Friday 13 April 2012

More finished art


Here is Peacock Feather stretched on a frame, measuring 38x60cm. Sally Aldens original photo is to the right. There is a little too much light reflecting on the face in this photograph, unfortunately. It was really, really nerve wracking embroidering over the finished painted face to do the peacock feather detailing. Absolutely no margin for error! The stitching has been accented with a metallic iridescent embroidery thread but it isn't possible to see that in the photo.




Below is some information about Sally Aldens photographic exhibition which is at the Willow Tree Inn, opening on Sunday 22nd. Rodney and I will be there for the opening at 1.30pm in the afternoon. Look at that wonderful picture of my gorgeous husband featured on Sallys promotional flyer! There will be some other photos of Rodney that Sally took in this series on display...eat your heart out Brad Pitt!!!



Wednesday 11 April 2012

Autumn has arrived

Hi Maude, lovely to hear from you. I'm just about to go down to the home studio to finish work on Peacock Feather right now! Rodney is teaching his Wednesday art class down at the Upstairs Art Studio this morning and will be home after 1pm. He plans to get out the framing equipment and build the board I need for Still Life and stretch Peacock Feather over a frame....so I hope to able to show the finished work on my next blog this evening.

The weather here is definitely changing to cool and autumn like. This weekend we put 2 blankets on the bed but I was cold last night! It seems a little early to be putting the doona on, but I shall be! We even made some tentative jokes about lighting the wood stove last night. We  have a functioning wood stove in the kitchen and use it every day for 5-6 months during Winter.

The studio is wonderful for Summer, with my double plantation shutters opening onto the garden, but its very cold over Winter. The last couple of years I usually bought my work up the house and didn't spend much time there. But with our exhibition at Muswellbrook Gallery coming up in early August I need to keep on producing new works. Last year we bought a small gas heater that I used with a gas bottle but I was always very nervous using it, with the amount of textiles and paint mediums, such as turpentine, that I always have around me. So my wonderful husband, who is my greatest supporter and facilitator! has gotten me a wall mounted gas heater and plans to get the gas bottle installed on the outside wall of the studio with a proper regulator and piping. At the end of this week he is planning to pick up some window glass at Tamworth to cover the open slats of the plantation shutters. I'll be a snug bug all Winter!

Monday 9 April 2012

Still Life

Yesterday I finished painting Peacock Feather and set her aside for a few days while the oil paint cures until  the canvas can be handled to put it under the sewing machine for embroidering.

Today I started work on a new canvas. Below is the work started on the face as at the end of today. To start the face was blocked in with acrylic paint. Then I did some free motion machining on the hair. Then the face was over painted and almost completed with oil paint. There is a little more finishing work to do on it


Still Life, face on the first day

At the moment the face is on a scrap of canvas about 40x50cm. I have a rather ambitious concept of doing quite a large scale whole figure, possibly the largest work I've done recently....

Unfortunately, I may not make much progress tomorrow. We need to go to Scone to do some grocery shopping and I need Rodney to build a backing board to mount the finished to work on.