Cath Sheard Art

Tag: mixed media

  • More small steps of (re)discovery

    More small steps of (re)discovery

    I am rediscovering parts of my art practice after 5 years of decreasing art time due to Tony’s poor health. People assume, when a loved one goes into a rest home, the one left at home has a normal life again, but that’s far from the truth.

    I used to do a lot of collage but had gradually all but stopped, except in mixed media. Yet collage is a low stress, low cost way of training your eye and brain to recognise what you love to see, and love to create. It’s a useful tool, but it’s also just good fun … not everything has to have an end goal.

    I’ve also realised, probably due to time pressure, I was only creating landscape focussed pieces in my art journals. I haven’t been exploring shape and composition, or mark making, for its own sake.

    Today I played and it felt good to be going back to a more holistic art practice. I’m seriously considering putting my Felt shop on hold after Christmas and spending the year concentrating on refilling my art cup to see where it leads in terms of work I make.

  • Practising the basics

    It’s always useful to practice basic skills like colour mixing, composition and mark making. I’ve been slowly coming to the realisation that I’ve lost some of my own style, especially in terms of mark making. There’s a couple of reasons for that, which it’s probably not useful to document.

    How to fix it? De-influencing myself through less time watching other artists online. Looking at other artist’s work is fine but, for me anyway, watching them work is often detrimental unless it’s a specific technique I want to learn.

    The other thing I’m doing is practicing the basics by colour mixing, inspired by Sarah Renae Clark’s Colour Cubes, then doing a small piece in those colours, an idea I got from Denise Love. That said, I’m making a conscious effort to use my brush strokes and my marks to ensure the hand of the artist shows.

  • Gentle steps

    Gentle steps

    In my last blog post I said I was pleasantly surprised by the desire to create so soon after Tony’s death. I’m still creating, taking it gently but feeling good about it.

    People ask how I am … I’m ok. Am I great? No, but it’d be a bit weird if I was. I describe it as appropriately sad. The sadness comes and goes – after 33 years together, and all the years of slowly losing Tony, that feels ok.

    So I’m being kind to myself and creating with low expectations, doing what I feel like in the moment. I’m feeling inspired by Welsh castles, a theme I return to semi-regularly, often accompanied by masts, swords and what’s probably blood. It is what it is…

    In these current works, which are about A3 size, it feels important to work in overlapping layers. Why? I don’t know yet, but I’m happy to trust the process.

    I’ve also been doing some gelli printing,

  • A little creativity

    Tony & I nursed Mum for 14 years. After she died I didn’t create any finished art pieces for about 18 months. I expected the same to happen when Tony died. I’ve been prepared to spend my time creating in my art journals, relying on Dina Wakley and Dyan Reaveley for inspiration.

    Tony passed away three weeks ago tomorrow night. Last night I decided to put together a large concertina journal using Hahnemühle Bamboo Mixed Media paper. I figured it’d probably sit around for ages, unused, but making something was a positive step.

    Alan went to work early this morning, and I had some time at my desk before Sandra and I went out, then a few hours on my own once we got home. I, not sure where this is going, but there’s art happening and I’m amazed.

    I was talking to my good friend, and fellow artist, Pen Kirk about why it’s different this time. I feel I’ve had better self care throughout because I’ve “been there, done that”l also, I’m older, so have more life experience.

    Talking to my sister later, she remarked “Alan’s pretty helpful. Wasn’t Tony getting unwell by the time Mum died?” and both of those things are true. I’ve been fortunate to have Alan’s support the last few years, whereas in the final years with Mum Tony was already struggling.

    It’s great that I want to create already, but I won’t be putting any pressure on myself to create finished work. Whatever I do is ok…

  • Printing with lace!

    Today I popped into Ethel Anne Antiques in Hāwera in search of more old music books, as I’ve had so much fun with the ones I got a couple of weeks back. I bought some but, even more exciting, are the old lace doily.

    I knew straight away they’d be interesting on the gel plate. Sure enough, they were. The heavy lace one isn’t much use, but the finer ones are amazing. I used mainly Golden Fluid Acrylics and Hahnemuhle Sumi-e paper to print on because it lifts the prints beautifully. I definitely prefer the softer colours for these over the brighter ones.

    I’m not sure what I’m going to do with these yet. I’ll probably use them as collage in mixed media works. I’m tempted to create some multi layer prints that are complete in their own right.

    Here’s what I have done so far, including a couple of close up shots.