As another year comes to an end

Someone stop the merry-go-round, I need to type in my blog. lol

Since my last entry the days have blended together. I started college...now one of the determined few working at at getting a double major bachelors degree in fine art and visual culture. I took two classes for the first term and work went to an 80 hour week at the same time - eeeekkkkk! Learning about Modernism was a challenge, but can now count myself into the understanding why some of it is done. There is even an appreciation built for some of the Expressionists, Impressionists, Dada and more. It lead me to even undergo the Picasso exhibit at the NSW Art Gallery (more on that later). What else..mmmm.. photographed an engagement/rehearsal/wedding of a mate's daughter and organised albums, prints, etc and now painting their portrait. Practicing anatomy drawing for an upcoming life drawing class at Norman Lindsay's Gallery. Work has fluctuated between 50 to 80 hours a week depending on how much the boss will let my leash out. Had the inlaws visit for 3 weeks, Nat visit for a week, and we are renovating the house. Did I leave anything out? Who cares....I just been spinning and going with the flow. At this moment I am trying to eat lunch, wait on customers, type in the blog, and line up the studies for this afternoon - Multi-tasking to the ultimate insane levels. I need a shirt that says "Crazy Train".

This term I have limited myself to only one course, Introduction to Visual Culture, which is studying the history of art from the Greeks to Modernism. The most interesting thus far was the art of India, the beauty of their detail in Buddhism and Hindu works is exquisite. Currently the project is a 1200 word essay on how the Renaissance art demonstrates a "rebirth". I am now in love with Sandro Botticelli's work.

Art work wise there has only been my anatomy studies and the wedding portrait that is a work in progress when I can sit down to it. This is the beginning (the only photo I have on me at work).

This is the latest anatomy study of the morning: no, it is not me - it is from the Human Anatomy for Artists book by Dr. Gyorgy Feher.

From the 2nd of January until 5th I will be attending Norman Lindsay Gallery Life Drawing Summer School. It will be my first drawing class since high school (that was a long time ago). The teacher is David Newman-White with a lot of diplomas listings behind it. He studied Fine Art at Sydney Technical College, Alexander Mackie and the University of Western Sydney. He has exhibited in Hogarth Gallery, Coventry Gallery and Casula Powerhouse. He currently lectures for Nepean Art and Design Centre at the Western Sydney Institute, Nepean Collage. Impressive eh... I looked him up online and was very impressed by his work, so hopefully I'll learn lots of new tips this week.

Craig has been off work for the last two weeks and currently has all the walls in the kitchen, bathroom, spare room and dining room tore up to replace wall paneling and plastering. So I don't know how much work I will accomplish outside of the life drawing class. If I am not able to draw, I will post my latest readings for class, an artist bio or something art wise until my own work is able to be accomplished again.

Happy New Year.

Working through Creation

As world took so long to create, so does time for me to create make. The job is back to 6 days a week and on the 7th day is not a restful one. That is when to catch up on grocery shopping, cleaning, errads and the lot. We have also began renovating the house so that I can have a bigger studio area than the corner of the dining room. An hour a day and a few more on the day off and the walls are finally done with the trim's first coat drying. Hopefully the studio will be done this week.

I have made some play time at the shop. Graphite detail is my love, but takes so much time. I have brought out the chalk pastels to experiment. I started a portrait of my son to give to my Daddy for Father's Day, but didn't get it complete until the week after. There is still priming to be done whenever there is a sunny day on my day off. (I took the photo at 5am so light isn't the best.)

My husband loves information and lore on Ned Kelly, so on my husband's birthday this month I took him to see the Kelly Gang armour and Irish immigrant collection at the National Museum in Canberra, ACT. Of course our Irish roots began showing so an experiment with Celtic tones had to be undertaken.

Mawrth is Welsh for March; fire and flame feature strongly in Celtic myth and is symbolic of the power of the sun; The number three held special importance in Celtic belief and the triskele in motion shows its spiritual strength; a triangle consisting of three circles was the mark of divinity or holiness and was used by many in their markings (tattoo). I used the word March for symbolism in the "Beware the Ides of March". Putting it all together she is a druidess with divinity markings and great spiritual power brought by the sun to protect from harmful spirits. March is the month of winds and that is why she is clutching her hooded shawl in the front of her and hair is blowing wildly.

