by Leonie Andrews

Tall weepers and other inspirations

For a few months now I have been joining a group of people via Zoom for Sunday Art Time. They live on the other side of the world to me and I didn’t know any of them when this started.  That hasn’t stopped us getting together for an hour each week just to chat and make art.

One of my earlier mini-zines made from various pages from Mindfood magazine.

Working with collage and simple book forms let’s me make work that can be finished in one or two sessions. I like the ability to make a work quickly, given most of my serious textile work takes ages to complete.

Featuring adventure penguins.
More adventurous penguins on luxury yachts!
And concluding with the one and only Mr John Waters

I have also found some good ideas from the broader reaches of the “junk journaling ” movement, such as cutting up large print books for useful phrases.

“A wild ass from North Africa “, a work in progress.

These mini-zines and collages give rein to the less formal (aka sillier) side of my art and has given me a lot of enjoyment in these grim times.

Sound advice for the masses. A mash-up of paint sample chips with rose names.

You can find some other examples on my collage|books|zines page.

by Leonie Andrews

Escape to the country!

Last week we finally left our Canberra for the first time in months to drive an hour away to the country town of Braidwood.

The village of Braidwood started to form around the 1840s and has retained many of it’s older 19th century buildings along the main street. As such, it’s a great place to sketch.

I was sketching across the road from the CWA (Country Women’s Association) building and the post office and then later further down the main street into town.

My first sketch was made on a page that I had prepared with white gesso and ink a few weeks back. I also collaged some paper onto my page, which I had made by printing from a gelli (gel) plate. That saved me from having to paint the mountain.

The CWA building and a corner of the post office on Wallace St Braidwood.

Along the street my eye was caught by an interesting combination of rooflines and light poles.

Steep roofs and tall chimneys. Watercolour and pencil.

I was just getting stuck into my blind contour drawing when I had to go for lunch which we had booked at the Albion Cafe.

Blind contour drawing of the same scene of rooftops and light poles.

I liked this last one best of all. It’s probably a good thing that we had to go to lunch before I ruined it.

by Leonie Andrews

Loving your local tree

Artist Rebecca Mayo has launched a collaborative art program examining “the role of trees during uncertain times”. Participants are being invited to take a rubbing of their favourite local tree. She asks “Has this slower paced, looped walking (where we set off to get out of the house, rather than to reach a physical destination) allowed us to pay a new kind of attention to our neighbourhoods and what grows there?”

I received my kit last week and took advantage of the relatively windless conditions to take a rubbing of my favourite tree. In this case one of the remnant Eucalyptus melliodora (Yellow Box), that started life on Ngunnawal land (before European colonisation), survived pastoralism and having a suburb and an oval built around it. We guesstimate that the trunk is more than 3 metres in circumference (I forgot to measure the rubbing before I sent it off).

Taking a bark rubbing.

I had some help with friends to hold the paper as I  circumnavigated the tree’s large circumference. 

We also had some discussions with passers by who were happy to share their thoughts on this tree with us.

The rubbings will form the basis of an exhibition by Rebecca to be held at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre in 2021.

by Leonie Andrews

Up close to Rembrandt

(Quite a long post)

2019 marked the 350th anniversary of the death of Rembrandt. Both the Rijksmuseum and at the Mauritshuis (Den Haag) were showing all their Rembrandt’s in special exhibitions. So we couldn’t miss this opportunity.

The one painting that I couldn’t get up close and personal with at the Rijksmuseum was The Night Watch, which was being digitally scanned when we were there. By complete coincidence the Rijksmuseum has just released that very digitised image this week. You can super zoom in on the image and watch as it gets more and more detailed as you look.

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The Night Watch (more correctly,  if long-windedly, called Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1642

Most of these photos are from the Rijksmuseum and you will have to bear with the fact that some of them were taken from rakish angles as I attempted to get shots without the milling museum hordes.

Here we go! Rembrandt’s only full length portraits of a couple, Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, were painted in 1634. The subject of the portraits is as much about the wealth of the couple, as it is the sitters. The refined painted surface shows all the details of the elaborate lace, silver filigree and silk that the couple are wearing. Marten was an up-and-comer, whose father had moved to Amsterdam from Antwerp and made his fortune running a sugar refinery, and Oopjen was the daughter of an established Amsterdam family, 

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Portrait of Marten Soolmans, 1634

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Detail from the Portrait of Marten Soolmans, 1634. Just look at the detail in the wrinkle of the silk stocking, not to mention the woven pattern visible in the stocking of Marten’s left calf. The filigree work and punched holes in the shoes are astounding.

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Portrait of Oopjen Coppit, 1664, who married Marten Soolmans in 1633. She was pregnant with her first child when the painting was carried out.

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Detail of the portrait of Oopjen Coppit, showing not only her pearls, but also the exquisite lace of her cuff and the fine silk of her dress.

Far and away my favourite ‘couple’ portrait by Rembrandt is this un-named man and woman, who chose to have themselves painted as the Biblical couple Isaac and Rebecca. This painting is often referred to as ‘The Jewish Bride’. The tenderness and warmth of their relationship is on show for all to see.

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Issac and Rebecca or The Jewish Bride, 1665-69

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Detail from Isaac and Rebecca or The Jewish Bride, 1665-69

In comparison to the previous two portraits Rembrandt used thick impasto paint and a palette knife on this work to give a more textured feel to the finished painting, though the details of the dress are in reality no less sumptuous than those of the previous works.

The Mauritshuis, situated in the Hague (Den Haag), was relatively quiet compared to the Rijksmuseum and it was definitely worth visiting. When I checked I realised that I took very few photos in the gallery.  I think that was because I was looking and sketching the Rembrandt portraits instead.

I am so pleased that I did take a photo of this poignant painting of King Saul, listening to the young David playing his harp.

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King Saul , a detail from Saul and David, 1651-54 and 1655-58

You can see my sketch of this on the lower right corner of the page below, along with the other self-portraits of Rembrandt, both as a young man and an old one.Rempage

Even now I get a thrill just remembering the chance we had to see all these amazing works.

And just because we are there already I will share with you a bonus shot of that other famous inhabitant of the Mauritshuis, Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring.

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The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Jan Vermeer, 1665, and a few admirers.