Baker

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.

 

Little drawings from lately.

I haven’t been able to write in a long time, so I’m just going to post my drawings. There’s a lot I haven’t shared, but at the moment, as long as I am making – that’s my priority.

I know stories with the drawings is lovely, details and describtions and full blog posts are ideal. I just cannot do it all. Marketing and networking, grant writing and researching ( reading, writing – why are you so hard ) There are only so many hours in the day, week, months and years. Lately I have been pretty proud of how prolific I am in my sketching, drawing and painting. And doing it with my kid too. Wow eight year olds are bloody fantastic!

 


Lake Wendouree, there are many birds to watch and visit and enjoy.

Ballarat, Victoria

Enviromental distruction from 100+ years ago.

Goldfields, Western Victoria

” This is our favourite tree” – Botanical Gardens, Ballarat

 

( Always ) Drawing unicorns – a gift for a special friend.

 

Sleeping through Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

 

 

Whee

It’s amazing how powerful the story we tell ourselves is.

I’ve always thought myself to be limited in terms of juggling family and art, and in someways I am; the structure of  Australian arts is not family friendlly .. That’s a whole other post I could write, I don’t really want to today, I want to focus on the positive 🙂

Over this last month I have pushed myself to get up very early and begin work. 5/ 5:30AM. I go to my studio and am scratching away with the inks or pushing paint around a board until the sun comes up and the birds are awake. I have completed three of my large drawings in under one month and finished four small paintings. I’ve still had some great times with Kidlet and friends. The house is a little messier than usual but hey – that’s summer holidays and life with a kid who is endlessly creating.

I am really proud of a lot of the work I have created. It’s dark, a little wild, silly, technically challenging. I am really proud of myself.

So hopefully I’ll have some news soon.

Whee

 

G’Day Dürer

A few years ago I did a drawing of Dürer’s preyer hands. But it was a quick drawing and I feel like I am way better at drawing now than I was then so decided to revisit it. While I was looking at reference material I came across more hands studies of his so decided to do a few. These are the drawings I can do while on the run – cafes, swimming chauffeur duties, at the kitchen table waiting for red beans to cook down.

I started out with seven and have ended up with five that I am happy with.

 

 

 

All drawings are 14x19cm, by Lily Mae Martin

 

Thank you for reading and looking and sharing and supporting my work. I have a number of drawings I haven’t added here and I will do soon.

 

 

bird of paradise

Earlier in the year I ran an observing nature drawing work shop at the Art Gallery of Ballarat. Each class I would bring in seeds, flower and leaf samples. In the end, as it was getting colder and my flowers were not flowering I was sourcing from florists.

Teaching drawing is pretty amazing, but it’s also a battle as I just really want to sit down and draw too. I took in two birds of paradise flowers to the final class and decided to also draw it – after the class, of course 😛

This was months ago but I forgot about it and just came across it in my sketch book last week. I think it is pretty good.

Inexorable – new drawing

Inexorable, 105x75cm by Lily Mae Martin, ink on cotton paper- 2018
Drawing photographed by Gene Hammond-Lewis .

 

I did various studies for this drawing, and then I took my time rendering and rendering and trying out a slightly different technique to the usual. Then my kid got sick, I got sick, kid got sick again and it seems like I had been working on this drawing for so long I couldn’t see it anymore. In fact Gene and my kid both told me that it was finished and I didn’t believe them for about a week.

Titling this work was hard too, I had read various poems and birth prayers to try and convey what this work is about in one or few words, what a job.

I loved these lines from Plath’s Three Women in regard to birth

I do not have to think, or even rehearse.
What happens in me will happen without attention.

And the line from the birth prayer by Louis Macneice

I am not yet born

Judith Wright’s Women to Child

You who were darkness warmed my flesh

But as with the work and the title I have to accept them for what they are – a piece of a larger conversation, all of my works. And to not put so much on one work, one title that I can’t move forward.

When I accepted this I was happy again, though I must say the difficulty also comes from a year of very little recognition, little positive feedback – or any feedback. It gets very easy to get lost. I don’t expect to be in everything but nothing is a little tricky to navigate. So this too – makes it very hard to see my work and to keep on going.

Anyway, here we are – I did it and I am digging extra deep to keep on keeping on.