I’ve been busy painting 🙂 Pleased with how these are turning out! In real life they are kind of shimmery. Yes, I will be painting the right shoe too.
Art
More fun with face paints
As I’ve been in the process of upgrading my paints to a new brand and style, from liquid Derivan to TAG cakes, through the amazingly friendly local seller at Kool 4 Kats. (they sell online though this store) I’ve been practising when I get the chance as the water to paint ratio is new and a little tricky and the brush loading technique (getting paint on the brush) is also different. Once you’ve become used to it, it’s instinctive how much water to use and how to load the brush but I’m still a little new with cakes and don’t always get it right first time. The upshot of which has been that I’m painting everyone in the vicinity. 🙂 And my own left arm a lot. Which gets you a lot of funny looks, but on the other hand turns out to be a really good way of advertising your services! Who’d have thought.
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| Double loading the brush to get two toned flowers |
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| This one matched a tattoo elsewhere on the lady |
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| Request for a ‘rainbow waterfall with fish’ |
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| Ever popular rainbow butterfly – my brushes are old and letting me down here. Terrible stroke work!! Gorgeous pearl rainbow colours though, shimmery! |
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| Puppy dog – couldn’t believe how well the gold matched her skin. I’ve just bought a bronze pearl cake that will work much better for this look. |
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| Unicorn. I admit it, I’m not so hot with horses. I will be practising! |
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| ‘Half skeleton, half blue wind fairy’ Works surprisingly well, especially with the pearl white background |
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| Then things got really tricky… 🙂 |
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| Bought some new quality brushes today – much better stroke technique here. |
New tree spirit
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| The Weaver |
Polymer Clay pendants
I’ve love working with polymer clay. The product is frankly revolutionary, it is soft to work and holds very fine marks, but bakes and sets as a hard plastic in an ordinary oven. It is very light too which means even large pendants wont drag on your neck or large earrings wont hurt to wear. PMC can be horribly expensive to get into, and for people like who fatigue quickly and have issues with joint pain, some varieties are just too firm to easily work with. I get around these issues by using only a single colour of soft PMC called Super Sculpey. I then get out my fine brushes and paint the fired pendants by hand, which I love doing. Modelling is incredibly enjoyable, sculpture on a tiny scale which is perfect for my circumstances.
Pendant, hand painted in acrylic, with a labradorite cabochon and seed pearls.
Pendant, hand painted in acrylics, freshwater pearl, swarovski crystals, paua shell.
Here’s some of my early work, with a 50c coin for size comparison; the little owl was my very first PMC creation:
Here’s some close ups:
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| Flying owl |
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| Leaping cat |
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| Broken heart |
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| Sea horse |
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| Golden leaf |
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| Papoose |
Studio
I’ve been taking advantage of the easter holiday to work on my studio area. I’ve been struggling a bit lately with nightmares and rashes and whatnot and I’ve figured out that one of the problems is that my studio area has been totally neglected lately and has become a dumping ground for boxes that I’ve moved out of the rest of the house. By Thursday last week I was losing it a bit so I decided to have a holiday at home this long weekend and I’ve ignored all my email and not picked up the phone for the duration. It has been good to have some uninterrupted time to focus! There’s always an awkward transition period for me in the immediate aftermath of being incredibly busy when suddenly I don’t have all these huge projects occupying my brain and everything I’ve been ignoring wells up and threatens to capsize me. Busy suits me a lot, my brain is like a big dog that needs a lot of exercise else it gets bored and restless and starts chewing on the furniture and digging under the house.So, in my usual obsessive way, I’ve been face painting (more pictures later), thinking, writing, crying, and sorting out the house. Occasionally I remember to eat. My sleep patterns have reverted to my ‘normal’ which is waking hours between noon to 3am. That’s going to hurt when Tafe starts up again. But, it’s been needed! Here is what my studio looked like a couple of days ago:
I wanted to sort things out properly, not just rearrange them out the way so I still wouldn’t be able to find anything. I like to box up different supplies and tools in shoe boxes and tins. This keeps everything related together, helps to stop me losing small items, and makes it easy to stack, locate, and lift the boxes. It does however take a lot longer when you’re still setting up. Today I got in my second shelf which is great and will get a lot of gear off the floor:
I’m using the built-in wardrobe are to stash more supplies, particularly those that are sensitive to light exposure such as rubber stamps and paint:
Labels!
Paints!
I sorted and hung clothes until I ran out of coathangers. How does one lose coathangers when moving? I am mystified.
I’ve also got in a cabinet for the dining room area. This gets all my linen off the floor and will look a bit better once I’ve put all the doors back on it. 🙂
So the upshot of all this is that I’ve found all my brushes, my fabric paints, and I’ve washed and dried two new pairs of shoes that have been ordered to be painted, ready to go. I can now walk into my studio without falling over which is pretty awesome and I’m looking forward to getting down to making some more art. Happy. 🙂
Reclaiming Creativity
As I am such a madly creative person, it’s easy to assume that art comes easily to me. In fact, I went through about an eight year drought in which I was unable to make any art. This was during the time when I was the most ill, both physically and psychologically. Various things crashed my ability to make art. Upheaval in moving houses, studio space being promised but never quite eventuating, or my art table being sabotaged by housemates who knocked drinks onto my work, borrowed and didn’t return tools, etc. Increasing illness and trying to manage work meant I culled art time as my energy gave out. As I experienced setbacks and losses in other areas of my life that shattered my self confidence, my confidence in my art also suffered. As my physical health disintegrated to the point where I was housebound, using a wheelchair, and needed assistance with meals, dressing, and bathing, art became a distant dream. I remember craving the day when I would be well enough just to work on a cross stitch for a few minutes a day.
