Odds & Ends....

Several weeks later & what felt like hours of filling & I thought I was making headway with filling my travel box. When I compare this photo to the previous one however, I haven't made much of an impression......On the upside I have almost filled one side!

On another note, recently finished paintings....





Micalong Gorge, Wee Jasper



Road to Wee Jasper II

 


This is the commission piece from an earlier blog finished

 


Don't seem to have had much uninterrupted time the last few weeks only short spurts of activity. Looking forward to a big day in the studio today but that didn't happen. Damn !

Class Paintout

I took my two classes to the National Botanic Gardens yesterday. Perfect weather & lovely subjects at every turn. Some snaps....



Up close - Water Dragon



Sketching grasses



Water Dragon again



Leaf Litter



Tree fern



Sketching in the gardens

 

Beautiful bark

 

Beautiful trees



The DVD Saga.....

 A little over a year ago I began production of a series of instructional DVDs. My nephew  Max from Queensland was doing the filming & production for me. At the time he was available to do the filming I had two exhibitions looming back to back. I found it impossible to concentrate on filming the series & paint for two exhibitions so we called a halt to proceedings, he returned home & I painted furiously. After the exhibitions were done Max was married & also as an aspiring actor gained a part in the ABC production Brides of War so was a little pre-occupied. Then there were more acting roles & before we knew it a year had elapsed.... Today I received some rough drafts of the first DVD working title 'Getting started with Pastel'. Yay we are getting closer to having a finished product. Here are some stills !





Filming

 

The back of my head

    

My hand & my left cheek

   

My right ear



Me looking resentfully at the camera

  

Me looking at the camera sort of nicely





The travel box saga .....

Several months ago I purchased a lovely pastel travel box from Dakota Pastels.

  I was so excited when it arrived & I could hardly wait to fill it up. I was very busy at that point so wasn't able to begin arranging my pastels in it for several weeks. When I finally did begin the process I realised what a mammoth task it was.  I didn't want to use full sticks just pieces about 1 cm long because that is about the size I like to work with. I also wanted to keep a record of what pastels I had put in for ease of replacement.  I put in the blues I thought I would need when I realised that what I thought was just a medium sized box was going to take a whole lot more pastel pieces than I anticipated. Oh no & the job was quite onerous....not to mention boring & I am easily distracted.... I started on the greens then put the job in the too hard basket for several months but have just resumed the task of filling this cavernous box & recording what went where. By my rough calculations I am looking at about 430 pastel colours to fill this thing. I must admit it is nice seeing all the colours side by side rather than spread out in different sets. It makes it much easier to select colours & I'm discovering colours I don't use because have forgotten I own them. Well 5 or 6months later I am almost finished the greens (but still haven't finished the blues).....



The story so far



At some point this year I may finally finish filling this box.....  or I could just take it out & use it half empty....but what a waste !

 I was going to set to work this morning & fill some more but instead I weeded the vegetable garden ! Secretly all I want to do is paint....



Freshly weeded vegetable garden which, unlike my travel box looks loved !



Once I've filled the travel box  I need to re think how I arrange my working sets in the studio...oh joy...not!

On my easel at the moment...

I am working on these three pictures at the moment. I like to have several on the go at once. I start a new picture before I finish the one I'm working on. This saves inevitable down time spent thinking about the next work and organising the paper or board etc. It also stops me from overworking the one nearing completion as my focus shifts to the new work

The work on the left is probably finished but is sitting there for final analysis The work in the middle has only just been started & the work on the right ( the picture  shown in stages from an earlier post ) is very near to completion.

 Some of the tools of the trade.....many different brands

The bigger picture.....

Current works in progress with recently finished pictures plus the small one bottom centre which was a demo piece I did for one of my classes on Tuesday. As yet not quite finished but quite possibly sold!

Keeping Records...

I have been spending quite a bit of time putting together "Photobooks"  (http://www.photobookaustralia.com.au/ ) as a permanent record of my work . I have always kept an album of my work but these ones will be professionally printed. I thought I had only fallen a little behind in keeping them up to date until I got down to it.....it seems I haven't done it since 2003 !

 It has been an interesting ride revisiting almost a decade of work. Here are just a few of my favourites. I love them for differing reasons; for their simplicity or for breakthroughs I made or just because I do ! I'll post more at a later date.

Near Kiandra Circa 2003

 

Autumn Morning Helm Winery circa 2003

Kelly  2005

Afternoon Light Connell's Lane 2006

Early morning Finke River NT  2005

Felicite et Perpetue 2005

The important things in life....

This is so simple & lovely.....

I watch it often to keep me grounded when life gets too complicated.