Who Knew There Were So Many Cures for Warts?

I'm listening to Chopin - I haven't listened to this in ages. I heard someone playing a piece on a programme and it reminded me of the movie about George Sand and Chopin. I think it was one of Hugh Grant's earlier appearances. He did a really good job of acting scared and ducking and diving George.
Richard doesn't share my affection for Chopin. He calls him sticky fingers - but then he also calls Riverdance sticky feet... The kids have a movie called the Emperors New Groove and they do a little dance number akin to Riverdance... I can't take those Riverdancers seriously after seeing that animated number!
Ok, so about the warts... about a month ago I scratched what I thought was a spider bite... It turned out to be a wart in progress. The trouble is it's rather large and protrusive and seemed to be getting larger by the day - until I got the magic potion from the witch doctor - I mean the pharmacist... The amazing part is the number of weird and wonderful suggestions on how to take care of a wart. My personal favourite was: when you wake up in the morning, before you brush your teeth, lick the wart. YUCK! Needless to say, that wasn't an idea I was going to try in a hurry. You might be sitting wondering why the heck I didn't just go and have it burnt off. Well, aside from being a ridiculous wimp when it comes to pain - I have heard that they come back even after being burnt off.
Why now? Why on earth not when I was a kid hunting for tadpoles in Happy Valley?
I told the girls I was turning into a witch and that the transformation would be complete when the two warts appeared on my chin and my nose. Perhaps this might explain their impeccable behaviour the past couple of weeks. I should get a prosthesis nose and wear it for a day! That'll really get them. Emma, who is particularly sensitive about being embarrassed will positively die!
The wart is subsiding slowly much to my relief - not only is it ugly, I'm amazed at how in the way it is!

A Sneak Peak at Ruby Rednose

Rachel has damaged the printer/scanner, so this is a really bad image of the prelim drawing for Ruby Rednose. It'll come alive once the acrylic and watercolour is applied.

Some Oils

This is a portrait of my eldest daughter Emma - done quite a while ago - if you look at the most recent portrait I painted, you can see the development in painting. Every portrait I paint seems to show and more and more progress. I love drawing and painting figures - I admit though, I haven't done it for ages.
This is another unusual painting - one that I did without visual reference of any sort. I did this as a therapeutic mourning process for my dad who died of cancer. I keep it in the kitchen in spite of all the hazards to the canvas.

Weekend Drudgery

The next few weekends are going to be rough. The painting deadline looms in September and I'm really struggling to resolve it. On top of that, I'm really good at distracting myself - not that I need to be! Anyway, my studio space is next to the lounge (it's on the dining room table!)and right now the family is watching a recording of the 46664 concert for Mandela's birthday. I have the ipod in my ears and I'm listening to Hoobastank - I'm sure I'm still spelling that wrong...
At the moment our very limited television station is having a 007 special. We're subjected to 2 episodes per night on Friday and Saturday nights. It's horrendous. The man is a social pariah - were he an actual person, I'm convinced he would be mad from some disease he'd picked up or a complete alcoholic.
I had a friend from school who went to University in Cape Town. His name was Rob and he was really witty and had older parents who taught him to be well mannered. He was one of those people who are great fun but incredibly respectful. He was one of the many people who helped teach me how to drive. A feat not easily accomplished I might add. One of his first experiences was opening a door for a female student and having her turn and snap at him, telling him he was a chauvinist, blah, blah... Bearing this story in mind, it amazes me that somewhere along the line, 007 hasn't had his come uppance yet!
I can just picture it - he comes up to the target and tries his lines and she turns to him and says, 'Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me?' I picture an American lady being more effective, since they do that whole putdown with the hand on the hip, the head swivelling and the finger shaking thing - it slays me every time I see it! And guess what, throughout the whole movie, he still doesn't get his way with her... In other words, she's not just playing hard to get, she really does find the whole chauvinistic thing repulsive.
I really wish society was a little more astute about what they swallow. I also wish they would stop taking their queues from so called "icons" like actors. There's an advert at the moment where this guy runs around asking banking advice from all sorts of people he passes - a traffic cop, a take-away owner, a runner in the park. I think the same applies to any advice. If you want parental advice, ask someone who's raised a few healthy well-adjusted adults. If you want marital advice, go ask someone who's been married for 50+ years don't even bother looking at a divorcee or unmarried person offer any advice - any constructive advice. I know society is heavily manipulated by media, but for heaven's sake! We're not hypnotised, we can still use our free agency. So as a society, could we refrain from asking Oprah for relationship advice since there's no apparent evidence that she has a successful relationship herself, and could we stop listening to Madonna or Angelina Jolie's ideas for parenting, since we have no idea of how stable their kids will be once they're adults?
Ok, enough rambling.

Ruby Rednose

Ok, maybe it's time to introduce everyone to Ruby Rednose. It might take me a while to get her scanned in - Rachel damaged our printer/scanner! She also took a bite out of Richard's new cell phone. Fortunately it didn't go thru the plastic! That amazes me since she bites really hard. I suppose if you can't write yet it's one way of putting your mark on things...

