Cath Sheard Art

Tag: landscape

  • Signatures for a swap

    I’ve just finished my entries for the International Signature Swap 2013 organised by Erika Husselmann. It was such fun last year that I couldn’t resist doing it again. The rules have changed a bit from previous years, you can find all the details on the Art Swappers website. I’ve used Hahnemuhle 140gsm drawing paper, and started by adding a few layers of Golden acrylics with by Gelli Plate. Once that was dry and I had spent some time looking at them, I worked back into them with more paint, and Derwent Art Bars. I love the idea of the Art Bars but, in practice, I find I remove what I’ve done more times that I leave it on. I really to prefer adding extra marks with paint or pen. So, here’s what I created last night:

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  • Looking at the landscape

    I am still adjusting to all the time I have now that Mum has died. Six months on I find the evening has vanished and, all too often, I have achieved nothing. Yet when she was alive, I juggled it all, and found art time. I think I’m still catching up on rest, and learning to live with the gap in our lives.

    So one of the things I am slowly doing is going back to some of the things that have been good in my art in the past – like exploring the landscape to see just how far from a ‘real’ landscape you can get before it no longer says landscape. I’d be been using my Gelli Plate, foam stamps with words on them, and a bunch of bubble wrap, to get messy landscapey layers. What I love is that with printing you get bits of paint left over and they come out in a layer later on, adding more colors and texture.

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  • 2012 as a blogger

    600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,300 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 11 years to get that many views. In 2012, there were 57 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 559 posts. There were 129 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 190 MB. That’s about 2 pictures per week. The busiest day of the year was June 10th with 177 views. The most popular post that day was New home office / art room.

    These are the posts that got the most views in 2012.

    Visitors came from 98 countries in all! Most visitors came from The United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom were not far behind.

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  • Italy on my mind

    Our Italy trip has been on my mind a lot lately, for all kinds of obscure and tangential reasons. Things like the financial woes in Europe, the realization that Tony and I probably won’t be going overseas again, seeing some poppies growing locally, graffiti that reminds me of the trains in Italy…

    I’ve been wanting to start a new series of paintings, using mainly black and white with a little red, and over the last few nights have dreamed these into existence. As I start painting Tony often asks, partly to wind me up, “what’s it going to be?”. He kept coming and looking at these three, a bit baffled. When I had finished he said “poppies”. Yup – but think of the viaduct, and the train tracks. Oh yeah, you have the graffiti underneath, and the old roman viaduct. Yes, Tony, I do!

  • Playtime in my art studio

    It’s not often I get time alone at home; being full-time carer for my Mum means that I almost always have someone at home with me. On top of that, during the week we have two different caregivers coming in and out, etc. I value their help, we could not manage without them and both still work, but it’s more people in my days. For a real introvert, this is not always easy. Today my husband Tony has gone to visit his cousin Alison and my sister Ailsa has taken Mum out for a drive. So it’s just me, the cat and the dog. Bliss! I love my family and would not change my life for anything, but I do crave time alone.

    So what does an artist do when they get some unexpected time out? Yes, that right, they head for their studio … and I did. I have started on some backgrounds, just playing with texture, colour and pattern. I’ve also done a few small, connected, abstract landscapes using my favorite Unison pastels.

    I love the feel of pastels plus there’s such a depth of colour; I enjoy the way the light hits those fine particles of pure colour. The only downside for me is that if I use them too much the ends of my fingers get sore from wiping them clean all the time. I try not to be too compulsive about keeping my fingertips clean and that helps!

    For the backgrounds I gathered up foam stamps, liquid acrylics, a white wax crayon, rubber paint spatula, letting stencils and some scraps of patterned paper. I fairly randomly layered the colours and patterns on. These are nothing finished about these at all – they are very much at the beginning stages so it’ll be fun to see what develops over the next few days.

    Now I am going to sit down in the sunshine and start working with some ideas I’ve had for Christmas gifts. There’s less than 3 months to go, and I want to make one or two textile items for family members. Fingers crossed that my new glasses give me sharp enough focus for doing needlework. Time will tell…

    Starting on some backgrounds; these will uncurl as I add more layers.
    Working on small landscapes in pastel.
    I love the way Unison pastels catch the light.