recent art

In wetcanvas.com I did the November challenge of a page a day in the Art Journal forum. In December it is the 12 days of Chritsmas - I'm 1/3 of the way through that.

Here are some of the November pages.


Coloured pencil leaves


graphite sketch from my photo of someone's happy dog on the beach



Horses - Backgroud in acrylic then I pick out shape swith ink and acrylic. I like doing these 'found horses'. A bit like the scribble patterns we used do as kids.


coloured pencil - kiwi ornaments


Totara tree in coloured pencil from memory


graphite - HB and 4B


nanny goat pen and graphite


vase in Coloured pencil


more found horses acrylic and pen


my car




Form a shot I got of a wax eye in our garden - coloured pencil


coloured pencil. Although the moleskine notebook is good I did not push this to take the maximum layers but left sketchy


ink Macrocarpa trunk. I love these trees so full of character. The lines of them bordering farmers' field are thining. The silhouettes of their stately shapes are still eye-catching


Acrylic from my own photo

life drawing workshop 2

I did this one in pastels. About 2.5 hours as I had a bit of a funny tummy with the antibiotics I was on so I left early.

Interesting to look at it later and see what could be done better. The RHS end of the mouth. Close, more blending in some part. But is is threeD and was fun.

Last weeks' one looks a little stif, but he wasn't IRL

portrait workshop

The local art shop is run by two artists. They have just started portrait workshops, no tutor, on Saturday afternoons for 4 hours. At $20 it's a great opportunity to sketch, paint from live models.

The first weekend I just used graphite to try and get my eye in again.
The second weekend I used pastels. Messy fun.

Writing Group

I have been a member of a writing group for 9 years or so. Members have come and gone and recently we have looked for, and found, more writers as we were down to three and that's not as good for creating energy.

A writing group, meetin gin person rather than on-line, is great for discussion. On-line you have the feedback but it is harder for a discussion. We email our submissions once a month and meet up the following weekend to discuss and give our critues of each others work.

Amazing how often writers seem to ahve an interest, or have had an interest or done some other form of creative enterprise such as art or music.

I used to follow two artists' blogs on line - Maggies Stiefvater and Wendy Prior - because they both worked in couloured pencil and wrote very entertaining blogs. Now both of them are concentrating on writing and Maggie has published two books with a third coming.

Me - I'm still dithering between art and writing LOL.

I brought a painting on-line last week and it has arrived! Even better IRL - Edgar's Horse by John McNelley. His paintings often tell a story and have amazing colour . His website -
http://web.me.com/john.mcnelley/catalogue/1.html
Sorry. Not sure how to do a hyper link.

The painting I have bought is currently on the third page - A vibrant landscape with Edgar's horse on the top of the hill/rock to the right.

Edgas Degas paiting a picture of a horse galloping away and the jockey on the graound. Someone made a chance remark, 'What happened to Edgar's horse?'. And the idea for the painting presented itself to John.

Question; writers also interested in other creative enterprises? If there is a group of artists, how often do they also write? Maggie and Wendy do. Is that a common thing?

Mum

Finished Mum's Portrait. She had her 94th birthday last month and I took the photo fo rher portrait a few weeks prior to that.

Mixture of pastels on Cnason Mi-teintes paper.

I went to a pastel workshop in March with Lyn Diefenbach. She used the paper so I did. It's the first time I have really got to grips with paper and managed to fill all the indentations in the paper. I had just not been bold enough before.

NZ Spec-fic Blogging week

Here is a link to the main page.
http://pterodaustrodreams.org/drupal-6.8/node/100

Why?
Because speculative fiction still doesn't get the recognition it deserves in New Zealand and because there are so many people out there doing so many exciting things - and so often they don't know about each other.

And what I've been doing - writing more and getting feedback from Critters - an on-line critique forum for writers of science fiction and fantasy. http://www.critters.org/

I particular, the useful tips I have had recently: - think about the whole ecosystem in the workd you create - how did it get an atmosphere if there is just one life form?
Be specific in explanations - my 'biologist' should be an exo-biologist or xeno-biologist. These specifics also create the different world.
Like any good fiction, the characters should drive the story. Make them rounded, have a back ground, some foible, family or associates?

How did I get into writing speculative fiction? Well to start with I didn't set out to write that specifically. I've always loved words, quirky plays on them but only started writing a little when I was into my fifties having always read. A lot. To start with, I wrote a bit of life writing, shrot stories did a fiction course extramurally through Massey University here in New Zealand - excellent!! - www.massey.ac.nz .

