In My Own Light

I am still on the road; and therefore subject to a lot of input from many sources. Being in the city after so long in the country is a real eye opener for me; i love the diversity of people and places. This digital collage is a great reminder to me about staying in my own positive energy no matter what is going on around me. Even when things seem hectic, or intense, we can always remember our space of inner calm and serenity. Peace.

On the Road

It feels like forever since I have seen my home and studio, or blogged. I am on the last leg of my journey and hope to hold a brush in my hand very soon. I have been dreaming about painting and blogging a lot lately and promised myself never to go away for so long again without some kind of basic toolkit.

Having said that, I am so grateful for the wonderful time I have been having, and for the new opportunities and experiences that travel always brings. I am blessed to have such lovely people in my life. Thanks everyone.

Magic Happens

What a magical time I've been having lately catching up with family and friends. This image, which was made from one of my charcoal drawings that was then digitally enhanced, captures the excitement I've been feeling and the magic that stepping of ordinary life can bring. Love, laughter, art and adventure; what more could one ask for.

Goodbye Not Forgotten

I am loving making digital collages! This little goodbye is a temporary farewell to the land of blogging as I venture off to Victoria for a long awaited family visit. I wonder what it will be like down there after the bushfires? Guess I will find out soon enough as I leave in the next couple of days. I will miss all the inspirational blogs, and the discipline of blogging myself (it really does help me to be more creative more often when I give myself a focus like this). But I am looking forward to seeing loved ones. So goodbye for now; I will see you all when I get back. Keep dreaming, keep creating and peace to you all.xx

Softly Love

Softly Love, Acrylic and paua shell on canvas, 30x30cm

I had these bits of paua shell sitting around for what seemed like forever when I had the idea to finally do something with them. The words that go with this came to me unbidden; what a blessing! And I was reminded of something someone from my childhood used to be fond of saying, that 'love is like an elusive butterfly'. (I have no idea where the quote might come from). In this piece the butterflies represent the soft, fleeting nature of love. The shells remind me of how real love can weather many storms and tears, yet still endure, and retain it's beauty too. Go love!

Things Art Taught Me

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Lately I have really been enjoying my digital art adventures. It's so much fun messing around on the computer and I have noticed a recurring pattern in the process of these creations.

Since I usually work fairly intuitively in this medium I don't often have a set plan. I open a few files, cut and paste a bit and generally play around with whatever colours and images take my fancy. Often I will have a broad theme but nothing is ever etched in stone.

What often happens is that I hit a wall. I reach a point where the whole thing seems yuck and seems to be going nowhere. And I start to get frustrated. But this is the best bit, and the part of the process that I am growing to love. Because once I move through that block, then the piece usually comes together, often by going off into surprising new directions. I love that wall! Now I get really excited when it all seems messy and 'wrong' because I know that I am about to have a breakthrough, a little leap forward.

Which leads me to imagine what it would be like to apply that to every single challenging life situation I may encounter. What would happen if every time I encounter an obstacle, or frustration, instead of fear or worry I get really excited because I know that I am about to have a leap in growth? Every frustration would be merely opportunity in disguise and life would be pretty exciting.

It's such a blessing to walk a creative path, because when I pay close attention I notice that the path is strewn with many gifts, even if at first glance I mistook them for rocks.

Portrait in Progress

I haven't posted for a couple of days because I have been enjoying reading other peoples blogs too much, and have been hard at work on a surprise portrait I am doing for my Nan's 80th birthday. It is fairly safe to give a preview here because I am pretty sure she doesn't read this blog. (Not that she wouldn't if she could, she seems fascinated by the net, especially any site that allows photo sharing and would let her keep up with the grand kids comings and goings) So here it is, very unfinished but at least started.

This is a study to see if I can still even remember how to paint a portrait, seriously, it's been that long. So long that I am pretty sure this is my first ever acrylic portrait, previous ones were done in oils and charcoal. (I switched from mostly oils to mostly acrylics about five years ago)

So I just tried to replicate how I work in oils and followed the good advice of one of my teachers. For any painters out there here are a couple of good tips for portrait painting which were passed down to me and have served me very well in everything I've ever painted.

The main thing that has stayed with me is to do the whole thing in black and white first. Get the tones right before you introduce colour. Since I was working from a black and white photo this part was fairly straightforward and worked well.

Then, when you have the composition working tonally, start introducing colour glazes. Just build it up in thin layers. And really look at the skin and notice all the nuances of colour. Not just the flesh tones but the blues and greens too (yes, they are there). This was a bit more of a challenge as I am working just from a photo so I have had to improvise a bit. Which is alright for this project because I wanted to eventually end up with an effect similar to one of those old sepia colored photographs anyway, but a bit more challenging if you are trying to get a very realistic finish. As you can see I am struggling a little bit with getting a nice even flesh tone. But if you just keep building it up thinly you can experiment a bit because you always have the black and white under painting as a guide to keep you tonally on track. Even if you glazed the whole thing blue it would still look ok if the tone is right underneath. (I thank my teachers every day because they saved me years trying to figure this stuff out on my own).

