Yes. That would be nice.

Drawn Monday July 26, 2010 at 8pm while thinking of something quite different altogether. While the brain’s away, the pencil will play…

Where would you go right now, if you could?

I had a quieter day yesterday at the exhibition. Anything would be quieter than the opening and family day! A steady flow of people came through – friends, family and strangers. I found out more stories about my pictures, saw people drawn to them in ways they didn’t expect, saw some children run around looking and another sit with his head buried in a game. You can’t win them all! And at the end of the day I painted a dark winter-blue coat on the hare in my new painting. I painted past 5pm, with the spotlight illuminating the work, the light outside dimming and a little heater warming my legs. Music played nearby and the picture stopped being a picture and started giving me ideas and possibilities – scenarios to weigh and plan. Lovely.

I’m looking forward to getting back in there on Tuesday.

BEAUTIFUL pictures everyone.

It was the most lovely crowd. And what I absolutely loved was looking around at a room full of people all engaging with the stories in the paintings. I heard so many ideas of what was going on – new things I had never thought of, aspects of characters, tensions, emotions, back-stories – there were people who were very emotional about some of the work and people with childhood memories that were suddenly brought back to the surface. Emma, assistant curator of contemporary art at the NGV, opened the show with a wonderful speech. She so obviously understood what I was trying to do and could see how it had come about. Peter was the MC – my most steadfast and needed supporter. I gave a speech about the work and how it came about… But for me, the most important part was the chance to thank everyone who has been so supportive, so engaged and so enthusiastic about this series of paintings. Had I not had that support this would never have happened. It is one thing to discover something I love doing and get incredible joy from – it is quite another to realise that other people love it too. And so many people!

It was an incredible experience. And because I knew I would be in a room of friends I really wasn’t anxious about it at all. And as of tonight… exactly half of the show has sold!

Tomorrow is a big day. We have the family event – which was in The Age’s EG today so I think there will be a great crowd.I’ll do more photos soon but for now I just want to say thank you! To Peter, Emma, Andrew and Tim, Crittenden, Koko Black, Avant cards, my family, my friends and everyone who has been so supportive. I’ve forgotten people, I know!

For this exhibition I seem to be hooked on…

Sarah Blasko – especially As Day Follows Night (but all of hers really)
Jazz – Ella & Louis, Django Reinhardt, Manouche, big band swing… something with a beat that gets in your bones.
And my current obsession – Emilie Simon’s Vegetal.

Which made me wonder – what music inspires you? Is there something you can’t work without? And does it change with different projects?

Being an artist sounds exquisitely romantic until you realise that, like anything else, it is a business too. I don’t mind it – especially with Peter doing so much of it with me. It’s just a little reality check now and then.

Mind you… I’m sitting in the lounge writing this and across the room is a big canvas on my easel (relocated from the studio because the canvas can’t get into that room), and another smaller easel with a fox on it, half finished. In the shadow against the wall I can see elephants flying and the rabbit sitting quietly. There is a lovely smell of oil paints and a big jar of brushes. And I think, suddenly, that it is an exciting and romantic thing to be an artist…

1. I do like hard work and, not being a morning person, I actually like working late at night.*

2. Working on a nice hot lightbox is best reserved for winter, if possible.**

3. Bugs are attracted to lightboxes on hot summer nights.

4. Flywire is recommended for studio windows.

5. Bugs are hard to clean off white paper.

6. All sorts of marks can be incorporated into pictures – right?

7. No point using recycled paper on a lightbox – especially if there is lots of writing on the other side…

8. There is not enough coffee in the world right now…

9. The person who thought up the word deadline made it sound ominous on purpose. Like flat-line. Firing-line… What was wrong with goal, objective or aspiration date… happy day.
Work-end.
Holiday!!***

Back to it, I guess…

* This is generally true. Evenings have fewer distractions.
** Like your own private brazier. Toasting the arms.
*** It was a conspiracy of lexicographers. (That sounds like a collective noun.)

True and not true. Today I find myself working but succumbing to my usual problem. No matter what I am working on I always seem to want to work on something else. Does anyone else have this issue?

And then you think, no, the picture was definitely better before I did that! But you don’t know until you’ve gone on. The worst thing is if you use computers enough you find yourself thinking… I’ll just undo.

It’s funny doing the video drawings and actually noticing how I work around a picture. I don’t ever really just do one bit and leave it. Part of that is because I’m not planning the picture fully. This means that the balances of detail and space, lights and darks are constantly shifting, and changing one area often necessitates some work elsewhere to balance  the image. Which means needing to do more work somewhere else, and somewhere else. And so it goes on until the page is often quite fully filled. But as I draw partly for the effect and partly for the pleasure of drawing, it’s not so bad.

Look how much space is still on the left! I’m kind of proud of that… And that little dark patch in the lower right corner was an important last bit. Making the stripes darker on the dress was an improvement too.