I joined a writing group. This was another very fortuitous happening, around the same time as I did the Massey course. And I did that course by default almost. I had been doing a BA by drip feed - one or two papers a year - and started with German. BY stage three it was a bit too time-consuming without being in contact with German speakers. My interest in short stories and the relationship between life, country and the stories of an era had been awakened with some of the German writing we studied. So as an alternative major I looked to English. I did a literature and a writng course. Then they brought in the fiction writing course. Wonderful. I have now done most of the fiction writing papers they offer.

Then I found my stories often had a quirkiness. Not what I thought of as science fiction, nor as fantasy. Actually, truth be told, I didn't really describe them at all. Until people asked - well, what do you write?

Speculative fiction sounds more learned than quirky stories.

So, that's what I write. Mostly.

As I said, I didn't choose to write it but I think my muse is a gremlin. Something alien anyway. Something happens and a little voice says, that's what Thorians do.

Or I start to describe a scene and find it is an alternative life-style. Then I find just how alternative it is as I watch the characters interact or the characters tell me about just what does go on there.

One of my best moments is where I had two characters meet for the first time. I had had to invent a second character to give the first one some information about what had been happening. And both were going to go the direction the main character had aimed to go all along.

I was sitting there typing away, copying down their conversation and suddenly they decided to go where the secondary character wanted. A whole plot turn. Exciting. I was in the zone where I had to go back to the computer to find our what was going to happen next.

Well, to anyone reading, I wish you happy and exciting writing. And reading. There's lots of great NZ fiction out there, some published, some just waiting to be.

Ent Wife Waiting

Gosh. Is it that long since i updated? I have been busy with work :( , visiting Mum on the way home after work , plus she had a week in hospital. Nothing serious, she's 93 and still living by herself and hadn't been eating enough although there was food there. We now have two caregivers, one for an hour in the morning, another in the afternoon, and the meals on wheels still comes at lunchtime.

Recently I went to the Science Fiction fantasy convention in Auckland. - Conscription.

There was a 3-day writing course with Julie Czernada from Canada - absolutely terrific. Then the three days of the Con. I stayed at the hotel there for the last three nights and it was worth it.

In conjunction with the Con were some competitions. I entered the writing one and the 30D model one. I spent a month of weekends doing my model - not the whole weekend but a lot of time. Neither my story nor the model were placed but I loved doing it.




Close-up of base showing papier mache on top of the wire support



Half done before the addition of leaves, paint, surrounds.



Finished - note Pukeko, fantail, lichen for hair, paper leaves on actual twigs.



Rabbit behind Ent wife




Side view - 'toadstools' are the cores of kauri cones.

ATC demo final pics

#1 Added some red/orange colour pencil to trees and top field.
#2 Added orange and green colour pencil to grass and some orange to the trees. Not sure if you can see it or not.

ATC Demo Part 3

#1 Thought it need more interest so with mixture of blue, red and sepia added brambles, fence and lines on closer field
#2 Added sepia ink in trees and touch on hill, then green while still wet with sepia
#3 Thought it needed more colour so did sepia wash over trees and red and yellow in patches on near field. The red in far field is what separated out of the purplish mixture.
#4 Touch of green on hill and purplish mixture in foreground.

ATC Demo part 2

Trees can be done with black or other coloured inks, drawn in or done with more blue ink. If doing a wash with black which is a waterproof one, you can do a wash in light blue over the top.
#1 Distant hill with Blue ink wash
Yellow ink wash with red added to trees while wet and sepia ink added to fields
#2 Top right -Black ink wash on trees and wiggly lines on hill for clumps of growth. Thin yellow wash over trees, lower sky and hill.
#3 Yellow wash on trees with touch of red.
Distant hill with blue wash.
With the purplish mixture of red, blue, sepia did ploughed fields on damp paper. As the inks have different spreading ability, test on test bit of paper.
#4 Bottom Right Thin wash of raw sienna acrylic paint over trees, lower sky and foreground. After it dried, blue drawn on wetted paper for trees and foreground.
Let dry.

2 closer pics of #1

ATC demo part 1

This is how I did some of the ATC's for the exchange on Wet Canvas. Even though I tried to get them similar to the ones I did for the Exchange, they never turn out the same the second time.