Another thing I found intriguing about this project is that I never really knew Nan when she was this young woman in the photo. In some respects it was like painting a stranger, though I see traces of the grandmother I know now. Usually I prefer to paint people I know, and this exercise is causing my mind to go off on all sorts of tangents wondering about the woman she was then, and what it must have been like to have lived eighty years ago.

So now, after having done this study I am fairly sure that I now want to make a larger portrait, kind of a collage type painting with historical references from the year she was born, some happy birthday text and maybe a smaller, more current photo - a kind of then and now portrait. It also has to have a lemon tree somewhere (!), because she has always wanted one and that will be my main gift to her. The canvas I have chosen now seems woefully too small to accommodate all of this at only 18x24xcm, but at the same time I do not want to do something too large that would dominate any space she puts it in as she lives in a fairly small place. Lots to consider before I resolve this one.

Anyhow, I will post the finished product as soon as I get it done. And did I mention that it has to be fast because her birthday is this month and naturally I left it until the last possible minute to actually start the process of getting the ideas out of my head and onto the canvas? So for now, it's back to the canvas I go.

Another Thank You

This is my latest digital design for my Zazzle greeting card range. I seem to have a thing lately for butterflies, angels, and giving thanks! This one is a thank you for the gifts of spirit, and for the way that grace comes on us lightly, like the kiss of a butterfly. It is such a gift. Just like the beautiful butterflies are a gift from mother nature to us. How blessed we are to live in a world with beauty, spirit and joy.

Happy Mardi Gras!

It's mardi gras weekend, woo hoo. Happy mardi gras groovers!

Do Elephants Make Art?

Like many artists I draw much of my inspiration, and subject matter, from the natural world around me.

So it concerns me when I hear that habitats are under threat in many parts of the world.

Today it has been brought to my attention that the largest population of Asian elephants is under threat due to planned development encroaching on already shrinking wilderness corridors.

Environmentalists are addressing this issue and there are many ways to help. Currently there is a campaign targeting the relevant Indian government officials via email.

For more information about the plight of the elephants, or to send your own email, visit http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/e/appeal.htm. The friendly folks at the Rainforest Information Centre have even drafted a sample email which you can copy and paste, or better yet, you can write your own. (There are many other groups that are elephant friendly and I have put together a list of links below for anyone interested.)

But what has this got to do with elephants making art I hear you ask? Well one of these groups, the Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project, has come up with a novel way to raise funds for elephants by selling artwork made by yep, you guessed it, elephants.

Whether you agree with the ethics of this practice or not, the work is worth seeing because guess what? Elephants make pretty good artists! And they are fetching pretty decent prices for their work too. Could this be a novel marketing ploy for human artists? i.e. I am an endangered species of artist, please buy my work so that I do not become extinct. (Just kidding)

But seriously, it is not surprising that elephants can do this given that they can live up to around eighty years and must have accumulated a wealth of visual information to draw upon. Knowing that elephants can make art makes it all the more saddening to me to contemplate that around a thousand of these magnificent friends could be facing such a serious threat to their continued survival in the wild.

So if, like me, this concerns you and you want to help, visit the Rainforest Information Centre or one of the sites listed below and help a fellow artist today.


Wildlife Conservation Society
http://www.wcs.org/

Elephant facts and information database
http://www.elephant.se/

Wildlife SO S
http://www.wildlifesos.org/

Friends of the elephant
http://www.betuwe.net/olifantvriend/

Asian Elephant Art and conservation Project
http://www.elephantart.com/

Seeing is remembering..or is it?

Learning to surf in a faraway garden,
coloured pencil on paper, A5.

This pencil drawing is one of my favourites because it captures the excitement of going to new places and seeing new things; it was done while I was on a really great holiday. Everything seems more vibrant and colourful when we see it for the first time.

Making art is like a mini holiday, where you get to challenge yourself to see in more heightened detail than ordinarily you might. It can be easy in day to day living to let our mind's eye go a bit stale, so I am setting myself a challenge this week to see everything in a fresh way. My environment, art practice, situations in my life, relationships; everything.

I am setting the intention to keep my 'artists eye' switched on more often, not just when I am making art. This means that a lot of preconceived notions will have to be thrown away, and my mind opened to create an innocent eye.

A fun way to play this game is to imagine that you are an alien, just landed here for the first time, without any previously formed meanings attached to the things you see and do. How would you interpret the things you see? Would they have the same meaning for you?

