Gamelan resting – watercolour pencil.

This drawing is another from Kate’s waterolour pencil class. It’s from a photo I took in Bali at some stage. I used watercolour crayons in the three primaries for the background and darkened on the right with some indigo. I just wanted to capture the relaxed poses of the musicians.

I haven’t done any drawings for a few days – too busy and also I have a cold. But I still have drawings backed up waiting to be blogged about.  The images are on my desktop though, in the freezing cold spare room, so I’ll have to brave the cold and go in there to load them up before I can blog again.

Another Urban Landscape (or two)

This urban landscape is also done with the Matisse Dry Mediums, so lots of texture.

The dry mediums are coming into the shops now, and selling like hot cakes. Jerrys Artarama have bought them for all their stores.

In this painting I mostly used the finer grades of sand, and some pumice (love the pumice) and for the sky I used the Wollastonite which is really a medium for drawing, but I wanted to test it for texture for the sky.

I am testing two more new mediums, still secret, so I have a painting on the go for each of those.

I’ve done this study for a large painting I want to do, and even bought the canvas for that one.  I’ve prepped a canvas for another painting for the Pyrmont Art Prize. And I have three canvases with dry mediums on them that I’ve done as demos. And I’m still cross with myself for not drawing enough.

Then I hurt my back so I’m lying flat reading. I read the best book…. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen I told a friend about it last Monday & he keeps texting me telling me how much he’s enjoying it. It’s very funny but also a little sad.

Another book I’m re-reading is Cooking with Fernet Branca It’s hilarious. I love both these books – they’re very different.

I also read Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesiaby Elizabeth Gilbert. The title had put me off, but then I watch this very interesting video of her ideas about genius/creativity. So I read the book – didn’t like it. I found her too self-indulgent, and anyway spirituality isn’t my thing. Interesting from the point of view that she lived in Rome not too far from where I lived in Rome, and in Bali, she at first lived in the Monkey Forest Rd, just down the road from my second home, Ubud Village Hotel.

Starting off a book swap

We’re starting off a book swap with one member from the previous postcard swap group, and some other artists from the Everydaymatters group. This link takes you to the Everydaymatters Superblog, where you can see posts from different artists from the Everydaymatters group.  Each of us is making our own book from a sheet of watercolour paper, from a pattern (and great step-by-step) on Nina’s blog. 

We are getting off to a slow start because we have had one member drop out, got a replacement, then another has dropped out.  We’re not due to send our book off for another 3 weeks, but TODAY is the day our books are supposed to be made by.  Well, mine is done now.

Once we’ve made our book, then we draw/paint on a double-page spread, then send it to the next person. When it comes back in about 6 months time, it should be full.

My cover boards are covered with textured wallpaper that has been gessoed & then swooshed with Matisse Inks and gesso.  I am pretty fed up with this long cold winter, even though it was 35 degrees last Friday. The colours of the cover seemed so cheerful and summery, that I have made my theme ’summer’. Then I have sort-of broken my own rules, because what I’ve painted is ‘tropical’ rather than ’summer’. Still, not everyone has access to the tropics.

I photographed these heliconia plants in the grounds of the hotel where I stay in Ubud in Bali.  I’ve painted them in watercolour, which is not really my medium, but lends itself so well to florals. I do love heliconia. This year for my birthday, I’m going to buy myself a stalk of heliconia and one of those long vases you need to put them in. Just gorgeous.

Not been blogging much lately. Had a sore hand, and also busy getting ready for the Matisse Open Day. See you there!

Eruption – WCP efforts with Kate’s CD – and a tag

Finally, after three attempts I am happy with a landscape. This was done with a low-key triad – not quite Kate’s ‘low key primaries’ , because I knew I wanted that Indigo. I used Indigo, Yellow Ochre and Venetian Red. I am happy that I have somewhat more captured the mood of the scene. You can see the original post here, which explains the weather & also has the photo and my first drawing from it. Now I can move on with Lesson 2 on Kate Johnson’s Watercolour Pencil CD. The only advantage in not doing the course with Kate (for which I am still kicking myself), is that I can do an exercise till I’m happy with it, before I move on.

I have been tagged by Amanda. These are rules:

1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Post 7 facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link to them.
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

Seven facts about me ( again.)

