I will be part of an exhibition with two other artists, Bev Moxon and Ola Robertson, opening in the Foyer Gallery at the Australian National University on 7 May and running until 19 May.
Rather than having an official opening we are inviting people to join us for a reception at 2.00pm on Saturday 12 May. Hope to see you there!
Early in March this year rangers arrived at the Namadgi National Park visitor information centre to see that a major rockslide had occurred during the night, gouging a pale stripe down three quarters of the mountains’ north-east face.
The landslip looks pretty dramatic close up, but driving around Tuggeranong it is clear that it is even more striking from a distance.
So this weeks exercise involved just that, climbing up Mt Taylor to get a good view of Mt Tennant. I made the following drawing using watercolour pencils.
It turns out that you can also see a man-made gash in the side of the Bullen Range, I presume it is a fire trail, quite rusty-orange against the vegetation, compared to the decidedly pink colour of the rockslide on Mt Tennant. This picture takes a ‘slice’ from Mt Gingera, down through Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve and into the forground of the Bullen Range.
We all have our favourite colours and not suprisingly they are the ones we go back to time and time again. My ‘problem’ has been trying not to do this.
Not sure what to do I’ve tried some pretty wild combinations in an attempt to get out of my colour routine.
Another approach has been to look at colours other artists use. There are some great colourists out there and I came across, one of those, Brian Clarke, via a documentary on SBS. What is really interesting is that Clarke has both a stained glass and a painting practice. One of the pieces I found most inspiring is a stain glass window he designed for the Abbey of Romont in Switzerland. A green shape floats against a checked background of blues and red. A photo of this window can be found here.
I was pleased with the result of taking both colour ideas and my stencilling/masking ideas into some new printed work.
I’ve had a bottle of masking fluid sitting in my cupboard for years. I thought it was about time I pulled it out and used it. The fluid is a ‘plastic’ liquid which, once dried, reserves an area of your page from watercolour paint. After your paint has dried you can rub the area and lift the dried plastic off.
I’ve been using this to explore the possibilities of an approach to using stencils in my prints.
I made it back to the ANU Drill Hall last week for another drawing session. This time I focussed on Rosalie Gascoigne’s 1986 installation Inland Sea.
My eye was captured by the rythmic interaction of the pieces of corrugated iron…
and then by the contrast of solid shadow and line.
Unfortunately I had to leave it there as my parking meter only allowed for an hours drawing!
leonieandrews 