My Mystic Forest

I have finally finished my "Mystic Forest" painting.  After my last sitting I realised that the painting needed more light and greater depth. The foreground  and perspective was going to be vital in pulling it all together.

I was a little cautious about where to go next.  And would you believe I found help out the "Back of Bourke". To keep in tune with techniques and styles, especially while on the road, I buy the Artist's Palette magazine.  I have been carrying an article about Jenny Greentree and her very vivid colour paintings of the NSW outback.  Her article was called "Back of Bourke"  I have always wanted to see the outback that inspired her works.

This trip I was going to ensure that I did this.  I went one better.  300m from our C'van park was a gallery that gave lessons to tourists and the style looked familar.  The Back of Bourke  Gallery was owned and run by Jenny Greentree.

I booked a lesson and had my first experience with pastels, created a novice but very  colourful painting and learnt heaps about perspective. Just what I needed and the next day I completed "Mystic Forest"



My pastel completed under the guidance of Jenny Greentree.

I really enjoyed the pastel medium and highly recommend a look at the Jenny Greentree website.  She is currently preparing for an exhibition re Lake Eyre. http://www.backofbourkegallery.com/

April 11 2011 was my last post. I'm amazed how long its been.  Our gypsy life came to a bit of a stand still while we renovated our new cottage in Margaret River.  It was gutted to a shell and rebuilt.  I loved the process and of course my "Country Style" magazines gave me lots of ideas.



Analogus Colours: Pthalo Green to Magenta

It's a great "lock up and Leave" place suited to our caravaning gypsy lifestyle. 
We are on the road again and I've committed myself to painting as much as possible on this trip.

In my art classes I have been learning more about the use of colour.  I am exploring Analogous colours and have completed a portrait of my niece Rebecca.

I have selected a photo of our iconic South West  Boranup Forest and am attempting to use the same colour combination as the portrait to interpret the scene. I hope you enjoy this journey with me.

Analogous colours are consecutive colours on the colour wheel and as they have no contrasting colours the use of black in the colour mix for the dark shades and a white mix for light is essential.  In this combination the median colour is blue (Ultamarine), and is the base colour. The dark shades comes from Pthalo Green and black, and the light from the Magenta and white mix.  Other tonings for depth is the Pthalo blue on the dark side and Diox Purple for the light.

Firstly I needed to set up the canvas with the background colours. Magenta and white for the sky, Ultra and white for the main foliage and Phlalo blue and black for the foreground

Setting up the background foliage and trees was a challenge and looked pretty amateurish.  The base blue foliage was placed in and the distant trees of magenta and purple with white added.  I then attempted to bring in lights and darks into the foliage and forground as well as bring the road into play.  Black was added to Pthalo green to achieve this. I felt that at this stage I needed to bring in the foreground trees . I was a bit uncertain about what I had achieved so far.

I'm much happier now as I am seeing the structure and depth.  Unfortunately I did my usual and created 3 "soldiors" in my forground trees to the left. (evenly spaced instead of irregular as you tend to find in nature).  This will have to be corrected in my next session. I have more of an idea where the light and darks need to go in the foliage and will attempt this later. The detail of the road and foreground foliage will be the last detail

 I am excited about the progress so far and love the feeling of this colour combination. 

  

Finally finished my beloved painting of Ruby and Kai

We are finally home in Margaret River WA.  A little unsettled with no home/house but adjusting fine.  We are squatting, as Gypsy's do, in a beautiful part of the world, Prevelly.  Our time has been spent catching up with family and friends.  I'm one of the lucky ones where at my age I still have my wonderful parents and we all celbrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary at Voyager Estate on Saturday.
I am now getting into my creative space.  Eventhough I lost my place in Peter Scott's art class, I was able to attend last week where his invaluable knowledge and underatsanding of what I wanted to achieve enabled me to finish the Ruby and Kai painting. Well, nearly. all I have to do is seal it in a few days. 
The family love it, especially Ruby and Kai.  There Noni, my sister Ricky has claimed this painting and now their parents Rebecca and Simon want another one including their gorgeous 3rd child Asher.  Now that one will be a challenge.



I am really glad this is finished and I love the end product.   I lost a bit of the momentum when
 I had to leave it for so long and as I guessed less under the water  was better.
Now for my next project........



My Creative Space - in Painting Mode

Still on the road  in my gypsy life but managed to find a piece of paradise for a couple of days and of course out came the paints.  The weather was fantastic for painting outdoors making the light for my new colour mix the best.   I still agonised over the form and shape of the right hand rocks. I wanted to use colour range to create the shape and smooth texture of water eroded rocks.  I am much happier with the outcome but still have to create more contrast of colour and place in the light from sun reflection. 

Then the final job.  To place in the under water rockshelves and the fish that has the atttention of Ruby and Kai. A very tricky task, and knowing what, and what not to include from my master photo is the challenge.

I've placed the painting in a non secure frame to get the sense of the defined scene and hopefully this will help in  the final stages of completeing the painting. 



This is the master photo for the painting. 
The fish is in the rockpool and  its a challenge to see.
 And how much of the fish and under water rockshelves do I include in the painting.



My Creative Space - 2 weeks on.

On the road again and into my gypsy life.  The problem is internet connection. We have found a little bit of paradise on the Eyre Peninsular, Lowly Point - Spenser Gulf.  I was concerned because eventhough good fishing for Tony ( my Hubby), no connection for me to post my blog.  Two weeks travelling and no "My Creative Space" - a tragedy.  However, all is up graded  at our camp site and connection I have.  A bit late but hopefully I can still post.

In the past 2 weeks I have worked on my painting, made some stamps and extended my button jewellery design. 

My painting and those !!#^** rocks I'm actually developing and will be finished very soon.  I will post the supposedly final edition soon, but here are my stamps and a taste of the new Button design.

The start of my OZ animal collection for my Grandies.  The Dragon Fly and Echidna.



I have been working on my chuncky style and created 3 Button necklaces. After refining my black and white number, I recreated the green.yellow and orange one and then ventured to a metal creation.  I haven't posted the others as my Hubby wasn't too flash in the camera department.  The design seems to work but I feel it does need to be short
Opinions would be appreciated



Back to Buttons

My painting is on hold for a while as we hit the road today.  I'm still not happy with those very frustrating rocks in the rock pool.  Pete has guided me a little more and I'll take his advice once we stop for a few days.

So, back to the buttons.  I've been wanting to expand my design for some time and finally on one of those dreamy days in Canberra, inspiration came o me.  I tried and I succeeded.  I am very pleased.

Wanting a chunkyer style I made the necklace in two stages using both vintage and contemporary buttons.  For added interest I put in a little assymetery in the drop section.

It is quite stunning worn with a variety of outfits and colours.

I am now trying different colours and was happy with the drop section but not so with the actual neck piece and will be changing this one.

I completed this necklace just proir to my new design and having the large feature button led to my new thoughts of  extending the size of the feature by adding a drop peice.  It was how to do it that was the challenge.

My Creative Space - New Adventure

I"m always looking for something new to try and with my links to Chantal Vincent Art I am embarking on creating a series of stamps.  I gathered my equipment from Eckersleys in Canberra, found some space in my caravan and had fun for at least 2 hours.  Very theraputic and relaxing.  Today I'm back to Eckersleys to find a smaller carving tool fo the detailed work.