this should be patinaed copper and also the series of spheres bisected by another plane (these represent the sculptural light balls on the wharf area).

I was worried I'd not do the sculpture justice with my paint application - but it's looking fine.

A stack of books and inspiration

Curled up by the fire with a stack of art books from the library and Little Feat on the stereo - bliss.
I found these quotes from a book called "Drawing from the Modern" (Maurice Merleau Ponty) which I think are cool for their eloquence and their fluency - the post renaissance view still rings true in many ways.

On the subject of line :
'Akin to handwriting, line is a graphic declaration of the presence of a particular persona," (it is) "...the residue of the activities of a particular hand"
- which I think is a nice way of expressing the personal quality that we each bring to our drawing, the past experience and the hand-memory.
Another phrase, even more poetic, describes line as 'a seismograph of the soul' (yeah ?)- lovely but uncredited I'm afraid so I can't assign the quote here.

And this from a woman artist called May Stephens from the book called "Lines of Vision" whose author I omitted to note,I'm sorry.
She says ..."Between a line and a smudge lies a bridgeable gap, a shift of the eye. A line is a trajectory; too close or too far, too slow or too fast, it's a smudge and a blur. A smudge is a trace of what was or is to come. But a line is here."
- I like that - a line is here.

And now it's my turn

Ricky has cast our sculpture and it's looking great (see Catsup and you'll know what I mean). It's sitting in the studio now and between coats of paint I've been staring at it and getting to know it from all angles. Last time I saw it, it was a photo and before that, just a sketch. It's so much better in 3D and with the refinements Ricky's made to the figures.
It's my turn to build the next part of it (with a little help) and to add the painted surface that will bring it to life and complete it. It's so cool to see the product of our joint imaginings and the day we spent conceptualising the piece. Over the next month I'm going to work on it between painting. I haven't worked in 3D since 5th form so this is going to be fun !

Traveling through space

Here's my completed painting of the 'ripples' concept (well, after I took this picture I signed the painting so technically...)
It's nice to be happy with a piece that's for sure !
This version has mystery and still retains the surreal quality of it's predecessor, but the figures have momentum and I like their loose description. It was worth the wait and the angst to get this out.

The painting's about social space - and again I'm thinking more of transitonal spaces. The way we create ripples as we move through - and the groupings we fall into natually as we pass through or stop to connect with others in a space.
Why the backpack ? Well that's the baggage we all carry on any journey.
OK, so why the nakedness and lack of hair on the figures? I'm interested in stripping away the things that identify us and I wanted this to be about us as humans, our sameness and our essence as vulnerable people (some of us hide behind hair don't we ?). Right now describing fabric and clothing doesn't interest me, but rawness, texture, line and emptiness does.

Life's just a big pool isn't it ?

...Hey that might be a nice title for this piece!

Now I feel like dancing. I've gessoed another canvas for next time. I want to make another expression of this idea - it's a goodie and I'm not finished with it, but for now I'm content. (Yes i know, it's a contradiction in terms!)

Begining and Beginning and Beginning

Making art and for that matter any creative endevour is a series of beginnings again and again. Empowering yourself to do just that is the interesting (and sometimes hard) bit. It's also the joy and the rush and the compelling part of it.

I sorted all the issues with my Ripples image the weekend before last - but it's not there yet. It needs the mystery added back into the image, so it's a work in progress at the moment and I'm waiting for the time to begin to work on it again. I'm thinking I need to hide bits of it - to reveal and conceal and to add more surface texture. At the moment the focus is the line (no bad thing) but by itself the line is obscuring the message to the viewer because it's all there is, and it's strong. In short - the painting's not finished !

I heard an incredible sound performance by Jeff Henderson at the Govett Brewster Gallery (Sound/Bodies winter lecture series) in New Plymouth last weekend.
To me it was an aural version of the concept of stripping out the interstitial spaces and collapsing what's left into a whole new image/pattern. It was as if the audience experienced the artist as he was calling to someone from two hills away and bits of his sentences were lost in the atmosphere across the distance. Vocally the sounds we heard were no longer whole pieces of language - just the upper and lower registers of vocal expression rendering partial words from afar (but without the dopler effect).
It was so exciting to HEAR a rendering of the sound concept of the idea I've been playing around with. Made me realise I could have done it so much better with the pleated canvas ... and that I need to revisit the idea and add back the sense of space I've lost through so much use of colour. I was so inspired I wan tto begin again!!