As my health started to improve, I began to make things again, but no longer art. I couldn’t handle the severe internal criticism whenever I tried to make something of my own design, so I kept my hands busy with crafts. I also employed my creativity in an attempt to strengthen my social network. So, I didn’t paint or sculpt any more, I spent hours making birthday cards for friends. I made cross stitch where I worked with someone else’s design, and got into stamping and embossing. I learned ribbon, wool, and bead embroidery and made gifts.
A few years ago I decided to concentrate on the blocks that were stopping me from making art. I didn’t want to give away my creativity and use it to try and stay connected to friends any more, I wanted to use it to say the things that I had in my heart, and to work on becoming a professional artist. I felt like I’d allowed my voice to be taken away from me and I wanted to take it back.
Don’t get me wrong here, there’s a popular culture hierarchy that goes something like this: crafts on the bottom, then ‘low arts’, then ‘high arts’. So an oil paint is deemed to be more high art than a street performance or a loom worked tapestry, which is deemed to be better than a cross stitch project or a leather worked belt. That’s all rubbish as far as I’m concerned, the skills needed to make a knife, handle inks, sew a dress, or sculpt a face are all significant! I love and spent time on various pursuits considered crafts, and on others generally badged as arts simply because I enjoy being creative and making things with my hands. I found crafts easier to get back into than arts simply because crafts are often about skill with your hands and the material, but not so much the deeply personal aspect of designing artwork. Simply put, there was less of my own heart and soul in the crafts.
I moved back into art in small steps. Having made many crafts, I started to design my own craftwork, such as beaded earrings. This was actually really hard to do, my perfectionism was out of control and my inner critic absolutely savage. I would bead some gorgeous earrings at night and feel really excited about them, but when I looked at them the next morning I would be disgusted and filled with self contempt for my efforts. It took tremendous self control not to destroy my own work or throw away my supplies. On bad days I would have to hide it all out of sight to reduce the temptation.
A lack of self worth also crippled me, I felt like nothing I could make would possibly be good enough or of any interest to anyone else. It felt like arrogance and pretentiousness to presume to make anything.
Another huge stumbling block was attitudes about art I had taken in from some other people, that only photo-realism counted as real art, that art was pointless and meaningless and a waste of time, that if I had the energy to make art I should be out in the real world doing something useful. All art is self-indulgent navel gazing. Tied into all of that was the idea that if I’m going to be on disability support and be a drain to society, the least I can do is be deeply unhappy and unfulfilled.
This all took a bit of working through! I moved as fast as I could without causing major problems – this was actually pretty slow. Lots of small steps. When I started painting again, I got into ink paintings. I had a lovely fountain pen I used to write in my journal with, so the jump between writing poems with it and drawing shapes with it wasn’t too much. I fought perfectionism and watched docos about other artists, noticing how near-universal many of my issues were. Most artists think their own work isn’t so good, struggle with self esteem, feel intimidated by other artists etc. I started to fight back hard with my inner critic, tearing their assessments and philosophy to pieces. I also started to mimic them in silly voices to undermine their place of authority in my life. I decided that the role of an inner critic is to protect us from putting ourselves out there in a way that makes us vulnerable to external criticism, and to inspire us to produce work to the best quality. I tore my inner critic to pieces and reassembled it in a more constructive way. This was really hard work. There were a lot of days when I sat at a blank canvas for hours and dragged myself away in tears.
I also bolstered myself by keeping art around me. I bought a table easel and kept it on display all the time. It made me feel happy just to look at it, inspired joy in me instead of cringing. I started to feel like an artist again, the way I did back in my school days. I also kept a visual art diary by my bed with my journal. I noticed that when an idea came to me, my visual art side had started to wake up. Sometimes the idea would clearly be a story or a poem, sometimes now it was an image to be painted or sewn or sculptured. Sometimes it would flicker back and forth between words and image, finding a home somewhere. Sometimes I will make the same form in many different ways before I find the medium it is really supposed to be. With practice, this all became easier, like muscles getting stronger.
I started to display my creations more, wear my jewellery, hang my pictures, enter exhibitions. I bought art supplies even when I was too knotted up to use them, because the fact of having spent money on them would help me win the psychological battle to actually make some art. I worked out who the voices of my inner critic were in my life and to tackle them directly in my mind. I would sit at my art desk and visualise evicting that person from my house, locking the door on them, and denying them the right to decide how I spent my time or what sort of art I made.
I deliberately forced myself to confront stupid values that had become lodged in me. I would make myself finger paint when I got stuck with ideas about realism. I surrounded myself with imperfect objects and images that reminded me to experiment and be creative. I got away from the idea that everything I make must be to the very highest world-class standard and got drawn back into the fun of the process, of experimenting and having most of it come out weird or completely different from my expectations. I started to make peace with the aspects of my own art that I hated most – in my case one of these was my very childish representations of people and the world. I turned these into aspects of my own signature and deliberately painted in this strange childlike perspective and found that there was something in it I really liked. I let go of the idea that a work had to look like what I saw in my mind and grabbed hold of the idea that what I most wanted was for it to feel the way I felt about what I saw in my mind. I decided that the rule I’d learned “You have to learn what the rules are before you can break them” was stupid. Suddenly my manifold limitations weren’t stopping me anymore, it was pretty irrelevant how well I could mix colour or handle paint or how cheap my brushes and paper were. I could bypass all of that and make something that made me feel something.
