Sketchbooks sketchy sketch

Well hello. Again, it has been a long time. I’ve been trying to sort out life and getting into the rhythm of my ever changing routines. I left one job and have started a new one, it’s really fantastic to be working and studying – I am doing different things and learning so much. Sometimes I feel very overwhelmed but don’t we all.

Art has been going well, a little different but I’ve had some very nice things occur for me this year. That is for another post as I wanted to make this one about – SKECTHING and saying hello.

It is very nice to be skecthing again. I thought I’d take on a big painting project this year but I couldn’t afford my studio space and my new home has no space for paint. See I like the toxic stuff so I am not doing it in the house. Why not use the non toxic stuff you say, because I think it’s shite and if there is one area of my life that I have control over – it is this. I lost the sketching knack for a bit there, had to endure months and months of producing rubbish. Now I feel good and am training my eye again. I hope the next body of drawings I do a way better than what has gone before. Which is important to me in my practice, which I know I have banged on about before.

SO lockdown five for us, I am still working as I am an essential worker these days. What a time hey. I am really trying to get as much experience as I can and do my best.

What I can manage now are the skecthes and they are helping rebuild my confidence. Yes I have lost a lot of that, wah wah but here’s to continuously  trying to claw myself out of the dark with pen and paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See you super soon and I hope you are eating plenty of veggies.

 

 

Sketches – strange garden, fearless girl and an Escher pie

G’Day!

I’ve still been slack updating but have been very happily making. Can you believe summer has ended ( but has it really ) and now we are plowing our way through March. Such a productive summer holidays, I like to keep activities – the schedule – open for some nice relaxed times together. Life is to be enjoyed, creating together the most heart filling things I have ever done with my time. Though, Daughter still gets cross at me because I don’t draw from my imagination ( and I don’t use colour and why does everyone have to be naked in your art all the time? )

Look, kids will always highlight the flaws, right?

Here’s some sketches mostly from drawing with my daughter but also one time with a drawing group here..

Daughter and I went to Melbourne to see the Escher exhibition.. I saw that the Fearless Girl by Kristen Visbal sculpture had been installed at Fed Square so I took her to see it and draw.

I made an Escher pie to celebrate!

 

 

This is a couple of the many sketches I made of the Brett Whiteley and George Baldessin exhibition a number of months back. I was approached by security and told off for using a pen and when I was polite he let me off of the hook but also said had of I not been so nice he would have thrown me out. Very odd. I left and went to the front desk to borrow a pencil because when I am at exhibitions alone, I want to be left alone.

 

Here’s the one from the drawing group – at the Eureka memorial gardens, it really was a lovely time. ( Gene scanned this one in, look at the wonderful job he did. Jeez he’s good 🙂 )

 

Here are some quick ones from a few art days at the Art Gallery of Ballarat with daughter. We both drew and crafted HEAPS. It was when Eliza Jane Gilchrist’s Strange Garden exhibition was on.

Then cafe snacks and tea time, of course, at Kittelty’s

 

I look forward to more drawing with my daughter days, but for now – school pick up calls..

BYE

new sketchbook

Sunday sketch – a rainy day

On Saturday I gifted myself a new sketchbook.

It’s the perfect size – the paper is not too thin, not too thick. I know it’s a good one because I’ve already filled in a number of its pages – there’s a lot of bad drawings; plants and one of the cat. But the ones I love the most are of Daughter human. There’s already a lot of her in there because she’s home at the moment.

Monday sketch – home early from school and making creatures 

I’m so thrilled to just be drawing for drawing with no real plan right now. I’ve finished a bunch of new little drawings, I’ll post about that when they are ready to be sold. Buy them!

Tuesday drawing – heidi hair

We’re all a little over the wind, the rain and the cold but I think that’s normal for the end of July on this side of the globe. To think that the place she was born in she was a summer baby!

Speaking of the place she was born – Wales-  a tree was planted there when she was born, and now there’s a fruit tree planted in Uganda. What’s a better gift in this world than children and trees! More on that in the coming months.

Stay warm and hydrated people!

 

 

 

“You draw even when you’re upset”

Is something G said to me a few weeks back and it has been stuck in my mind. Especially over these last few weeks since being back, when so much life things have been happening and I have had to get very creative about getting myself time and space to draw. A lot of the time I worry that I can’t get and never get anything done.

I’ve been scratching away at this drawing for the last almost two weeks – in between looking after a very unwell child ( poor pickle ) and supervising the Kitty and The Chooks..
It’s about A5 in size, so it is very small for me. I’m not too happy about my last drawing – I mean it just feels like it is missing some magic. So I’m busy doing the ground work – the work before the work – right now.

Little one has been ill, and I drew this of her while she was napping.. Only half way through it her temperature spiked and I rushed her to see a doctor. What happened next was only stuff that I never even dreamed of – being a parent is so glamourous – but she came good and that is what really matters.

She drew and cut out mermaids – there are like twenty of them and I am meaning to work out a way to put them altogether to keep them safe. It can be maddening how much stuff gets everywhere with little people – but finding her drawings really, really is something special.

