Bingara Farm

Well I hope she likes it, Floss that is.. am still not convinced it's finished it looks too flat and too 'two dimensional'. The tops of trees need a lot more work and the dead tree looks like a refugee from a Dali experiment, and well the middle pooch, poor didge, just doesn't seem to have evolved as intended... but apparently it's finished.

This week has started badly, first the car accident - which was not my fault but doesn't alter the fact that my little car now resembles a hatchback plague victim with all many strategic 'pock' marks adorning it's hind quarters and the latest scar though not structural, technically 'writes' the little red beast off, and I'm still shaking and the the confidence is not great; then I had to miss the office Xmas Party, which well - I'm not a Xmas party person but it does leave my co workers with the idea I'm anti social which is ... okay yes the truth these days but still it's not good form ... today also involved a visit to the dentist - though I have a great dentist and I did score points for excellent flossing; and to top off the second week of December, a rather large cheque which was supposed to assist with the mortgage seems to have gone missing curtesy Aust Post.... but my painting's finished, I think... well peoples say is though really I think the jury's still out ...

Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink ...

... there are many things about Melbourne I am loving but proximity to the beaches is not one of them - Surf beaches that is, port or harbour beaches barely make it as water ways and I'm sorry to say that Balmoral has it all over St Kilda in the waterworks stakes - hands down, storm drains and all.

It would be honest to say that I've been spoiled for beaches in the past living in Sydney and holidaying on the far north coast of NSW, absolutely spoiled rotten!!! Queensland beaches are 'in' with a good chance but if you go too far north you hit 'stingers', mangroves and grey tidal mud becasue you see, it's all a combination of sun, surf'n'sand and there are pretty much only two states that can offer a decent combo of all three ... which is why this second(or rather my first) painting happened - Bunbury Beach WA at sunset - the water was this intense green and the ocean itself to overflowing, so heavy and cold and with a depth reminiscent of myth & lengend. Well it did when I photographed it at last light, last April.

The painting, though in reality it's not nearly as dark as this jpg (the better .pdf file just wouldn't load), is not a patch on reality and irksomely reminds me of those icky Baliness 'student' paintings people were pestered with door to door in the late 70's - it kind of has this almost 'flock'(spelling?) look to it don't you agree .... but it's posted here because it reminds me of how much I've loved Tuesday nights this year and the lovely and talented people I enjoy painting beside.

Sunday Too Far Away

... and I'm not even a shearer, but it's in keeping with my latest painting and it works with the fact that it's only Wednesday.

I'm doing this one for a friend who lives over in the west and who's battling to keep the family farm actually in the family. Bugg*r is that various plagues have been sent to slay her and I'd reckon if you count back the generations she may well be descended from Job.

Hoping this may cheer her up - may be an incy bit. Of course the painting still has a way to go yet, shadow, detail and much, much more, in fact one tree is completely missing, but will hopefully getto her by about Easter as a late seasonal gift.

It's mainly being painted for the memory of the middle hound, a dog of gentle though manic disposition who sadly took on the wrong end of a visitors ute in late April this year and lost the argument rather permanently.



R.I.P "Didge" ...

Brain Dead

Very quickly cos it's late and I'm a bit knackered.

Went to art lessons tonight loved it - wonderful therapy - forgot my paints though, hence the title of this blogg. However, my class mates were most generous and lent me dabs of colours. How do you pay back generosity like that? In fact how do you repay paint.

Anyway thought I'd upload this one to the blogg .. long way to go yet, yes - complete novice and lifes a learning process. I'm enjoying this painting, it's meditative and a great way to chillout - probably a good idea to note that the pic was taken with a mobile phone and flouros aren't great for detail. there is a lot more yellow and russet in the trees.

Ahhh speaking of russett - red wine calls......

Been A While

Tried to post something a week or so ago but all fell apart and I lost a carefully executed post + photos so gave up and went to bed in disgust at my own incompetence mixed with disapoint ment at the Optusnet broadband offer I recently took up which occasional decides to pack up and go hide somewhere in the ether at the worst moments ... news though is that I'm back with the paints - back at classes - Tuesday nights instead of Thursday and I do mis the original cohorts but Linda - my lovely teachers says she's going to try and hook us up again on a new Thursday night class - when we can bring red wine and cheese and laugh a lot .. current group are very nice people of course but there is a, well a certain spark missing if you get my drift ..