Preparation for Painting Night

I finished Twilight yesterday and Yvonne assured me she'd lend me the next book as soon as she got it. Painting night is supposed to be on Wednesday night. Richard is out and it's really quiet and peaceful in the evenings. I switch all the noise off - TV's, music, etc and just enjoy the silence. There are times when I put music on while I work, but more and more I find myself switching everything off so that I can enjoy that. Things get so hectic and white noise bothers me intensely. Actually all noise bothers me intensely. I start hyperventilating when an abhorent thudding taxi drives up or down our road... Hello!!! Doesn't it bother you that the base is vibrating your car's bodywork apart? Do you ever stop to think what effect that might have on your body and by the way, the poor innocent bystanders around you?
Sigh. Maybe I'm just feeling the ravages of time...
I found some tapes that I listened to a few years back and I had to smile to myself. I remember trying to convince a couple of friends that what I was listening to was fantastic, if they'd just give it a try. I was an avid Rush fan. But he squeals a bit like a girl and I suppose that might be an acquired taste. So, those I was trying to convert sadly remain in darkness! They couldn't get past the girly squeals to the really good stuff. Actually, listening to it now, it reminds me of when someone gets excited and their pitch or tone goes higher and higher - some people can make dogs howl when they're worked up! Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy it. But I must say I do find it hard to go back to music I used to listen to. I really really don't like music from the 80's. And at art school there's always one idiot who ruins one or all of the following by playing it to death: The doors, Rodriguez, pink floyd - the wall, etc.

The All-Nighter

So, last night a friend dropped off a book that I'd read about in Time. It's called Twilight. I started reading at about 6 or 7 last night - I tore myself away rather reluctantly and 1am... I was hooked! Of course, this would be the night that Rachel decided to wake up at 3am... She had pushed the teet into the bottle and emptied half the milk on herself and all over the cot. Since I'm not usually a night owl (the latest I can manage is 11pm, including new years - I know, it's pathetic) this is rather a big deal and considering I'm still wide eyed and bushy tailed, I'm really quite impressed with myself.
The book was described as a Pride and Prejudice kind of vampire story. Well, I don't know that I would compare the writer to Jane Austen... Although captivating, I wouldn't exactly class it in the same romantic prose. It is refreshing to have a story told without the irritating distraction of verbal abuse and rather pathetic soft porn. It's almost like when you developed into an adolescent and it became "cool" to swear, so everyone made use of the entire swearing vocabulary religiously through high school. Because anything goes now, writers are inclined to burden a story with really unecessary lewdness. Twilight fantastically avoids that - and although some parts get a bit slow and sloppy (I don't remember Jane Austen doing that... maybe memory fails me?) it's still a good read.

Watercolour & Acrylic

This is a work I tried in acrylic. It was more of a design that I'd developed from the series of paintings that I've been working on - but it didn't quite go the way I wanted it to, so I haven't white-washed it yet, but it's on the shelf for contemplation.
Detail from a painting that was purchased by an art museum in America. It disappeared so quickly, I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the complete image. So here it is, split in two. I enjoyed this painting and managed to complete it fairly quickly, even with 2 small children! (At the time they were 3 and 5.) This is where idea for the series of paintings dedicated to women of South Africa started.

Greenfingers, Smish and Pixie

Finally I got my little figure I called Greenfingers onto a canvas! I really enjoyed using acrylics, although it is a first for me and I'm getting used to the medium. These paintings aren't meant to be taken too seriously. It's a light hearted break from the detail I embroil myself with. The cats I added were modelled on our 2x cats Smish and Pixie. Smish is the big cat and very serious and skittish and very easily scared. Pixie is the small skinny cat and she is adventurous, plays catch with a ball that's slightly smaller than a squash ball. She carries that in her mouth and brings it back to you so you can throw it down the passage again. She also loves water and jumps in the bath regularly. They're 2 real characters and I had to put them in. I have about 13 drawings of planned compositions and situations for them, but until I've mastered the acrylic technique, I'll have to hold off on those ideas.
The first appearance of the cloud and tale continues... This one is called "Smish gets suspicious".

The Sport Series

This is one of the surviving sport paintings of the cyclist. I wasn't trying to capture movement but rather emotion with these works - I considered the moment before the athlete competes and their mindset.
This painting wasn't working at all somehow it seemed to be stuck and I just couldn't see it going anywhere. I had in mind the surfer standing on the beach checking the swell, standing with his arms folded.
Another surfer with board but also a very stuck painting with colours that just seemed too repetitive. So this painting got the whitewash too!

Out of all these intuitive paintings, this one worked the best - it was also the first painting I did in this series. I've always worked with visual reference and stuck to a fairly realistic format, this was a complete departure for me and I really enjoyed this painting.

Under the Lamplight

This is the work I'm struggling with at the moment. There's still a long way to go and it's due for submission in September... Yikes.

Eagerly Anticipated Art Time - Otherwise known as the weekend!

