Cath Sheard Art

Tag: painting

  • Working on a project

    I’ve been working on a boxed book project that involves photos, collage, paint etc. I made a start at the weekend, sitting at my home-office desk instead of in my art room – due to the almost sub-zero temperatures we’ve been experiencing my outside art room is off limits. Here’s a peek at the underlayers on the box the book will be housed in. evidence 009

  • After George Morandi

    As a member of the NZ Art Guild, I try to take their challenges as often as I can. Sometimes it is about using a particular style or technique, sometimes it is about being inspired by a certain artist. The most recent Master’s Month artist was George Morandi. I had not heard of him, so some research was needed. You can see some of his work here.

    I had two attempts at this; the first was a watercolour which focused on the way he let shapes run into each other by using wet in wet colours. Morandi’s watercolours also had a lot of white space, and quite distinct shapes.

    For my second attempt I reworked one of his oil paintings as a collage using hand painted paper, scrapbook papers, glue, ink and pen. The collage won the ‘most creative use of the theme’ award.

    after-george-morandi-1

    george-morandi-2

  • Pastels for a change

    I have been working mainly in acrylic and ink for quite a while now. I love the speed of working with acrylic, and the ease of cleaning up. But I also miss getting my hands in the medium. So I’ve started using pastels again, playing round on full sheets of Colorfix paper.

    Sure, it dries my skin out. Sure, the dust gets all over me. But you know what? That doesn’t matter, cos I’m loving it. The immediacy of the medium is wonderful – the colour on the paper is the colour of the stick (is the colour on my face as I wipe my hand across my temple!) I can’t believe I stopped using pastels for so long. Silly me…

    Materials: reference photos, full sheet Colorfix paper, Unison and Art Spectrum pastels, and my fingertips. Magic! Not finished yet, but thought I’d share the WIP.

    art-sunday-016

  • After Motherwell wins with NZAG

    As a member of the New Zealand Art Guild I regularly enter their Masters Month competitions. The most recent competition was to produce a work inspired by Robert Motherwell. This piece won the NZAG Masters Month competition for Feb/March 2009. As I said when I entered it, I started off inspired by Motherwell and then got right into the abstract expressionist thing, and this is the result.

    It’s 30×30″ in acrylic and ink on gallery wrap canvas and is for sale on ArtFire.

    After Motherwell #1
    After Motherwell #1

  • Monoprinting on fabric

    My friend Trisha and I have a private challenge going on, where we each create a textile piece once a month and share the process, and results, with each other. I am running a bit behind, however…

    I have been seeing a lot of artists doing monoprints and linocut lately, and that got me thinking. Today was THE day, Taranaki Anniversary – an extra day off work to do art with. Cool!

    I simplified the photo using ‘cut out’ in Photoshop, reversed it and printed it out. I drew the basic lines onto acetate then painted it with acrylics. (they dried a bit too quick on the heat really). I did a quick test run on some scrap paper and was satisfied I had the basic shapes. I’d already washed and ironed some very pale fabric, but left it vaguely damp. I re-did the paint on the acetate, laid the fabric down, put paper over the top and rolled like heck with a brayer. I lifted it off quickly before the two bonded together and there it was – my first monoprint on fabric. I repainted and lifted off another couple, so I would have some to play with.

    This is much more abstract than last month’s work, and I’m pleased with that. I want to do some stitching on top of the paint now, to put some details in here and there. Oh, and while I was at it, I layered the base photo and the fabric monoprint on top of each other in Photoshop – just to see what would happen.

    Original photo and fabric monoprint, layered in Photoshop.