This weekend I finally managed to make it to see the feted exhibition by contemporary Australian artist Cressida Campbell at the National Gallery. I left it to the end of the exhibition run in the hopes that the crowds would be smaller. After a couple of false starts I managed to get a ticket on the final weekend. It seems many other people had the same idea!
I hadn’t seen any of Campbell’s work other than the images in the marketing materials, but several friends had been to the exhibition multiple times and raved about how wonderful it was. So I was looking forward to it.
This is the largest single artist exhibition that I have ever seen, she is prolific! Something like 140 works were on display, covering a number of themes. I thought I’d share a few of my favourites.
This piece was my absolute favourite! The cat on the stairs captured my heart. Of course!
I loved the shapes made within the roots and foliage on this narrow piece. And the glass is wonderful.
I love watching boats, and these ones made me smile. They brought back memories of watching the boats and ships come and go for hours in Victoria Harbour when we visited Hong Kong a couple of years ago, the the before times. Before COVID kicked in in a real way.
The soothing colours and water captured my attention in this scene. I stood there and let it wash over me for ages. What is it about water that is so relaxing? Even in paintings.
Campbell’s self-portrait. Love the hair! Curly hair is so hard to paint well!
Campbell uses a unique hybrid technique where she inscribes her drawing onto plywood and then paints with watercolour and prints from the incised wood block. I have never seen anything like it! In the photograph above you can see the inscribed outlines.
I was super excited when I came to the end of the galleries and discovered a huge drawing station! The large table dominated the room and the central area was arranged with beautiful ceramics and foliage, and paper and pencils placed around the table for anyone who wished to sit and have a go.
I whipped out my tiny little emergency handbag sketch kit and got to work.
I sat there and enjoyed sketching for about an hour. In that time several people came and went in the seats to my left. One young couple amused me. They each selected a group of jars and pots they wished to sketch and then proceeded to turn it into a competition, chattering and bantering the whole time. I had to smile, but I did wish they simply enjoyed the process and supported each other. Nonetheless…they were sketching! So all good. Another pair were young tween brothers who decided to draw cartoon characters instead and were having a ball.
I was lucky not to be yelled at and ejected for using watercolour in the gallery…usually it’s dry materials only.
This is the first art exhibition I have been to in years and I wanted to capture the feel of all the people in the space. It felt crowded to me having not ventured out much in the last couple of years, but I have seen it busier at past exhibitions. I did this spread from a photo when I got home. I wasn’t bold enough to sit and sketch in the presence of greatness and with moving people!
Each December Instagram is a-flurry with people posting their top nine posts as defined by the number of “likes”, the image below shows mine. Predictably the top left image with the most likes was a Reel (a short video), which get pushed out by the algorithm. People seem to like them. It always amuses me that the pictures or posts most appreciated by others are never the ones that I like the most. So I figured I share both. If you click the picture it will take you to my Instagram feed and you can see them at full size, or watch the videos. My favourites for 2022 follow.
Shoe bill storks are the funniest looking birds I have ever seen. I saw the photo that I drew this one from on Twitter and just had to have him in my sketchbook. I love drawing birds! I can imagine this guys saying “Seriously??” He made me laugh.
Last year was another year of virtual travel for me. I would love to have been out in the world sketching on location, but there are so many fabulous places that even if I was able to travel I’d never get to them all. This little tower caught my eye and made me wonder what it might be like to live in a place like this. Cold most likely. But a warm bed up in the attic would be a wonderful place to hide away and read for a while!
I try to capture our cats as often as I can, but tend to default to a cartoon style to capture their antics. This is one of the few times I caught them as is. I love this spread simply because it has the cats on it!
This year I played some more with collage and messing about with altering whole pages from magazines. It is so relaxing to fiddle around with scissors and glue.
I was disappointed that I didn’t really capture the Borg queen very well, but this was I think the first time that I had used a stencil with some acrylic paint alongside the watercolours in a way that I liked.