Materials:-
heavy water colour paper. 300 lb is best for less buckling when wet. Where you have a rough and a smooth side, smooth is perhaps better for ATC size.
Ink - for the skies in these I used Parker Quink blue because it separates into blue and ochre.
Calligraphy acrylic inks – red, yellow, sepia and green.




Preparation. I put on art masking fluid for the shape of the trees and horizon. I drew pencil lines roughly where this was going to go so you can see but this is not necessary as the masking fluid is yellowish. Wait until dry.





Then I dampened the back of the water colour paper to stop curling. On the front I wet the sky area, some of these were wetter than others. Some had more ink on than others. Where a heavy dab of ink was in a wet area – (not damp – wet )- it was able to spread and this left the yellow-ochre tinge. I helped the spread in some cases by tipping this way and that.
Don’t try to paint cloud shapes just dab along the top and perhaps in a couple of other places. In # 3 I drew some lines on the right and dabbed a little in the middle. The other sky areas and clouds are formed by the paper not being uniformly wet.
Try to keep the application of the ink on the top of the picture so it is thinner towards the horizon with the spread. You can spread a thin wash of blue over the masking fluid tree trunks. In #4 and #1 I didn’t because I will wash with another colour. Wait until dry.

Rub off masking fluid. This will also mostly rub out any pencil lines.

more ATC's

I've done more of the ATC's as part of the 25 swap through miniature art on Wet Canvas.
16 done.

I first cut out them out of heavy - 300 lb - watercolour paper that is smooth. Working so small the texture can interfere with drawing. Sometimes by accident I do it on the not-so-smooth side.

Then I usually sketch in pencil and either go over it in ink or paint direct. If I draw it in ink I then rub out the pencil lines before adding colour.

Before posting out I use a spray-on varnish as and watersoluble mediums are easily damaged or smudged.

Part of the fun is thinking up captions.




Pansy loved dressing up in his favourite flower colours.



This Chinese horese loves green tea



Nameless Horses out looking for names



Grey Horses Dream in Colour.


I was surfing the net earlier. I go to a blog I have liked, or stumble upon one, then I click on their favourite blogs and sometimes every one appeals, others it is a long and winding path, like waiting fo rthe big wave, puddling around.

This morning I came across an interesting one and added it to my favs. Cra*tiva's Blog.

Others I save to my fovourites. So many artists out there. - visual artists and word artists.

week 4 Percheron and ATC's

Week Four was Percheron but I've missed weeks five and six. Busy doing ATC's and visiting Mum in HOspital. She is home again now but my sister and I still need to go and check on her everyday to make sure she's eating
Percheron in Ink and coloured pencil.




One of the ATC's I'm doingfor the 25 of ...? swap through the Wetcanvas.com web site in the miniature art forum.
I'm doing horses (go figure!) and showing some little known facts. This one is Rainbow horses who travel on roads of gold.
In ink and water-soluble wax pastels.



This ATC is Happy Appy in his element. In ink.

horses breed per week

Continuing on the challenge.
Third week is Icelandic



Coloured pencil again

Arabians

New page in note book - stimulated by the WC thread and the challenge to myself to do more horses and improve my drawing to be able to render them accurately.


Head is in graphite and foal is coloured pencil. Thanks to Ainslie G and Cathy Sheter for the images.

horses

Starting a new notebook for horse art.
So far I have gessoed several pages in varying colours and completed one page.
The idea has been floating around in my head for a while with doing different horses for the ATC swap and then gelled when i saw WetCanvas had an equine forum now under the animals and wildlife.

There are some lovely styles and horses there and I'm goin gto try to copy the different styles and hopefully hone my drawing skills too.

1st page -

Birthday Week

Starting with a family get-together at a restuarant - and two close friends. The Staurday before my birthday beacuse that is when my sister and bro-in-law could make it up in their campervan. They parked on the driveway by our house which is up a long right-or-way two sections back from the road.

They and the two friends stayed the night and we had a BBQ breakfast the following morning -bacon, eggs, pinapple and ginger/honey bread baked by Caren - under the awning of the camper van. The warmth of the summer and the trees and bacon made it seem like we were camped by the seaside - plus good friends of course!

Thursday was our work team dinner after work - not late - very pleasanr. Friday was the Christmas lunch put on by work - in the next door church hall with the secret santa gifts. I got a fancy notbook and I gave a book on NZ shrubs in the bush for Mary at work who is into bush walking.

