Cath Sheard Art

Author: Catherine Barker-Sheard

  • The joy of experimenting

    My good friend and fellow artist Pen Kirk is a fearless experimenter with her art practice. I’m more inclined to experiment slowly, playing with a colour, technique or idea in my art journals and on paper, over and over, until I see where it leads me.

    Sometimes the steps are small, and then sometimes there’s a leap forward. Occasionally I realise I’m not enjoying the process, and I ditch the idea. If there’s no joy in the act of creating, I’m not interested.

    My current path includes bright fluro colours against darks or neutrals, and memories of the landscape from recent trips away. I’m often starting with bright pink or orange under painting and allowing it to peep through in the final layers. I’m not sure where this is all leading, maybe nowhere, and that’s ok. Here’s a couple of pieces I’m playing with.

  • Piripiri Caves reserve

    Alan and I attended the Sika Show at Mystery Creek over the weekend. On the way to Ohaupo we visited the Piripiri Cave. It’s labelled as a 5 minutes walk but of course took me much longer. I was having a medium/low muscle strength day so Alan had to help me with all the steps, slopes etc. He went to the bottom of the cave, but that was a stairway too far for me! The cave was well worth the trek though.

    Next we headed to Marokopa Falls, which is a 10 minute walk, but took me about double that each way. By the time we got back to the truck I was completely out of muscle strength! The falls were bigger and more impressive than we’d imagined and, much to our surprise, we saw three people stripped to their undies climb right down and go for a swim. No thanks…

    At the Sika Show Alan got a couple of things he’s been wanting, encouraged by me. Life’s short and unpredictable – tomorrow is never promised to us. I want us both to do the things we want to while we can.

    I appreciate that, despite being very fit and able, Alan will go at my speed so I get to do stuff with him despite my lack of capacity. He’s happy to lend me a hand, even when it basically means hauling me up the steps. It means a lot, but I do worry about holding him back. That’s one of the reasons I encourage him to go hunting and so on as much as he wants. Balance…

  • Quick trip away

    Alan and I spent Labour weekend near Te Awamutu. We came home via Marokopa as it’s somewhere he’s always wanted to go. It was maybe an hour from Te Awamutu to Marokopa, partly because of the wind and torrential rain! The settlement is lovely, with all sorts of beach houses and a river people were whitebaiting on. It reminded me a bit of Waverley Beach and I could imagine retiring there.

    We took the back road through to Awakino which was a nice trip but, again, the rain spoilt the view. The road rejoins the state highway somewhere around the petrol station, so you miss most of the Awakino Valley and Ladies Mile.

    Marokopa
    There was a huge, very complete rainbow on the way home. The colours were much more vivid than this shows.

  • A proving ground

    My journals are a safe place to play but also somewhere for ideas to prove themselves or die… Sometimes an idea isn’t sustainable for practical reasons, perhaps because of the materials or energy required.

    Other times I start to play with an idea and, 2 or 3 iterations along, I’m getting bored with it. If an idea is going to become a series, even a small one, it’s needs to hold my attention for a sustained period of time.

    There’s been a couple of things recently I’ve tried and dropped for the above reasons. So I’ve gone back a bit to go forward – relooking at ideas that have captivated me in the past, and putting a fresh twist on them.

    I’m playing with ridge lines, mountains and the landscape generally. Because it’s a familiar subject I’m able to play around with my materials more. These early trial works incorporate gelli prints, acrylic paint, acrylic ink, water soluble pencils, Kuretake watercolours and Ranger Distress Foundry Wax.

  • Testing out my new journal

    I’ve been working in my new Seawhite journal today. It’s A4, with 350gsm watercolour paper and wire-o binding. The paper is lovely to work on; it even coped well when I spilt acrylic ink and had to use a lot of water to rescue the page, with no buckling or damage to the surface of the paper. One page has perhaps 6 layers of gelli printed deli paper in some areas and the paper is sturdy enough to handle it well. The cover is rigid so I can stand the journal up to let the drips run without it falling over. The wire-o binding has its benefits but, overall, I prefer a standard book binding where I can mop ink and water out of the trough between pages.

    Do I love it so far?Absolutely. The Drawing Room also has the Seawhite travel journal with 200gsm watercolour paper and a normal book binding. I’ll certainly be trying out those too.