Stormy weather

We drove up to some falls that feed into the Ohinemuri River in Karangahake Gorge, which had been closed all day. It was almost dark and then my camera battery died so didn't get a lot of photos. These are kind of out of order but here is the "stream" that passes under a narrow roadbridge, the water coming out the other side and tumbling down, another view of the stream travelling down to that bridge in the first photo, another shot from that road not as close up, and the other photo is from below, standing on the roadside looking back up to where I was standing.

One more drawing..lost parrot...storms...flooding...

This life drawing is the actual pose of the cropped stylised drawing from 11.7.08. That drawing was done standing behind the model.We've had a couple of bad storms here over the last few days, and last night I was looking out the window about an hour before dark and saw a bird in the tree - though it was a rosella - quite a few of them live around here, but they're usually in pairs. I grabbed the camera and as I took the photo I realised it wasn't a rosella and it must be someone's pet that has got free. I rang and left a message with the SPCA, and put my cockatiels back outside hoping they'd attract it but by the time I'd done that it had disappeared.

We've had a very hectic few days out in the weather. Drains need to be kept clear, things moved because of the gale force winds, pieces of flashing blew off, roofs on sheds lifted....Took a drive through the Karangahake Gorge just after it opened again (closed all day) and there were a lot of slips, the road was under water, and there was clay and mud and water in drains at the road's edge, just waiting for another downpour to spill over the road again. The river was turbulent and very muddy. I'll post a shot from my other camera shortly. I've been hunting for decent weather websites in the last few days and weatherwatch is quite interesting - people send in photos. Metvuw is good too.

Life Drawing 30 July 2008

With increasing numbers joining the life drawing group, we're back at the local collage again so we have lots of space to move around which we all enjoyed. I did enjoy drawing in the smaller venues, being closer to the model I think I was becoming more accurate, though more often than not I was drawing on smaller paper, on my lap and those drawings can get a bit of a lean on them...it was good to be standing up, drawing at an easel again (thanks, John).

These drawings were done on either white or buff cartridge paper. Media was mostly Faber & Castell polychromos pastels, but I also used willow charcoal for one drawing and conte, pencil and stick. I played around with stylising as you can see from the closeup. The drawing session was for two hours but we seemed to fit in a lot of drawings, even with some longer ones. And everyone did fantastic drawings. Quite a variety, some work with willow, others with coloured soft pastels, mostly large drawings, some very large, it's very inspiring to draw alongside the others.

The tutor, John Mulvay, organised quick poses first - those are the three drawings on one page. then we had longer poses between 5 and 20 minutes. For one of the reclining poses, I did several quick drawings of the reclining poses, one of which is in the next post because of blogger's limit on numbers of photos per post.

Crayon and pencil portrait

of a friend's son. This little toddler (who is also an artist) was busy drawing at my house and I felt like sketching him. I picked up a crayon and started to draw, but he wasn't inclined to share his his art materials - of course when you're two and a half you're just learning to own things so how can you fairly share? I fetched my coloured pencils which he had no problem sharing with me. I had to work very quickly before he took ownership of everything on the table. The portrait isn't a perfect likeness - he's a whole lot cuter. Mateo works in crayon and pen on paper, pastels on building paper, and acrylics on canvas working with paint straight from the tube on to the canvas, or from a palette. His main subjects in his visits are colours, train tracks, trains, "up up up", the wind, and chocolate chip cookies, particularly the white and/or brown chocolate chips themselves. I'll have to remember to take photographs of his work before he takes it home next time.

Life Drawing 16 July 2008

These are drawn on buff cartridge, either pen or conte pencil, some have the Neocolour white highlights.

One of my favourite poets was on television this morning, and I grabbed a piece of paper out of the printer, and a ballpoint pen and scribbled this portrait while I listened to the interview. He has his own website now, www.samhunt.co.nz but it's very new by the look of it, not much there, just a bio. But I've been cruising around the net looking for poems by Sam, and came across THIS site where you can hear the weekly "A little bit of something with Sam Hunt" on Radio Wammo. He talks about all kinds of things, and recites his own poetry, and often lines of other poets.

Playing with paint, ink and paper

Yesterday I went to Gordon Base Studio for the day, a get together of a few artists initiated some time ago by Alison Gordon who provided this venue for a monthly meeting of art students from Wellington art school, The Learning Connexion. It is a very relaxing and enjoyable day, Alison has a large studio, lots of space and work surfaces, and we find our space and do whatever we like, and chat, and have a yummy lunch). and I took along a box of materials and continued with the collaging of antique text onto printmaking paper, and then painting acrylic glazes and paints onto the surface, and adding indian ink marks. I still have the idea of using these as bases for drawing onto.

The other photograph is of a double page spread in one of the A4 size collaborative journals that had circulated around last year. We're not continuing with the project, so I'll just have to fill the book up myself. I gessoed the pages with grey gesso then painted this image titled "There's no point in looking in different directions" (acrylic Atelier interactives, and pen).

Life Drawing 9.7.08

The top drawing is done with Neocolour on black sugar paper. The other three are drawn on buff paper, in the French conte pencil and white Neocolour highlights.

Its about the materials

I'm fascinated by the rigid form that the printmaking paper takes when I'm working on it. You can knock on these like on a piece of wood. It's 350gsm good quality rag paper. Didn't soak it. I've applied pieces of text from an old book, 100 years old, with binder medium, then applied acrylic paint and indian ink. Sometimes I almost rub the paint in, other times I allow my hand to move randomly. The ink is a joy to use. I'm going to draw on these pieces next with fine ink pen. They might be overworked, but I'm really enjoying working on them.

How bad things are

Am I the only one who is annoyed/fed up/tired of regular news about the price of oil/share market ups and downs/political reports?

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Life Drawing 2.7.08

These drawings are on buff paper, French grey conte pencil and/or black conte with white Neocolour highlights. Just could not get that hand over the head!

NZ Art Guild Collaborative Painting "Reach Out"

This amazing artwork was unveiled at the NZ Art Guild's annual members exhibition 'Make it Memorable'. It's going to be auctioned off on Trademe July 19th - 29th. 20% of the proceeds from the sale of the NZ Art Guild's collaborative project 'Reach Out' will be donated to the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand which assists individuals, whanau, organisations and communities to improve and sustain their mental health and realise their full potential.

88 artists contributed to "Reach Out" by creating one small individual artwork. They were provided with a small wooden panel and given a theme to paint to. The theme this year is 'On your mind' and interpretation of this was up to the artists.The artwork measures 1.3m x 1.5m. The overall image was kept secret, even from those participating in it, until tonight.

This year NZ Art Guild are selling limited edition prints and individual prints of Reach Out. $5 from every limited edition print sale is being donated to the Mental Health Foundation of NZ.

LIMITED EDITION PRINTS
The print run is limited to 500 and all prints are numbered. They come un-mounted and are printed on archival quality art paper by specialist art printers. Prints are 380mm x 460mm in size and come with a certificate of authenticity. You can purchase prints for $85 each excl. postage.

PRINTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL PIECES
Each of the 90 artworks that create Reach Out are available for purchase as individual prints. These are printed on photographic paper and come mounted on a black boxed wood frame ready to hang. They are 210mm x 150mm in size. You can select any of the 90 artworks and as many as you like. You can purchase these for $30 each excl. postage. Prints of the artwork can also be purchased. Read about it at the NZ Art Guild's website.