Cath Sheard Art

Author: Catherine Barker-Sheard

  • A revelation!


    I had a revelation – I was reading an article in Artist’s Palette called “Creating Memories” about Aussie artist Petrea Fellows.

    She works mainly in charcoal, ink and some watercolour to create works based on her recollections of landscapes. Many border on abstraction and she says she “interprets the landscape through memory”.

    I’ve been fascinated for ages now by the sky, especially at dusk, and the way it is changing as our weather alters. Mum and I both feel we are seeing new colours and cloud formations we never used to see. I think these are warnings in the sky about what is happening to our planet.

    But I hadn’t been able to make a connection between these feelings and my art. And now I have. Ever since I read the article, I’ve been using all kinds of media to put down my recollections of the evening sky as it is now, and as I remember it from the past – without feeling I have to make it “real”. It is *very* exciting and really liberating…

  • I’ve even been painting…


    I’ve had a few days off over the Christmas break and have been painting non-stop for a couple of days now. I’ve mainly been tackling landscapes, working from a series of photos I took recently of the Patea / Waverley coastline.

    When I first started the art course with TLC I had a real passion for painting people but this year have concentrated on other themes. I have a real desire to get back to some faces … so yesterday out came the photos.

    I have been working on painting my husband, Tony, at this stage because his face is so familiar. So far I have painted the same photo twice, both in watercolour.

    Now I’m going to move on and try the same pose in a variety of different media.I really like working this way because as I get more familiar with the shapes and lines my art gets freer and more expressive somehow.

  • Adopted by a bundle of inspiration!


    Between Christmas and New Year a 7 week old bundle of fur and claws turned up, seriously hungry, at our house. Of course we sent it packing!


    Okay, no we didn’t – we fed it, cuddled it, took it to the vet, welcomed it onto our bed…


    Goldie has only been with us four days and already I’ve taken more than 80 photos and starting turning some of them into watercolours – I love the way her fur colour contrasts against the lawn when she is playing outside.

  • Trial and error


    For the last week or more I’ve been working on linotypes and monoprints – lots of disasters, ink up the wall, and a few okay prints as well. All good fun 🙂

    The blue-bordered one was printed then coloured with water soluble pencils. They both suffer from a sloping horizon – I didn’t notice until I’d cut the lino and pulled the first print off.

  • If I was stranded on a desert island…

    the 10 music CDs I’d take with me would be:

    1. Billy Idol – Greatest hits
    2. Meat Loaf – Welcome to the neighbourhood
    3. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band – Live 1975-85
    4. Vanessa Mae -The classical album
    5. Meat Loaf – Bat out of hell I and II
    6. Pet Shop Boys – Discography
    7. Queen – Greatest hits volume I & II
    8. Queen – Made in Heaven
    9. Def Leppard – Hysteria
    10. Crash Test Dummies – God shuffled his feet

    If the music we love says something about us, then I suspect in my case the message is a little muddled!!