Cath Sheard Art

Tag: process

  • Some big art decisions

    A few days ago I wrote the following to a trusted online friend – a successful artist I admire (no name because I have not asked her permission) –

    [edited] “I have been in a bit of an art-funk recently; not sure if I should keep going, paint just to be happy, try to market better, what? This morning I went back to the start of your blog posts in ’05 and re-read through to mid 2007, at which point they felt like much more familiar territory. And you know what? It worked! Thank you. Am I cured and on a roll, ready to take on the world? Nope. But I am sure that there is a market out there and that I need to make some decisions, instead of waffling round. Decisions like – pick a series and really go for it, have a sizeable body of work to show a gallery etc. Get out there and meet some people, don’t expect them to come to me…”

    I got a lengthy reply back and really appreciate the time she spent in doing so, and the sensible advice and support offered. I dwelt on it for a couple of days, much of it reinforcing what I already knew deep down. From there I have made some decisions … the main driver behind them being that I know it is time to get more serious and business-like.

    I have taken my work off most sites, leaving behind a message that basically says “see you on the 1st of Jan with new work”. I want to concentrate on starting a body of work without thinking about what is (isn’t) selling.  I will keep on with social networks like Twitter.

    Come the 1st of Jan 2010 I will have new work ready to promote . I’ll only load works that fit with whatever body of work I come up with. Which of course leaves the question of what to do with all the random works I have lying around. I think I will go through them and see what ones fit together as small series already. Then with the rest either sell off cheap through a local website or re-use the canvas if that seems a good option.

    I’d already bought Alyson Stanfield’s “I’d rather be in the studio” and as part of all this will work my way through it producing a new artists statement, bio etc so the whole package has more cohesion. I’ll also keep better records from day one with the new work so I know where it is listed and so on, so that details are the same from site to site, and I can update things more easily. That should take some stress off!

    So, that’s where I’m at. Today I made a start in my visual diary with ideas about what the body of work can be, knowing that I need 20 to 30 works in the same size, style etc. More on that later…

  • Crusade #33 – back to school

    6a00d8341c6e6653ef0120a599af65970c-700wi

    Michelle’s challenge over at the GPP Street Team this month is to learn something new, either in or out of the studio – you can read all about it here. I decided this month I would learn to let go of the results a bit more, and just enjoy the process. In the spirit of going back to school I have been reading about the creative process, about play, and about some new cutting-edge techniques – trying to make my objective an active on. Some of the books I have dipped into have included Nita Leland’s “The new creative artist“, Nancy Reyner’s “Acrylic revolution” and Lisa Cyr’s “Art revolution“.  

    Moving on from reading, I have been playing with looser backgrounds as beginnings to works, collage, enhancing digitally then printing and working further on paper. In the image shown here I photographed a chook in amongst some weeds, made a loose background with texture, collaged the photo on, added some old watercolour painting strips on top, scanned and enhanced digitally. Is it a masterpiece? Not at all. Did I let go off the results and just learn through play? Yes.

    Thanks Michelle – my “back to school” lesson was one I needed to start (re)learning. chook crop

  • Play time at my desk

    It’s good to just fiddle round with supplies sometimes, just getting a feel for your materials, and seeing what pops into your head. At the weekend this popped into my head, and then out onto heavy watercolour paper.  The base is washes of thin acrylic over gel medium, some acrylic on rubber stamps, more gel medium, then collaged images, more paint and some stencilling. Did I learn anything from doing it? Perhaps not, but it felt good – and isn’t that half the point of making art? sanskrit

  • Back to mapping the land

    Mapping the land #2Over the last few months I have been looking at Aboriginal Art, especially works which map the land using an aerial perspective. It fascinates me, but it turns out I find it quite hard to do; the traditional Western viewpoint is so strongly ingrained. You can see my original post about this here, and some unsuccessful attempts here.  

    Yesterday I was having a ‘play’ day – just spending time with paint, stamps, glue etc. I did some mono-prints, some mixed-media collage, a little scrapbooking. A bit of this and a bit of that. I sifted through a few books on my shelf, including some that show the land from above.

    After I had relaxed a bit I pulled out some heavier weight watercolour paper and did some monoprints using a bonded plastic bag I had saved from something-or-other. I started just casually working on top of the monoprint. And there it was – the first attempt at aerial mapping that starts to approach what I had in mind. It feels like I have broken through an unseen barrier.

  • Graffiti it – NZ Art Guild challenge

    The current NZ Art Guild Challenge is graffiti. Given the recent awful graffiti on my work place I was keen to try this one, and make it more about art, less about vandalism.

    Title: Cath was here, 2009

    Size: 21x30cm on Art Spectrum Colourfix paper

    Medium: Background – acrylic, inks, rubber stamps, stencils, pastel. ‘Cath was here, 2009’ added digitally.

    Inspiration: I have had the start of the background sitting round for two years, knowing one day I would use it. I have added another couple of layers to it today, then scanned and added ‘Cath was here’ in Photoshop.

    grafitti 001