After the sun comes rain , after the rain comes sun again.
This little quote is one of the mottos that guides my life. I have a few little verses that are the touchstones I come back to remind myself with when things seem out of kilter.
This quote reminds me that nothing stays the same forever and that positive and negative events are inextricably tied together sometimes raining and shining at the same time.
This drawing is really just a reminder to me not to get bogged down in the turbulence of the moment as all things change and move on – even the heaviest rain is eventually followed by the sun. The sun which shines on all of creation as the rain also falls on all of creation.
After the Sun comes Rain, 2023, Albrecht Durer coloured pencil on paper,
Three new drawings in the first quarter of 2023. The fairies continue.
Shadow, 2023, Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer coloured pencil on paper, 20cm x 30 cm
I’m a firm believer in shadow work i.e. diving into the less acceptable parts of the self and coming to terms with those aspects, drawing the outcasts of the self into the wholeness. This image has layers of meaning around that theme for me, looking at a fear of the dark.
” if light is scarce then light is scarce: we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty.”
Jun’ichiro Tanzaki; In Praise of Shadows
Sea of Flowers, 2023, Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer coloured pencil on paper 20cm x 30cm
I’m just playing around with depth and perspective here. I don’t recommend setting yourself up with this kind of busy background pencil work. My technical skills still have a long way to go. Thank goodness I like practicing.
Dawn, 2023 Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer coloured pencil on paper 20cm x 30cm
Dawn – or it might be dusk with a morning or evening star. More technical challenges and working with a colour palette that’s not in my usual range. As well as a reminder to sit back and enjoy the view sometimes.
For the beginning of 2023 I have a few domestic goddesses that I am invoking to assist and accompany me through 2023. You can borrow them as well if you feel inclined. I trust these sisters will see me right.
The Goddess of the Rose Coloured Glasses, 2021, mixed media on paper, 20 x 30cm
The Goddess of Small Ball Sports, 2021, mixed media on paper, 20 x 30cm
The Goddess of Good Fortune, 2021, mixed media on paper, 20 x 30cm
The Goddess of the Secret Smile, 2021, mixed media on paper, 20 x 30 cm
Rose coloured glasses are the fashion accessory every one needs to make life look rosy. I figure the small ball sports gal really knows what she’s about and the secret smile will, I hope, keep me from allowing my inappropriate humour to escape at inopportune moments. I think good fortune speaks for itself and I hope this particular Goddess blesses everyone who reads this with an abundance of health, wealth and happiness.
In a lightening fast year of life happening the only thing I managed to do consistently was draw. When all else fails pick up your pencils. Colour therapy and imagination at play ensue. A year of being away with the fairies.
So, as a conclusion to the year that was, here is a record of the hours of pencil work. Who knows how many thousands of hours were involved. I have no idea but it’s a lot.
I have organised a small run of prints for 5 of these images. A toe in the water to find out if there is a market for my work. The drawings give me so much pleasure to work on I hope other people can experience some of that joy.
These are the first drawings I have made available for sale. The beginning of something wonderful. Looking forward with courage, faith and effective organisation skills to 2023.
A bit of a gap since my last post. Just life being life and the artists way being the artists way. Swings and round-a-bouts as inspiration ebbs and flows as do the demands of the every day.
I spent the Easter break at the family Bach, a wee cubby hole in a small village just outside Kaikoura on the East coast of Aotearoa New Zealand. It is an idyllic spot with an abundance of plant life that grows profusely in wild abandon. Since my childhood the vines and overgrowth have seemed magical and full of life. Birds, insects and of course elemental fairies who live in all the wild places of Earth.
The Banana Passionfruit is one of the plants that grows wild in the micro- climate of the valley we live in. I think it’s probably categorised as a pest plant because it’s not a native to New Zealand, but it is beautiful and the fruits are sweet, fragrant and delicious. I finally made it the subject matter of one of my drawings. I didn’t actually see the fairy other than in my minds eye.
