Author Archives: lilymae

Back on the oils

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The exhibition is opening THIS Saturday. I’m trying to do all the things and more and more I am beginning to understand that I cannot. Like in my art I like to do many different things with my life and then all the time gets filled up and I find myself doing everything kind of half heartedly and in bed sick or I hurt my back, like I did today.

But I still sketch and plot and plan and make contact with the unsuspecting asking them to pose for me and wish that I had more time to do all the paintings and drawings and .. all the things.

The weather is changing here and I am feeling motivated and excited again. I spent all of last Saturday back on the oils and it was bliss. Exhausting, but blissful.

New painting – Georgia Fields

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I like painting but I struggle with oils. It’s smelly, it’s sticky and I really can’t do it inside the house with a small child. I’ve been playing with water colours and gouache for about a year now and thought that maybe I could buy myself some proper paper and do a large portrait series.

I asked Georgia Fields to pose for me – continuing on with making portraits of people who are inspired/ inspiring. She said yes – obviously!

This is mainly painted in watercolour with gouache highlights. It’s on Sennelier cotton paper, size 64 x 49cm. The paper cost me a small fortune but basically working on it is like a dream/ mad love affair/ all awesome feelings pressed into 300gsm paper.

Sexy, sexy expensive French paper.

The hair took up most of my time – it is layers and layers and layers of colours and paint at different transparencies. I think I nearly went mad – as I do with a lot of my works – but I am proud of the result.

And now, I must start work on another one.

Reflecting Surfaces – Elwyn Murray

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Today Toddler, Mum and I went to this exhibition by Elwyn Murray at the Counihan Gallery, it’s a smart space situated to the side of the Brunswick Library. I had been looking forward to this exhibition and I just felt I had to tell everyone I know to go and see it.

My gosh it’s good. It’s not something that you can capture or get an idea of in a photograph so this is part of the reason why I am telling people to go but mostly – you can really see the work, effort and love that has gone into it – it deserves peoples time.

This man has a lovely hand and I’m just so impressed and excited and wow – it’s one of those things I am going to be remembering for a long time.

Reflecting surfaces is open until July the 21st.

You can see more of Elwyn’s work on his website here: Elywn Murray

Gallery information is here: Counihan Gallery 

 

 

 

Drawing our vintage camera collection

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autopak-lily-mae-martin

brownie-lily-mae-martin

I’ve taken to drawing our cameras over the last fortnight – it’s good for my brain and nice to be doing something a little more freehand.

We have quite an large collection and I’m also making plans to draw and paint other objects I admire around our house. There’s the bulky type writer I recently bought – ugly but functional – the vintage kitchen cabinet I snatched up from Gumtree, then random pieces of crockery and tea cups. You get the idea. Lots of things.

I want to draw all the things.

Documentary Drawing for Pop Up School

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I’ll be teaching a drawing class at the beautiful Abbotsford Convent for Pop Up School – Documentary Drawing. It will focus on turning the mundane and everyday into art.
Details:
Date: Saturday 20 July 2-5pm

Venue: Antique Bookstore, Abbotsford Convent

Fee: $75 Full $68 Concession Materials will be supplied.

 

Working, thinking

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I feel like I have been drawing this drawing forever. Which is utter nonsense because I only started it last week .. perhaps the week before.

But I’m at that point where even though I work and things get drawn and it’s evolving – I feel like it isn’t going anywhere.

Perhaps this is the danger of focusing all of my time on just one artwork. Maybe this is why I ( usually ) work on many artworks at once. Because if there is just one work then I think about that work. I think about it while I’m working on it, I think about it when I am packing up from working on it, I think about it at dinner time, I think about it while I’m showering, spending time with loved ones, changing a nappy. I think about it on trains and in cafés and I think about it while I am trying to sleep. Which is the worst because with no other outside influence I think about it in a hyper-realistic state. I note the textures, the way the ink takes hold of the paper, the layers – I feel myself drawing it.

So then I am doing all of this thinking and feeling and it’s taken up so much of me it almost feels like it is going to implode. There’s too much and when there’s so much information and feelings it’s almost like I’ve experienced this artwork completely and then I think, well, I don’t have to finish it. Because I’m kind of lost to it and what’s the point anyway.

So this is the point I photograph and upload it onto this blog to say look, I’m making things and something is happening – even if my tired brain, eyes and hands tell me otherwise.