Cath Sheard Art

Blog

  • Seeing inspiration in the everyday

    There’s no denying that our trip to Italy and Dubai was inspiring; I will be looking at the photos for years to come. Sure exotic people and far off lands are exciting as an artist, but we can’t be forever on holiday (not with my luck at Lotto anyway!).

    Much of my inspiration comes from the land around me – the buildings, paddocks, the distant view of Mt Egmont, the waves crashing into Mana Bay at Patea Beach. Places that are accessible and affordable to get to. I try to have a camera with me most of the time so I can take a photo when something grabs my attention, often because of the light. I have a semi-organised filing system on the computer for my photos and also save some to cd in case my computer ever dies.

    These two  images are a digital combination of three photos; Mt Egmont, the waves crashing into the sand at Mana Bay and a cabbage tree at sunset. When I play round with the images like this I’m not necessarily wanting to achieve a particular end result. It’s more about knowing the subject, feeling comfortable with the shapes and just letting them seep into my brain. I know that I paint differently – better and looser – when my brain really knows the subject and can let go of some control.

  • NZ Art Guild challenge

    This fortnight’s NZ Art Guild challenge was “Experiment with shape and colour to communicate meaning. Choose a sound and convey it in an artwork using a maximum of 3 colours (you may also use black and white in addition to your 3 selected colours)”. I use the Guild challenges as a chance to free up and have a play. These are the details I posted on the Guild forum with my piece:

    Title: The (art) noise in my mind
    Medium: mixed media – paint, ink, rubber stamps, coloured pen
    Size: 210x135mm (in one of my art journals)
    Colours: Red, blue, pale aqua

    The writing  says “I need to spend time on my art each day or gradually the noise from all the ideas becomes louder and louder till I can’t hear myself think anymore.”

    The (art) noise in my mind

  • Patea Freezing Works – Freeze Dried

    During the week I finished another of the Patea Freezing Works series, and have one more almost done. All three have the same vibrant reds and pinks in the background, and a lime green accent. The starting point is a series of photos taken by Aaron Cubis, whose work can be seen here. It was very generous of Aaron to let me use his images; some of them are stuck on the wall above where I work as inspiration. My husband looked at this one and pointed out that I have used two different points of view – true, but for me the photo is a jumping off point and these are about colour, texture and pattern, not the geometry of the machinery.

    These three works in the series are off to Hamilton to the Thornton Gallery this week for the ‘One size fits all’ exhibition. It’s exciting to be part of this annual event. Here’s a little bit about the Gallery.

    Their website says: Thornton Gallery has been established in Hamilton since the early 1970’s, is well known throughout the Waikato and Auckland regions. Thornton Gallery is one of the largest privately owned gallerys in New Zealand. Thornton Gallery stocks an extensive range of New Zealand Artists. Along with original art works by New Zealand Artists  including paintings, ceramics, sculpture in stone, wood, copper and bronze, art glass and  jewellery, Thornton Gallery sells New Zealand limited edition prints, reproduction art prints and a large range of imported graphics, both framed and unframed. Quality is an important criteria for the works exhibited in our gallery, along with integrity. We believe that art enhances life and is an expression of being.

    As for the Freezing Works itself, the cleanup has not gone quite as smoothly as hope and is costing around $1 million more than anticipated. Council projects manager Viv Eyberg said the contractors had found more asbestos than expected below the foundations of some of the buildings.  Any asbestos below one metre had been capped with a protective membrane. Once the site was finished and certified there would be soil monitoring and nine monitoring wells set up along the estuary where water samples were taken to ensure no contaminants leached, Mr Eyberg said. Here’s a newspaper article about it if you’d like to know more.

    Freeze Dried 2010

  • Rouge Poire / Bleu Poire for Pocket Rocket exhibition

    The Pocket Rockets exhibition, being held in Dunedin, is only about 10 days away now. I am sending off 4 works to organiser Tanya Dann in Monday’s courier post. I seem to have a few exhibitions coming up at the moment, so I am sending two older works and two new ones. The two newly completed works are part of the ongoing Pears series, in this case Bleu Poire and Rouge Poire. The photograph of the blue background is pretty accurate but the other one is hopeless. I have had a few attempts at getting a decent pic but for some reason the camera just won’t pick up the yellow colour of the background. In the photo it looks very washed out but it is actually quite a vibrant yellow. My camera is normally really good so not sure what is going on. Ah well, anyway … these are both 10×10″ in acrylic on gallery wrap canvas.

    Last weekend I decided to have a very brutal clean-up in my studio. Tony took a carload of junk away, not all from my studio I hasten to add, but some of it sure was.  I had a wee pile of old paintings that I hadn’t sold, and in many cases had never shown – none of them fitted in with what I do now. They took up a lot of room and, more importantly, every time I went out there they were looking at me. Some I felt I could recycle. The others? I put black paint all over them so no one could grab them, and Tony took them to the rubbish dump. It feels *so* good to be rid of them – like there’s this huge weight off my shoulders. I hadn’t realised just how oppressive they had become. Now when I go to my studio I just feel excited, which is how it should be.

  • Patea Freezing Works – Where’s my knife?

    I am back to my Freezing Works series; I need to have 3 works finished and sent off by the end of the month. They’re heading to the “One Size Fits All” exhibition at the Thornton Gallery in Hamilton in August. Each work has to be 10″ square and that suits be just fine for this series. I always enjoy working at that size anyway as it suits the way I work in winter – sitting down at my office desk with the heater on. In winter it is simply far too cold to go to my outside studio and stand at an easel. The studio used to be the caravan shed so it has corrugated iron walls, a concrete floor on dirt, and no insulation at all. Freezing in winter and hot as heck in summer. What a wimp, I know!

    These three works are loosely based on photos by New Zealand photographer Aaron Cubis. You can see some of his amazing work here on Flickr. I started with loose washes and runs of Golden Fluid Acrylics; Napthol red medium, Quinacridone magenta & crimson, and Phthalo green (blue) and Permanent green light. From there I have just played around, trying to capture the feel of years of peeling paint and rusty metals. What I loved about Aaron’s photos was the vivid contrast of the red and green paint on the walls and this is what I have tried to capture. This is probably going to be the most realistic of the three works as I tend to loosen up as I get into a subject painting by painting.

    Photo by Aaron Cubis

    The clean-up of the Freezing Works following the fire a couple of years ago is 95% complete now; the landscape looks so different with all those buildings gone. I guess the biggest impact on the landscape was when the chimney came down. I am happy to see it all gone; as I come down the hill into Patea the view out to the Tasman Sea is spectacular. Of course the landscape will never be as it was 100s of years ago, because of power lines, house sat the beach and so forth, but it does give a better idea of just how beautiful the untouched landscape must have been here pre-settlement.

    Where's my knife? 10×10" acrylic.