Banana Passionfruit FlowersPassionfruit Flower Fairy, Faber-Castell coloured pencil on hotpressed paper, 2022, 20 cm x 30 cm.
The birds are an imagination cross breed of a piwakawaka/fantail and a waxeye. Both small birds that live in the bush and have a cheeky, and nosy character. This drawing goes hand in hand with my last one which I haven’t shared here yet titled ‘Tihei Mauri Ora’ or Breath of Life. Both drawings focus on the magical quality of life in wild places. Things felt but not seen.
Tihei MauriOra/Breath of Life, Faber-Castell coloured pencil on paper, 2022, 20 cm x 30 cm
As a follow on from ‘The Great Garage Clearance of 2022’ I have a few pieces of furniture excess to requirements and so I’m giving some of them a bit of a tidy up and refurbishment before I sell them on. There’s actually probably enough to keep me going for at least a month or two but I’m looking forward to picking my way through them.
I started with a little retro wire telephone table. I love these little telephone tables. They remind me of the days when we were tied to the phone jack in the wall and a call to a friend meant sitting in one spot for a while if you were going to have a natter. I like the delicate curls and spirals of the small metal tables and have to restrain myself from buying them every time I see one for sale.
Before: very sad looking little table.
This telephone table has been floating around my house for a long time. I’ve painted it two other times and although I always meant to, this is the first time I’ve recovered and finished the seat. There never was a glass top, it was lost long before it reached me, I used a floor tile to cover up the missing glass top and mostly used it as a plant stand in various spots around the house.
I sanded back and repainted the frame using a french vanilla gloss acrylic. I used a polyester batting and a cute little vintage heart patterned fabric to recover the seat. A trip to the local glass cutter and for a very reasonable price there is a new safety glass top. It looks so pretty now I don’t want to move it on.
After: a sweet little telephone table which will look cute in any little nook.
Often I will rough up the edges and distress it a bit but this time I think I’m happy to leave it as it is. It looks fresh and new and life will inevitably wear and tear it a bit as it goes on its way.
I can see this telephone table still being useful as a phone charging station or a plant stand, candle arrangement space or a bedside table. Plenty of life in this little sweetheart yet.
As a result of the mighty garage clearance last week I found I had a handful of older rather awful paintings that had been useful as a learning process at the time but that I really didn’t want to share with anyone and that I didn’t feel good about when I looked at, so I decided to recycle the boards with a different process.
I used a process that I’ve used before – something I picked up from an artist on youtube who very generously shared his work in detail. I would credit him here but it was some years ago and I can’t remember his name or channel at this stage.
The process involves a thin layer of gib stopping compound spread over a board – my paintings were on 18mm plywood. The image is then built up by pressing a variety of objects into the plaster, I use all manner of found objects, plant material, hardware, stamps, crochet doilies etc. Once dry the plaster is sealed with varnish and colours are added layer by layer with a coat of sealer varnish between each colour. At the end I used a dry brush technique to add a gold sheen and highlight over the textured surface.
Each stage in the process looks kind of lovely although it can also be a bit anxiety inducing as it changes with each layer and the end result is always a bit of a surprise. I will include images of each stage so that you can see the progression.
The result is really what I would consider to be decor art. They are really only decorative pieces but they look interesting and add great texture to the wall space.
Blues and purples being addedThe first plaster impression then yellow and red layersFinished pieces brushed with gold.Impressions, Mixed media on plywood, 50 x 20cm, 2022
The detail in the finished pieces is amazing you can even pick up the brush strokes from the undercoat paint on the base plaster. The plaster has cracked a bit on these ones because I made the layer of plaster a bit thick but I don’t mind that and I think it adds to the overall look of the pieces. Slightly distressed and aged.
Other than the plaster impressions I’ve been working on a vintage telephone table flip which I might include in another post. So many projects so little time.
