Thursday 26 January 2017

New Wall Art Piece

Today has been an awesome day!  You know those days where everything works out and there's sunshine and rainbows? Hehe. Yep, today is THAT day for me.

I started the day waking from a wonderful sleep-in with no alarm!  And I spent most of my morning having such a soul-filled conversation with a dear friend of mine which left me in such a great space.  I had planned to spend the whole day creating but it was such fantastic weather that I did some garden tending until lunch and spent the afternoon finishing off a piece of wall art which makes me tingle all over :)

See, I continue on the bandwagon of finishing my unfinished projects.  As each one gets completed in its due time, I'm buzzing to see ideas from recently or from years ago form afore my eyes.  Sometimes these materialisations are stonewalled as I get stuck not knowing how to continue and for some ideas, they just wait patiently.  So is the case for this one.  I designed this on 21 August 2003 carefully cutting out photocopies of my drawing to create the bigger picture:


So over our recent Christmas short break, I brought out my wooden discs again, painting each one.  Then I started the construction:


And last night, I finished the construction:


Then today was the fun part of figuring out how to hang it.  I wanted it to sit flat on the wall so after fiddling about for sometime, I ended up by dressing one of my canvases with Dupioni silk in the most magical sage green and affixed the piece to the canvas.  It is marvellous.  Well I think so anyway hahahha. So introducing "Sun of Yang":


Enjoy your weekend ahead :)



 

Sunday 15 January 2017

New Year to Try New Things

It's been some time since I last wrote and it's all the crazy season's fault.  However, despite all the madness, we spent a wonderful day at my sister's place who put on an amazing lunch and we all left with full bellies and warmed hearts. We were able to have a few days off work to unwind and just be.  To switch off from the world and not adhere to a schedule. Much needed rest was had to heal, reset and recharge.  

I spent most of my time in the garden working on our vegetable patch. Tending to plants is something I find great joy in and as it was also my birthday, we added my favourite berry fruits to our collection, growing it to 42 different varieties of food.  I had intended on building a beehive, however, I feel my knowledge of keeping bees is not enough so I wish to research more until I feel I can handle any issue that may occur.

I did spare enough time to finish my mixed media wall art piece that I started in the September.  For me to have completed 15 projects since moving to the farm is a massive accomplishment and honestly, I'm so proud of what I've achieved.  This mixed media wall hanging was inspired by the way I make my vessels.  I had wanted to try an inlaid coloured shape on a flat surface and I also wanted to see how a larger piece would hold together when done flat.

Embellishing it with shell, wood, sea glass and seed gave the piece more depth and I really love how it turned out, especially being my last completed piece for 2016.  It now hangs in our lounge room


So with the beginning of each year, I like to think about all the new skills I want to build on and new ideas I want to try out, in my growth as an artist.  As I've mentioned so many times before, the list will always be never-ending.  But one thing I enjoy doing is expanding on my ideas using different mediums. 

Continuing with the theme of my style of basket-weaving (btw, it is in no way a traditional method lol), I recently became inspired by another vessel I'm currently making.  I had just finished the base and thought it would look so cool as a pendant.  So I ran with it.



I had visions of it being the first in a new "Dream Weaver" series but I'm unsure if it's on the wrong side of too different. I like stepping out of the box but have I gone too far??  I've had some feedback from family and friends who say they really like it but I dunno.  We'll see.  I'm going to attempt another in a different colour scheme so stay tuned.

Enjoy your week!