I LOVE drawing machinery! The local shops are having a landscaping overhaul and this guy was parked up for the weekend.
Mixed media is fast becoming my favourite art therapy outlet. This on in particular let me process some really difficult stuff. As much as I love the aesthetic of the spread, it is one of my favourites more for what it achieved for me.
Recording every day life in the pages of my sketchbook is what it’s all about for me. I get to capture moments in time and embed the memories for years to come. I love watching my sons interact in the kitchen. I hope to see it many more times yet, but if I don’t this will keep it alive for me.
What can I say … BIRDS! And my favourite bird at that. We have a male superb wren and his harem of about four females that live out the back. This isn’t him, but I couldn’t go past one of these little guys for my Australian Christmas greeting.
To cap it all off, this mixed media piece is my very first artwork on canvas, and I am so pleased with how it came out! It was a steep learning curve with the many layers and media and techniques. I hope to do more of this type of thing in the future.
Once again, thank you for supporting me and my art in 2022. Here’s to an inspired and motivated year ahead!
I am launching a monthly newsletter at the end of January; I’d love it if you would consider signing up! It’s completely free with an option to support my work on a voluntary basis if you so desire, but there’s absolutely no pressure.
We are not long out of lockdown here in Canberra, Australia, and as yet I think the international borders are still closed. Even if they are open I don’t think I’ll feel safe travelling for a while yet, so I have been tripping around the planet in my sketchbook, finding interesting places and honing my skills for when I can get out.
First stop was a Venetian church. I don’t have the opportunity to draw too many ornate buildings, so this was a bit of a challenge straight out of the gate.
This is a little auberge that I stayed at about 10 years ago. I would dearly love to stay there again sometime. It was part of a watermill and home. I remember there were lots of ducks and geese in the grounds!
I didn’t realise how wonderfully bizarre and diverse opera houses around the world are until I started digging around for reference photos for this spread. I love the modern buildings! They present their own kind of challenge just as the ornate ones do.
These funny houses all stacked side by side amuse me. I’d love to see inside one day. I have never been to that part of the world! By this stage I was getting itchy feet!
This lady in an Indian market in her wonderfully bright sari and surrounded by vivid coloured fruit and vegetables made my heart sing. I could almost hear the sounds and smell the spices in the air as I sketched.
This bizaare monument in North Macedonia made me laugh and I really couldn’t go past it for a fun challenge to draw. It made me think of sea mines and the virus that is knobbling me.
Chartres is a place I have visited in the past. I had a deeply reflective experience wandering around in the cathedral and placing my hands on the pillars polished smooth by centuries of pilgrims. I think I could have spend days wandering around that little town.
Venezia! For this one I sketched as though I was in a rush and needing to capture a scene between sight seeing stops with my love. My speed sketching needs work, but I am happy that I captured the story in this one.
Playing with different framing on another Italian classical building.
Ahh back to the UK. This “summer house” stands on a hill between the north of the country and the midlands. I suspect it was scene by my forebears that lived in the area. Also… the name made me giggle 🙂
I chose this photo to draw from because it looked peaceful. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to settle in a place like this and hear the water bubbling past?
This complex scene was an attempt to capture the feel of the place with minimal pencil set up. For me I drew a couple of perspective lines and then launched into it. It was fun!
Another run down old UK castle. This is a fascinating one in that it was used to imprison Eleanor of Brittany so that she could no ascent the English throne. She was the daughter of Alinor of Acquitane who was a wonderfully sassy and brave queen for both the French and the English. Well worth reading about her if you like strong women.
The question is … what to draw next? I am double vaxxed and our local area is up to 95% vaxxed for eligible people, so I think it might be safe to venture out to my local Urban Sketchers meet ups again … though it means getting out of bed early on the weekend which doesn’t thrill me. But it will be good for me to get out I think. I shall keep up with the virtual travel until i can travel further a field though. I have been enjoying seeking out colourful and interesting places to visit in the pages of my sketchbook.
What about you? Are you ready to get out and travel again yet?