It is a bit too comicbookish for me, but was great fun to experiment with. I mainly was practicing control with the lines and getting some perpective dimisions. I am not a great fan of colour because I have shading issues to get depth and my beloved realism. So I made this full of colour to try and break my fear of it.

Time is about to get even more constrained for this household, I have found a University to finish my BA in Fine and Visual Art. They also have a program for undergrad diploma in secondary education. My life aspiraiton has alway been to become an art teacher. We will see with how hectic life's schedule can get as to how I go with completing my life's goal. Crossing fingers and saying lots of prayers!

Until I can write again....may peace and love follow your days.

Lost sight and now back

I have not been able to post a blog for awhile, one morning I woke up blind..literally. After several doctor visits I found out that I am diabetic. As I've gotten the sugar level down the sight has returned, but the eye specialist does not want to redo my prescription until everything stabolizes. It has been a nightmareish trip of different educators, specialists, exercise physio, dieticians, and support groups.

Things are slowing down and this is the first week I've been able to get back to work. I missed drawing! The thought of never being able to draw again (well the whole sight thing) has been making me push to get my life in order for it all. I am following all instructions to the letter.

At work this week I went back to the dragons. These drawings need to be finished ASAP as the author would like to publish by Christmas.

Poor Dragon is afraid of the dark.

Take my hand and be my friend.

In progress: fun at breakfast.

I hope to get the last pages out next week...we'll see how customers run at the servo.

There is also work to be done for the Springwood Art Show coming in August. I started a piece showing a girl sitting at Culburra beach, it is all done with dots. Each little detail with thousands of dots, ok maybe I was getting ahead of myself with this idea. The impressionists did it with paint, graphite pencil is time consuming, but hopefully rewarding in the end. Here is a corner closeup.

Have a great week!

Croft Angle Art on display at Colourart in Springwood, NSW

ColourArt Store in Springwood, NSW is displaying my artwork this week as a feature in the windows. How exciting! There are three for the outer window and three on the inside. The ladies there are so wonderful and always helpful with encouragement. I have had some pretty out there questions for them for supplies and they always come through with something I need.
The store:

The inside display:

The outside display:

I had a great time in South Australia and got great ideas for dragon emotion flashcards from my godson, Leslie. We drew an entire afternoon on them together. I also got drawing/colouring time with Matty, Tiffy and Rachael. They are all so very creative.

My job list and ideas are stacking on top of one another. I have serious work to get done. Have a great week.

Angels are watching

This is the quick work for this week. I found a photograph with the sweetest looking little girl and I made her an angel (with permission). She is 10X12 on bristol paper using 6H, F, and 4B. She is going to be one of the small drawings for the ColourArt Window on March 1st.

I went to a cafe in Winmalee this week to relax, have a coffee and draw in peace. The managers came over to see what I was doing. They have asked that I draw all their employees to put on the wall. That is different, but sounds like fun. A gentleman there wanted me to draw his wife as a surprise also, but when I went back yesterday to get a photo he wasn't there. (Email me please if you check the blog).

While I have the household smelling of apples, our apple tree was very abundant this year so making lots of applesauce and apple pies, I am back to the dragons.

I will be in South Australia next week drawing with four little darlings (my godchildren), so posting will run a bit later. Art lessons for all the kids, meetings with Austistic Society, and everything else my girlfriend has lined up for me will fill the hours.

All this talk about Dragons

For awhile now I have been mentioning working on illustrations for a children's book on dragons. I am finally getting some final drawings ready for the author. Getting what is in her mind into mine and on paper has been a learning curve. Today is all about the dragons and pieces are coming together.

My biggest hurdle was making an anatomy for the creature. I have never drawn fantasy pieces and needed to make this one move for the different things he does in the story. Also with being photorealistic in most of my drawings, I couldn't put too much detail into illustration so many sketches are on the dining room floor.

They will all come together in the end and there has been a lot of learning in the process I would never have pursued otherwise. The author is self-publishing so she can pretty much do what she has pictured in her head all these years of writing this series of stories (yes, she has plans for more). Challenges and going after dreams is what life is all about and this idea of hers is helping both of us with that.