And Bruce Mau says...

3. Process is more important than outcome.

"When outcome drives the process we will only ever go where we have already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we're going, but we'll know we want to be there."

More words of wisdom from the Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. (Which I see Eric Holowacz included in his No.8 wire Ezine a couple of weeks ago - good on him)

The wading painting I posted last week is no more. I spent a couple of sessions in the studio on the weekend looking at all the things that needed work and making changes to the painting. I reworked the motionless bespectacled figure so he moved purposefully and with lovely forward flow towards the group of three - changed their focus so they looked in his direction - the rigid horizon looked great as a loose line 'corner'.... all good. I even reduced the black line weightiness that everything had... and the ripples around the main figure became a lovely wake. I stood back feeling pleased that I'd solved a lot of problems that had bugged me - and realised that the composition was screwed completely now !
My figure was falling off the canvas to the right and the small group was the wrong scale all of a sudden in relation to him.

So it all had to go - I'm back to a thin layer of gesso and I'll rework the painting with the knowledge I've gained about the things it needs to keep the dynamism and spaciousness I'm after. A good many realisations were made yesterday.

• everything is fixable somehow and it's always worth a try (really it is)
• nothing fixes a bad composition (or there's a point where it's inevitable. When you get there you absolutely know you've hit the end of the tar seal)
• a great idea is worth all the labour pains
• painting when you can't feel your feet is not fun
• paint won't dry if the studio's like the inside of a freezer
• ask people to text before they come up to the studio - otherwise they cop it if the paintings at a critical point
• don't even try to come in to the studio for less than 2 hours - just don't

So... it's still the process I love, and this is part of it (she says philosophically and with chagrin). I know I definately want to 'be there' with this idea so I'm beginning again.

¡pintar es vivir! (to paint is to live!)

Wading

My weekends work is a version of the sketches from last week. As a piece it's kind of surreal, and Steve my studio mate points out that the static pose of the central figure means the painting hasn't got the sense of movement that the sketches capture, and so some of the mystery is lost. He's right, and maybe that's adding to the sense of disquiet that the painting causes me.

Hah ! I see a pattern here - I'm beginnning to wonder if this is how I react to my work on completion - the joy's in the doing for me, and once done I want to improve on the result straight away. Interesting, though this time I really do think I could improve on it ( It's not necessarily finished). The figures aren't particularly modeled - I wanted to reveal the base texture and keep the composition incredibly simple... does it work or does it just look unfinished I wonder?

At the same time as working on this painting I was working on a commission for a book cover - all loose hot magenta and oranges - it was bizarre to switch back and forth - but a great contrast. I'd forgotten how much fun it is multi tasking on paintiings simultaneously.

Paper as space

Back in March I said this on my blog "...Trying to capture the spaciousness and air in my images ... this morning I asked myself 'what if the paper was the space?' I've been treating the paper as a canvas to describe a space and occupants. If I let that go, can the paper act as the space and allow me to describe the ripples we make better ? What can I do to the paper to allow the viewer to experience what I want them to ?"

I'm looking at these sketches and I think that I've managed to allow the paper to be the space. It's nice to see that progression in the work. March huh - it's taken a while !!

Up to the armpits in ripples

I spent the day in the studio, so the sketches are the fruits of my joy (no labour). I wish the parchment paint would photograph better - it's really a cool greeny cream in reality. In these sketches it looks muddy and brown - ah well, if I'd wanted to be a photographer...
I'm playing with the idea of the ripples we make as we pass through a space and interact with others. I love the idea of these people up to their armpits and wading through fields of energy like so much viscous water. I think some of them are working well (1 and 2 are my favourites, they were the first ones I made) the other one tries a little hard I think. (And the fourth one I haven't posted because the composition is flawed) Fresh and simple is challenging to repeat.

I'm planning to paint the first one, so I've gessoed a large canvas with ripples. What a cool days work.

Catsup

After I posted Parchment and Tar (which are actually a little warmer and greener than this photo shows), I realised the big hole that doesn't say anything AT ALL about what we've been doing on our collaboration lately. It's not a secret ...so this is a catch up. I'll add a sketch to it so our ideas are easier to follow (It's Ricky's, he's better at describing 3D forms as concepts - turns out I'm not so good at that!).

