Together 1994

"Paint your Wife" says it all - we can rediscover why we are together again and again and again if we just look.

A practice run

I had not painted for a while, so decided to do this one again... maybe it will become a series. It now lives with Kellie.

Something old into new...

And here I am struggling with water once more... I won't show you the practise runs... Some effects turned well other bits were pure accident. We don't have the negatives of the 2 photos that make up this picture. And Stephen's photo has been damaged. So, something old into new...

Unfinished business

Unfinished Business (2008)

Pastel on Canson MiTeintes

There is no doubt that I could spend another 2 months on this ... but I just don't have the feeling for it any more, and I think to leave it as unfinished work is at this stage quite adequate.

Watercolour 2

Brincos de Princesa (2008)
Watercolour (and Pastel) on Arches (300 gsm)

And so it is finished... The painting is mainly watercolour, but when I put the background down I realised that it was very strong and made the picture very flat. So, in came the pastels - a bit of cool blue - very faint, just enough to bring the foliage out of the way. What I learned with watercolour to date is that I will have to do a LOT more planning if I want my pictures to work. Regardless, I really enjoyed doing this one... it was in a sense 'healing'.

Watercolours 1

I have recently taken on the challenge of learning how to paint with watercolours. Basically I needed a medium that was a bit "faster" than pencils (so I thought), and I am not keen on having to frame every painting (as with pastels). I also thought that in time, watercolours would allow me to do a bit of multi-media by combining the best of pencils, pastels and the watercolour themselves...



I has been a hard road...

This is my very first attempt... Nice leaves on the ground, but it was not going to work...

The second try had a bit more potential, but soon I realised that composition was lacking...

On the third try I was feeling a bit more confident about my progress. I still think that the picture is not working, so at this stage it is resting on the side and I will tackle it again at a later date...

Launching into Life (2008)
Watercolour on Arches 300 gsm

Launching into Life is the first watercolour I considered finished, the mistakes abound, but I am happy that it conveys the message. This is a picture of my son jumping on a trampoline, I prefer to think of us parents as providing the support he needs to launch into life safely...

"Brincos de Princesa" is still work in progress... I am receding the foliage into the background and tackling her hair (that is me by the way - a long time ago, granted!). The frilly hybiscus were a favourite of my grandfather and he called them 'princess earrings'. Since painting One Love, I have been wanting to do a series of happy moments... this is the first one.

Painting 1

My painting journey started 2 years ago - early 2006. I was really just tagging along my husband and hoping for a bit of fun... There was nothing I wanted to accomplish and I had no idea what it could become.

Victor at Totara Reserve, 2006
(coloring pencil)

I started rather simple. I like colour and I am passionate about my son. I also had memories of boxes of colouring pencil from my childhood - I absolutely love the smell of a new box. I never gave much thought to art medium choices. I really wanted to play, recapture some of those scents and colours of a long time ago.

My art teacher had different ideas. She loves pastels. So I had a try:

Rock and Stick, 2006
(pastel)

And I kept on trying... with an added dimension... I started to use painting as a a way to express some of my frustrations...

I-Scream, 2006
(Pastel on MiTeintes board)

I-Scream is really about not being able to have satisfaction from simple things. It is about a time when life felt more like a struggle, when you had to earn every single moment of it. It was produced immediately after Dream-Scape below; where, as it says, it is about fleeing reality, and getting an adrenaline rush in the process.

Dream-Scape, 2006
(Pastel on MiTeintes)

I still wanted to get back to pencils and produce something that was about love... it did not take long to find the perfect subject... The picture below has been on my (and hubby's) mind for a long time. We tried a variety of mediums and cropping in different angles and shapes...

One love, 2008
(Pencil on Velum)

Velum and pencil are a great combination!

I did get back to pastels... I was feeling a bit angry... The picture below is a copy from the web (I need to acknowledge the source I guess... need to find it again...). Not finished yet though...