Anyway the main point is that I am painting again - my Bunbury Sunset in class which I should (fingers crossed) actually finish tonight - please god as it's sending both me and poor Linda quite mad, and yet another attempt at the Sandon Beach dots which is sitting at home on my art bench (my art bench as in the photo at right) is a litereally a bench originally intended for 'bums' but now holds all my art supplies and quite frankly I think looks rather, well, 'cool'.

So hopfully if I can eventually co-ordinate camera, paintings and my own thumb in a couple of days I will be able to post a couple of photos of my recent attempts at 'puddling' in oils - if anything the mental 'time out' involved soothes my rather scrambled brain.

Quilt'n Update

Actually I was incredibly productive yesterday as I also started to trim back my patchwork in prep for the backing and packing to go in and on, so I can eventually call it a full blown quilt - this needlework marathon has sofar taken two or is it three years to get this far. Gawd actually I think it's more like four - talk about waiting - but I'm pretty sure I can still count on one hand how many years it's been since we were unceremoniously dumped from the Quilt'n Club, Clovelly chapter. This in itself is quite a feat and I can't say I'm not a teency bit chuffed to at least have one expulsion on my record having been a hopelessly boring wall-flower at school.

And quite frankly it's a wonder those green stiched swatches haven't grown matching lichens in the mean time, stuck up in the cupboard in a brown paper bag for so long it assumed an adour reminicent of something pulled from an octagenarian cat lady's house.

But yes, to get to the point, yesterday I finally sat down and as the gesso'd bowls dried out by the window and carefully snipped myself a carpet of cotton confetti out of the dag ends and daggy fibres of the(roughly) queen size patchwork - I have metres and days to go yet, but it's a start.

Waiting Waiting Waiting

Waiting seems to take up a lot of my time lately, while I'm waiting though - that's waiting for Optus to connect me to the internet at home so I can access this site more frequently and under less time constraints and waiting for my bank account to heal itself while it waits for the Tax Office to deliver relief in the form of a substanial refund cheque, and pay for my next 6 weeks of art lessons, I have been keeping my fingers busy dabbling in things creative. I even took some photos over the weekend to prove this but have yet to upload, download and transfer them to this site - it will happen of course - you just have to wait.

I've tried another coat of oils in the meantime and now my burgandy canvas has a little more colour on it - namely yellows and reds, and the rutted surface I made has meant the blended colours are quite interesting, though I'm not a hundred percent sure I like the effect, I mean it's okay but can I work with it? - Well until something more inspiring fires my right brain I think I am going to practise painting clouds on it just to see if I can - again we will have to wait and see .

The paper mache bowls have had another two coats of gesso all up - carpet survived this time which is a plus, though my shirt did not and I'm currently trying to sand one back to a totally smooth surface but not having a lot of luck here. I think I need something with batteries, 'orbital' in the title and 'dental' in the small print.

Inspiration

Went to the Guggenheim Exhibition on Saturday, definitely the better way to spend an afternoon –

Exceptional exhibition and I loved it, thought there was the occasional “Well F*ck Me?” moments of serious indecision – Not so much a case ‘I don’t like the colour’ or ‘not quite sure what the artist is saying here’, more along the lines of ‘I think the janitor left his equipment out last night and some gave it a name’.

I heard someone pass comment that a friend had briefly left her child unattended in its pram at a similar exhibition some years ago, to more closely inspect brushwork or something of a technical nature and had turned back to find a small crowd gathered around the pram and commenting on the composition.

Anyway, I think the favourites (hope I can get the pics up too). – which meant I stood there with my lower jaw around my neckline was Morris Louis’, Saraband, - (Acrylic resin on canvas ) The colour was so quietly luminescent; you could almost feel the faintest of breezes drifting from beneath it.

