I am finishing up a series of small embroideries that will be going into my Etsy store in the very near future.
Hopefully three all together, hopefully finished next week!
I am finishing up a series of small embroideries that will be going into my Etsy store in the very near future.
Hopefully three all together, hopefully finished next week!
So I'm working on a series of characters from some of my favourite books for an upcoming show. After many, many versions of Jane Eyre (my favourite I posted about yesterday) the characters started to take on a life of their own and decided that they would actually prefer to be represented as pot plants. So here she is, Jane Eyre, as she would look if she were, well, a pot plant. She is almost finished, a few more tiny lines and paper cuttings to add and I shall then move on to Antoinette Cosway (Wide Sargasso Sea), a very different type of plant I'm sure.
I finally got some gocco prints that I'm happy (enough) with. I printed them on long pieces of paper so I'm going to have fun colouring and decorating them. I actually quite like the scratchy, haphazardness of the print (although I did end up cheating a bit and I printed them by hand using the traditional screen printing method).
Also, while I'm here I really wanted to say thank you to Holly over at Decor8 for including my 2011 Calendar in her excellent calendar round up. Thank you, thank you!
Dear Gocco, we don't seem to be friends do we? After a few trips to the local library's photocopier, two used screens and four bulbs I can't seem to get a better print than this. I think solid lines might work best so I'm playing around with the original drawing in photoshop to try and make it more suitable... the saga continues (until I use up all my supplies).
In response to the comments on my previous post, the remaining Gocco printers are now being sold by an Australian company called Nehoc. You can find them here. You can also occasionally find them on ebay (which is where I found mine). They do seem to be a dying breed though.
Years ago I saved up some money and bought myself a Gocco. I really thought it would change my universe, I loved the look of that little orange beast. Well, I ended up using it once and it has sat on the shelf ever since. Such a shame really. So, I recently got organised and ordered myself some new supplies and I'm going to give it another go. I'm unsure about what level of detail you can get out of it but I have sketched up this drawing and am hoping it will work (I admit she looks a little sceptical). I thought about doing a multi colour print but I think I might keep it simple using only black ink and then hand colour it. Fingers crossed!
One of the things I want to do with my art, more than most other things right now, is make it to the edge of the page. That sounds so simple doesn't it? Well, I have so much difficulty getting there, all my pictures float in white space, it's where they feel most comfortable. I like working towards that balance between the negative and positive space on the page. Sometimes however I would also like to be a little bit more grounded. I wouldn't mind a foreground and a background, you know a bit of depth, that kind of thing.
So, seeing as though I have to create a series of small scale works for the Enormous Tiny Art show I thought it might be a good place to start trying out the edge of the page. Each finished image will be approximately 16cm square, two in progress can be seen above... edges almost covered.
I am working on a new series of portraits, at the moment I'm thinking up their stories and playing around with particular colour schemes for each character.
I like the similarities of colour in these pictures.
I found these in the depths of my iphoto library so I apologise for having no links. If you recognise any of them please let me know the exact origin (from memory I think the top one came from a Slotin Fine Art auction and the second one has something to do with the Jane Campion movie Bright Star).
I am slowly beginning to think about a new series of work. I'm excited about this one, I feel like something happy might come about. We shall see... just stretching paper at this stage. I have recently been very inspired by the work of Amanda Blake so I'm wondering if I might like to think up some new ladies in small portrait style...
Aren't they beautiful, these two are also favourites...
If you would like to know more about Amanda Blake, she currently has a great interview over at Artists Who Blog.
You can also visit her website here:
I'm trying to be a bit more professional and start stretching my watercolour paper. The process is not going too well.
I have no pictures either. What an exciting post this one is.
I have exactly four weeks until my next solo exhibition opens and as usual I'm doing battle with the art monster to get the right pictures to appear. I'm thinking of calling the show Somersaults and Strange Company.
Oh, actually I do have a picture. It has something to do with the fact that I am currently sitting in the studio surrounded by mounds of pink and green sand. Thanks to our next group of excellent artists Extended Play gallery is evolving into an alien ecosystem for the month of February...
You can click to enlarge for all the details.
Only some work in progress for the moment, I still seem to be slightly fixated by this lady. For my upcoming show at Extended Play I'm going to be making four long scroll type pieces such as the one above (among other smaller pieces). She's quite tall for me... 60 cm high!
I have started printing very light images on to the drawing and then I'm working into them with watercolour and ink, it feels a bit like cheating but in a good way. Also gives it a nice collage feel, in addition to the drawing and papercutting.
I have two weeks to finish all the work and nothing complete yet. I still need an invite... and a show title... yikes.
Here are a few things that are happening over the next couple of months...
Frankie magazine are soon to release a photo album featuring the work of over 100 amateur and professional photographers. I'm in it! It looks very beautiful so I just thought I would let you know that it is available right here for pre-order.
This week is going to be a big one, Extended Play Gallery is opening this Friday! We are excited and a bit nervous, if you are in the area please come and share a drink with us, we will be very happy to see you! Here are the important details:
Extended Play Gallery
The grand opening of a tiny gallery!
547 High Street Northcote
Friday 2nd October 6 - 9pm
Then... in November I'm going to have another solo show. It will also be at Extended Play Gallery and I'm really looking forward to being able to show in our new space. Oh, I just checked the calender, that's only about five weeks away. Whoa. Hope you can come to that one too.
Finally, if you're a sunny Sydney-sider, I will be participating in the show Once Upon at Ambush Gallery in November. The opening night will be Thursday 19th November, i'll post more sooner to the date.
This is some work in progress for the upcoming show at Extended Play Gallery. For my next body of work I think I'm going to be channeling the spirits of some of my favourite female characters.
First up is real life pirate Anne Bonny. I'm fixated with Anne Bonny at the moment, ever since I found out she has the same birthday as me. A piscean pirate seems quite fitting. She is one intense character and her story is well worth a read if you have a spare minute.
Then there is Sarah Woodruff from John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman. Probably best for me to give you a link if you want to know more, my head thinks in pictures, not too confident with lengthy fictional analysis. Here is the original, and very good, 1969 Time Magazine review of the book.
There's D H Lawrence's Ursula and Gudrun from The Rainbow and Women in Love. Lawrence seemed to cop a bit of flack about his portrayal of women but I find these two characters fascinating.
Finally there is Antoinette Cosway from Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea. Rhys wrote this book as a prequel to Jane Eyre, Antoinette is the first Mrs Rochester.
I think what they all have in common is a kind of split nature. There are intense opposing forces happening in each of them... quite inspiring for the basis of a few drawings!
Work continues on Buttercup and my series of tattooed sailor women, I'm thinking of oval framing them and giving each an accompanying sailing ship, something I suppose like the ceramic plate below. They will hang together as a diptych, each pair being the same size and using similar colours. Maybe, maybe...
Catherine Campbell is an Australian illustrator and art maker.
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