Another zebra complete

Finally finished with the other zebra pair for a commission. The first one was with human eyes, this one is normal. I have wore my 4B pencils to the stub and fingers to the bone.

One more commission to finish....the dragons. This holiday seasons have been heck on me finding time to draw. The service station has been full on and husband has had a lot of time off. (When he is home work is almost impossible). I have two pieces sketched out to begin for the shows this year. I am itching to being them as well as get out the other ideas onto paper.

A lovely customer gave me 15 beautiful frames to use for my drawings. I just have to get them fitted with glass and backs. She has a friend that was a painter, so they are built for canvas inserts. There are some odd sizes I'd like to fill for the Springwood Art Show.

As my little pencil retires to its final resting place....I bring another young wood out to play.

Work Space Questions Answered

I have been asked where is it that I work on projects. Most days I have an easel table set up in the service station that pieces are worked on in between customers, but I do have a semi set-up at home. The dining room holds my architect table, work desk and chair stacked with different types of paper.

The table my husband found at an estate sale, the quilt I made of my family history, desk is always full of drawing books, magazines and business diaries. I am an organizer's nightmare. (The Beatles poster is my husband's). The attached lights are a natural light lamp for drawing and desk lamp if I am reading.

In one of the bedrooms I have a cabinet full of art supplies such as more pencils, watercolour crayons, chalk/oil pastels, oil paints, brushes, etc. Yes I work in graphite...but I always like to dabble in a bit of colour. This room also holds all my matte supplies, camera gear, books, Raggedy Ann dolls and sewing gear. It is pretty packed. All my inspirations are here too; prints of Ros Goody, watercolour of Wattle Flat general store done by a local artist, prints of Cedric Emanuel, oil painting of Bathurst by W. Anderson and oil painting of Tom Roberts by S. Mann.

Our hallway cove is filled with old frames we fix up for the drawings. Craig and the boss find old frames at yard sales and get glass cut to fit. I had to cut them off this summer as there isn't any room and they are falling behind in fixing.

I have two drawing boards that I carry around for park visits with a french easel Craig got me for our 1st Anniversary. They are also used at the service station and carrying around pieces I work on between there and the house.

I hope to have a studio one day to organize and work with effect precision. It would be nice to get more work accomplished without someone talking or the house yelling "clean me".

Quick drawing for the morning

The men of the house occupied themselves with a car this morning so I was able to sit down and complete a small drawing of my friend, Celina. It is 11X14 on bristol paper. I used 2H, 5H, 2B, 4B and F Derwent pencils with smoothing from an ordinary paper stump. I took the photo while visiting their house at Christmas. She was telling me stories about Raggedy Ann and tea parties. 

Now I need to get back to work on the dragons.

Leslie/Charlie Done...great start to a new year

This is the finished product of Leslie/Charlie that I have been posting updates of. It may have hooked me a couple more jobs from servo customers too. I was up until after midnight finishing the blanket last night and only had to finish up Charlie's legs today. The servo was so busy it took me 10 hours to get those done.

 I worked on the dragons over my days off and hopefully will have more done this week. I am converting the rough drafts into finished pieces and getting body corrections for the limbs. This is a chore with both men being home and wanting attention, but I push through.

There is still the zebra pair to complete as well. I will take them to the station tommorrow for more work. The head figure is done to the chest with his nose still being shaped with different tones.

I have some photography jobs that I will need to get done on my next days off that are exciting, have the window displays to complete for the shop's call, ideas need to be sketched out for the International Woman's Day show at Braemar Galley in March and lastly Springwood Art Show in August. I love it!!

Leslie and Charlie

Happy New Year to one and all. I hope that you had a safe and wonderful holiday season.
The servo has been quiet the last few days, so lots of time has been spent working on Leslie and Charlie. I am pleased with how things are coming along, just wish Leslie wasn't biting his tongue. I am thinking of changing his mouth to one of his famous smiles. So this is the progress so far.

I should not have taken the photo at work, but it is raining so could not carry it home to photograph. Tommorrow should prove another quiet day therefore hope to finish the rest of right hand side. I work from left to right top, then bottom to try and hinder any smudges. For the final touch-ups I use a piece of paper to set my hand on and be careful not to slide it. One fallout of graphite....smudges.