Cath Sheard Art

Tag: mixed media

  • A shifting vision

    I’m working on a new series; the last couple of posts have talked about trying out some different ideas and ways of expressing my ideas. This isn’t a new direction, instead it’s a slight shift in how I put on paper – in paint – the things I don’t have words for. Sometimes that’s emotions, other times it’s my memories of the landscape.

    I’ve been working in a kraft journal and on a variety of mixed media papers. My favourite pad of PaintOn mixed media paper has white, cream, black, and a blue grey. I’m using quite a bit of fluro pink from the Golden heavy body range and it’s hard to scan the colour accurately. These works include collage, paint, ink and pencil, so are much more “mixed” than my usual mixed media. I’m ordering more precut mat show kits from the US this week and it’ll be interesting to see how they look with a clean white border.

  • 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!

  • The colour of hope

    I’m doing two #100dayprojects, and am up to day 84. One of them is about making a collage a day, and I’ve been playing along with Froyle, as she inspires us to try different colours. This week she asked what colour represents hope for us. My initial thought was orange but, the more I thought about it, that’s not true. I love orange, it’s about fire and passion and danger, not hope.

    For me hope is a mix of blues and greens; the colours of nature and the sea. The land and waterways being healthy is what will give me hope for earth. I particularly love the colour of the Hokitika Gorge, and the greens of the land as it meets the blue of the distant hills on the West Coast. When I’m there I create lovely gelli prints inspired by the land around me. When I get home I stop. Not because I’m home, but because – as beautiful as it is – the land around me doesn’t inspire me in quite the same way.

    Here’s the first of this week’s collages inspired by the colour of hope.

  • Influences

    Is my art original? Yes. Am I influenced by others artists? Absolutely. There’s a core group I’ve followed for years, including Tim Holtz, Teesha Moore, Traci Bautista, Dina Wakley and Dyan Reaveley. Some of them are designers with Ranger, so I’m influenced by both their art and their new products.

    Artists whose work has influenced me include Jasper Johns, Richard Serra, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell and Cy Twombly. I was fortunate to study some of them at The Learning Connexion during the four years I studied art.

    Teesha Moore, whose work I love, has been sharing some of her older art journal pages on Instagram. She’s had some health problems, so I don’t think she’s creating much at the moment. I’ve made her style of journal before, and often use her collage style in my journals.

    Tonight I hunted round in the cupboard and found a blank journal I’d made from Fabriano paper, based on a video she did of her process back in 2010. I’ve started colouring the pages using Golden Fluid Acrylics. Once it’s fully dry I’m going to use magazine images and downloaded mixed media papers to create my pages. I’ve just bought some of Denise Lush’s new collage papers and think they’ll be perfect for this project!

  • #100dayproject

    I’ve done a 100 day project before; it’s a good way of doing a deep dive into a topic. This year I decided to improve my drawing skills with the aim of being able to draw faces in my art journals. I signed up for Dina Wakley’s Facing the facts class at https://dinawakley.com/store/.

    I drew a face at the beginning of the journal so I can look back at where I started. When I did an Advanced Diploma of Creativity (Honours) over 4 years by distance with The Learning Connection we did some drawing, and I improved, but didn’t keep it up. It’s definitely a skill that needs constant use, for me anyway.

    I’m on day 10 and already seeing an improvement and feel able to start making the faces a bit more my own. It’ll be interested to see what I’m achieving at day 100.