It gets you thinking about the connection between our thoughts, and how they affect what we are seeing, and how we perceive what we see. So much of our looking is habitual, more memory than looking. To really see something requires the humility to put aside our own associations and open up to being receptive to the thing we are observing.

A good example is the way we see other people in our lives. Do we really see them, as they are in the moment, or do we mostly just see them based on our ideas about them? Are we relating to them from the present moment, or from our habits formed from an accumulation of all our previous interactions with them?

It's the same thing with making art based on observation. Accurately drawing something requires being really present in the moment and not relying on memory or habit. It requires us to bring our alien eyes with us wherever we go.

What events, places, situations could you look at with a fresh eye?

Trust

As artists it is easy to take detours down the roads of self-doubt and lack of self confidence. It is too easy to compare ourselves with other artists, both living and dead, and also compare our performance with that of yesterday, last week, month or year.

When we step out of the present, we step out of clarity in the moment, and into confusing back roads. When we worry too much about the outcomes of our efforts we sabotage our success in the moment.

That is why trust is so important. As we travel down our creative paths, it is important to trust in the moment. Like hiking, if we just put one foot in front of the other, take each step at a time, we will eventually reach our destination.

This digital collage is a reminder to trust in the moment, and trust in the abundance of the universe. There are enough ideas for everybody; we do not need to be competitive with ourselves, or anybody else. Inspiration, and success is all around us if we just have trust and faith. Trust in the flow of life, and life will reward us with a never-ending supply of all the creativity and inspiration that we need. Just trust. Create. And enjoy.

New bag!

After a night of possum mayhem- it woke me up at least four times...did you know they sound just like those Gremlins from the movie?- I wasn't up to doing much this morning in the way of painting. Which turned out to be a good thing because I made this new bag using one of my Zazzle designs. Pretty cool, huh?

Inspirations and affirmations

It's always a good thing to step outside your comfort zone. Often you end up with results that you would not have achieved if you had followed your safe, well-worn paths.



Recently I have been working on designs for my new Zazzle gallery and it has challenged me to think differently about what I do, and to try new approaches.

It was a bit scary at first, and I had to overcome my resistance to creating digitally.



But now that I have taken the risk I am really pleased with the results, and feel that this experience will lead my art in a positive, new direction. And I had fun too!

A Million Mandalas For Peace Project

This week saw me make a contribution to A Million Mandalas For Peace, an inspiring project from Melody Cummons, who is a great artist and peace ambassador. The project brings together a diverse array of artists and is 'Sacred Space, where creative individuals unite in sharing their art in the intention and awareness of peace'. I enjoyed being able to make a small contribution, and am looking forward to posting there again. It is well worth a visit to see the great array of contributors work.

I will leave you today with one of nature's mandalas from my garden. Peace.

Gratitude mandala

Today I noticed that yesterday's 'Top Ten' list could also be read as a gratitude list. Life gives us so many blessings when we start to add them up. I could have added so much more to that list that it really makes me appreciate how wonderful life is. No wonder I woke up this morning with a burning desire to create a gratitude piece, and the words thank you repeating again and again in my mind.

When the call is this loud, it is hard to ignore, and I have learnt to just go with it when I feel a kind of compulsion to create, or express something. I usually find it difficult to concentrate on anything else until I get it out of my system anyway. Hence, this blog project and the ongoing mandala series which started over a year ago with the urge to keep making mandalas until I had made sixty-four of them! This soon expanded to me wanting to make a hundred and eight, and I am by no means near that goal, but the fact that I take steps towards this goal regularly helps free me up so I can actually do other things in life. And, for now, it's not just mandalas, but gratitude mandalas. I can only hope that they are to be included in the hundred and eight, and not the start of another separate series!

I wanted to do this digitally for a couple of reasons. The first, not so noble one, is that I seriously convinced myself that it would be really, really quick and easy. Ha! And the second was that I wanted to use previous mandalas and combine elements from them to form one piece because I felt it reflected the spirit of gratitude which, to me, is all about making the best of what you have, stopping to notice how blessed you are once in a while, and then sharing that.

Well, it was not so 'quick and easy' and I suspect that my kinked neck may well decide to stay this way henceforth. Perhaps if I had taken the time to learn how to use my software properly before now (I have had it for nearly eight years!) it might have been easier.

But I did learn a lot in a relatively short space of time, and I am grateful for that, no seriously, and it did capture the essence of what I was trying to express. Perhaps a little inelegantly, but the sentiment remains nonetheless. And now comes the fun part of mandala making, which is letting it go and putting it out there.

It is with much thanks to everyone who has supported and encouraged my creativity - you know who you are- that I offer this piece. Thank you.

Ten Things That Nourish My Creativity

I have been thinking a lot about inspiration this week and came up with this fun list.

There are many things that help nourish my creativity; here are just some of them in no particular order. What inspires you?