So, the chooks. We got these girls about a fortnight ago now, I can’t believe how lucky we are.. They are 4 and 5 years old and are not seen apart. I am home a lot so they get freerange of the yard. They even put themselves to bed – why can’t children be more like chickens!? I kid, I kid..
I’ve had a burst of new ideas for an artwork, but because of Life things I can’t get to it right away, so today I thought I’d draw the girls their portraits.

Meet Sooty & Maude

That’s all from me for now — it is time to shut down and get offline while I experiment and play with ideas.

Pens down, feet on the ground


I was fumbling about in the studio so I put things down and have been out and about. Autumn has been beautiful and I’ve been walking; looking at the birds and enjoying the colour of the leaves changing, watching the clouds and taking in the smoke from all of the burn offs – ’tis the season.


I’ve been reading about colour and thinking about the different was I could utilize them in artworks – all stuff I must have studied once upon a time however it has been a long time! So these thoughts have been informing the way I have been looking at the landscapes I have been trudging around in. It’s pretty amazing.


When I can’t adventure I’ve been weeding in my garden and making plans for what new friends we can grow/ get for our yard.

My Poppet is unwell this evening and I use these moments as a time to do a quick sketch!

Sketching

I did a whole lot of sketches last night, my studio is covered in them and it feels like that is the way it should be and I curse any time it has been any thing other than this!
Anyway I know I am doing work that I probably shouldn’t be doing as there are some works that should be done but I’ll get on top of all of that next week I promise.

Here’s one sketch I did..

Three Hearts

Today I did not attempt to work in my studio because it was very, very hot. So I settled for podcasts under the fan and smaller sketching and working out some things that are admin and very dull. So tomorrow it is Friday, feels like that came about super soon ( as did 2017, as did being thirty three, as did my grey hairs.. ) so I think I should like, leave the house and do things in preparation for a whole weekend drawing! yay!!!

Drawing together

Ah, school holidays.
Movie, draw, draw, movie, movie, draw, draw, eat, wee, sleep…. Kidlet did hang out the washing without being asked and weeded some of the garden. I felt like these holidays were a huge abyss opening up in front of us all and now I can see the end of it already so quick sticks gotta make the most of it… And so, here are some of the drawings we have been doing together:

Movie watching.

I love how there is an arrow used to demonstrate that Kitty has transformed into a Pegasus. Super hero Kidelt is like “Let’s Save the World!” and casual-kitty-now-Pegasus still has a meh attitude of a cat “Okay”.. haha.. Okay. LOVE it.

NYE was SO BORING. But that’s ok. Just a night, I drew my new jug, it’s blue.
The jar with the dying flowers was one of about four at the time. Kidet will often come inside announcing “MUMMY, I HAVE PICKED YOU SOME FLOWERS!” and her fist will be full of various weeds. I will fill a jar with water and it’ll sit about the house until they have wilted and the water is putrid. But I never deny them. I do ask her not to pick flowers too much though, there’s got to be something left for the bees.

Snowman drawing, I assume it’s because we are still watching all the terrible Christmas themed movies just to really get it out of our systems.

Sleepy face, we have been very active despite me just telling you about all the movies we have been watching. But I don’t have to share everything 😉

This just in – found my wedding ring. PHEW.

The work before the work to make the work

m_olle_sketch_lily_mae_martin

I was watching an interview of Margaret Olley with Jennifer Brockie on ABC Arts ( from 1998 ) and sketched the above picture. I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries and listening to podcasts. I don’t have too much to update here at the moment; just been doing life and banana bread baking and soup making and reading of the books. I’ve had a few sessions with models and I’ve ventured out to exhibitions and artist talks. Slowly getting things back into focus. I’ve been doing a little commission job. Found some great costumes for kidlet and I for halloween.

My mind keeps thinking that the end of the year is already here because I’d set up all these things to do and have done nearly all of them and now I’m like ok it’s done, but 2016 still has a few good months left in it. I’ve been acting a little as if I am on holiday and I’ve not been setting myself any tasks other than the day to day stuff that’s too boring, too personal, to write about here. I am trying to grow my hair – a ponytail for Christmas please. I am trying to eliminate sugar from our diets – sugar is in everything, this seems freaking impossible. I’m trying to get back to work and make the work and be interested and interesting.

Part of me worries that I don’t keep up enough, I don’t make enough, I don’t go to this enough.. Well, I know I don’t go to things nearly enough but that cannot be helped at this life stage. So, the other part of me doesn’t worry about it and thinks that this is fine.

Anyway, the most important thing is that I’ve done the work before the work to make the work. Like, I got the subjects, I got the paper and the ink and now I’ve got to put them altogether and make more beautiful drawings. I keep thinking I should pick up a paint brush or too, but time is limited and with the limits I have to prioritize and drawing is the priority. I still do collect things for paintings, they just tae a whole lot longer to brew, I suppose. It’ll happen. Just in real time, in my time – not internet time. Fast, fast, fast.

So a new week begins, the rain still falls and people still complain.

kittybath

xx