Basically, we spent a day working together (so much fun) and came up with the cool idea that we're currently working on.
What does a collaboration between a sculptor and a painter actually look like? It looks like a sculpture, with painted bits - conceived by us both and developed singly and together.

We're telling the story of what happens when a group of objects (in this case people) moves through a spacial environment. The important bit is the 'through' bit. If we move through a space, we don't just dance on the surface touching nothing with our presence - we interact with the environment, and it also interacts with and affects us. Everything exists on and of planes - and so the planes interact with all the other objects in that space. This is our idea - they bisect the figures and become part of them.

At the moment Ricky is making the sculptural forms from clay, he'll cast them in plaster and add the material for the planes later which I'll paint. We're talking together about the piece as it develops, suggesting refinements and colours and visualising it as a whole - my part will come later when the finishing happens. It's going to be interesting!

Parchment and Tar

These paintings are my entry into the Affordable Art Show this year. I applied ages ago and then got swamped by life the universe and everything. Like hundreds of others I left it to the last minute. These pieces are really just paint sketches that capture fast moments. I went down to the new Waitangi Park and sat on a rock, to watch and sketch the moves of a large group of skaters. I love their casual balance and the curvature of their bodies in motion - their brief flights and the long contrasting shadows they cast.

The paintings are only small, each one is no more than 200 x 400 - no time for grandiose ideas here!
I feel a little odd about them, (do they lack depth, are they just 'decorative' ?) and I'm strangely unattached. Is this what it feels like to sell out?

Hah !
In saying that, I want the 3 to remain together (even though they work well compositionally as individual pieces) and I did take them home to play with, so perhaps I'm not as impartial as I thought.
I like the monochromatic feel, and the textural effect of the dark underpainting very much.

I'm going to gesso up a large canvas this week to paint on the weekend. I want to play with texture as a means of indicating the ripples idea that's still persisting (though still in the thought stage - what does a space filled with people look like if the view point isn't from the edge looking in ?) and continue with making the work towards our show.

Decorative or not - painting is a fix - and I can't do without it. It feels so good to be back into it.

Sometimes a cigar...

New paper is bliss.
Here's one of the sketches from Wednesdays scribble session, I'm looking forward to capturing some more on the weekend.

En plein air

I know this is a log of my work, and it's looking suspiciously like I haven't done much for a while.
I have been incredibly busy,(I know, poor excuse) but I've also taken the space I needed to think evaluate and to plan.
Ricky and I have also begun to work together on ideas for the next phase of our collaboration which will be a series of feature pieces for the exhibition we're working towards.

Our vision is for the viewer to wonder where the two dimensional paintings begin and the sculptures end, as they experience our work. To look into and through the work, stand amongst it, walk around it or to kneel beside it. We want the viewer to understand that we're playing with a range of concepts like scale and perspective - like foreground and background (where do they begin and end?), or with the qualities of space and with the marrying of two and three dimensional forms of expression.
Sounds exciting eh ? It is.

To that end we've been sketching outdoors to build a common vocabulary and a collective understanding of the figure in space. It's slightly mad (and strangely addictive), rather cold but fun catching the gestures of people as they walk purposefully into the wind, going about their business.

I'll post some of my scribbles this week - for that's what they are... and I hope to work some of them up as working drawings (in paint and pastel) towards our joint work, this weekend.

Sometimes it's going to seem a bit quiet in here over the next couple of months, we're taking the time we need to over this, and given that the work we make will be ours - not mine... it may not appear here. Or perhaps my working paintings and explorations will feature instead as well as these musings. I still want to follow up on that interstitial space idea and I'm looking forward to that.

Invisible Birds

I've had a few more thoughts about this collaboration I'm a part of, and I think as well as going deeper we need to look at the commonalities between our ideas, our two mediums (sculpture and painting) - to identify what it is that we're saying is one thing, to share a vision is another...to converge on these so that what we make is unified has surely got to be magic. I think there's a bit of talking and working together on ideas that we need to do for this next phase. I'm looking forward to mappng a few of them and to encouraging the invisible birds (lovely metaphor)to rest a while.

Breathing in and out

No images to post this weekend. I needed to take some time to just be with my thoughts about this project. I'm hoping writing this might help to clarify some of them.