An audience remains an aside to my own art practice. It’s lovely when someone else is moved by my work, but I don’t make them for other people. Like my poems, some will probably never be shared. Through art I share a little of my inner landscape, how I see and experience the world. I once spoke with someone who felt that art was not really art until there was an audience. I disagreed. Art that remains shut in my books and tucked away safely is still art. It does what I needed it to do, whether anyone else ever sees it, or not. And it turns out some people like my art, like to buy these little windows into my head and look at the world through my eyes for a moment. Which is wonderful, because other people seeing me as an artist has also helped me to claim that identity for myself and to find pride and joy in it. Making art is one of the things that keeps me well, that gives me a voice and connects me to my own heart. It is a way of being alive that nourishes me and gives me strength.
Facepainting!
I’ve been booked to do facepainting at a party in May, so I’ve been upgrading a couple of my products and making sure my kit is all fresh and ready to go. I’ve been very excited by a new product range called TAG. I’ve previously used Derivan, which are great; non toxic and affordable, but have a couple of drawbacks. The biggest for me is that they dry out in hot weather or if you don’t use them for a long time. Mostly people want face painting during the hotter months, and often outdoors under trees or marquees, so having a liquid facepaint that dries out into a lumpy soupy mix is not a good thing. I’m very low on a couple of colours so I figured it’s time to upgrade to cakes rather than liquids – if these dry out you simply rehydrate them with a wet brush. 🙂
The other thing that really excites me about the professional quality cakes is the split cakes – where more than one colour is put in the same cake. This makes it really easy to load several colours at once onto a sponge or brush. Speed is of the essence when your canvas wriggles about! I would previously get a rainbow by painting all of the rainbow colours one by one onto my sponge. Now I can gently wipe my sponge across my new rainbow cake and viola!
I’ve been doing quite a bit of research online about the next brand of facepaint that would suit my circumstances best and is available locally. It’s a pain if you have a few parties in a week and run out of a colour part way through and have to order a replacement from overseas. I was very happy with the reviews for TAG, particularly the quality of the pearl/metallic colours (whee!) and the way it handles in hot weather. It is also available locally at Kool 4 Kats on Unley Rd. I read through all the products online and worked out my wishlist to make me keep to a budget in store. Then I went in on Friday and the owner kindly demonstrated some of the products for me! So, this is what I came home with:
Left to right, those are half moon sponges, two new large brushes (a flat and a filbert), a regular white, regular royal blue, and pearl white (which when mixed with any other regular colour will make it pearl), a pearl rainbow split cake, glitter puff, and water bottle. See what fun I can get up to when I’m not giving all my money to the vet!
Here’s my new pearl rainbow split cake!! As you can see, the new half moon sponges are the perfect size for them. Imagine how much quicker it is for me to load all of those colours instead of the way I was doing it, by painting each of them onto the sponge with a brush!
And this was my existing face painting collection:
So I’ve been having a ball learning how my new products work and how much water to use to activate the cakes. I’m stoked by the pearl colours, they’ll give me a great deal more versatility in my designs and the new glitter is a puff glitter – there’s no glue in it, it sticks to the wet paint directly instead. That means less ‘paint’ feel on the skin, and as a bonus the glitter takes on the colour of the paint beneath it, which is awesome! Here’s some designs I painted quickly today:
Started with rainbows! Then went on to a shark:
And then a fish:
These are fast and the pearl colours are gorgeous! Really enjoyed myself, can’t wait to do more!
Completed Ceramics Fundamentals
I have finished my ceramics projects and my journal, on Tuesday I presented my work to the class and tutors. Holidays at last! Everything came together really well, all the little dream beads fired beautifully and matched the Dreamer head really well. I left them at the studio to be re-fired to a higher temperature so they’ll be stronger and less brittle.
Here’s some pics, these are my creations and journal for the term:
 The Dreamer with the dream beads – these go into his head and can be shaken up and then tipped out like throwing dice or casting bones. The little beads all have a stamp of a shape that can then be used to tell a story.
If you missed the development and you’d see my ceramics work in progress, have a look at these:
1. Ceramics
2. First Ceramics Creations
3. Ceramics class is going well
4. Ceramics creations
There was an incredible quality of work produced in this class. Unfortunately I ran out of battery so I wasn’t able to take all the pictures I wanted to, but here are some amazing examples of other student’s work. This one shows a really development of idea from the first hand built efforts to complex slab structures woven together with twine:
 A passion for fashion developed into a gorgeous French woman here:
 Originally inspired by animal horns, this student explored glazes, slip and oxides to produce a set of gorgeous shapes:
 Loved the crazy bunnies! Several students in the class clearly have amazing modelling skills:
If you are interested in ceramics and coloured glazes, you may also enjoy the following links I found when I was searching for inspiration on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK2lDnpjLSE&feature=fvwrel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSd20rLfME8&feature=endscreen&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=O5G_e3rPXVU
I had a wonderful time in this class. The new class next term is sculpture fundamentals which I’m also really looking forward to and expecting to enjoy. But first, some time off! I need to work on my own studio, it’s a chaotic mess and that’s not doing good things to my brain. Happy Easter everyone. 🙂
Ceramics creations!
