End of Year Show

With a few days to go until we put up our work for the End of Year Show I’m working hard to make sure everything is just right for my display. I’ve been working hard on a series of mixed media squares on handmade paper which reflect my long standing interest in traces of transient moments. In all there will be forty squares in sequence, subtle variations of fragments of time.  Hope people find them interesting! Here is an example of one of the squares.

Mist

I’m deep into the work for our final assessment which will involve an End of Year show in a month’s time. It’s an interesting process as the final outcome  will be a culmination of my development over the last two years. As ever trees remain a source of inspiration and this time they are misty in early Spring sunlight hovering half seen from my kitchen window one morning.  I had to take the photos quickly as the sun was moving round and in a short time would be gone.  Later I worked with them in mixed media overprinting on different papers and using paint and charcoal to investigate framing and reframing the moment.  Here are a few of the original images.

Moments in Time

We’ve just had another assessment!  This time I worked with small drawings, a series of twenty pen and wash moments in time, very subtle…. the marks made were inspired by my fern, a delicate feathery plant that has been with me for many years. The drawings happened over twenty four hours and show transitions, the fern coming in and out of being…  like breathing. Once they were made they were tacked gently to the board and then each one moved out from the surface to the edge of the tack, floating in space. I was really pleased with the result. Here’s a photo.

Color!

I’ve just bought some new paints! They arrived today and they are amazing… I had to try them out as soon they came and they blew me away with the warmth and richness of color. I began painting immediately and I’m pleased. It feels like another beginning, an opening out into a new world!
At the moment I’m preparing to make a large scale hanging. It will involve experimenting further with paint and possibly mixed media. I made one last term on Himalayan paper and it was the biggest piece I’d attempted so far – 7.5 x 5 feet! I like working with transparency so the light is very important.  This picture was taken at my assessment at the end of last term..

New Year

I’m busy experimenting again. The New Year brings a new project developing my studio practice and I’m enjoying looking at painting on different surfaces from wood to muslin.  At the moment colors of my photos from the Body Project are inviting me to translate them into paint.  It’s exciting to see what works and what doesn’t… lots of work to do!
The December assessment went well. Here’s one of my oil paintings on wood which I displayed. It’s called Blue panel.

Transition

It is a very busy time at the moment as we come up to our end of term assessments. As my studio practice develops I find myself focusing increasingly on drawing, painting and photography. Recently I made a series of  drawings relating to transition: the drawing manifests in pen and ink and then starts to disappear as I flick water over it. I have control over the drawing but very little control over the water. This tension between the intention of the pen and the random nature of the water fascinates me. It can produce some interesting images. Here are some of the drawings so you can see what I mean.

Doddiscombsleigh Art Show

I took my work along to the Doddiscombsleigh Art Show at the end of October with some trepidation. It was the first exhibition where I was submitting paintings for sale. The Show is well known and exhibition is by invitation only so I was excited to take part. On the opening night there was an air of warm welcome and much enthusiasm from everyone involved and throughout the three days of the show there was a lot of interest from the public. It was very crowded but there was a good atmosphere and in the end I was thrilled that all my work sold. A lovely ending to a first time event!

Back to College

A new term has started! I am now a second year student so am feeling more confident than when I set out this time last year. It’s still an exciting journey. Transitional states of being, time, and trees are occupying my mind at the moment as we develop another project – Working in the Environment. So far I have been experimenting  with drawing on different kinds of paper with a variety of resists eg wax, linseed oil, bleach…  Combined with Chinese ink or paint they produce very interesting states of transparency. Here is some of my recent work.

End of Year Show

This has been an amazing year, culminating in our End of Year show which ran from end of May to 10th June. I exhibited two paintings made during the organic project. The paintings are oil on panel and were made using very experimental techniques to explore subtle changes in colour to reflect transitional states of being. My work was well received and is going to be exhibited by invitation at the Doddescombsleigh Art Show in October 2011 which is very exciting.

The Body

This life drawing was part of our project at the start of this year.  The  subject was “The Body” and for five weeks I was immersed in exploring vulnerability:  how we feel when we are covered up and when we are naked.  “The Nude” is a contentious issue in art history, especially among feminists.  I  resolved my own “exposure” by using photography with slow shutter speeds to blur the images and capture moments of movement. I love the nuances of the human form in all its complexity.

Here are two photos and a life drawing which were part of my project.