1. I recently sponsored a little Balinese girl through Bali School Kids which is a Rotary project between Swan Valley Rotary in WA (that’s in Australia – lol) and Denpasar Rotary in Bali. She is not quite seven, and she lives in a village not far from Bedugul.
2. I went to the Archibald Prize today. That’s the major Australian portrait prize. The winner was Del Kathryn Barton, but you can see all the finalists on this page. The winning portrait was nicer than it looks in that particular image, as she is a wonderful colourist and that image doesn’t do it justice. I also liked it for the fact that it was mixed media. The standard was very high this year and my absolute favourite was the painting of New Zealand musician Neil Finn (Split Enz, Crowded House). The surface and finish on that painting was just wondrous, and having seen Finn interviewed recently, I thought it portrayed the sort of person he is.
3. I drew red-nosed hooter-tooters today in the Botanical Gardens. May actually have been a ‘dusky moorhen’ but a hooter-tooter anyway.
4. Also drew ibis.
5. Went to Parker’s Art Supplies (Aladdins’s cave) in The Rocks, but bravely didn’t buy anything. (You can look at the webcam on Sydney Harbour from that link.) Found that Strathmore watercolour papers are no longer available here.
6. Struggling with my conscience about whether to put an order in at amazon.com while our dollar is high. Have many books already.
7. I am currently doing ‘morning pages’ from The Artist’s Way, not for the first time. Though I think it’s a terrific book, and the pages are a great tool… I DO find that it eats into the beginning of my day. My hand also gets sore. What does anyone else think about ‘the pages’?

Batur eruption – another WCP exercise

This is yesterday’s drawing. It’s less overworked than the one of the ‘cow place’. It was a lot quicker to do, and what I prefer about this one is that you can see the drawing – see the pencil strokes. I have discovered that my aim is to be able to work with WCP more quickly and more in the way of sketching rather than drawing. The large mountain in the background is Mt Batur (that’s in Bali), and the what appears to be a smaller one in the foreground is actually a cone on the side of Mt Batur that is erupting. In the darkish area in the middle of the drawing there is a village. We were standing on a cliff edge, and my friend was cavorting up and down saying ” I don’t believe it. They’re living in the volcano. I am happy enough with the way that I get the sense of distance, though I’m not particularly happy that the ambience of the drawing matches the reality. The colours in fact are a tad more subtle than the scan. In fact it was a dull day and the mist only cleared for a short while so we could see the volcano. I am going now to draw it again, first in monochromatic Derwent Indigo (I’m quite fond of their Indigo, though generally I far prefer Albrecht Durer. Then I plan to use some other colours, perhaps some of Kate’s ‘low key primaries’ which I’m breaking my neck to try. Oh, and it’s on Fabriano Cold again.

Anita and the Island of the Gods

The postcard that Anita painted as part of her postcard exchange came on Friday. I wasn’t expecting anything exciting from the mailman, because Kate’s Watercolour Pencil CD came the previous day, (more of that later.)A friend was here painting with me, and when I realised it was Anita’s postcard, I told my friend the story of the exchange and she looked at the card and said in an awed voice “she’s good, isn’t she!” Yes, she is good. It is beautifully painted. Such a wonderful choice of subject.

I have been going to Bali for about 20 years. I stay in Ubud, which is an art village. I love Bali because of the culture and the lush tropical foliage and the fact that everything is so decorative. You can see some photos here that I took in the garden of the hotel last time I was there. Bali has it’s own calendar, and a Balinese year is about six months long. The Galungan days are the major festival. However there is also a festival for Saraswati, goddess of learning, and offerings are made to books on that day. When I restarted my education at my grand old age, I adopted Saraswati as my personal symbol. I have a little faux brass statue on top of the t.v., and a stone statue from Bali in the courtyard. Anita knew none of this, except that I love Bali, so it was very perceptive of her. You can see my postcard to Anita here.

Yes, Kate’s CD came. What value for money. It is crammed full of useful stuff. I haven’t started any of the excercises yet, but I have noted with interest the difference that different papers make, so I am binding a small coptic book from three different watercolour papers. Hope to stitch it today, and I’ve used one of the totally gorgeous paste papers that a friend gave me for Christmas. She knows that I have paste papers of my own, and she also knows that I find it so difficult to actually use the gorgeous ones. But when it’s a gift, it’s different. So I plan to make this book my watercolour pencil book for Kate’s lessons.