Ride
By Lily Mae Martin
30 x 30cm
Ink on paper
2016
More to come…
For any sales please contact Scott Livesey Galleries
909A High Street,
Armadale, Victoria, Australia
e: info@scottliveseygalleries.com
Ph: (03) 9824 7770
Tag Archives: contemporary drawing
Small drawing
Dancer
By Lily Mae Martin
30 x 30cm
Ink on paper
2016
I’m playing around with scale at the moment, which sounds straight forward but has been surprisingly challenging. Another thing to show me that when I think I know it all, I really don’t know all the much. It’s humbling.
It’s been a lot of fun but some of them I sketch and scribble at and still think no no no, this has to be a larger work. It won’r feel right until I’ve spent several months scratching away at it.
Though I have a fair bit of reference material it’s amazing what I thought would work on a smaller scale doesn’t work at all. Husband said I should aim for less detail to which I did not agree with. ( Though he is probably right because he is objective and far more sensible that I but no no no, not the detail!! )
Ah, I am meant to be vacuuming and feeding my body breakfast but I am already getting tucked into my work.
It’s good to be back.
For any sales please contact Scott Livesey Galleries
909A High Street,
Armadale, Victoria, Australia
e: info@scottliveseygalleries.com
Ph: (03) 9824 7770
In the gully – new drawing
In the gully – Waterloo state forest
By Lily Mae Martin
76 x 56cm
Ink on paper
2016
This is half the size of the other landscape I did, but I am pretty sure it took me just as long? There’s so much detail in this, the tiny bits of trees and shrubs.. So many times I felt I couldn’t do it. So many times I thought I should stop and move on but I pushed on through.
Though the news last week made me think well, what’s the fucking point? And I just stopped when it was a mere two hours work from completion.
I’ve spent the last week trying to keep my cool. Not quit all my jobs and all of my life. I think I did well. I may have eaten too much toast and bread and a whole thing of brownies – but considering the destruction I used to be capable of – I’ve really made myself proud.
I had coffee with a friend on Friday and as we were saying our goodbyes I think I was mumbling something about my drawing going down the toilet and she said she could spot all the different species in the one I was working on, and how cool it was. And just like that, the light went on and I was really excited again.
So thank you, friend 🙂
News!
Hello –
This is me and my face at the opening of the Paul Guest Drawing Prize last week at the Bendigo Art Gallery..
Crawling
By Lily Mae Martin
Ink on paper
105 x 75cm
2016
The opening was fantastic, I was sad kidlet couldn’t make it because she was spewing but it’s OK because
I have been am very proud to say that I am a finalist in the Grafton Regional Gallery’s 2016 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award (JADA) !!!!!!
And she can come to that one!
Untitled
By Lily Mae Martin
77 x 57 cm
Ink on paper
2015
I am really, really pleased and feel so lucky.
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.
New drawing – Waterloo State Forest, view from the back
Waterloo State Forest, view from the back
Lily Mae Martin
105 x 75cm
Ink on Paper
Waterloo State Forest, view from the back is an exploration of death and grief through the peripheral. Much of my work focuses on the intimate details of the human body, but watching a loved one die can complicate that work. Death is the process of the body shutting down, and documenting that isn’t always possible or right. Waterloo is the documentary of a life passing, and of the lives around it changing, as it is experienced through the landscape: a hushed forest, pitted with mineshafts; the perpetual shifting of light and shadow; the symbiosis of regrowth and decay.
Close Up
It took about two weeks to find my way with this work, which was hard but so worth it. Now I can’t wait to get to drawing and I do have to stop and do adult things and parent things but I am so lucky my studio is just out the back so once everyone is in bed I can just get back to it.
I think I will get this done sooner than I thought, and I have a second one planned.
Under Skin, Under Earth – A Tribute
Under Skin, Under Earth. Ink on paper, 56 x 76cm , 2016
My Grandmother died a few days before I finished this drawing, it has been so hard to finish.
This begun as an experiment, which is the best part of not having a deadline – experimentation. I want to find ways to explore mortality – all the life and death lessons I have experienced over the last couple of years. I thought I would write about them – but that doesn’t feel like the right to do for me.
I’ve tried drawing people’s objects and painting still lives of flowers, while they were fun to do, they were not enough. I’ve been road tripping and sitting and reading and sketching and photographing and I get inklings of things and then I moved towards other things. I’ll get there, I’ll find it.
When I was a teenager, I spoke to Grandmother on the phone and she had asked me about my drawing. She always asked me about my drawing. When I told her I wasn’t doing that anymore she told me that I was being silly/ stupid/ ridiculous – one of those words, all of which I was deserving. I was such an angry teenager and was putting all that anger into being destructive towards myself instead of being constructive. Anyway, she said I was being silly/ stupid/ ridiculous – that I have a gift. I shouldn’t waste it.
So I’ve been trying not to waste it. I’ve had busy hands for a number of years now. In my early twenties I was making toys, she showed me how to make a simply teddy out of felt. I made a pirate one and Grandma examined it, said I was clever but I make repulsive things. I was really proud.I’ve been trying to make things that I think she would be interested in, my art has run the gamut of angst to art school to hyper sexualized to general interest and exploration of body to telling life stories. The kind of stories that Grandma’s would be interested in. It pains me that when our minds and experience become so rich, our bodies begin to age and fail.
Grandma passed away on Monday evening, I looked up the clock face of the Melbourne Town Hall around the time she left. When I got the texts and the calls and found out what time I remember this moment.. I wonder of it is connected. But maybe that’s just what we all do, try to find meaning in things and maybe there isn’t any meaning.
We are all so temporary. It’s heartbreaking.
News~
Morning Song, ink on paper, 76 x 56cm , 2016
Hallo!
I am really pleased to say that my drawing Morning Song has been shortlisted for the Rick Amor drawing prize and my drawing Wrestling Three has been shortlisted for the National Works on Paper prize.
These are both really amazing exhibitions and I am really, really proud of the work that I have going into these exhibitions.
The Rick Amor opens July 9th at the Art Gallery of Ballarat and the National Works on Paper Prize opens 16th of July at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery.
Hope you can make it down to see the works while they are on display. Good luck to all the shortlisted artists!
Wrestling three, ink on paper, 75 x 105cm, 2015
One Hour Drawings
Grandma’s salt and pepper kitties
Over the last week I have been back in my studio, I begun a drawing that I think will take me about three months to complete. It’s new and something I have wanted to explore for a while, yet wasn’t ready – until now. Also this week I pushed myself back into drawing from life. I have slacked off a bit with that. So I set myself one hour for each of these drawings, and pushed myself to get as much as I could on the page to a timer.
Tetris Kitchen
Elephant ears plant
Table Stuff
Phallic Banana
Seriously – how phallic is it!
Nose Dive
The last one is a drawing of a bird that I found this morning. I was walking past a hospital and saw something fall to the ground from my peripheral – it made a noise when it landed that made me turn. I thought it dead but when I looked closer I saw it’s tiny body breathing, little black eyes blinking at me. So I called wildlife rescue and while giving my location details, so a rescuer could come and collect the bird, it opened it’s beak up super wide and then it just stopped. Last breath. It blinked no more. So I told the lady on the other end and she asked that I could at least move it so people wouldn’t step on it, which I did. And then I drew it. What a strange thing to witness but at least I was there in it’s final moments so it didn’t get stepped on.