The other that caught my eye was a Sol LeWitt , (photo is not a Pic of the one I saw on Saturday but it is very similar) grid of pencil hatching so simple in design and so pale compared to the hyperactivity of its neighbours - many people seemed to miss it entirely. It was beautiful, and tragically I think temporary also – the wall it was drawn on being a structural fixture of the exhibition. If I wasn’t renting, I would attempt my own sad comparative on the lounge room wall at home.

Sadly the Jackson Pollack’s left me cold, which is a pity as I usually don’t mind his stuff – but the only one I remember from the exhibition was just too flat and too grey and just too like a badly copied print really – which is no doubt how the artist intended it to be because the man is very competent but I think he could have easily gotten the same effect using a cheap colour photocopier.

Many of the extreme moderns don’t do it for me either, flat geometric colour. Can’t see the point really, with no tones, or hues or depth and once you’ve covered all the basic geometric shapes and colours well I can’t see the point of continuing really. You feel like saying move on or move up or out, maybe follow Picasso and expand on the idea.– okay so may the first person to think of this as art was making a point, and that’s fair, much like the person who invented disco however some thing only really need to be discovered once don’t they?

There was also this rather unoriginal, by Felix Gonzalez--Torres, Untitled (Public Opinion), 1991. Black rod licorice candy, individually wrapped in cellophane (endless supply).
These lollies were spilled casually into a small corner of the exhibition (can’t believe I found a Pic of it but I did) and lit artistically from above by a wall light. Unoriginal cos I’ve seen the same thing done with pebbles and tin cans and you name it if it can be piled in can be lit from above – Only difference with this one was it was being consumed as it was being viewed – I don’t know if this was indeed kosher but security seemed to have given up policing the edibles and the sign to the left did say ‘unlimited supply”. I heard objections from one woman while her partner was filling his pockets, pointing out the bullet point clearly stated this exhibit was first produced in 1991 and she was sure the sweets were well passed their use-by date. - Is there a use-by date as far as sugar is concerned?

There was a lot to take in and I did neglect to purchase the brochure which would have been sensible for future recollection but I was inspired to go home and on Sunday I gessod up all my flat canvas surfaces and coated all my paper mache bowls in preparation for creation and colour.

I spent six hours I think glued to the coffee table, almost literally cos that stuff dries like plaster, and also applied fresh layers of colour and dots and ink to previous unfinished numbers and I’ve started 50x50cm piece and so far I have the most beautiful burgundy scratched through to a deep brown. A work in progress - I don’t know whether to go for the warmer companion tones of oranges and pinks or hit it with something to make it vibrate – although this approach in the past has given me headaches.

In the meantime I have my Bunbury Sunset to go on with next Thursday at class – Am feeling truly motivated and can’t wait to get back to it . I do have one small issue though and that’s how do I Gesso out of the carpet?

Needing Sleep

Last night I stayed up till 11:30pm watching a Doco I came across on SBS. I was channel surfing, foolish thing to do really particualrily when you're already in the jim jams and yawning but what can I say but curiosity got me and I stayed glued to the set untill the credits rolled. Irony of course was that is was all about a doco maker making a doco on the need for sleep and how his insomnia is driving him and his immediate family insane.

Truth is, it was a good little doco as docos go, but couldn't help thinking the SBS programming Department could have maybe put it to to air, ooo I don't know, maybe a bit earlier.

Result of course was that I missed my sleepwave and ended up staring at the ceiling until 3am - of course I spent most of this time worrying about the credit card bill which I think has actually swallowed my life whole.

Last Thing on a Tuesday Night

oh I hope this works, I really do. I've been trying for about an hour now and even gave up for a while there - have decided to try again though, you know give it one last hoorah! and it may 'touch wood' have actually been worth the damage to the keyboard. Note to self -Not a good idea to try and post them in your hardrive.

It's all rather exciting if it works of course, but ... if I get yet another error message when I do the final posting part. I'll simply fall apart completely, trudge off home through the dark, crawl into a box of cheap red wine and refuse to surface until someone refills the affirmentioned box.

Hmmmm