This post is the fourth about my ceramics class. See the earlier posts here:
1. Ceramics
2. First Ceramics Creations
3. Ceramics class is going well
What a long day! I am so exhausted I am about falling over. I finally took my camera to ceramics class so I have pictures to share! Then off to bed for me.
Really good day! The talk at Tafe this morning went really well. I got a really dry mouth talking for a whole hour, really appreciated that the lecturer had provided a bottle of water. I’m running pretty short of sleep, I was up late the night before putting the power point together. Entirely self-inflicted! I’ve been booked to paint faces at a party coming up, so I’ve got all excited and enthused about updating my painting kit and spent most of yesterday watching youtube  videos of gorgeous new designs, how other face painters set up their gear, and reviews of professional quality face paints. I’m going to be transitioning from my current paint, which are liquid in bottles, to a new brand which is a little more expensive but comes in cakes you activate with water. The major advantage of this type is that they cope better in hot weather and last longer between uses without drying out. Plus, they offer rainbow striped cakes which I’m very excited about!
This afternoon I went off to see a new psychologist today and I am very excited! I felt really comfortable with her and I’m optimistic that we will work well together. Happy dances!
This evening was my last ceramics studio class – next week everything has to be finished so we can present it. My “Dreamer” head has been fired and looks great!
He’s painted in a tribal style, kind of a mix of Aztec and American Indian inspired. I wanted him to have a shaman kind of feel to him.
I also made a pencil holder, partly to practice working with a slab – this is where you roll out the clay and then shape it, and partly to practice my slip technique. (It’s a very unwise idea to trial a new technique on your final project!)
Today I just had to make all the dreams that would rattle around in the head. The design over all is inspired by my first creation of a pomegranate. I decided to try another ceramics technique that has intrigued me – making stamps out of clay to create impressions in other clay. I decided to make a collection of small round balls, about the size of a truffle, and indent dream symbols into them, then decorate them with blue slip lines and dots so they would complete the face paint. Here is one of the little clay stamps, a fish:
Here are the little balls with the stamps indented, they’ve also been textured by rolling them in aida cloth:
And here they are being painted up. The red bulb is full of blue slip (liquid clay) that you squeeze very gently to dot or trail lines, kind of like decorating cakes with piped icing. On the right side is my collection of stamps.
They look a little more like truffles than I had in mind! I expect that wont be so pronounced once they’ve been fired and the colours change to orange and powdery blue. 🙂 I got the last one finished on the dot of 8.30pm which was fortunate. They’ll be fired this week and I’ll be assembling and presenting everything next week. Very happy with my work, I’ve really enjoyed working with clay.
See my final ceramics post here.
Ceramics class is going well
This post is my third about my ceramics class. See my first post here and my second post here.
Feeling very content this evening after a most satisfying day! I trundled off to my counsellor this morning, I’ve seen her a few times now and I’m finding it really helpful. Not without challenges, digging around some childhood stuff is setting off some pretty bad nightmares, but I’m feeling excited and on the right path. 🙂
I was hoping to get lots of homework done this afternoon but ended up chatting to friends, making myself electronic sticky note reminders, thinking about things and hanging out. Then this evening I had ceramics class and it went really well! I have a few dollars this week and treated myself to a chai latte. I have not managed to remember to bring my camera even once yet, so I can’t show you how my ‘head‘ is progressing, but it’s looking great! I finished the eyes today, smoothed the surface, and did tribal style decorations in blue slip on it. It will now be fired at the lowest temperature, next week I’ll have to make the call if I want to add any glaze to it and re-fire at a higher temperature. I also made a pencil holder as today we found out we need at least four finished works and so far all of mine have been pinch pot or coil built, so I made one from soft slab and used it to practice painting the slip on. I know for all you non-ceramics folks I just started talking Swahili. I’ll post pictures later, I promise. I do have an image for a practice plate I made last week, two ways of applying dye-infused slip – through a nozzle almost like cake decorating, or painted on then scratched back.
 I decided on the nozzle decorations and a little brush work for the head. The head now looks really interesting and shamanistic, which is perfect as I’m going to fill it with dreams next. 🙂 I have only one more class to have everything finished by so hopefully nothing explodes in the kiln or gets dropped. Things are going well. 🙂
See my next ceramics post here.
Cracking Up at the Fringe
The rehearsal tonight went well, which is great. I’ll be reading a small selection of poems about my recovery journey, as the theme for the night is hearing about aspects of mental health we’re not often exposed to. I’ve also painted a very basic ink painting for each poem as all the performances in the Chronicles of Cracking Up have images on a screen to go with them. I only just found out about that so I was busy this morning! Here’s one of them, to go with a poem called Here in my house on a hill by the sea:
I’ve been very busy lately with so many projects on the go and a lot of study to get done. I would like to have written completely new material for this event, but many of the poems haven’t been heard before and certainly the collection has never been put together in this way. I’m a little bit overloaded and have spent half my day crying on the kind shoulders of various people, so I think being able to make it to the performances at all is a pretty good effort. I was very happy with the warm reception my reading was given by the other performers, so I’m feeling more confident about Friday night.
Please feel welcome to come along, you do need a ticket at a cost of $10, all the details are on the What’s On page as usual. 🙂
First ceramics creations
This post is my second about my ceramics class. See my first post here.
I’ve brought my various ceramics creations home, partly because I keep forgetting to take my camera in, and partly because a few pieces have gone awol from the studio so better safe than sorry. Here’s my first hand built thingamys:
That’s a pomegranate on the left, a couple of fruit halves on the right, and some kind of gourd thing. I don’t know, it just sort of happened. I was playing around with textures a little, the gourd is all fuzzy and non reflective  because I kept pressing my woollen jumper into the clay as I formed it. Good fun! We had to make small items that could be used to transport something.
