The Gold Mountain is almost upon me

I had a deadline for my next solo - Gold Mountain - a series of landscapes investigating my family’s colonial past in the Victorian Gold Rush…and it’s all going to plan. Finished the last painting end of September after a solid 4 months of painting over Winter. Nine works arrive tomorrow - all framed in raw oak. Exciting, as this is the first time my paintings will be framed! Working on the supplemental photos and frames for the gallery wall and the plinth next. Install 6 November, opening 9 November. My first solo opening too. There is another artist having a solo - so not alone in the gallery. The Council are interviewing me for a promotion - exciting days ahead…

Lyrebird Gully 91.4 x 61 cm acrylic on canvas framed ©2023

Hume Winter Lights Festival

Only one week to go - my first projection “Shared Spaces 2023” will be live! Have been working with a mentor for this project, video artist Sean Healy has been animating my art. We have collaborated on 4 themes for my projection and it’s looking magnificent. So exciting to have someone interpret my work and flip it in interesting ways. Also had a video interview with the media team for the Festival which was rather fun. Bring on June 17!!

In other news have started painting for my solo exhibition. Feels good to be working in the home studio, health challenges the past two months have been holding me up.

Publicity shoot for “shared Spaces” in Broadmeadows Town Park, 5 June 2023

Goodbye Secret Forest

The exhibition wrapped up late November, while I was in Japan. Successful by my modest standards as I sold 4/9 paintings which have gone to their new owners. Had a very disrupted 2022 with 3 operations, followed by a Christmas Covid infection. Blah. Have been accepted for my third solo show in November so it’s something to work towards which is exciting. Have all the rough ideas, a body of work about family history and the colonial gold rush of north eastern Victoria. I just need to paint! Got in the mood the past 2 days with a little tweaking of an existing work. Entered it in an art prize, but very hard to be a finalist. Secret Forest was a good little earner, paid for an artist talk and a work was on the cover of a publication. Also had a small work in an exhibition in Craigieburn be used for a greeting card and sold that painting too.

Spring

Pink Pom Poms, species unknown. Great to be out viewing blossoms again after missing the 2020-2021 season. My 5km doesn’t have many pink beauties and I’ve been driving around the west and north suburbs trying to spot pink specimens to photograph. Plenty of white but pink are becoming rare, such a shame but true ornamental cherry trees have become very expensive to buy. Boo!

Lovely friends

Some helpers with my plein air

Threads

Health up and down, up this week so finalising a few threads of ideas. I find it hard to only think of one - have plenty of visuals on the ipad ready to go. Been tweeking some of the history landscapes this week before I paint. Have 4 canvas to prep, they need a couple of coats of absorbent ground, a lovely compound to paint on, so smooth and accepting of water based mediums. Also working on new birds from Sherbrooke Forest and a garden at Olinda that was full of lyrebirds. They have a political flavour - paint about what you know! The other thread is really just a thought, this year I will be able to move around in Spring. After spending the 2020-2021 blossom seasons in lockdown, hoping to get out of Melbourne and visit some lovely trees in flower. It’s my favourite time of year for reference photography, walking amongst the blossoms makes me truly euphoric.

wip ‘Mr Speaker’

Second solo show

SECRET FOREST - the lockdown landscapes. This body of work has been a long project. Started in the first big lockdown of 2020 when my first solo show was cancelled and everything creative came to a halt. I had been progressively working my way thru the Lost and Found paintings but the pandemic broke my train of thought. What would I do? What made me happy in a miserable time, beautiful nature! My first solo show was successful and I sold a third of my work. Then came along the big lockdown of 2021 - an absolute blur but it was time to revisit the magical forest, finish the works and escape into my own version of fairy-land. Earlier this year I did an artist residency and painted a final piece which was a nice way to finish, using all my favourite mediums - ink, watercolour and acrylic. The final work has already been chosen for the front cover of the Council’s A5 booklet for Spring. Almost three years as a visual artist - second career seems to be going okay.

Spring

It’s just over a year since I became a full time artist. With the hard lockdown in Melbourne these many months, I haven’t painted in my studio since March!

Have had to take a different approach; to work smaller. It’s been a time to explore landscape…iso landscapes. Plus produce some digital works, using my graphic design skills (and software). That’s been quite energizing as I didn’t realise I was missing GD so much. It really feeds into my right brain dominance. When I’m painting, I’m always telling my right, logical brain to shut up!

Landscapes in this style are totally new for me, I’ve done 5 so far, all about my time in fjordland New Zealand, the ultimate iso holiday destination. Using my photos as inspiration, it was such a lovely way to escape being locked away from the pandemic. We did have a break between lockdowns here, so I was able to pick up my large easel from the studio. Have just finished a large iso landscape, using all the marks I’ve learnt. The final 4 large works for my upcoming exhibition are next. Only three months until the opening. Time is ticking…