Saturday I worked on the pencil portrait of Darren's (son-in-law)Father who died 4 years ago. It is hard to get the skin tones right with a photo takn by flash but I think Darren's mothe rwill like it. In the afternoon Alan and I went to the Wilderness Writer's group Christmas picnic - this year at French Bay over the other side of Auckland - very pleasant. John brought his kayak and we had discussions on trees, birds, the differences between rooks, ravens, crows, magpies (Pied crow in NZ).


Sunday I finished the portrait of Gareth and took him to the picture framers. My daughter will pick him up.

Sunday afternoon up to Dave and Caren's in the country for a scumptious lunch. She is such a great cook, all the flavours balanced - chicken with capers, fresh green salad with mustard sauce and potatoes gratin with cream not cheese.

Dave, Alan and I had a wander into the bush to get some ferns Alan wants to put in down the back of our house. I haven't uploaded them yet.

Caren had invited their 4 neighbours for afternoon tea nad done a heap of backing traditional German cakes - liebkuchen is the only one I remember the name of - and waffles with cherries and cream AND THE MOST devine cheese cake with strawberries - made with quark so not heavy. My birthday cake.

After the neighbours had gone Dave flew the kite and we sat on the grass in the shade and watched him. No one's stomach wanted to have another game of pentanque.

All-in-all the perfect end to a lovely week.

what I've been doing

Finished 4 pastel paintings - 3 from photos I took in England 4 years ago, one of hubby's brotherand Sister-in-laws dog Pol who died a couple of years ago.
Above are Towards Fowlmere and Pol.

Started another 6 weeks of the bush walk and talks.

Granddaughter Charlotte had her first birthday.

Went on another 2-day pastel workshop with Larry Blovits - great

Saturday musings

I feel free. I have just written a letter to withdraw from my paper this year without academic penalty . If I do it before 4 July no worries.

My brain was just not coping with having to sit down after a day at work and read and thing. I really sympathise with Dave. Did his last assigment go OK?

Now I do not feel guilty doing art. Or reading.

When I knew I had to study and couldn't make my brain work, I stuffed around and did not do much. When I did do a bit of art I felt guilty so consequently I didn't apply myself to much. Most things were time fillers, time wasters.

On the internet I've been looking at calligraphy. Some great art out there and I'll add some links.

Anyway - going to tidy my room so I have some space to make a mess. LOL . Hey may even get enough space to ROFL. Me? with a tidy room?

Never. :)

Poor DH has a bad cold. For the first time he has lost his voice. I bought some soup and crumpets to entice him to eat. He's just got up and having a shower. Just in time for lunch.

mandala

As part of a challenge on WetCanvas.com I have done a mandala.



It represents me, things I like and have done - or some things!
8x8" in colour pencils

writing Friday Feast

Gosh - is it really so long since I posted? Being off work for a couple of weeks with a bad cold/flu? is no excuse.

Visited one of my favourite blogs - Greenish Lady - and she has a Friday Feast where she answers questions posed and one of the questions was What Colour Pen do you Write with?
I had to answer - loving colour and writing! - Oh I love purple too! I write with black in my scrapbook photo album but I usually use blue on daily writing because purple is harder to come by.

In my journal I aften use pen and ink and then I can do purple, brown, red, green, what ever.

One colour all the time is depressing

Any way, I thought I would join in the Friday feast to write at least once a week!
So it's Saturday - close enough:)

Appetizer

If you could live on another continent for 1 year, which one would you choose? I would pick Europe. If I had that chance I would have enough money presumably to travel around it. I really loved England and would love to explore that more and paint. I loved the German people but there is so much more of Europe I want to see. The old houses, the country, the villages.

Soup

Explorer

Salad

On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being highest), how much do you know about the history of your country?

Now how do you measure this? I know the backbone and major dates. Some names of primeministers and other Important People. Having lived here 60 years, that part I know.
7 out of 10 becuase the feel of it is more important than actual dates.

Main Course

Finish this sentence: Love is… Aaargh - one sentence? Love is all encompassing.

Dessert

Have you ever been in or near a tornado? No. I've seen a little one starting but we don't have many in NZ.
The one I remember most is 1991 when we were in South Africa and phoned home to our daughter who was baby-sitting our house. She was all shaky as a tornado had just gone past and shaken the whole house. The main damage was 5 miles away - fortunately only trees - but she was by herself and it scared her. We timed our call well.

Leaves again

Mother's Day. Appropiately here is a picture of my mum's bromeliad. We went around to her place yesterday afternoon and Faye and Brian (sister and BIL) were able to be there too. They live 5 hours drive away so we don't get together often enough.



