little communities...

With the earthquake happing early in the week my mind was completely fixed on the television watching the horror that was unfolding down south and not on the assignment for week 4 of Get your paint on.

After seeing and hearing about all that was happening in Christchurch I started thinking about communities coming together, helping each other, being there for each other.  And not just local community... I am completely amazed at the help that has come from all over the world to help the people of Christchurch.  

So these are my little communities coming together...

six point three...

Please keep the people of Christchurch in your thoughts and hearts as they have been hit by another earthquake, this one 6.3 has caused more devastation than the 7.1 earthquake in September last year.  They suspect 65 plus dead with 200 missing.  I work with a few people who have family down in Christchurch and I really feel for them.  I just can't imagine going through this for a second time....

freaking out seems to suit me...

After reading the assignment for week 3 in my 'Get your paint on' class I started getting very excited at the prospect of using colour {I kind of have a problem with using colour} I then went to bed and completely freaked out...  and freaking out seems to suit me as several people told me the next day, I was looking good.  

So anyway we were to choose 4 colours from objects in your life and try to match the colors as accurately as possible by mixing your paints and incorporate them into your painting.  I chose red,  a lovely pale blue, charcoal and white... I don't think I got the blue quite right in hindsight {might need a tinge of yellow}.  I started with a cerulean blue background and quickly painted over with my pale blue mix leaving a bit of the bright blue peaking through to give my background a little noise.  I then painted the tent mixing a red {that matched my handbag} and the doily printed foreground, added the trees, bunting, the clouds and a few other details.

I am rather shocked, it was not really what I was thinking when I started... the tent was going to be someones neck!!!  I am kind of liking this intuitive was of image making, it is like opening a present.

lucky lucky me...

I don't really think any words are needed here... 

except maybe a little note for those who are interested... at 1:57 in this video clip I am pretty sure they are traveling through the grape vines  behind Te Mata Peak in Hawke's Bay... {where I live}.

get your paint on...

I have enrolled in 'Get your paint on' a five week online painting class with Lisa Congdon and Mati McDonough.  We are into week 2 and our second assignment is to find a painting by another artist that we love and take something from that painting and incorporate it into a painting of our own.  Well I chose a Kiwi artist I recently discovered during the Christmas holidays... Mandy Emerson.  I just fell in love with a painting of hers behind the counter in a little art supplies shop in Greytown.  

Mandy Emerson uses the intense colours that I really love and she seems to use a lot of mediums that don't like each other, that produce a chemical reaction.  I like this idea and have done it in the past with oil based printing ink and shellac.   So above is the first part of my play with this assignment... I have used iridescent oil sticks with a light layer of acrylic paint.  The water based acrylic has a very subtle dislike for the oil layer underneath and has produced a nice effect.  I have then lightly brushed areas of the paint off with my fingers so the shiny oil stick colour glows through in places.

I have actually found this quite fun, it was the first time I have had a real play on a stretched canvas... one thing I didn't like though was that I couldn't use my stamps on it as the surface wasn't strong enough to take a print from the stamp... more soon.

#709...

I have been spending the last week making a few new pendants and as you can see from the picture above, it all looks like a bit of a muddle.  Which is actually an accurate picture of how my brain feels at the moment... I have so many things on the go, partly finished, I sit at my kitchen table looking at the mess wondering where to start.  When I do start I flit from one project to the other and don't really get anything done.  Is anyone else feeling this way lately...?

I think I might have to start making a well thought out prioritised list...

• finish off the last works for gallery in Wellington
• finalise pendant designs and finish them off for the gallery in Wellington
• go to an exhibition opening on Friday night and then catch up with a few arty friends afterwards
• decide on designs and make some more pendants to take to two local galleries to pick from
• do a piece of work for the online course I am taking... get your paint on before Sunday
• Ring up and order the wooden panels for the two new galleries that want works ready to hang and not how I would normally do them
• transfer more money onto my credit card to do the above
• readjust the sizes of works to fit the new wooden panels
• do 12 works to fit the new sizes from above... (there will be a whole other list that goes with this wee job)
• decide on designs and make another lot of pendants to send to the two new galleries
• list some of my new mini prints on felt
• list some new pendants on etsy
• find my doily stamp and have a play with it
• get some more #709 chalk pastels
• do some new houses

So that will be my list so far... and hopefully on completing the above I will feel a little less muddled.  I also think starting back at work this week with procedures and practices that are still a little unknown and new is adding to the state of my muddled brain.  But I am remembering one of my words for the year... {brave} and am surging onwards nodding my head saying 'yes I can'.