I’ve spent the last 2 weeks wading through the avalanche of 20 years worth of stuff in our garage/workshop/studio. It’s been quite the journey as I’ve sifted through dust, sawdust, spiders and webs, mouse poo (horror), let alone screws, nails, 3 generations worth of tools, toys, baby gear, photographs, art materials, more art materials, even more art materials, and some leftover furniture and memories, memories and more memories.
As the domestic goddess and curator of our home I am responsible for the organisation and storage of all the minutia of possessions accumulated over time. It is a very cathartic and satisfying process to go through and remove items that are now surplus to requirements. In my role as domestic goddess I have the full inventory of every cupboard, shelf, container, file, book, and any other miscellaneous item you might need to locate in our home and garage.
Last year I worked on a series of mixed media collages which I named the Domestic Goddess series. I was inspired by the photographs on the front of vintage 60’s, 70’s and 80’s knitting patterns and some vintage Australian Home Journal magazines I found from 1954. My mother turned 21 in 1954 and she and my father married that year.
Anyway, I made 14 Goddesses and one of them was created by using the off-cuts and leftovers from all the other goddesses. I named her ‘The Goddess of the 1000 Things’. She is the goddess of small things. The million and one details that women take care of every day in the general run of their own and their families lives. I don’t mean to imply that men don’t have the same level of responsibility but theirs is of a different nature in general.
So here I present to you the ‘Goddess of the 1000 Things’
The Goddess of the 1000 Things, Domestic Goddess Series, 2021, mixed media, 20 x 30 cm
After the last couple of weeks of sifting, sorting, labelling, discarding I am even more appreciative of the indispensable role of this goddess. She stands cool, calm and collected in the midst of the chaotic jumble of life. She does her best to maintain and contain that which is needed, necessary and of value while disposing of or managing the remainder. A place for everything and everything in it’s place even if that resembles chaos. I’m very fond of her because she reminds me of my mother who’s need for order must have brushed off on me a little.
This is the first public sharing of any of these works. They were great fun to make. The 1954 Australian Home Journal that this goddess was on the cover of included the patterns for the outfits worn by the cover models. I hope to have a go at making one up at some stage. Add it to the list of projects – which has grown significantly during the mighty garage clean up of ’22. I’ve found so many gems to be going on with. I can’t wait to share them all with you, and now that I’ve cleared a workspace I have no excuse not to get cracking on them.
I’m not sure why fairies keep appearing in my work but they do. I have decided to embrace them. They may not be deeply and importantly meaningful but they are joyful, mischievous and eternally optimistic, useful qualities at any time. I also have kind of an affinity leftover from childhood for fairies, pixies, elves and gnomes. I like to draw from my imagination so I guess the magical creatures stem from there.
Something Magical, 2022, Faber Castell coloured pencil, 30cm x 20cm. Left hand image – original colours auto filter, right hand image – cartoon filter applied.
When I start any drawing I never have any idea really about what I’m going to draw. For this image I began with the intention of creating a positive and optimistic message that everything is working out for us all, all of the time, and then I started to draw. As I was finishing the drawing I found the quote – something magical is about to happen. The quote and image seem made for each other.
I’ve also been messing around with the filters on my phone and I quite like the results of the darker cartoon filter on the right hand image.
Good Advice Fairy, 2022, Faber Castell coloured pencil, 30cm x 20cm, Left hand image auto filter, right hand image cartoon filter.
I started this drawing last year and left it half done as life got busy and I couldn’t resolve some of the colour issues I was having. This drawing was a bit of a difficult child. I revisited it this weekend and while it might not be one of my favourites it is a reminder that it’s worth persevering and problem solving a piece of work. I like the darker filter on it as it looks like she is sitting in a night garden.
Drawings take anywhere from a couple of days to a few weeks to complete depending on various factors. I generally work on them in the evenings when I have time to sit without feeling too pressured by other responsibilities and distractions. That’s when I have time to run away in my imagination and play with the fairies.
Smokey Gnome Creative 