I am very excited that I will be having an exhibition at Ararat Regional Art Gallery from September 15th to October 30th. There will be an artist talk/ opening on Saturday the 17th of September at 1PM.
Author Archives: lilymae
Remember Me
( Title of post from websites having the Remember Me option. )
The Period is coming. I’ve felt it turning in my guts over the last few days, dragging down my lower back. But I refuse to sit and take stock, I just want to draw, draw, draw. Sunday morning I got up early ( I am not a morning person ) to pack and clean the beach house and just get home. Once home and hangrily making and thus devouring a cheese and pickle toastie ( these details are important ) I marched straight up into my studio and got back to working on the above piece.
I am working between the figurative and the landscape, not sure if I’ll fuse them together or just create two separate bodies of works ( I mean, why not ) and so far I plan to get two more figurative pieces and two more landscapes done before the year is out. ( The landscapes take me months to do… months.. all those lines )
I’m so inspired and proud that my work has gotten into some fine prizes this year, off the back of my first solo show with Scott Livesey Galleries. It has been a productive and rewarding year and we are only just half way through. I’m working super hard and I am just going to keep on going.
I love drawing.
Beach house in winter
We’re at a beachside town and there’s no one here but the birds. It feels like we’ve had several days worth of Sunday’s. It’s pretty amazing. I’ve unplugged from Facebook and feel like my mind is so much clearer. I said to my other half ” I fear I’ll be on my death bed and be like goddamn I wasted so much of my time on Facebook”
I have to address this, it feels like social media taps into a part of my brain that can’t stop drinking alcohol, or can’t stop eating shitty food. It doesn’t feel healthy. I’m so stressed with how accessible I am all the time. How easy it is to look up people from the past and how normal that seems to be. How not liking posts or having seen a message, but not responding means things. It’s like I need to be diligent with everything, all the time.
I need to switch off more often, be present with the people that are in my life now. Value my time. I know Facebook has changed the way we interact with content online and effects out relationships IRL. I’ve experienced it all! But I can’t keep this up, I don’t want to keep this up. It’s doing my head in.
Drawing last night and my husband said ” do you find that relaxing?” Yes, yes I do 🙂
So got to tune out more, get some more balance back in my life. Social media has done some great things, but I do want some more of my pre social media life back. I want relationships to form more organically, I want to give things the actual time it needs rather then being swept up in likes and generating content.
All photos by Gene the magic one.
My girl
Seated Nude – New Drawing
Seated Nude
By Lily Mae Martin
105 x 75cm
Ink on paper
2016
It may seem a little haphazard, the way I work. My last finished piece that I posted here was a landscape..
…which took me several months to draw ) but I assure you there is a method to the madness!
Sort of.
Such a relief it was, going back to working on the body. I’m trying to work out ways of combining the two – but I am not quite there yet. Though I have heaps of ideas and I am super excited.
Though I love this drawing –
– my girl in a cave, it was an experiment – I don’t think it quite achieved It. ( Whatever It is, I’m still trying to work that out .. )
This worked –
Morning Song, ink on paper, 76 x 56cm , 2016
But I am not sure how to make that a series. That’s ok, I still got some nudes to draw in their negative space and some landscapes without figures to finish and then, hopefully, I have worked out a little bit more in my head and with my hands what it is that I am making.
Still, looking through this post alone with the drawings I have made this year I cannot express to you how excited I am about making the new works and how proud I am of what I have already created. Not meaning to sound up myself or nothing – but if there’s no joy in what you do then what’s the point.
My back aches and the nude is fresh off of the board. Time for a tea and some sleep.
Making the work
Husband finished work last week and it’s my time to work full time! Except – he’s been given more work but I was all ready so am going ahead and doing it anyway!
I’ve got a whole lot of inspiration and am just so so so happy to be working away in my studio away from the rest of the world.
Six
Poppet turned six years old this week. I decided to experiment with cake and fondant and what an adventure it has been! I have to admit that I don’t want to know about cake for a little while..
The red cake was for her school friends, I thought it wouldn’t work out but it did and she was really proud to take it into school and share.
The blue cake is for her birthday party. It’s a white chocolate mud cake ( I made a test cake the other night and we all ate half of it so fast that it put us off of our dinner! ) with a rose butter cream and then the fondant cover and little creatures that I made. Totally didn’t plan it very well, totally didn’t come out as I wanted it to but she LOVES it so, success!
She drew this this morning of daddy playing the banjo – I have to share it because it is so awesome.
National Works on Paper Prize opening
This weekend we had a family adventure. We travelled to the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery to attend the opening of the National Works on Paper Prize. The exhibition was beautiful, the gallery was welcoming and there were some pretty stand out artists in attendance!!
I am very pleased to say that I am the winner of the Ursula Hoff Institute Emerging Artist Acquisitive Art Award 2016. Kidlet jumped up when my named was announced and hugged me and was so proud – it was a beautiful thing. I am feeling super honoured and pleased and even though I hadn’t slept much because kidelt has been up in the night and we had travelled for hours – I just felt so motivated and excited to get back to drawing. So after the wonderful celebration that was the opening, we went and ate to much Thai and went back to the motel to watch a movie and I drew.
Photo borrowed from the MPRG facebook page.
Wrestling three, ink on paper, 75 x 105cm, 2015
Yellow tail black cockatoos
This morning I watched two white cockatoos fight off crows around the town hall clock. I love watching birds but I especially love cockatoos. They are so beautiful and striking yet they make the most horrible racket. When we lived on 20 acres they’d decorate trees and you could hear them from miles away. Squabbles and squawks that are just so very funny.
A few hours later I am walking home and hear all this crackling and mumbling and I look across the road to a rather slight wattle tree with the largest amount of yellow tailed black cockatoos I have ever seen at the one time. There must have been over twenty of them. They were feasting and babbling away and I am just so happy after seeing them. How lucky we are.
Sorting
I sorted out my studio space today – it’s detached from the house and has become the dumping ground for many a box. So, since school has gone back I have taken this opportunity to start clearing and cleaning. ( This sort of activity helps with missing kidlet too! )
I threw away so many memories today. It was time. I’ve been dragging a lot of stuff around for a long time.
Oh, and I found sketch book after sketch book and have rescued what I can. Time to store some things better, I think.