Urban landscape-that view I love

Up the Hill to Earlwood-Acrylic on canvas

This painting was done years and years ago by me.  It's a view that I used to drive nearly every day when taking my daughter to school.  I always loved the view although it was hard to concentrate on looking at it as I had to really press on the accelerator in order to maintain speed climbing up the hill.  This week I am revisiting this view using a pen.  I found some old photos which I used for reference.

Up the hill to Earlwood-Pen

Up the Hill to Earlwood #2-Pen

Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys

At the White Rabbit gallery there are a couple of paintings that are about Joseph Beuys coyote performance in New York years ago.  This reminded me of a seeing Beuys work in the 1980s at the National Gallery in Canberra.  I was fascinated at that time when I read the story behind the art.  Joseph Beuys is a German artist who while a member of a combat bomber in WW2 was shot down.  He told a story about being catapulted through the plane window and was found days later by nomadic Tartars.  They rubbed him in fat and wrapped him in felt in order to warm him up and treat his exposure and injuries.  That was the art work was about- fat, felt, earth and blood.

I found out recently that that didn't happen at all.  It was just a story...eyewitnesses say that Beuys was brought to a military hospital where he stayed for 3 weeks.  He had been recovered by a German search commando and there were no Tartars in the village at that time.

 

Does it matter that the event didn't happen?

I thinks that it's kind of more interesting that it didn't occur and all that art work resulted.

 

 

String Theory

 

 

 

I love these sculptures by the Tjanpi Desert weavers in the exhibition entitled "String Theory". They are human size or a little smaller and look very dramatic in the dark room where they are spot lit.  They are made out of a variety of materials including feathers, wire and string.

  This show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney brings together over 30 Aboriginal artists and artist groups from across Australia. There are paintings, prints, baskets, dolls, installations, fishing nets, fish traps, photography and more all in the theme of string.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 One of the great things about going to the Museum of Contemporary Art is the location, right at the heart of the city, at Circular Quay.  There is a café on the top floor with magnificent views.  Here are a couple of snaps taken today post BLT sandwich.

Continuation of little bowl drawings

Gouache, ink and collage

  More work using the bowl as inspiration

Collage, gouache and ink

Finel bowls

Collage, pen and ink



Small Finel enamel bowl

This  small yellow bowl was made in Finland in the mid 1960's.  The company is Finel which was a sister company to Arabia if you know that brand which made beautiful ceramics as well as other things.  My lovely friend Sarah gave me a big white bowl with mushrooms printed along the edge which also made by Finel.  These metal bowls are actually enamelled copper and the designs are distinctly Scandinavian.
These drawings are based on the Finel bowl and are some of the work done this week.




Pencil drawing

Pencil drawing

Black wax pencil and collage

 



Pencil drawing

Tom Thomson

Northern River Marsh



Tom Thomson 1877-1917

Recently someone asked me where I was from in Canada.  When I replied I was from northern Ontario he asked if that was any where near the "wilderness" of Canada.  It hit me that actually I was from "the wilderness" of Canada- that wild landscape of Precambrian shield, shaped by glaciers, of lakes, forests, rocks and hills.  It is a place where the landscape and the climate really effect our lives.
One of the first Canadian artists to portray this rugged landscape, as it really existed, was Tom Thomson.  He grew up in Ontario and loved the lifestyle of hunting, fishing and camping.  Thomson spent months on end alone in the bush painting the sky, swamps, the pines in all seasons and time of day.  It was a new way of seeing the place in the early 1900s and it still looks quite modern today. 
He died young in a drowning accident but his work has lived on and loved by many especially those who know northern Ontario.



Cedars and Pines



The Jack Pine

Roasted Eggplant

Gouache on map of Eggplant slices

 I roasted slices of eggplant and enjoyed seeing the curls and hooks that show up when the slices are roasted.  The marks reminded me of shorthand, that old method of quickly recording someone's dictation. In high school some girls took classes in Pittman shorthand and it was fascinating to see those squiggles that unbelievably meant something.

 

 

 

 

Nature does give us some nice designs.  I have scanned the baked eggplant slices here because I like the hooks and curls that show up when the cross section seed area is browned.  I laid them on some washed cellophane and scanned the actual slices in the image above.