Next we have to work on our final project for the class, using one of our creations so far as inspiration. I really liked the pomegranate and riffed off that with a few ideas. In the end, I decided to turn the little seeds into thoughts or dreams or ideas or something like that, and the pomegranate itself into a head. I’m not quite sure what possessed me to try something so fricken difficult, but I guess stretching myself is the name of the game really. I wish I had a bit more time to dedicate to this class, there’s a whole world of ideas and artists waiting to be explored here. At any rate, I also bought my party finished head home to work on it some more before the next class:
It’s been coil-built, made by rolling out snakes of clay and coiling them on top of each other, then smoothing them out. You can still see the coils inside, which I need to fix up. It’s just big enough to get a hand into (we have to make the final product larger), but due to shrinkage in the kiln will probably only fit a petite or child’s hand once it’s fired. I plan to make little thoughts that can also be fired and will rattle around in the head.
I’ve been giving some thought to the best finish, a glaze or oxide or dye infused slip… for some reason I keep coming back to the thought of gold leaf… I may try to do some test runs on my smaller pieces to see what might work.
See my next ceramics works here.
Ekphrastic Exhibit
Last night the Ekphrastic Exhibit opened in Broken Hill, but unfortunately I was not able to be there due to road flooding. This was an unusual exhibition, involving collaboration between visual artists and poets. A number of artists working in different media created artworks upon the theme of ‘plastic lives’, the relationship between women, plastic, and life. Then poets were invited to write something inspired by one of the artworks.
I chose a lovely monochrome nude by Phyllis Raganovich. We talked a little about her feelings and intentions in creating the artwork, and her phrase “how I wish I could have those years again” resonated with me and formed the basis of my poem. Here is her artwork:
And here is my accompanying poem:
Wish
Oh how I wish
I could have those years again
I still dream I’m her
The woman who ran, laughing, for the bus
Danced down sidewalks when the wind blew
Breasts like ripe peaches, firm and soft
The hollow in my hip where my hand lay in sleep.
For you, love, I wish I could be her again
Back before life wrote on my skin
That you could have known me in those years
Met the woman I am in dreams, who still runs
But here, in the night, when you hold my breast
When you lay your hand in the hollow by my hip
I think you feel her beneath my skin
The wind that still blows, the scent of peaches
Still the dance of tender love.
Ceramics
I have been really enjoying my ceramics class. There is something very magic about the process, starting with a bag of clay and ending up with an amazing object of some kind. I love the feel of fresh clean clay, The feel of glazed fired earthenware in my hands. I find them very precious these little things, even simple little dishes made by people I’ve never met, there’s a kind of touch left in the clay that I feel, something human in how lovely and hard wearing and practical and fragile they are.
Last week I had my access plan to take in. This is the Tafe disability support process, how it works is you go in to see a counsellor or support services person, and talk to them about what you have and what support you need. You get paperwork filled out by your GP verifying everything, and you and the counsellor work up an access plan together. The plan doesn’t say what your condition is, it only says what supports or accommodations you may need. For instance in my case it mentions that my hands and wrists fatigue and I will need to rest them during long studio sessions. (among other things)
I wanted to hand the form over to my ceramics tutor today so that he would be aware that sometimes I may need breaks etc. As I walked down the stairs to the ceramics class, I passed a couple of Tafe staff talking to each other. I was trying not to listen in but they weren’t being particularly quiet. They were talking about someone else at Tafe, one of them said to the other “He’s gone nuts!” and the other replied “Yes, didn’t he say last year he has a mental illness?” I kept walking, head down.
It was really hard to pull out my access form and hand it over.
On the train home from the Voices Vic conference in Melbourne, I went up to the little cafe to buy a drink and the staff member there commented about how tired I looked. I mentioned I’d been at a conference and not had much sleep that week. When he asked what the conference was about I said Mental Health, and then added voice hearing. He went a little pale and pulled back, and I remembered that back in the rest of the world, this is scary and dangerous and not something people talk about. He was very courteous and we talked a little longer. I explained that many people hear voices that aren’t distressing or dangerous, and that one of the aims of the conference was to try and learn from them what can be done to support those who hear voices that are awful. Working in mental health is like constantly crossing cultural borders sometimes, between very different worlds where what is normal in one is taboo in another.
This week I am hoping to fire my little creations and then I will take photos to show you. We have been learning some basic clay work techniques called hand building, that is just working with our hands, not using a wheel. We had to make some small objects of our own choosing, I have made two pitted stone fruit halves and a fat luscious pomegranate. I bring along a hand cream because the clay draws all the moisture from your skin and I get eczema quickly under those circumstances, so ceramics class is becoming forever linked to the smell of rose hand cream for me. Sitting down there in the basement watching the rain on the pavement up in the high windows is very special. The studios are so beautiful and so well laid out, I always feel at peace in them. It’s so important for me to spend time being an artist and not let the peer work take over everything.  My own studio is not set up properly yet, just a start. The whole unit is in limbo a bit, I’m having a lot of trouble convincing myself that I’ll be able to stay living here. Things have been transient for a long time. It’s hard to move in properly when you think you’ll be leaving again shortly anyway. It’s taking time, taking time.
