Cath Sheard Art

Tag: process

  • Art, craft, and a little bit of stretch

    I’m an artist, and also a crafter – for me there’s considerable overlap between the two. What I learn from crafting informs my art, and vice versa. With both, there are times when I need to stretch myself a bit, because it’s easy to get too comfortable.

    Last week was a LOT. Monday night I was at A&E with my best friend until after 3am. Alan and I had a couple of disturbed nights for no obvious reason. Thursday and Friday I was dealing with a weather event at work, with my emergency management hat on. By the end of the week I was shattered.

    Saturday I took Tony out for brunch, and have spent the rest of the weekend puddling round, doing art and craft. I’ve been stamping out lots of Dina Wakley stamps onto tissue then cutting them out while we watch tv in the evening.

    I have been working on a collab Penny and I are doing. It’s a 9m x 19cm roll of Awagami washi paper. It’s fun to work on, and the paper is surprisingly strong, but hard to handle because of the length. It’s currently hanging over my art room door to dry,

    While Alan was away I had painted a deer standing in the bush on a 12×12 panel. Very definitely not my usual style and I said at the time I’d rather stab myself in the eye with a fork than do another one. It was a gift made with love.

    Never say never! I decided to do another deer, this time on a full size (50x75cm?) sheet of pastel paper. Why am I doing it? Because it stretches me artistically and makes me think differently. It’s good for my art practice to do something that is well outside my usual wheelhouse.

    Progress on a larger scale deer
    Working on a 9m washi roll collab with Penny
    The joy of sitting quietly cutting things out

  • The gap between vision & reality

    At the weekend Pen Kirk and I taught a couple of classes in Greymouth, including a gelli printing one with Abi Gully. It was great fun and I meet some new local artists.

    I asked one full time artist how it feels when something doesn’t turn out as expected. She said she’s fortunate that things always work out as envisioned. What a great position to be in!

    That’s definitely not my experience. I’ve talked before about days when I’m ‘in flow’ and the art happens instinctively, and the days when everything is a struggle.

    Yesterday was a struggle – what was in my head, and what appeared on paper, was a mismatch. Why? It’s usually because I’m making a change in style, colour palette, shapes or even substrate.

    Does it matter? No. It’s frustrating at the time but often leads to a breakthrough. The key is to just keep going. Below are four of the pieces I started yesterday that I’m going to try and fix today.

  • Being true to yourself

    I have entered the Awagami International Miniature Print Exhibition in Japan. Prints have to be on A4 washi paper. I made a few prints on copier paper to get used to the size, then swapped to washi. I loved the first prints but keep going for another two or three weeks because “it needs to be my best print”.

    I ended up with around 35 prints, and 25 of those were worth considering. I laid them out on the floor and quickly got down to 10, then 6. I showed them on Facebook and Bluesky, and people told me their top pick.

    So did I package up the one that got the most votes? No, far from it. I need to send the worth that speaks to me, and that represents my art, and that’s the only criteria that matters aside from the regulations. The piece I chose was one of the very first I did. I should have know that fiddling around would not be helpful!

  • Being in flow

    Creating can be a struggle. Marks look wrong, paint colours don’t sit right, shapes feel awkward – the whole thing feels forced. Ugh!

    Then there’s magic days when my hands, brain & soul are connected, and works come together easily. The more time I spend creating, the more likely I am to be in flow where I intuitively know the next step.

    Is there a down side to being in flow? Not really, except I run out of room, have glue all over my hands and deep blue paint on my pale pink sweatshirt because I forgot to put on my apron!

    Occasionally a non-artist will comment painting must be easy if you finish a piece so quickly. The time spent on an individual piece is a small part of the act of creating. I completed a 4-year Advanced Diploma of Art & Creativity (Honours) in 2008 and have spent countless hours creating since then. I watch art videos, study art books, work on colour mixing, practice my skills. All of that is part of the process of creating every single piece.

    Starting a small mixed media series using paint and hand painted collage papers
    15cm mixed media using paint. & collage
    Working large as the start of a commission piece.

  • The payback for struggling

    Yesterday I blogged about six small pieces I was working on that were awkward and wrong. I described that base layer is an invitation to play. What I didn’t say is, and I have nothing to lose.

    Tonight I grabbed collage paper scraps, glue, acrylic paint and followed my instincts. Not thinking, only doing. Are these finished, or good yet? No. But they’re better, and I think I’m going to like the final results. Sometimes having nothing to lose is a bonus.