What have I been doing for the last 5 months?

The End of an Era

Since completing 'The End of an Era' (July 2022), with some of my unused round mosaic tiles, I have only made one other artwork. 'Moana' was created with recycled plastic, including some ground down polymer clay mosaic tiles, glitter and resin (photo to be posted in January 2023). I will enter it in the 2023 Harcourts Challenge (judging takes place on 27 January), which has the theme "making a difference". Locking the plastic into the artwork means it will not end up finding its way into the oceans.

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.