Cath Sheard Art

Tag: process

  • Talking process with another artist

    Talking process with another artist

    I’ve been talking today with Pen Kirk who I’ve been creating collaborative art with for a number of years now. Pen is exploring resin at the moment. I won’t try to describe her process, that’s her story to tell, but she’s happy for me to write about today’s chat.

    Pen commented “I think that’s part of my process. Learning my way through and making at the same time”. She said “Interesting aspect… I really like to have to sand them right back and then shine them up… which means taking multiple steps through grit 150-10,000”. When I asked if it was about the physicality of the process, or transformation, she was clear straight it’s the transformation.

    When we explored further Pen commented her process is about adding, taking away, and adding hidden aspects. She said “It’s just too bloody easy if you don’t go through all the steps and (it) has no meaning. Like a person with no souls, who hasn’t experienced”.

    Like Pen, my art is process driven. For me, it’s about connecting random parts to create meaning and visual harmony. This morning I randomly glued bits of collage onto approx 30 pages in a small Fabriano art journal. Then I go back and use the collage as the start of pieces, using paint, water soluble media, pencil, and oil pastels.

    It’s rare for me to work on a piece from start to finish, or to start with the end in kind. Working on one piece at a time makes it feel precious and creates anxiety about messing it up. Working across multiple pieces brings me freedom to just do what I feel in the moment. That doesn’t mean there’s no thought in it, but it does mean I’m not super invested in each piece of paper.

    Below you can see some very quick photos of a few pages I collaged onto this morning, and a few finished pages, which might not be the ones I started this morning.

    L to R – cheap harder oil pastels, Stabilo Woody, soft Sennelier oil pastels & soft pastels, Neo I and II crayons, pencils.
    Pages with a piece or two of collage added.
  • Another journal finished

    Another journal finished

    I love the latest Dina Wakley journals. The paper is thick watercolour paper, it’s a nice size to work in and they hold up well to cutting or tearing. With this journal I decided every layout would have something different: maybe a shaped edged, a cut out, or waterfall edges.

    I had a lot of fun doing this. Normally I share the layouts as I go but the process I used made that difficult – I worked in batches, prepping all the pages, then colouring the pages, and so on. Some of the writing isn’t ideal for sharing. Here’s a few completed layouts to give you a feel for this completed journal.

  • More small steps of (re)discovery

    More small steps of (re)discovery

    I am rediscovering parts of my art practice after 5 years of decreasing art time due to Tony’s poor health. People assume, when a loved one goes into a rest home, the one left at home has a normal life again, but that’s far from the truth.

    I used to do a lot of collage but had gradually all but stopped, except in mixed media. Yet collage is a low stress, low cost way of training your eye and brain to recognise what you love to see, and love to create. It’s a useful tool, but it’s also just good fun … not everything has to have an end goal.

    I’ve also realised, probably due to time pressure, I was only creating landscape focussed pieces in my art journals. I haven’t been exploring shape and composition, or mark making, for its own sake.

    Today I played and it felt good to be going back to a more holistic art practice. I’m seriously considering putting my Felt shop on hold after Christmas and spending the year concentrating on refilling my art cup to see where it leads in terms of work I make.

  • Practising the basics

    It’s always useful to practice basic skills like colour mixing, composition and mark making. I’ve been slowly coming to the realisation that I’ve lost some of my own style, especially in terms of mark making. There’s a couple of reasons for that, which it’s probably not useful to document.

    How to fix it? De-influencing myself through less time watching other artists online. Looking at other artist’s work is fine but, for me anyway, watching them work is often detrimental unless it’s a specific technique I want to learn.

    The other thing I’m doing is practicing the basics by colour mixing, inspired by Sarah Renae Clark’s Colour Cubes, then doing a small piece in those colours, an idea I got from Denise Love. That said, I’m making a conscious effort to use my brush strokes and my marks to ensure the hand of the artist shows.

  • Gentle steps

    Gentle steps

    In my last blog post I said I was pleasantly surprised by the desire to create so soon after Tony’s death. I’m still creating, taking it gently but feeling good about it.

    People ask how I am … I’m ok. Am I great? No, but it’d be a bit weird if I was. I describe it as appropriately sad. The sadness comes and goes – after 33 years together, and all the years of slowly losing Tony, that feels ok.

    So I’m being kind to myself and creating with low expectations, doing what I feel like in the moment. I’m feeling inspired by Welsh castles, a theme I return to semi-regularly, often accompanied by masts, swords and what’s probably blood. It is what it is…

    In these current works, which are about A3 size, it feels important to work in overlapping layers. Why? I don’t know yet, but I’m happy to trust the process.

    I’ve also been doing some gelli printing,