Looking forward to this event over the Easter
weekend.
I have been invited to exhibit at location No. 3, Sue Jamieson Art Studio, 306 Hetherington Road, Whangamata.
Looking forward to this event over the Easter
weekend.
I have been invited to exhibit at location No. 3, Sue Jamieson Art Studio, 306 Hetherington Road, Whangamata.
I was not able to feel creative during Cyclone Gabrielle but luckily we came through without damage. Now the weather has improved, I am working on a big garden design project, which will take up a good deal of my time during the next month or so. Also, I have a significant birthday in April, so plans and celebrations for that will eat into my creative time too. Consequently, it may be a couple of months before I can seriously get down to starting some larger dot painted artwork.
Here are some of the items I have painted while I have been practicing painting dots:
I am now waiting for some special dot painting tools to arrive from Canada before I start on some larger dot painted artworks.
The theme for the 2023 Harcourts Challenge is 'making a difference'.
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Making a difference to our Oceans 40 cm diameter, mixed media |
Entry #1: ‘Making a difference to our
Oceans’ was created with recycled plastic, including some ground down polymer
clay mosaic tiles, glitter and resin. (I had to photograph this in quite a dark room, to stop the light reflecting on the glossy resin surface, so unfortunately you cannot see the glitter in the artwork). My thought was that locking the plastic into the artwork
means it will not end up finding its way into the oceans.
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The Great Barrier Reef 30 cm x 30 cm, acrylic paint |
The latter half of this year has been spent transitioning from creating artwork with round mosaic tiles to painting with dots. This has been a very gradual process, with lots of practicing, but I feel ready to start 2023 with some confidence. Consequently, I have made a temporary amendment to my website header, until I update the whole website to reflect the new course of my artwork.
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The End of an Era |
The rest of my time has been spent making small hand-crafted items and Swirl-StoNZ for the Christmas/Summer markets. I have also been practicing painting with dots, and a number of small practice pieces, like wall hung hearts, decorative pots, mugs and candle holders are amongst my market stock.
Currently, I am working on a second entry for the 2023 Harcourts Challenge, which is a scaled down version of a Great Barrier Reef painting, inspired by my visit there back in 2017. (A photo of the finished painting will be posted in January 2023). I have decided to paint this with dots, although it is quite fiddly as the canvas is only 30cm x 30cm, as part of the transition from dot mosaics to dot painting. The 'making a difference' is intended to be shown by a reef full of coloured coral and fish grading into a colourless version in the distance. It is meant to show that we (humankind) can make a difference to the future of the reef if we try.
On another level, my move to expressing artwork with the dot painting, rather than dot mosaics, is hopefully 'making a difference' to my creative productivity.
The 'Art After Dark' event, hosted by the Arts Collective Whangamata, turned out to be a really successful evening. Held in the lounge of the Titoki Golf Club, it was a very glitzy evening, as many of the attendees adopted the dress code: Dazzle After Dark.
I exhibited three pieces of artwork. 'The 18th Hole, Titoki', painted especially for the event, and 'A New Approach' and 'Moonlight Glow' which both had an after dark vibe.
On the night, it was the 'Moonlight Glow' painting, with glow in the dark powders, that sold. A very enjoyable evening!
The 18th Hole, Titoki |