*My non-rational mind

That part of me that's prone to daydreams, flights of fancy, and yes, fears and forebodings. Even my sleeping mind nourishes me with dreams that fuel my creativity.

*Materials

Paints, acrylic, oils, watercolours, inks, pencils, mediums, brushes, canvases, beautiful paper, charcoals, pastels, oil pastels, fabric, beads, found objects, you name it, even other people's 'junk' has been known to be hoarded by me to re-cycle into art. Nothing is more inspiring to me than having good materials to work with.

*Life's Little Treats

Chocolate and a cuppa, what's not to like?

*Nature

Sunsets, beaches, trees, plants, flowers, bird song, cicadas, butterflies, frogs, possums, mountains, rocks, rivers....Ah, what a splendid world we live in.

*Other artists

From the Renaissance to the contemporary, with everything in between. Nothing gets me more inspired than looking at great art, and hearing other artists discuss their work. (As for my favourites, well, that's another 'Ten Things' list)

*The unseen world of spirit

Meditation, intuition, synchronicity, illumination, epiphany, I am open to divine guidance wherever I can get it. To quote Leonardo Da Vinci 'Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art'. Couldn't agree more.

*Food

A full tummy and that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you share your food.

*Good books

I am curious about so many things and a good book can really fire up my imagination and leave impressions in my mind that can linger for years, even decades.

*Leaving it be

Sometimes the best way to fire up my creative enthusiasm is to do something totally different like go for a walk, mooch at the cafe, or, one of my favourites, go to the markets.

*Create, create, create

'The appetite grows by eating' (Francois Rabelais). Or, the more I create, the more I want to create.

Finding Fire Mandala

Finding Fire, Acrylic and mixed media on board, approx 40x40cm

This new mandala is about finding your inner 'fire', your personal power, strength and optimism. It's about being connected to your inner sun and overcoming challenges using your own resources, staying positive and not letting external or internal 'darkness' get you down.



It was also a way to introduce re-cycling and a more textured, three dimensional approach to my mandalas; I've always loved the dimensionality of the Tibetan monks sand mandalas. I built up the textured areas using paper maiche made from old newspapers, and the sequins were left over from a previous project. I can't wait to print this one onto a bag!

Co-incidentally, as I was finishing off this piece I saw an interview with Australian artist Tim Storrier, who is best known for depicting - you guessed it - fire, in his canvasses. The synchronicity of life never ceases to awe me.

Still Life Gallery

Tranquil Ascent, acrylic on canvas, 10x15cm

One for the girls, Acrylic on canvas, 24x32cm



Turtle, Acrylic on canvas, 18x24cm



Offering peace, Acrylic on canvas, 18x24cm
(Image above and below are two part set, private collection)

Bagz Gallery

Welcome to my gallery of Bagz. All bagz are 100% cotton, and printed by me using a heat transfer method. Most prints are derived from my hand painted original artworks, and I am also introducing a new digital range!

i)Peace lotus black sling, digital collage

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i) Wings black circle sling, ii) Wings black square sling, iii) Wings black sling

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i) Wings calico octagonal sling, ii) Wings calico sling

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i) Flower black sling, ii) Flower calico sling

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i) Flower black octagonal sling, ii) Flower calico octagonal sling

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i) Paisley calico sling, ii) Paisley black square sling, iii) Paisley black sling

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i) Blue black sling, ii) Blue calico shopper

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i) Beaded calico library, ii) Beaded black sling

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i) Autumn leaves black sling, ii) Autumn leaves calico sling

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i) Purple black sling, ii) Red black sling

*If you wish to purchase a bag please contact me via email: bagzovart@hotmail.com to arrange delivery and payment

*I also make custom bags & can print your digital image onto a bag of your choice. For example: pet bags, 'brag' bags with your babies photo and name, promotional bags for your business, your own art bags, the only limit is your imagination

*If there is a combination of print/bag style that is not depicted here I will happily make one up for you

*All bagz retail for $20 which includes free postage anywhere in Australia. (overseas orders contact me for postage prices)

*Thank you for looking at my bagzovart

Mandala Gallery

Gratitude mandala, digital collage

Finding Fire, Acrylic and mixed media on board, approx 40x40cm

Wings of Peace, Acrylic on boards, approx 40x40cm
Wings of Peace, detail, print option - circle

Flower of Life, acrylic on boards, approx 80x80cm

Flower of Life, print options-square, octagon, circle

Purple mandala, acrylic on board, approx 40x40cm

Paisley mandala, acrylic on board, approx 40x40cm, print option - square

Beaded Sea Mandala, acrylic, beads and shell on canvas and board, 50x60cm, print option centre

Blue mandala, approx 20x20cm, acrylic on board

Red mandala, approx 20x20cm, acrylic on board

Autumn leaves mandala, acrylic and oil on board, approx 40x40cm