Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Micro- movements, stillness and inspiration

In the past few weeks I have made more progress in my art than I have the whole year. Instead of sitting for big chunks of time, I have been taking snippets of it and quickly working away, stealing five minutes here and there depending on what is happening.
Moving slowly on each project, then working some more as time allows.
I always thought that doing it this way would lack passion or focus, but I have surprised myself that it actually makes more fun, and less pressure. I have made lots of journal backgrounds, with left over paints, fibre, materials what ever I had at hand. Soon I will fill these pages with collage, words, journaling, doodling and more paint! Fun-fun-fun!

Which brings me to my new years resolution! Fun being the operative word. When I did the art course I had to learn so much in such a short period, and a lot of focus on skill and technique, and for me it took away the fun of art and the spontaneity it can have when you are excited and exploring new mediums or projects. If I can find a different art course which encourages these values and beliefs I will enroll straight away!






This is a drawing of a girl from my imagination, (I have been enjoying drawing and sketching faces) I will transfer her image on to a painted canvas and then I will doodle some shapes around her. This idea was taken from Milliande's Channel on You Tube called "Mixed Media Painting Canvas - Combining Art" Lots of exploring and playing, so much fun!
A few weeks ago I met with Crissy at the Northey Street Markets, she is a wonderful inspiring artist who is involved in community and environmental art work. I went with my girls to one of her workshops, we made planter pots and covered it with recycled materials, Chrissy then gave us sunflower seeds to grow in our pots. The seedlings are growing beautifully, when they flower I will post a picture, we are all very excited to see them. Maybe I will be inspired to sketch them!
The new year will bring with it many exciting challenges. I will be starting work, after 7 years of being a stay at home mum (ohh my!). In late January I will be teaching as a Relief for the first few years as I am new to Queensland Education, I am originally from Darwin Northern Territory. So I need to make up points till I become permanent and then I can find work at a school, this is where I have come up with my wonderful idea, to make an Art Club in school time and do some sort of journal art, or canvas painting with kids that are interested in creative arts. Another idea I have been thinking of strongly is about doing more studies in Art Therapy, as you can see from most of my posts I believe art can heal us and bring peace and joy to our lives by allowing us to free our worries or burdens through expressing ourselves. But we will see what the year brings.
I wanted to thank you all for supporting and sharing your art and your hearts with me throughout the year, this journey has given me so much, a real belief that life can give you what you need at the right time. It has helped me grow and realise that we truly all are wonderful special human creative beings.
Merry Christmas to you all, love Angie. :D

Friday, December 11, 2009

Owl Mania


The school holidays have started and the kids are home for the next 6 weeks. I have been looking forward to this for a while, no more school pick up or drop off. Phew!! But it will mean that I have to get 'crafty' (giggle) about managing my time to do some art. So far so good, have been squeezing in time to doodle and play around with drawing cartoon owls. I don't know why or what has possessed me to draw owls but I love them, they are wise and spiritual animals and they like to read! Some of the owl drawings I googled, some are from a cartoon my kids like to watch and others are from the imagination. Hope you like them.

This is a new journal entry (apologies for the fuzzyness of picture). Again very play related, do you remember making butterfly prints at school by sqeezing paint inthe middle of the page and then squishing it all up, to then open it and each time the butterfly would be different. After the paint dried I doodled around the butterfly.
Do you let yourself play some times? Give it a go, it's so much fun, maybe you can squish some paint and make butterflies!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Oil Painting



The first image above is of my first ever oil painting, taken from a photo from our recent holidays in Byron Bay, this is one of the gorgeous views which we enjoyed daily on our stay there.
The painting isn't finished yet, so far this is my second coat, few more to go till I am happy with it, needs more detail and 3 dimensional effect on the front in particular. I really enjoyed painting with oils wet on wet, particularly when I make a mistake I can easily wipe it off! The paints are bright and strong too.
This is our last art piece of the art course which finished last week, and sadly I couldn't go to all my classes, so now will try to finish this at home in time for the Exhibition in February. We can enter any piece and I will enter the oil painting.
Promise to show the other paintings in the following week.
I have been U tubing (is that even a word?) and finding lots of fun arty painting activities to do at home, loving Miliande a lot and have started to do a piece from her in acrylics and mixed media. I really enjoy doing experimental pieces where there are no rules as such and just let the play come into it, where my art classes felt very different very structured and informative. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed my art classes but at times I did question whether this is where I wanted to go with my art, but Kim, the teacher, said you need to know the theory of each medium and explore them, and you need to be able to know what each medium can do.
What I was also wondering was whether art could have another vocation, to use a word. What I am getting at is can art also be used to free your spirit more, heal and find those parts of us we feel are lost sometimes? Mmmm, something to contemplate....
Hope your art whether you paint or write or sing fills those places for you and brings you joy!
Angie x