Author / Leonie Andrews

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Posts by Leonie Andrews

I am an artist of the landscape of common objects. Discarded items and suburban life fuel my art practice.
by Leonie Andrews

Printing at Megalo

Back at the Megalo Studio this week for another session of printing. In the gallery there is a review show of all the 2012 Megalo artists-in-residency. Some lovely work including that of Jan Hogan, whose interactions with the landscape are always thoughtful.

The process I’m using works by building-up layers of images. I print in layers so sometimes good images come quickly, other times they may take all day. This time it was only after lunch that I found my best images of the day.

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Vessel image, a left-over from the previous printing session, 11 September 2013.

I was pleased with the results of my new stencil:

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Detail of a new stencil, 11 September 2013

An unexpected result was this very simple shape surrounding a landscape ‘found’ in the printing:

A landscape 'found' in the print, 11 September 2013

A landscape ‘found’ in the print, 11 September 2013

This reminded me of ‘landscape marble’ which is valued in China for its natural resemblance to Chinese brush painted landscapes.

by Leonie Andrews

Shortlisted for the Australia Craft Awards

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I recently submitted an entry into the Australian Craft Awards 2013 and have just been advised that I have been shortlisted for the awards. You can see my entry here.

Finalist and category winners in the 2013 Awards are determined by a combination of a judging panel, industry and marketplace votes – by the average score across all three respective votes. The marketplace is basically anyone who is interested enough to vote for the work, so if you feel inclined please drop by my entry and vote.

Meanwhile I’m going back to working on my newest piece.

by Leonie Andrews

Within Without (James Turrell)

One of the highlights of the renovation of the National Gallery of Australia a few years back was the installation of a major artwork by James Turrell called Within Without. If you are familiar with his work you will know that he likes to use light and optical illusions in his space/sculptural works. In this case a domed room has been enclosed inside a truncated pyramid, with both the pyramid and room open to the sky (if you follow the link you can get a sense of the space). It’s a nice space to sit in during the day, but at dawn and dusk there is a special lightshow that really makes the work quite magical. If you live in Canberra, or visiting, I would highly recommend that you experience this amazing artwork.

experiencing WithinWithout at the National Gallery of Australia.

Experiencing Within Without at the National Gallery of Australia.

After the last day of the watercolour workshop we were just there at the right time to see the lightshow. I was amazed and hope you will be too. Just remember that the ‘circle’ you see in the following series of images is a hole in the roof of the building. The colour surrounding the hole is projected onto the rooms white walls. The apparent colour changes of the ‘circle’ are in fact an optical illusion. These images were taken over a period of 40 minutes using my camera phone (much better than my old pocket digital camera!).

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How Turner, the brilliant colourist, would be working if he was alive today was discussed during our workshop. I think he might have been working like James Turrell.

by Leonie Andrews

Practice

At the Turner watercolour workshop Toni urged us to keep practising what we had learned to embed it into our skill set. So I’ve been working away on pages of small works.

Practice sheets of small watercolours focussing on the changing light on a nearby hill. # August 2013

Practice sheets of small watercolours focusing on the changing light on a nearby hill. The starting point was the three rapid sketches at the top of the page. 3 August 2013

I also painted two views of Mt Tennant experimenting with warm and cool compositions and some lifting techniques.

Two views of Mt Tennant using warm onto a cool background (l) and cool onto a warm background (r). 3 August 2013

Two views of Mt Tennant using warm onto a cool background (l) and cool onto a warm background (r). 3 August 2013

Then I tried some imagined landscapes and weather effects, with varying degrees of success.

Playing with light effects and imagined landscapes. 3 August 2013

Playing with light effects and imagined landscapes. 3 August 2013