Greetings

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I have just returned from an amazing adventure in Scotland and Wales with my little family. I am still unpacking and sorted my head out. How awful are plane trips and all the security and single use plastic!  😛

Very happy to be home and itching to get my studio set up and back to drawing.

Sketches and the like soon ~

 

Thank you Ma for feeding the cat!

 

For The Joy

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I have lots of different little drawings that I do that don’t go to the gallery in Melbourne. An important part of my practice is to be consistently drawing. Which means a lot of it falls outside of the more planned and thought out works for bigger exhibitions.

Of late I am being asked by more and more people what I plan to do with these drawings. They are different to the more well known works but they still have something. This sort of work I really begun back in Germany in 2011. So it’s had a few years to work itself out and I’ve incorporated it into my everyday life so there is almost always something in the making. Even if it is shit and I don’t share it. 😛

To be honest I am not sure what I can do, and also on this honesty ride if I think too much about it it makes me feel a bit deflated. Australia is hard yakka in regards to the arts, regional towns even moreso. ( Putting it mildly, my friends ) There’s so many things you’ve got to be decent at as a practicing artist and even if you’re good at a few of them – it’s never enough.

And

If

You

Have

Children

It

Is

Even

More

Shut

Off

To

You

.

So for now, I’ll make my drawings, and maybe we’ll see what we see in a few years to come. I’ve hundreds of little ones, safely in a box my husband made for me. A few in frames as Daughter has claimed a few of her favourites.

Mount Clear, after the fire Lily Mae Martin 18x25cm. Ink on cotton paper 2019

Botanical Gardens

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Botanical gardens

 

It’s before dawn and I’m up doing admin stuff so when I get Kidelt off to her day of school I can just draw. There is always a lot to do, and it’s tricky trying to do many things well. I’ve really been trying to step out of my bubble and be part of things but I’m also aware that outside of family and art I have little to no time left. It won’t always be like this, but it is how it is at this point.

Recenely I recieved a phone call from an artist I connected with over instagram many years ago. It blew me away as I didn’t relaize how much I needed that chat. She sparked the fire in my belly – in regards to making art and you know having to do things a little differently because we are both mothers but hey, we can make it happen. She was full of ideas and sounded so enthusiastic – it caught on.

Thank you Jasmine, you are a true treasure!

I’ve been working in my studio on a project I can’t write about or share with you at the moment, but that’s ok. It’s nice to have focus and to do things a little differently. So you’ll just have to put up with the drawings I do of my daughter for now. There’s quite a collection. She’s turning nine this year. We’re about to head off on a family holiday so this space will be quite until mid June.

Thanks for reading and all of your support.

 

Inky Dinks

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Again I have been overthinking social media and worrying about what I post and trying to only put up finished works etc. But that’s not true to an artists practice, for every decent drawing there’s a heck of a lot of sketches or smaller drawings that may not be as refined. Look it’s school holidays and that means I get to be playful with things rather than doing the same thing everyday.

Shadow Poppet 

 

Me: “Kiddo you can’t leave that there, please take it off..” Kiddo: “But it’s a kitty, and I made it” Me: “It’s slime and it’s on the coffee table. Clean it up. Now.” Kiddo : “OK then, but can you draw it?” Me:

 

 

Splotch Kitty 

 

Sir Boots

 

Ink Splotch Swans

 

Self

 

Daughter

 

Currawong / Magpie 

 

Weekend drawing that failed 

 

Monstera Deliciosa that was my father in laws.

 

So that’s a lot but not all. 🙂

More soon!

Self in paint

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I’ve set myself the task of painting a self portrait each day of the week this week. It’s been an interesting, boring and infuritaing task but I’m sure it’ll do me good. Most are done during my post gym time – before I have to do everything else.


 

 

My day in red was a painful one. I somehow managed to make myself do this. Powered by panadol and coffee – but it is a good reminder of how far I have come on my period journey, what my surgery has and has not achieved. Some days, you just gotta rest.

 

This one feels a little pompous. Could it be the pose? Could it be the hair? Could I just be really good at putting yself down? Probably all of those things.

 

And then I have to rush this morning, so I did a quick one in ink.

Not sure I love any of these, but that’s ok.

Baker

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Sometimes baking with children can be infuriating. I have ideas about how things should be – especially things like how the cookie should be shaped, and Kidlet has her own ideas. We butt heads – she sometimes refuses to read things from the ingredients list or pretend she can’t find something because she can’t be bothered. I’m probably a bit yelling and militant in the kitchen.

We are forever arguing about tying her hair up because long, loose hair is a hazard.

But we make some bloody good cakes and cookies and pies together and I am sure she is getting something from all this, yes? Apart from Mummy can be yelly and won’t let me lick everything, all the time.