I have started another leaves drawing in CP. Taking lots of photos now as the leaves are really changing colours. All trees seem to be on different timetables though LOL.


On the subject of art, I have added a link to maggie Stiefvater's blog. She has lots of advice and writes in a very chatty way with a great sense of humour - tickles my sense of humour anyway! She also picks an artist of the month to discuss. Well worth a visit. Oh, she is ALSO a writer - published.

And talking of publishing, I have three haiku in 'the taste of nashi', a book of NZ Haiku just out organised by the Windrift haiku group of Wellington.

behind the sheep truck
the smell
of grass and hills

a marshmellow sun
in the mist
my horse snorts

summer picninc -
a moth flies out
of my husband's wallet

TaiChi

A long weekend - ANZAC day on Friday and everything is closed until 1pm so most people can get to a remembrance parade. Less returned soldiers from WW1 and WW2 now but more younger people joining in and the schools, scouts, girl guides ETC join in too.

Saturday I went with Caren to the demonstrations that are a part of the World Tai Chi day - http://www.worldtaichiday-akl.org/

Very interesting with all the different styles doing massed displays. Each school had their own style, even when doing the same 'form' there were variations between schools. Some of the uniforms - very Chinese with tunic and loose trousers - were very colourful.



There were none who were doing the 42 form exactly the same as the SIng Ong Tai Chi school I learn with.

I have started another coloured pencil work of leaves. It is hard to take a photo where the leaves have a natural composition and if the sun is shining, removing one or two from the composition, or rearranging them is impossible because it is too hard to work out the three-dimensional sapcing and the affect on shadows onto other leaves.

There is a bank near work and the council workers have trimmed branches off one side of some trees because they were getting close to power lines. They are diciduous trees but I noticed some new shoots even now in autumn where the tree is trying to replace branches. And how do they know the branches have gone? How do they know they are now unbalanced or have a hole in their side that needs to be filled up so they have a nice round shape?

Can anyone tell me? And how do they know to space their branches out anyway and grow to a certain shape depending on their type?

Sunday april 20th 2008

Gosh. Three tries to write a title. And then I got the date wrong and had to go back and edit It kept saving before I had finisehed. But with the sun coming in the window onto my back on an autumn morning that is a little crisp, everything's sweet.



Went to my monthly writer's group meeting yesterday. I had no writing this time as I had been finishing the Green Leaves. And I've also been working on the hodge podge of a nature journal.

Changing subject, can anybody say why things have to be plastic shrink wrapped? Is it just me who does not see the sense in for example, having shoelaces in a little plastic (useless for anything else) tray with cardboard stuck on as a backing.

And when you buy something from a big store where the plastic is thick and you just about need a degree in knives/saws/bolt cutters to open the packaging - why,?

Next time when I have brought something like that, I will stand in the store and not leave until they have opened the darn thing. And they can keep the plastic too .

I'll let you know how that goes.:)

The leaves are oh so slowly changing colour. Here I am with my camera at the ready saying come on come ON. I want to do another work in coloured pencils of autumn leaves.

I'm starting a pastel of Bro-in-law's dog. We stayed ith them in Christchurch and I offered because I can and they are so hospitable. Their dog died last year - he had been around the world with them and lived in Australia, Hong Kng, France. He must have been at least 20.

So of fto do some work. More like play really.

Campus Course

I've just spent 3 days down at Palmerston Nprth on the campus course for the medieval history paper I'm doing this year - It is my last paper for a BA so also the last time I will probable be visiting that lovely campus.

Natalie, another pastel artist, picked me up on the Thursday and showed me a lot of her part of the country. All the years I've been visiting Palmy and never explored the countryside as I didn't have my car but flew down or went by train. 15 years of study almost ended. We went to Shannon (lovely jewelry and art shop and cafe, and interesting 2nd hand shop run by Gypsy)Foxton - (Mill, Murals, Shire horses, interesting art gallery), Foxton Beach and finished with art gallery in Palmerston North. Natalie knew the owners of the galleries and other people so made it doubly interesting.




Natalie took the photo of me helping with the shire horses as the drvier's helper hadn't arrived.

I had to take some last photos of the beautiful grounds of Massey campus and the valley with the Turitea stream running through. I got up on sunrise the first day. Being further South the sun is lower and took longer for the valley to fill with sun so time to go from spot to spot to find the best shot. And I took some in the evening but not as spectacular as the morning ones.