Side projects: Stuff I was working on...

This is one of the many projects that was gradually pushed aside for Honours work.  I finished the ink painting quite some time ago but I was planning on making it into an etching.  I was playing around with spit biting in my last etching and after many MANY tedious failures I starting being mildly proficient.  Skills like that should not be wasted, so I'm looking forward to using them on this image in the future. 

  

Stuff I'm working on

I apologise for not writing in a while. 

Life has been busy

I've moved into a new place 

and after living a whole month on take away and dining out

I have bought a fridge! 

Here's just a little something I've been working on in the meantime.

Chipper Cafe @ Glebe

Backlog

I seem to have quite a large backlog of cafe drawings that I haven't brought out yet, most of them done in Singapore when I had free time (I can almost remember what it was like to have free time).  Drawing in Sydney doesn't seem to happen too often mostly because I either feel like 

a)    I should be doing something productive  

b)    If I'm not working I should be spending time with my friends

c)    If I'm drawing it should be for my Honours Project

d)    Coffee and food is so expensive! Why are you spending money?! You're Broke! Stop doing drawings that require you  

to spend money!

I also intermittently get the horrible drowning feeling of despair when I'm drawing and I think the drawing is not going well.  Then I look at the clock and realize that its taken me an hour to do a bad drawing.  Drawing takes a long time.  I always seem to forget how long it takes.  It's usually worth it in the end, and I have some saving techniques up my sleeve when it gets into crunch time for finishing (this is usually when the guilt of not doing something productive and the urgent need to pee nudges my concern for the picture out of the way)

Horrible drawings seem more frequent in Sydney.  Detailed and enjoyable drawings usually populate my Holiday time, so I'll be scrounging around in my backlog for more drawings from Singapore and Melbourne soon!

Studio Shot

I stumbled across a photo book of artist's and designer studios recently.  I've seen a few of them before, as well as finding studio shots in magazines or on websites.  There is something incredibly fascinating about seeing the 'behind the scenes' of creatives.  Its like the hidden birthplace of artwork, part Frankenstein's laboratory, part Aladdin's Cave.  Unfortunately I was somewhat disappointed with the cleanliness of these studio portraits.  They seemed way too sparse, too large...too hygienic.

Nevertheless I wanted to show my studio in its awesome messy glory.  I have pretty much one of the best spaces.  Corner with window, a mixture of easel and table space, as well as being next to some amazingly creative, funny, and friendly artists.  During class time, as well as out, we bring in snacks, chocolates and baked goods (sometimes Home Made!) and munch away while sometimes getting onto the topic of art, but mostly discussing food-particularly Yum Cha.  

Love In The Park

This print took me roughly a year to complete. I started it in February 2010 in the strange twilight time of ‘after University’ and before ‘Working life’. I think it was my one big hope to keep on creating as I had done previously so I sort of clung onto printmaking during that time. Also I used the print as a procrastination tool against sending out even more CV’s to people who didn’t want them.

In its beginning stages this work seemed to be one of those images that grow naturally with very little effort involved. It happens once in a while. When I say little effort I mean I got most of the composition down in two to three days of solid work instead of weeks to months of fiddling. Maybe because of that, or because I had gotten a job by that time, when it came to aquatinting (applying tone/shading to the outline on a print) something horrible happened. Horrible. So I took the rest of the year fixing it. Fixing it involved me scraping back layers of metal, re-aquatinting, not being happy with the result, going back and scraping it off again etc.

I learned a lot, and I’m thankful to people who gave me advice, complimented me endlessly and who took the time to teach me how to burnish, scrape and spit bite properly, particularly David and Quillan. I don’t think there is one point in any artistic career where you can stop learning. There is a point where you can start teaching, I think you can get a little uppity or a bit complacent when you reach that point…I certainly did. A small knock down is good for you once in a while.

So is sticking to your guns. Many times during the year people tried to console me by telling me to stop and just move on to the next thing. Or that it was good the way it was. When you know something can be better, when you are actually aware of what the potential of something could be, I don’t think you should stop trying. It negates all the work you put into it in the first place. I was really proud of my composition and my line work and I wanted to be just as proud of the aquatint. I got it to 90% satisfied (you can never get the full 100) and editioned it with the help of Jess Edwards and David. I’m really happy with the final image and I hope you like it too. This work is called Love in the park.