Cath Sheard Art

Category: Uncategorized

  • My word is …

    Along with setting some goals for the year, I’ve been doing some creative thinking using a journal mydear friend Steph gave me called “The sacred journey daily journal for your soul”. At the start of the year the books encourages doing lots of thinking about key words, goals, attitudes, affirmations. My word for 2009 is balance. My creative expression is “my art is mine and it is OK“. More on that in another post. But back to balance; why balance, and what does it mean for me?

    Balance:

    • between my needs and the needs of those around me
    • between work and home
    • between time doing art and time marketing art
    • between the process of making art and the goal of the piece of art
    • between time enjoying the net and time wasted on the net
    • between wanting things now and wanting to get our $ under control
    • between creating for joy and creating for profit

    And a more balanced attitude about:

    • food
    • exercise
    • putting tasks off for another day
    • taking on other people’s worries

    I can think of a lot of ways in which BALANCE is what is needed in my life in 2009.

    Many of the artists whose blogs I follow are also talking about their goals and key words for 2009: Martha Marshall, Tina Mammoser, Vivien Blackburn,and Jeanette Jobson all have interesting posts for you to enjoy. Happy reading! 

  • Creating a base layer

    salles-ed-2Although I can do all kinds of things I suspect I have only scratched the surface of what can be done with Photoshop.  Not that I am wanting to create digital art as an end in itself, more that I want to create things that I can use in my art that are solely my own work. That way there are no tricky copyright issues and that has to be a good thing, right?

    These pieces started with photos I took last night at a friend’s place and have two or three layers each. I’ll be transfering them onto canvas and them painting more layers over the top.

    honchii-in-paddock

    sallys-puss

  • A total lack of resolve – and a happy new year

    Happy New Year to one and all; may 2009 be kind to you and yours.

    I don’t make resolutions as the new year begins, but I do think about my goals for the coming year. Here is what I posted a while back. “Some of us in the NZ Art Guild have been looking back at our art goals for 2008, and thinking ahead to 2009:

    1. A body of paintings that hangs together around a theme or process (don’t know what yet).

    2. A small body of textile work to exhibit as a whole.

    3. Some charity work so I can give back.

    4. To market myself more systematically.”

    I’ve also been thinking about what I want in a personal sense, and have set myself a couple of goals to work on in 2009 – but they’re going in my journal and nowhere else! 

  • Running kinda late – GPP challenge

    Back in November Michelle’s challenge at the GPP Street Team blog was to explore the properties of gesso, and have a play at making some cool backgrounds. So, it’s almost 2009, and I finally got to it. Running kinda late, but it was fun anyway – and I learnt some new stuff along the way.

    I used some pre-cut watercolour postcards, fluid acrylics, Making Memories foam stamps and Golden gesso. I stamped with gesso then painted over the top, painted them stamped on top with gesso, dribbled ink, rubbed with metallic crayons … and so on. Here’s just one of the backgrounds I now have ready for when I went to send a postcard to say hi to a friend.  

    gpp1-001

  • Art eyes

    Art eyes. Do you know them? They’re the slight red-rimmed, tired looking ones that have read too many art books, stared at too many lines, spent too long poring over paints and crayons and pens. But it was worth it! I have had a day and a half of ‘mucking round’ with no real purpose in mind, just fiddling about getting all inspired. Lovely fun. Now my poor old eyes need a rest…so it must be time to go cook dinner.

    Mind you, if I wore my reading glasses, instead of letting them sit idle on my desk it might help. I am very short sighted, so my glasses go on before I even get out of bed. Having worn glasses for 36 years I am finding it hard to get into the habit of taking them off in favour of my reading ones. But it is becoming crucial. Sometimes I find myself looking under my glasses to do close work, or moving text further away from me. Perhaps tomorrow I will remember to use them. Or perhaps not 😉

    tired-eyes1