2019 has been an odd but wonderful year. Much happened, but not a lot of it was art related! In fact my energy for art and blogging seemed to dwindle as the year progressed, but my yen to knit and read ramped up exponentially. It seems my brain needed a different kind of stimulation. That is not to say that I didn’t draw or paint, I did, but it was not my obsession as it was in previous years.
I was able to complete a couple of very detailed watercolour paintings, and a raft of comic portrait commissions throughout the year, and again added sketches to my sketchbook and played with zentangle-style doodles to soothe when required.
I am not sure what the new year will hold, but I do know paint and pens will be involved!
Here are some of my favourites from this year. Do you have a favourite? Tell me in the comments below.
Sunflower Oh I love sunflowers! They are so bright and cheerful. I had such fun painting this one.
Wedding comic I drew this one to use on our marriage announcement in the middle of the year. We did not have photos taken, so I immortalised our outfits in one of my comic portraits.
Booty Fruity reporting for duty I have come to really enjoy painting pinups. I did this Royal Marine tribute for Remembrance Day – though I stuffed it the first time and had to repaint her, which was more than a little annoying. She is kitted out with a Heckler and Koch VP9 and Faibairn Sykes ready for duty, but I’m not sure she’d get far in those boots.
PCOS pinup This one was a commission for a dear friend.
Lighthouse This sketch brings back such memories! I took a trip to the NSW south coast in February … it was a very blustery day and the clouds made me think of the weather in years gone by that would have caused shipwrecks up and down the coast. That’s the best thing about location sketching isn’t it? It locks in the memories.
Be soft with yourself Soothing bubbles that ended up looking like bubble wrap, and a reminder to treat myself well.
Never forget how to play I have enjoyed using prints of old baby photos to add a fun collage element to these mixed media pages in my sketchbook.
All of my sketchbook sketches from this year can be found here (I can no longer embed a slideshow as in previous years due to Adobe Flash landing on the scrap heap.)
And if you want to see more frequent updates than I manage here on the blog, you can follow me on Instagram.
I also write here, though updates have been sparse there this year too!
For millenia art has been used to send messages; some subtle and some not so subtle. It has been used to unsettle populations and to provoke action. It has been used as a medium for the voiceless elements of society to get a word in edgewise. From scribbled phalluses on Roman walls to Banksy’s grafitti dotted around city backstreets. From paper’ zines to online comics. Art has been a way for the voices of the voiceless to be heard and messages sent out to those who care to look.
Nigar Nazar is Pakistan’s first female professional cartoonist, and she is using her art platform to raise awareness of the oppression women and girls experience in her country, and to promote education for women and girls amongst other issues.
Read the whole story on the BBC site here… it’s inspiring! Art can be so powerful! (You can follow her work on Facebook too.)
Education is the key to breaking the bonds of patriarchy, terror and oppression of women and children. It will take some time for the effects to flow through, but it is well worth the effort to support these women, because they are the ones that will tell their little boys and girls how a better world can be made in the future.
So how can we support these women? You don’t draw and make a difference like she does? You don’t think you can help promote her cause? Of course you can! visit Kiva.org and search for opportunities to lend to women needing help to fund their education from all around the world. There are no set monthly plans, you lend and relend via micro-loan providers as you are able. Just a couple of dollars here and there. (I get no kick-backs here, this is a genuine recommendation of a service that I have used for many years as a direct way to help people without the vast percentage of the cash being swallowed up by the machinery of the charities.)
Check out some of her other cartoons, they’ll give you a giggle and open your eyes to the way others are forced to experience life.
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Some years ago I was honoured to be asked to be a featured artist in Mike Rohde’s Sketchnote Handbook and had a great time creating a page that captured my approach to visual note taking, so when Mike contacted me again a few weeks ago to invite me to participate in the creation of the French version of the book, I jumped at the chance! If you have been around my blog for any length of time you will know that I am a francophile from way back, so this opportunity was a double bonus! Mercifully I didn’t have to do the actual translation work (my French is not that good!), just provide the language elements of my page in French. It has been a very long time since I had to sit down and do this kind of language homework 🙂 but I loved it!