The work I've done so far has been varied and broad. I've played with different applications and styles, and I chose to experiment with many of the concepts around this project. I think it's time to focus on just one aspect and look at it in more depth. I'm thinking I need to be disciplined and go deeper into an idea, to explore and work with it a while before committing it to canvas or paint. Nut out how best to express the ideas I have rather than settle on the first because I'm spontaneous. I find that quite hard because part of that exploration for me involves paint and immediate ideas.

I'm frustrated that the pleated work, although innovative, has lost a great deal of spontenaety in the application of the ideas... and though I love this three dimensional canvas thing, if I can't regain that gestural mark and lightness of touch, I'm going to be dissatisfied with the results. I also think some pieces don't necessarily scale up - and these ideas are more suited to a smaller scale. If I continue down that track I'm going to keep them small.

There are things I love about the angry painting I did last week, some parts I want to change that may (or not) improve it, and some things that disappoint me. Although it says what I was wanting to say, it feels heavy and solid in the expression - like a Nigel Brown work... and so I probably won't paint a second one in this style or chose to revisit it.
I don't think I want to be so descriptive about the figures in these pieces.

I'm drawn towards the idea of interstitial spaces - that's the spaces between spaces, the moments between moments. The breathing space. I'm not sure yet what this looks like or how to describe it, but I want to return to a feeling of light and lightness. This might be a good place to start.

Fish bones

In at the studio today and working on the composition about negatively charged space. It's coming along well - loose and fairly expressive. I need to give the painting time to rest before I do anything more to it, though it's working well. I might add some draw threads to the sides to secure the folds in place around the figures. Stylistically it's an interesting one - I'm not sure if it relates particularly well to the others, I'm going to work back into the piece (with care) to encourage that relationship.
When I look at all the work I've done so far, I worry a bit about the style discrepancies. I'm not sure if I should get hung up on this or not... they come out how they do, and I don't want to staunch the flow of ideas by imposing limits on the experimentation or how the images 'should' look.
I wish Bruce Mau had written a piece about 'should'. Sometimes I think I'm ruled by that concept far too much !

There and back

Today's post is a drawing of the small dancing sculpture that Ricky made.
It began as a figure in one of my paintings (This Dance) - the yellow one I posted earlier, a month or so ago. Now there's a small plaster sculpture on my desk, soft bronze and blue coloured. This is a series of sketches in graphite pencil (coloured graphite too, that makes a wash with water - delicious!) of that piece. I guess this idea has gone back and forth 4 times now since initially it relates to the ripples we make in space and how we dance around each other.

Negatively charged space

This sketch originates from the idea of negatively and positively charged spaces, how we affect a space by our presence our moods and words (that spillover thing).
I want to make two images - and this is the first one. Sometimes I find it easier to access the negative images first (like writing sad songs I guess). The pleats will run horizontally on this piece - and it's going to be important to plan them so that they fall at mouth, eye and forehead level so that the idea of miscommunication is really evident. I've bought a 700 mm length of canvas because I want this piece to be quite big. Yippee, looking forward to painting this soooo much! ( I missed my studio time this weekend).

The next piece is bubbling up too - there's a Denis Glover poem (NZ poet) that I'm thinking of, that captures the bright way that some people affect the space they inhabit. I'll post it later.

Oh, It just occurred to me to mention to new visitors who might be cruising around my blog, that if you click on an image, a larger view comes up so you can read any small notes (like this image contains). You'll need to use the 'back' button on your browser to get back to the main blog window OK?

Persistence of presence perhaps?

Here's the painting of the interior space rendered on the last piece of my prepared pleated canvas.
It's not quiet, (nice aim, but a while off yet - or maybe a whole separate project!) but it IS evocative of the persistence of presence.
This is an idea I've been trying to nail for a while now and is about the intangibles we leave behind us as we pass through a space, whether that's an essence of ourselves, a change in the electron charge within the room, or a memory of our presence held by those who remain.
I've worked back into the piece with oil pastels and graphite pencil ...I wanted to rough it up a bit and the italian canvas was somehow a little too polite (but smoooth as!).
I've attached a thin piece of balsa to the back top edge to constrain the folds. Logistically, it all holds together a lot better now.
I'm going to continue to explore this idea a bit more as well as paint the sketch of this last piece as a 2D work - on paper, for the pleasure of it.