I’ve been sick, quite suddenly. After a couple of days resting I don’t think it’s physical exhaustion, the timing is wrong. My head is busy and my heart is busy with a lot of processing. Sometimes it’s hard with me to work out if the problem is more physical or psychological, and often a bit of both are going on. I feel full, I haven’t been able to digest the conference or the funding training and opportunities or the situation with Charlie and my neighbours or getting a home of my own. I keep going out the back door and being surprised to find a yard there, it’s bigger than I remembered and there’s a tree and a lawn. It’s all a bit surreal.
I was ill all morning, the TMJ flared and my pain level was high but I was out of painkillers and money. The joint pain was bad, I get a lot of inflammation in the tendons in my feet and my heels become really painful to walk on. My stomach has been upset for a couple of days now. I had to drag myself off to Radio Adelaide to do some homework due Monday night, it took a couple of hours which was a lot longer than I’d expected. Mostly it was because I was using Adobe Audition (on their computers) for the first time and the manual didn’t have any instructions. I kept having to look up help online to work out how to perform basic functions. I got there in the end, I have my first interview recorded and edited. I pulled it from 7 minutes down to 5 and removed a lot of ‘ummm’s from my interviewee. I’m proud of that effort and I managed not to throw up on the computer either. 🙂 Monday is a long day but I have all Tuesday off, just some homework to do and friends to catch up with, which I’m looking forward to. One foot in front of the other.
See my first ceramics creations here.
Making your own stamp
I have a whole morning off today! I am enjoying it immensely. I’m still in my dressing gown past noon, sitting by an open window listening to the rain. I can feel my insides all unknotting. I’m also making plans to go camping with a friend and immediately I’m starting to feel more relaxed. I so need something good to look forward to, but it’s easy to forget that. Plenty of good things do happen, but having something to anticipate really helps me.
I am brewing some more mental health articles, don’t worry, but today I feel like posting about art instead. I was chatting recently with a friend about making your own stamps out of styrofoam so I thought I’d share that. Styrofoam is very cheap and easy to mark to make stamps with. Here’s the process I’ve used before.
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| Hand made blue bird of happiness styrofoam stamp |
1. Get a piece of styrofoam and cut it down to size. A utility or Stanley knife will do the trick.
2. Work out your design on paper, then transfer it using a pen onto the styrofoam. If you have trouble with it, your design may be too complex. These are best for simple stamps. You can also try cutting around the paper design and outlining it, then you can fill the details in by eye.
3. Take an awl, a nail, or some other thin piece of metal. I’ve used an awl here. (an awl is a sharp pointy stick used to pierce fabric) Light a candle and heat the tip of your metal in the flame. If the base is getting warm, make sure you use gloves, hold it with pliers, or wrap it in something heat proof.
4. Use the hot metal to melt your design into the styrofoam. This must be done in a well ventilated area, or for preference outside, the fumes are nasty smelling and bad for your health. The metal will cool quickly so keep the candle to hand and keep reheating it.
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| Awl and candle |
5. Prepare your paint. Use any acrylic paint, add a drop of drying retarder if the weather is warm to give you lots of time to work before the paint dries.
6. Load the stamp. This means get paint onto it. You can do this by dabbing the stamp in a tray of paint, or by painting the stamp directly with a brush or sponge.
7. Test the stamp to make sure you are getting the right amount of paint on it. If your test is patchy, you have too little paint. If your test is blobby and the lines have blended, you have too much paint. It can take a few goes to get this right. These stamps will always leave a mottled paint because of the little balls that make up the styrofoam block. I really like the affect.
8. Use the stamp!
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| Personalised Journal, painted white and decorated with stamps and dimensional paint |
9. Very gently wash the stamp under running water. Don’t scrub it or it will fall apart. Leave to drip dry. These kind of stamps don’t last forever, but they are cheap and quick to make. You can try making stamps from many other materials too, cut potatoes, kitchen sponges, foam, felt, bits of lace, even leaves will make interesting marks when loaded with paint. Enjoy!
Working on my talk for Melbourne
I’ve been working hard this week on putting together my talk for Melbourne. Today I’ve polished the last of the plan, selected some short poems, and painted nearly 30 ink paintings to illustrate various concepts I’ll be talking about. For example:
Illustrating a common split in traumatized people, between heart and mind, or to put it another way, between their emotions and their intellect.
I like using pictures particularly in a situation like this, where the content could happily fill a week of day long workshops but I’ve only been allocated 20 minutes.
One day, I’m going to be better known as a speaker and when I ask for an hour to do a talk I’ll get it!! Considering that nearly every talk I do has to have the basic ‘What is dissociation’ intro to it – and that to properly answer that question would take at least 20 minutes, my job is a hard one!
This is the first time I’ll be doing a talk with such personal content without sharing the spotlight with Cary… I don’t like it! It’s nice to have another person with a dissociative disorder to shoulder the load and ease the freak factor a bit. So, I’ve re-dyed my hair instead which oddly enough is making me feel better about it.
Back to it, still have four more images to paint and then need to rehearse it all and check my time.
Art Commission
I was approached recently about drawing up a design someone had in mind and decided to give it a go. It’s very tricky working with other people’s ideas, particularly non visual art people (which is usually the case as the visual arts people are usually happy to make things themselves) because of the challenge of working out what they have in mind so you can try to bring it to life. Not to mention that many non arts people kind of assume an artist can do anything. Whereas most artists have styles and mediums they are most comfortable with. So if someone came to me and wanted to commission me to paint a car in photorealism style (that’s where it looks like a photograph) my first question would be “why me??”. I’ve never done any work in that style, so it would cost a fortune because it would take me forever. Not that it isn’t fun to get a challenge and stretch yourself, but usually not on someone else’s dollar. That’s what art school is for!