As I type, my final artwork is sitting on my desk beside me waiting to be scanned and sent off, and I am dying to see how it all turns out when the hardcopy of the book lands in my letterbox in a few months’ time.
Here’s where it all happened…I so love creating at this desk.
It took me a couple of goes to get it all correct and fitting into the space…so many more French words to say what I said in a few in English 🙂 Mike and his fabulous team that know how to use Photoshop better than I do will take my words and combine them with the elements of the English version of the digital artwork.
Congratulations to Mike for the sensation that the handbook has become around the world! You’ve worked hard for it! Thanks for the opportunity to participate again!
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Standing in the open window of Monet’s studio window on a crisp Autumn afternoon and inhaling the heady mix of oil paint, dust and the perfumed garden was one of the most intensely spiritual moments of my life.
Even looking back at this photo taken three years ago I can feel the sense of peace and belonging wash over me palpably.
Sometimes you just connect with something bigger than yourself. It’s out of your control. Unexpected. It’s beautiful. Sometimes you just know.
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I was inspired {and distracted} this week by this post by Lindsey Bugbee over at The Postman’s Knock blog. She created a calligraphy calendar she has called her “wall of shame†from an old painting covered over with blackboard paint. As fate would have it, I had intended to head out to the stationery store this weekend to pick up some sort of whiteboard to have in my gym area to track my workouts. The budget is a little tight at the moment, so I hesitated on the purchase… and I’m glad I did! I remembered that I had an old framed drawing of mine from the very early days of when I started doing graphite portraits… no contrast…iffy features…YUCK! Time to get rid of it and repurpose the frame for my own wall of shame project. Given that this is a procrastination project and I am supposed to be cleaning my house…my credo for this one is quick and non-fussy … squeeze elements of the project in between chores as a little reward … at least that’s what I am telling myself!
Umm.. something not quite right with this picture.. Mr Denver just doesn’t fit… have to fix that!
I dragged out a full A2 sheet of paper I had in my stockpile… I don’t think it was even watercolour paper, possibly something I had intended for a graphite piece perhaps given that it’s about 250gsm and a smooth surface. I taped it to my plastic-covered dining table since it was too big for any of my art boards {with the exception of my A0 drawing board that currently has a half finished nude on it}. Predictably the movement of the plastic didn’t stop the paper buckling when I wet it, not that I particularly care for this one… quick and non-fussy! I mixed up a couple of watercolour washes and slopped them on the pre-wet paper to form an abstract background for my design to be applied to.
A2 sheet taped to plastic table cloth .. and I wondered why it still buckled.. d’uh!
It dried a little darker than I had imagined, but that wouldn’t be a problem under a black ink design. I left it overnight to dry, but given the subzero temps here last night, it didn’t really dry properly….hairdryer and iron applied!
Over brekky I sketched up a very basic mudmap design for my calendar allowing space for the grid, a banner for the name of the month at the top and a box at the bottom where I can list the protocols and goals for the month.
Second coffee for the morning and my trusty Moleskine and Lami Zebra
I liked the look of Lindsay’s henna doodles around the edge of her chalkboard, so I researched those too. How cool are these?
Indian bride decorated for her wedding
Henna design on a gorgeous pregnant belly
Next I measured up the grid and pencilled in the key elements for size and balance.
Light pencil lines to guide the sketching
Basic grid outline done
And then set to work inking in with a thin-point black permanent marker. I had toyed with the idea of using my dip pen and india ink…but I woke up to myself and remembered the quick and non-fussy credo for this {unplanned} project.
Slow but hypnotic work..got completely absorbed doing this!
Bottom left-hand corner detail
Partway through the bottom right
Eh voila! The finished design slipped into the old frame. The glass will act as a whiteboard that I can mark off my workouts and try to stay on track 🙂
Ah! That looks like it belongs! Mr Denver is tucked in underneath the calendar to pad out the frame
Here’s what August looks like after I filled in the details with a dry-erase marker.