Interior with pleated space

Tomorrow's the weekend!
I've sketched up the next image for the other pleated canvas this week. This one's an interior and I'm referencing images I've used before - the half built space I sat and drew in, one lunch hour, the people walking past it's windows and some from the mall outside the studio. I'm aiming to try and keep this piece quiet, with soft colours (to emphasise the spaciousness) and smudgy loose figures. Think I'll just keep the folds tonal. I'm looking forward to working on this.

Pleat Street

I came in to work on Monday and looked at this painting a long time. I decided to paint over the faces and accept the loss of the canvas colour through adding paint. It was a happy accident and I like the pentimento effect ! So this week I've been letting it grow on me before I decide what to do next. Sometimes I think I rush into making changes and expect to know what needs to happen to a piece immediately - and then I wreck it. I'm glad to have reclaimed the sense of depth.
A three dimensional canvas is interesting to develop, and it's very different working at this smaller scale.



Ah me !
Here's a pic of the image before I added one last colour... and wished I hadn't. I diffused some of the figures, which is all good but I lost the nice contrasty thing that was happening because the face of the pleats were treated in a more linear style and the recesses in a defined colour range. Now it's just a whole lot busier and less spacious ( and I'm not putting the image up ).
Still, I'm really liking the idea - it has heaps of potential. Why is this the overriding self assessment these days ? - I think I need to put more time into resolving my ideas more thoroughly. ( Bruce Mau say's '...if process drives outcome we may not know where we're going, but we'll know we want to be there' - damn it, getting there is a slow journey sometimes - but it's a lot of fun! )

Pleated space

Following on with the theme of compressed space and the way that people meet and share, I've spent today preparing a couple of canvases. They're pleated italian canvas, sized and unstretched. I love the way the light falls on the folds. and I'm using the raw canvas colour to paint on rather than the gessoed front surface.

This sketch is pretty busy still, and I'll probably moderate this when I paint it, but the images play across the planes and folds. For the first canvas, I want the figures to sit on the raised planes and the space to be described in the folds. On the second canvas I'll see what the scene looks like run across both the folds and planes. Should be fun. I'm thinking this idea will relate more to both the yellow and the red pieces.

Dream conversation

Yesterday I woke with this image very strongly imprinted. This morning I've roughed it as a digital sketch. I'ts pretty ugly ( I haven't used any finesse on this - it's not important, I won't be using this to paint from) but the idea is there. Yes, the cubes were pastel colours - like dolly lollies... but the background - the space the figures were in wasn't clear and would need some resolving.
I think (wishing for italics here) it's about the sharing of ideas and the way that each time we do this we also share fragments of ourselves. How revealing. I might think on it some more and then paint it at some point - or the concept might find itsself interpreted on the folded canvas.

Oubliette

I've had second thoughts about this last piece of work over the remainder of the weekend. I'm not sure about the direction it's taking me - and I suspect I'm not going to be able to express the ideas I want if I continue with this thread. The elongated stylised figures, the lack of depth and dependence on strong line... I know they seem like an obvious progression from the work I've been doing, but I'm not satisfied.

I'm going to take some time this week and review the collection of images so far, look at the ideas I have, and ways to extend them further. I need to experiment some more and I may need to go back to go forward. It's all good. Each piece has given me something to work from and towards - so the learning and exploring continues.
I'll leave this one up - it will be interesting to see what comes next.

At this point I think I need to remind myself of point 4 of Bruce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto:

- Love your experiments (as you woud an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

Burlesque

Not finished (what's with this - the damn things take so long to paint at this size :0) ). But it has potential n'est pas?
The avocado green needs some more work to even it out (and the colour hasn't photographed well, it's richer and less flat looking) - I want brush strokes but without patchiness... I haven't a clue why there's a chorus line in the background - but it seemed to fit with today.

Dancing on canvas

Here's the finished painting, on canvas. I had trouble posting this today, there was something wierd with Blogspot. I removed two previous posts because they seemed to be causing errors, turns out it wasn't me. Ah well.

This piece is a definate progression on the idea of relationships in a space and the way two peope can exclude all else about them.
I'm a bit worried about what's happening to the colours I'm choosing - but the movement's starting to happen. A couple of firsts behind me with this one too.... first canvas since summer school, first one this BIG and first one that's not mixed media.
I think my hand and brain are starting to remember the feel of the canvas. It's been frustrating and hard returning to a surface with texture. I miss the speed of the paint movoing across the smooth surface of paper. I think the post I lost talked about it a bit more. Make friends with it you say Ricky?