Anyway! The brief in this case was a pencil drawing. The requirements were very specific (which is great, very specific or very flexible is easy to work with – vague is always the tricky one) and even came with an existing sketch. The previous artist commissioned had produced the drawing and now my customer wanted it reproduced exactly the same but with a few design changes and different wording.
He wants to scan the image and put it onto T-Shirts and other merchandise. I really wasn’t a fan of the pencil. I decided I’d take a risk and paint it up in inks and see if he liked it. No money had changed hands so no harm done (except for my time) if he didn’t. Here’s my version with his changes:
Here’s the version he brought to me:
I de-cartoon-ified the tiger and cub too. I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out. He came round to have a look when I was part way through, before any of the colour had been added and was pretty happy with it.
Here’s some close ups:
I really like the tone through the tiger’s coat. It was very handy that I’d brought such a range of ink samples in so many different colours recently! Now I really very badly want to buy the full size bottles!
I also like that the trucks are a bit similar in colour to the tigers, that now they live there instead.
I’m going to have to write up a new form of receipt, because this is an unusual situation. I’ve previously sold either the physical artwork, in which case the other person owns it but does not have the right to take a photo of it and put it up on their website or put it on mugs and sell them because it’s my artwork. I’ve also sold the digital image of artworks, where they have bought the right to use the work on a website (such as here) or print on a brochure (such as here on page 9). In this case I’m selling both, the physical work and the digital image, and the copyright to reproduce it. A bit of money coming in will help with my vet and dentist bills! 🙂
More ink experiments
I found a bit of time recently to explore some more of the ink samples I’ve purchased and see how they handle with different pens and papers and mixed down with water too.Â
 I’m really happy with the results so far. Some colours are clearly standing out as superior in tonal quality and degree of waterproofness etc. which are important qualities when ink painting.
I have a particular predilection for those inks that are almost black in concentrated form then flower into a variety of shades when diluted with water.Â
Eventually I would like to own at least the primary and secondary colours for ink paintings. I attended the grant information workshop on this week that I’d had up on my What’s On page, it was a bit discouraging as apparently they do not provide any funding for people to self publish. Apparently their thinking is that if the work was of publishable quality, someone in the publishing industry would do it. This doesn’t really apply to niche markets such as poetry – even very well known and respected poets often self publish their work as most publishing companies are not interested in small print runs. In my situation, retaining the copyright over my artwork images and also being able to control editions and small prints runs is really important to me. Once locked in with a publisher you sometimes have trouble where the work has all sold and you have requests for more, but the publisher won’t do another print run or allow you the copyright back to print the book elsewhere.
So, I may have to look elsewhere in that area, but another possibility is seeking some support for more traditional and well understood resources, such as funding to buy more inks and papers, or mentoring by a more experienced artist or writer. One way or another the various projects I’m nursing along will have their day!
Fabric Painting
Fabric paint on a cloth carry bag:
Welcome to my bluebird of happiness. 🙂 The style is borrowed from henna designs, which often have lovely repeating patterns. (another WEA class I really enjoyed) I think the design would make a really lovely chop (stamp) like the ones I was carving in sculpture class last year. Or a logo…
New inks!
My ink order from Goulet Pens arrived just before I left for Broken Hill last week, and I’ve taken a little time out today to try some of them out. What a fantastic product! Excellent website and personal service too, I certainly recommend them. I am thrilled with this collection. Here’s the whole set:
All the inks are 2ml samples of Noodlers varieties. There are 2 browns, 4 blacks, 3 greens, 4 reds, 2 yellow/orange, 4 blue, 3 purple, 2 pink, and 1 grey sample. The sample size is large enough for me to make a number of artworks from each, which is fantastic. You can also see my two new fountain pens, the Noodlers Flex is red, and the closer is a Lamy that I’ve converted so the body of the pen becomes a huge ink reservoir. It writes surprisingly well, very wet (ie it lays down a lot of ink) and smooth. The syringes are blunt and used to draw up the last of the ink from bottles or samples.
I’ve been making up reference sheets for the inks to explore how they function, here’s the ink I already own and do most of my ink paintings with; Noodlers Air Corp Blue-Black in my standard fountain Parker pen:
This is Noodlers Zhivago in my new flex nib pen – it’s gorgeous! A little rougher to write with, but all those lines are made in a single stroke, thick or thin is determined by the pressure I put on the nib. I can see me using this extensively in my artwork now.
 Noodlers Purple Martin:
 Noodlers Squeteague:
 Noodlers Tiananmen:
 Noodlers Habanero:
I am so pleased with these, they are stunning colours with great range and depth. As soon as I can find my decent brushes and paper (packed somewhere…) I’m looking forward to spending a very contented few days painting. Looks like 2012 is going to be a good year for art too!
New training opportunities
Hot off the press – What’s On has details for some great training coming up with very limited places. If you’re interested in peer work or art, or looking for free or low cost courses, hop over there and check them out! I’ve booked in to a few of them myself.
