I love people’s hands, and am always checking out people’s rings, nails and so on – not in a judgemental way, just curious. This was done in my small Dylusions journal.
Paints: Ground coffee, Laidback lilac, Vanilla custard. Stencils: Sugar lumps, Blocks, Modern script. Stamps: Dy’s alphabet. Other: Distress ink, Stampin’ Up ink, white gel pen. Pitt Big Brush pen.
When I’m getting ‘stuff’ out of my head I often use this Dina Wakley journal – it has 4 different types of media in it and I really like it. The writing on this is about my weight loss, the ongoing struggle to be in the right head space, and the reasons I eat as an addict.
In November I visited the Hokitika Gorge and fell in love with the clear blue water so it quickly became the subject of a joint exhibition I have planned for this November. The works will show the iterative process I use to get to the final works.
Recently I had the chance to visit the Gorge again. In packing art supplies I chose my basics – Phthalo turquoise, cobalt teal, gold, white Heavy Body Golden acrylics. I kept reaching for Golden Fluid Titan Pale Green – an odd pale green grey beige. Not the colour of the works I’ve been doing at all. I put it away, then got it out again; in the end I decided it was such a small bottle I’d take it with me.
I started doing small backgrounds before I went back to the Gorge and kept using that colour. My brain was saying it was wrong – my hand, and my intuition – were determined though.
I stayed with Alan Fowlie, a family friend, and before he took me to the Gorge he warned me the water might not be that amazing blue because of floods 3 weeks prior. Ok, sure. When we got to the gorge and I got my first fresh glimpse of the water I was stunned. Yes, you guessed right … the water was the exact colour I’d been creating.
Incredible! That’s what happens when I am fully tuned into a subject and immerse myself in creating without overriding my intuition. It’s a lovely place to be, and involves letting go of control.
Some of the gelli prints I did yesterday *needed* me to do some more work on them 😉
I’m using hand painted papers as collage materials to add circles. I suspect they echo the rocks I saw at Hokitika Gorge but I’m not sure. That’s the thing with my art process – it’s intuitive and iterative. The first few tentative works in a series and the final pieces are often worlds apart and, for many people, the final works have little or no relation to the initial inspiration. And I’m totally ok with that.
The collaged shapes are very specific. I have quite large sheets of randomly painted papers and when I cut a shape it is carefully chosen for the colours. Then I test the shape on the base work and sometimes trim a millimeter or two off here and there, more than once, before it feels right!
What I know of this Hokitika series is there’s some distinct colours, lines and shapes that are appearing over and over again. I’m still working quite small – these are about 6″ square – but will work bigger eventually.
I love gelli printing, and have taught it in the past. I’m going to be teaching it again this winter, in Greymouth, and am really looking forward to it. I may do some more classes here in South Taranaki too.
In the meantime, I have a joint exhibition booked for the Lysaght Watt Gallery in October with Dimmie Danielwski – I’ll be using some existing works but also making a new body of work based on my visit to the Hokitika Gorge last year.
With those two things in mind, I’ve been doing some gelli printing. I’ll use the captions to explain what these are.
Cath Sheard Art 