Cath Sheard Art

Author: Catherine Barker-Sheard

  • Excited!

    This year I entered Dale Copeland’s International Collage Exchange after a break for a couple of years. You send off collages, Dale does a huge amount of work to swap them round, and you get a package of collages back (bit more to it than that, but anyway…). I opened my package, looked at one of the collages, and went “Oh my god, I don’t believe it!”. I was 99% sure straight away that the work in front of me had been done by Carol Staub, an artist whose work I have admired for years. And I was right! So excited. So grateful. The image below is not the one I received, it’s the one that was for sale on the Virtual Tart site, but shows the style of work.

    Just. So. Happy. 

  • More on the Freezing Works

    Last night was one of those nights where all I wanted to do was paint – not sleep, work, or whatever – just create something. Turns out it was the full moon. Along with many other creatives, I suffer from “full-moon-itis”! About 10pm I gave in and opened a packet of A4 size Hahnemuhle watercolour paper. The 300gsm is heavy enough that I can work on it without needing to stretch it; perfect for doing mixed media at my desk, and it’s a lovely surface to work on.

    I have done a lot of works inspired by the old Patea Freezing Works over the last few years, and since going to Italy in 2010 I’ve also done a lot of works that involve poppies. Last night I combined the two and depicted the freezing works site regenerating, with poppies growing where the land has been disturbed, just like in Cassino, Italy. I kept one derelict building at the far right, and a few ‘ghost’ buildings along the horizon, where they still exist in my memory. I used Golden airbrush acrylics, a super fine Sharpie pen, Faber Castell aquarelle sticks and Caran D’Ache Neocolors, then added text in Photoshop.

  • Crusade 61: end of an era

    I’ve been doing the Crusades off and on for years now. Michelle has enriched our lives in so many ways; thank you so much. The sense of community is huge. Michelle’s taking a well earned break. So this is my final Crusades entry for a while – the writing says it all for me. By the way, the challenge was to “show restraint” – to leave some space and let the work breath.

  • More collages

    The only thing I have to show this week is more of the collages I made for Dale Copeland’s International Collage Exhibition, so here we go. I have done lots of study for my Museum paper, and quite a lot of work towards next month’s newspaper already (in my own defense!)

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  • A storm and ICE!

    Ten days ago we had a massive storm come through South Taranaki; Patea, where we live was the epicenter. Scary stuff. 600 power lines down, more than 50 homes badly damaged – roofs ripped off, walls collapsed, power poles snapped in half, two houses have to be demolishedImage.

    As a Council worker I was involved in things such as going door to door checking on people, and then my two libraries provided access to social services for people. I’ve worked two weekends in a row, so have a couple of days off now just to chill out a bit.

     

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    It’s hard to imagine the scale of destruction, or the noise at the height of the storm at about 4am. We were lucky; my car has some damage, as does the car shed, spa pool roof and aviary. Compared to others we were so fortunate.

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    And speaking of chilly, have you heard of ICE? It’s the International Collage Exhibition, which used to be called the Baker’s Dozen. You can read more about it here. I wasn’t supposed to be doing any artwork this year, but this is one I have entered before and I just couldn’t resist. I made 10 collage in the end, and they’re heading off to organiser Dale Copeland tomorrow. Here’s a couple of the collages:Image. 

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