Velocity increases with density

Only a matter of time I guess, till the poems that inspire the images make it to this blog. I revisited this one this morning - the title itself is just stunning and the movement in it is undeniable. It's by an American poet called Cole Swensen.

Velocity Increases With Density

A single impression
like you rounding a corner.
Even if I hadn’t been there
the image would have kept on
moving in my mind.
Now, you, in this case,
are an old friend. Built of lines and planes
like anyone, a chest, a false ceiling
of the sky. I write letters to others
in which every word is ride.
Hear the world open its coat
like a man running for a bus.
Someday all windows, by definition,
will be spherical. So as I said,
it was an unnerving moment.
I read in the paper the other day
of a woman who spontaneously combusted.
The world will never end.
This is what I fear
when I stop suddenly, almost reaching you.
You, in this case,
are not answering the phone.
It’s a long white line,
a single dimension of incredible speed.

Turning in space

I don't feel as if I've made much progress this week.
This sketch is based on Ricky's sculpture. It's a view looking down from above. The piece has nice rhythms and negative spaces and I imagine it painted (the sculpture) and perhaps textured too. To me, it's about the exclusivity of 'connected' people (though you might have a different interpretation Ricky). I want to capture lots of movement in my painting of it - as if this couple is turning in space. I painted it on the weekend - but wasn't happy with the results although the composition was interesting (too much colour resulted in a loss of spaciousness and seemed to constrain the figures) I overworked it !
I decided not to post the painting here - I know I can do better and so I'm thinking this is still a work in progress. Ah well... I've primed a canvas (yes!) and I'll paint it as soon as I can extract myself from this load of illustration work.

Dancing lightly

Well, here it is. I'm pleased with the sense of movement, the vibrancy and the lightness. I avoided heavy charcoal to work into the painting this time and I think it's better off. I feel as if I'm finally getting to this idea that's been lurking - and that's great.
As I mentioned, it's about the ways we dance with and around each other.

This dance

... As in 'this dance we do'.

I just can't !
I can't let the line go. It's too hard. So here's an even scribblier sketch.
I've been thinking about other ways to convey the ripples idea, with your feedback in mind Ricky. Less hard edged (that's one of the things I feel strongly about too) and hopefully more amorphous and abstracted. Here's a sketch of a similar idea expressed differently. Still linear but looser and more free. I also want to approach the joy of meetings too. I guess it might be a little hard to read !

I'm going to work on the idea this weekend and probably retain a lot of the line work - but using blended, thicker and more textural paint. I have canvas in mind for this, provided the work on paper is effective.

Creating space

No pictures today, just thoughts on this idea of space.
Trying to capture the spaciousness and air in my images ... this morning I asked myself 'what if the paper was the space?' I've been treating the paper as a canvas to describe a space and occupants. If I let that go, can the paper act as the space and allow me to describe the ripples we make better ? What can I do to the paper to allow the viewer to experience what I want them to ?
I have a sneaky feeling I need to let the line go too. Hmmm. This week I'm going to draw some more.

Those ripples we make

Second thoughts have led to some changes to this one today - and yet it still doesn't successfully convey the idea I want. The image looks too much like a sixtys woodcut, heavy and angular. Here it is anyway, a development and a continuation of the exploration. Somehow I need to guard against the rendering language taking over the idea and engulfing it. Back to the minds eye for this one !



This is a rendering of the ripples sketch. I didn't want to kill it with black conte - just intimate the displacement of energy. I think it could just as easily represent a windy Welly day. Looks more like a foyer than a mall - and that's cool. It's a lot more 'painterly' than the previous pieces - in that sense it's looser I guess. I think there's a connection with them in relation to the way we inhabit space or expand to fill it.

Ripples and bow waves

These two sketches are ideas that jump off your sculpture Ricky, I'm thinking about the intersections in the wakes and spacial waves - and playing with the slight displacement as they intersect the figures. I like the solidity of figures in the portrait aspect piece and I want to add some planes to the figure when I paint it so it's less flat.

