Cath Sheard Art

Tag: art journaling

  • Revisiting old techniques

    Revisiting old techniques

    My art practice is a mix of art and craft; my art has been centred on collab with Penny Kirk for our most recent exhibition in Greymouth. When it comes to crafting, for months I’ve been working predominantly in my Dina Wakley Media journals with DWM paints and stencils etc. Love love love … but also feeling the need to change things up a bit.

    During the Covid-19 lockdowns in the UK artist Dyan Reaveley started doing online classes, as she couldn’t teach and travel as normal. Although converting GBP to NZD is pretty gruesome, I was fortunate to do quite a few classes and loved them.

    I decided to rewatch the videos, knowing there’d be techniques and ideas I’d forgotten about. Sure enough, I’m loving the videos and am having fun working in a Jumpstart journal I had squirreled away.

    I don’t normally complete a page at a time. The Jumpstart journal is blank pages on the left, and a colour copy of one of Dyan’s pages on the right. I start by using the babywipe method to colour a bunch of left hand pages, stencilling as I go. One that’s dry, I randomly add borders, cut shaped edges, add silhouettes and so on. Then I outline everything, doodle and add faux running stitch around elements. I sit in front of tv with Alan in the evenings, with a couple of sizes of black and white pen and just flick my way through adding details.

    None of these pages are finished, but they show work in progress…

  • Playing in my small journal

    This is a 6×6” kraft journal; the pages are thick and take all kinds of punishment, but they do soak up a lot of glue etc. To get the brightest colours I put a layer of clear gesso down first.

    The page with turquoise circles is a printed transparency from Dina Wakley Media that I’ve painted on the back then tipped in, so the page underneath peeks through.

  • Sea Pinks

    Over the last week or two my small art journal, where I work out ideas, has been inundated with bright greens or greenish yellows. There’s a lot of hot pink, sometimes on the horizon line or cliff edge, or scattered in the landscape.

    Sandra was looking at my art journal, went off for a few minutes, and came back to show me Sea Pink (Thrift) on to coast of Wales – and they flower in Ireland too. And there’s the answer…much of what I paint is based on memories of the landscape. Mum’s birth mother Angela was Irish; somewhere in my DNA the memory exists of the Sea Pinks flowering in the landscape.

    That might sound far fetched, but think about this. People with Scottish ancestry often feel an affinity with the bagpipes even if they don’t know they have Scottish heritage. They’ll say it is like they know the music from the first time they hear it. Why? Because it’s wired into their ancestral memory, or however you want to describe it. Of course there are examples from all over the world, from all cultures.

    Have I been to Ireland and seen the Sea Pinks in flower? No. Does my soul, my shared ancestral memories, know them? I think so. I’d love to know if Angela liked them.

  • It’s an arty sign

    About 4 years ago I did a few sessions of counselling to get my head around some stuff. We also worked on me sleeping better, without huge success. We identified three things I wanted to achieve in the counselling; she said 3 is about the max you can do at any one time. One of the words we settled on was content; not content as in “no growth needed” but content to let the process work and accept life as it happens. There were a lot of very good reasons why that was needed.

    And, full circle, the same thing applies now. There’s a lot of change happening in my life, and I can’t control much of it. It’s important I feel content with life regardless.

    I’m inspired by Claire Stead‘s art and have just got her new release from Funky Fossil through Natalie May Scrapbooking in Australia. I got some clear text stamps and her collage paper. I was working in my 6×6 Dina Wakley kraft journal, one of my favs, this morning and flicked through the collage paper book and there it was — “I am content”. The universe wants me to know it will be ok!

  • What we reveal

    Next weekend Penny and I are holding an artist talk for the closing of our joint art exhibition at Left Bank Art Gallery in Greymouth. I’m flying down on Thursday to stay with Alan for a few days and do arty stuff with Penny.

    Last night Penny and I were talking about our prep for the event. She will have some bullet notes, and go from there. I’ll have every single word written out and won’t deviate from it much. It’s the same with our art, we have two very different processes and styles.

    Where we don’t differ is we’re not very good at talking about our emotions, and this collaboration has been a huge emotional journey for both of us. I need to talk about that as part of the closing of the exhibition.

    Does what I’ve written tell the whole truth? No, not really.

    I met with someone this morning who had weight loss surgery a couple of years after me. She’s doing well. We talked about what we eat, when we eat, why we eat. Sitting here though, thinking back to our coffee meeting, I know I edited my truths. Sorry SK; it’s that old weight monster – shame.

    Sandra has been grandkid and puppy sitting today, and the puppy fell asleep n me. I asked her to take a photo for me. I look at that photo and see the puppy, but also the weight I’ve put on in the last year and there it is – shame. I’m working on it – both the food choices and the emotions. In the meantime, I’ll keep editing what I reveal, protecting myself.