Very pleased with how this turned out!
This was a good fun way to slip some creativity in between my housework today. Hope you had a creative day too.
Don’t forget to visit my shop … lots of new original artwork for sale as well as a new range of greeting cards alongside the old favourites.
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This week I cracked out a dip pen and some ink and made a wedding card for a beautiful young couple (one of whom I held as a newborn babe .. But that’s a whole other blog post).
In this world of computers and phones as ubiquitous capture devices it has been a while since I have really handwritten anything more than a scrawled note while I’m on the phone, or the odd caption for a drawing in my sketchbook. I felt somewhat rusty!
It turned out well didn’t it? I was pleased. I hope they were too.
I have always loved beautiful handwriting and I am a stationery addict par excellence. I have collected pens and paper and journals and art supplies since I was a small child. Pencils that smelled like strawberries. Erasers that smelled like grapes. Paper with deckles and imprints. Journals with creamy delicious paper. Aaaahhhhhhhh 🙂
When I was about 11 my mum gave me a fountain pen (an old Parker that looked to have been a piece of company advertising) and it was at this point that I believe I was truly lost… I have been obsessed ever since. The weight of them in my hand… the way the ink flows… the search for the perfect nib…and the best way to remove ink from my fingers. Not a lot has changed…except perhaps the price of the pens I buy….or lust after if I am to be honest…the Montblancs and Watermans are pretty much out of my price range at this point, but I am a huge fan of the Lamy range for both writing and sketching.
I went to school in country Victoria in the seventies in the days when we started each day by lining up in the quadrangle, doing jumping jacks and singing God Save the Queen. Ah the glory days…. *Ahem*
In the sixth grade I had Mrs Thompson… I was voted class president, and having used my power particularly unwisely, I made a lot of enemies and never really recovered any semblance of popularity that I might have had to sure me up for the entry into high school. She taught me a love of the english language and of good grammar, but she lacked art in the delivery of said beautiful language onto paper. She taught us standard Australian cursive script .. (Although it could very well have been Victorian cursive script). Suffice it to say, I was less than impressed. I had been waiting for years for the opportunity to be taught the beautiful cursive scripts that I had seen in books. I was sorely disappointed.
The shining light in that year of prepubescent angst though, was my maths teacher… Mr Cleveland. He was a large hirsute man, more than a little reminiscent of early seventies Elvis, complete with belly and oversized spectacles. What Mrs Thompson lacked in art, Mr Cleveland made up for with the line of hieroglyphs that lined the top of the blackboard in his classroom. The holy grail of handwriting … Copperplate Script. Those curls! Those swirls!!! Such beauty in contrast with the bland printed letters joined together with plain straight lines espoused by the seventies standard Australian cursive. Mr Cleveland was teaching his class how to write “properly†and I was jealous. So I hatched a plan.
For months, in the snippets of time between maths problems, I would try to copy down the letters on the board…attempting to follow the swoops and swirls with an unguided and unpracticed hand. Pages and pages of misshapen capitals and crudely formed lowercase letters in what could loosely be construed as words. As I filled my exercise book up with numbers from the front, I worked steadily backwards from the end pages filling the lines with rows and rows and rows of “a†“e†“i†“o†“u†and full alphabets all joined in contiguous streams of unintelligible loops and flourishes.
Over time I brought the ink into submission and developed a handwriting style that has been called on through the years to complete wedding certificates and place cards and various bits and pieces, and filled journal after beautiful Moleskine journal.
I am a little rusty at the moment, but I am reacquainting myself with the feel of the ink flowing out from my fingertips, adding varying pressure and new nibs and styles. I am loving it. Would you like me to write your envelopes for you? Would you like me to write your place cards for you? I can make them beautiful works of art for you! No computer-generated homogeneity … just beautiful hand crafted words. Watch this space for samples, or drop me a line in the meantime 🙂
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