Back to cleaning and sorting…
Inks
What have I been up to? Today, apart from doing a great deal of packing, a little online gaming to relax, and some cooking and cleaning, I’ve been looking into inks. I have a little money set aside from the sale of artwork last year and I’ve decided that I need to branch out and broaden my fountain pen ink collection. Currently most of my work is produced with a single ink colour Noodlers Air Corp Blue Black. I purchased a bottle about three years ago and fell in love with the magnificent depth of colour and array of blue greens tones I can get out of the one bottle simply by watering the colour. Most of my ink paintings have been done with just this one ink, the colour undiluted is almost black, and fades out to the softest teal. (here it is, still a bit wet)
So I’ve been reading a lot of reviews about inks! If you are also interested in fountain pen inks, check out Pendamonium, an Australian online store with a good range of Noodlers Inks. You may also find The Fountain Pen Network full of interesting information. I follow a blog called Inkophile that often has useful reviews of different products. And I’m seriously investigating the samples available from The Goulet Pen Company, which would give me a week or two with each colour I order before I decide on those I’ll buy in the full size. They offer a deal where for $12.50 a month they’ll send you five random ink samples, which if I was a bit more flush I’d take up in a heartbeat! They also stock the Noodlers Flex Nib fountain pen for $15, which is simply incredible. Not the easiest kind of pen to use, but I think it’s well worth me having a play with it considering that my preferred style of ink painting is pen and ink work then brush work. I have painted with brush only, using drawing inks (these cannot be used in fountain pens) such as in this range:
Whilst I really do enjoy that also, I am very comfortable with my fountain pen, and I love the constant transition between poetry and art with it.
I’d love to explore some red inks, there’s a stunning range of orange/gold/fire coloured inks, and a fascinating collection of near blacks with different tones such as green or purple that I suspect would lend themselves well to the type of ink painting I do. I’m also vaguely tempted to stock up on my favourite blue black in case one day I can’t get hold of it – that would bring me to tears. 🙂 I love complex colours with a tendency to shade in different complementary tones. Some people prefer inks with no shading and a flat true tone, but the variations so appeal to me with my kind of art.
I brought my fountain pen – a fairly cheap Parker pen, a number of years ago after placing second in a poetry competition and winning $150 in prize money. I was terribly nervous that I would lose it accidentally, but I so loved them and dearly wanted one so I took the risk. Many years later it is still with me, I write almost every day with it in my journal and use it in a lot of my art. It’s very dear to me and I’m very excited by the prospect of having a larger range of inks to use in it. The thought of really putting some time into some haiga with it is really tickling my fancy.
I’d also quite like to experiment sometime with some different types of papers to see how the pen and ink display on each, so I’m keeping my eye out for paper samples too. There’s a few that are frequently recommended, maybe I’ll splash out and order a notepad.Â
Finished lily pond shoes
I finished the lily pond painted shoes I’ve been working on, you can see how they started and the reference photos from Singapore I used here.
I was asked to include some tiny Singaporean frogs, so I investigated and found this site, and I thought the tiny Spotted Tree Frog was a lovely shape and vibrant colour. So I painted a few of them perched on lily pads.
I’m really pleased with these, the effect is great. They were quite a challenge to paint in this hot weather with my paints drying out so quickly, but they’ve come up really well with shimmery greens and golds. A good note to end 2011 on. 🙂
Lily pond shoes
I’ve been painting a new pair of shoes, this time inspired by the lily ponds at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. I was there for three months at the start of 2011, so I had some great photos to refer to.
Here’s the process so far with the new shoes:
These shoes are currently selling for $12 at Kmart.
Unpick the bow on the front:
Map out the design in pencil, then start painting:
I quite liked the design just on the toe area, so I stopped there to check with my sister, who these belong to. But she likes the idea of lily pads wrapping around the whole shoe, so I’ll finish them off tonight and bake them when it’s cooler in the evening. (see them finished here)
Ink Painting Art sale
Well, I’ve been able to get back the rest of my work from the UnBOUND art sale. I sold four works which I was very happy about.These works are all ink on paper, unframed. Many are concept development works, learning traditional Chinese or Japanese styles of ink painting. Click on any image for a carousel of all.
Blue Rose Ink on Paper 155 x 230mm
Scottie Ink on Paper 100 x 145mm
Magnolia Ink on Paper 145 x 95mm, Sold
Mice Ink on Paper A4
Swirls Ink on Paper A4
Sea dragon Ink on Paper A4
Bamboo single Ink on Paper A4
Lily Ink on Paper A4
Teal Orchid Ink on Paper A4
Peacock Ink on Paper A4
Cat 1 Ink on Paper 100 x 150mm
Tree of Life Ink on Paper A4
Crane Ink on Paper 85 x 155mm
After the Storm Ink on Paper A4
Green Orchid Ink on Paper A4
Plum Blossom Ink on Paper A4
Bamboo Ink on Paper A4
Purple Orchid Ink on Paper A4
Depression Ink on Paper A4
Jonquil Ink on Paper A4
Gradient Ink on Paper A4
Cat dreams Ink on Paper A4
Hibiscus Ink on Paper Sold
Orchid Ink on Paper 155 x 195mm
Frog 2 Ink on Paper 95 x 150mm
Cat 2 Ink on Paper 120 x 155mm
Bird 2 Ink on Paper, Sold
Black Orchid Ink on Paper A4
Mouse Ink on Paper 100 x 145mm
Purple Blossom Ink on Paper 115 x 150mm
Bird 1, Ink on Paper, 95 x 140mm
Gothic Rose, Ink on Paper
Pink Orchid, Ink on Paper, A4
Iris, Ink on Paper, A4
Dragonfly, Ink on Paper, Sold
Frog 1, Ink on Paper
Sarah K Reece 