Mp3'd space

OK. So today I painted the compressed space idea. There's a lot to like, (colour, glimpses of more representational figures...) and much I could expand on with this idea. I want to progress it by exploring painting on unstretched (linen) canvas. Wonder if I used PVA to stiffen it and maybe some linen thread to sew the pleats in place, whether I could get the effect I see in my minds eye - or whether it'll look like so much curtain fabric...? Only one way to find out. Mmmm painting on the face of the pleats - solid colour into the folds or whole figures extended and then disappearing into the pleats ?
For now I'm going to stay with the bredth of my ideas, because there's one in the back of my head thats yet to work it's way out. I can't seem to grasp the swift movement I'm after.
I'm going to leave this exploration for another time and render the ripples idea as well. One week of this phase of exploration left.


This is a sketch I want to work on next. It's about accidental collisions. We all have our own space - when we bump into somone in the street say, that space is compressed and convoluted - as if it were mp'3 d. I want to play with pleated and painted paper so that light cast is utilised in interesting ways. Make sense??

View through a crowd

These three paintings are an exploration of the intersections between people - the way we break into each others' space and the small view windows afforded through peoples ears when you're queueing or craning to see.
I'm really interested in the negative spaces created.

Beyond Summer School

So... a lot of gestural line - I love it ! A new assurance in the value of my work - about time, and a new and exciting direction for this year.

What next?

I came home ready to explore more and bursting with ideas. My friend Ricky (a sculptor amongst other things) and I are planning to mount a joint exhibition some time this year which promises to be alot of fun, and we're working towards that at the moment. We both enjoy the process of collaboration and exploration as much as the 'doing it' so we'll be exchanging ideas, work in progress and co-creating works collaboratively.

We're focussing on social spaces and the way people occupy and interact within them, It's led to some great ideas.
I'm playing each weekend in the studio, with paint and anything else that might lend itself to expressing the ideas... once you open to the possibilities and let go of the need to frame the work, the medium you choose is only as limited as your thinking (she says, while still working on paper!)

These last two works were done a couple of weeks ago. Still focussing on spaces but looking for ways to add figures to them in an expressive and sympathetic way. I'm playing with masking shapes - I really like the irregular effect.

These paintings of spaces follow the same theme, and extend on it. The two teal green pieces were required to link to eachother and began as one long drawing that was divided in three. The third piece was given to another artist to work on - a great challenge and an interesting learnignand sharing opportunity.

More spaces

Drawing objects in space

Drawing the space

Summer School Wanganui January 2006

The Subtitle for this post should really be 'Stretching Space and Pushing Boundaries' - because that's what it was!

Our tutor was Robert McLeod, and the aim of our course was to look at when a painting becomes a sculpture or an installation and when a mixed media drawing or collage becomes a painting.

I arrived with some clear goals - to break out of painting small canvasses in a figurative manner, to allow myself to play and to work loosely and energetically, in contrast to the way I work as an illustrator. I wanted to be a better painter in a week (yeah?) and I wanted to get rid of some common self-talk. I did most of that, and more.

Here's a collection of photos from the week, I'll try and put them up in the order that we did the exercises. A blow by blow commentary would be pretty boring to read - so if you want to know what the exercise was about or why I interpreted it that way, leave me a message and I'll reply.

Suffice to say I didn't anticipate falling for the space or that I'd enjoy the process of abstraction as much as I did. people say they can see the influence of Rob in my colour choices. I'd be interested to know what you think Rob. I think I just love vibrant singing colour!

Well I guess this is a pretty typical image of me....

First day

Wow! I had no idea this woud be so easy to do.

I want to use this Blog space to record some of the cool things I've been doing this year with my artwork and creative thinking.
It's a bit of a journey (and it's only February) and so far it's been a blast. I thought I'd post up the Summer School photos that Terri gave me (thanks heaps Terri) - from January in Wanganui. Along with them I'll put the exercises as they were described for us to tackle, so it's easier to see the progression and development of ideas. From there I want to begin to publish my ongoing ideas for painting and drawings I'm working on currently - and my thoughts around them.

I may also put up some samples of my recent illustrations at some stage, but I guess that isn't my main focus for this blog - so it mightn't happen straight away.

To those of you who I've invited to share this - Welcome, I hope you might leave me a comment or two when you view my work, to let me know what you think - I value your opinions .

To anyone stumbling on my Blog - welcome too - I hope you find it interesting and that you might enjoy following the progress of my work.

Phew! Now let's see if this has worked....