It's a brilliant but very cold Friday - actually, since I work in a fridge, my assessment of the weather conditions is probably vastly inaccurate... And the weather forecast isn't much better. I once considered applying for work in a fish packing factory in Iceland - that's how cold my office is! Despite never having left South Africa's terra firma for the sum total of my existence, I was quite convinced that somehow, my office had done a globe trot on it's own and retained some Nordic temperature and so this would make me immune to the temperature of those fish packing factories. You know, when you have time to ponder, you think the weirdest things... Once I get my fingers unlocked from the cold, I can enjoy a good 6-7 hours of painting tonight and tomorrow. This will give me ample time to try and resolve my current "wall" painting. I'm stuck on the background. The painting is of a lady sitting doing a quilt under the light of a lantern. I wanted to convey the idea that the lamplight wasn't all that brilliant - which it's really not in deepest darkest Africa - and get stuck into my hyper 2D flattening and patterning designwork. The trouble is - I'm struggling to settle on appropriate pattern on top of the darkness and the integration of light and dark is also creating quite a headache. I'll post an image of the work tonight and if anyone out there has suggestions, feel free to offer them.
I had a discussion (somewhat heated) about what a "crit" was with someone the other day. I tried to explain that when I was studying, we'd have crits to help us resolve problems in our work and fix compositional problems. The person I was talking to believed that a valuable crit was telling someone they were painting the wrong subject in the wrong technique and that they had to change everything. He compared it to a crit of a play, where if it's really bad, the reviewer would tell the producer to quit and try something else. I suppose we're all entitled to our own opinions, but the best and most helpful crits I've ever had, are by far the ones where people have pointed out areas that I could improve on a painting rather than completely obliterate it and paint clowns 'cos that'll sell!!
Let it go, Louise, let it go.

I'm not a big Jim Carrey fan, but I read an interview in Time and he said something that really struck me. He said that after a long while of trying to do things that he thought people wanted (this is serious paraphrasing and probably hopeslessly inaccurate, but it's the gist of it), he decided to do what he was good at and what he enjoyed and he stuck to it. He then advised those reading the article that eventually somebody will come along that'll like what you're doing.

Latest Work

So this is the last completed work - I'm busy working on 3 paintings at the moment - I try not to do this - I prefer to work on one painting and complete it before starting more paintings, but it does help to break through the "Wall" if you can work on a different painting and then come back to the work you're stuck on. The fact that you're working continually helps maintain the momentum and makes a huge difference.

These works aren't in order - this work is actually my first painting and the woman on the jetty is my second work in this series. I really enjoyed this work it was amazing to produce - there's aquarelle pencil overlaid on the foilage/greenery.

I love this painting - it's a combination of design and pattern. There's a funny story attached to this painting - the paper is a very high percentage of cotton and sucks up the paint mercilessly! At first I struggled with it, but then I really got into into it and began to enjoy the method of painting you need to employ to work successfully on the paper. My husband is convinced he could easily create a successful work of art and asked me for a piece of paper one day to prove his point... So with a Machiavellian grin I gave him some of this paper. Tee hee hee. Needless to say the masterpiece didn't happen.

The other great thing about this painting is that I'd received some crits saying my work was too flat and there was no depth to it, so I decided to exploit that aspect and really pushed the flat dimensionality of the work. I used that as the intrinsic characteristic of the work. Did I mention how much I really enjoyed this work?

Journal drawings

This drawing is a combination of a prelim drawing for a series of paintings on sport - I was sitting at a swimming lesson for my daughter and I started some drawings. I only began producing the final oils about 3-4 years later. That seems to be the norm for me. Most of my prelim drawings and ideas take a long time before I actually start the final piece. The colour mixed media piece was done while I was studying and it's way back in the day of tapes... before ipods! Reeva and I had some leftover Archers Vellum and we made tape covers. Most of the tape covers were a combination of work from both of us - amazing since they're so small! Reeva is inclined to be more minimilistic in her composition - she's selective about the amount of detail she puts in. I was inclined at this stage to go completely overboard with detail and squeezing as much into an area as possible. Even my professor commented on this with a portrait I produced: she called it "overworking".

This is a drawing I did after seeing the movie Lady in the Water (or is that of the Water?) by M. Knight Shaymalan.
A logo I designed for our email address.

An illustration in pen and ink - I love working with technical drawing pens. It's not the same as working with a dipping pen because the width of the line doesn't vary, but both mediums are really fun to work with and of course I can go completely overboard with detail with pen and ink.

Journal Drawings

I love these drawings but struggled to translate them into a suitable medium. I finally settled on acrylic - but they still need a lot of work to be at standard that makes me happy. I never considered myself a perfectionist until a friend pointed out how pedantic I am about work looking complete and professional.

Installation Art

Prelim drawings for an idea I had for installation art. I'd never considered installation art before, but as the free flow of ideas develop, I've noticed that it's not limited to the medium you're currently working with... Of course, I've also learnt that drawing up the ideas are very different to actually creating them. So, until my installation art is actually created, I'll have to hold off on passing any judgements or comments.

Journal Drawings

My teapots... sometimes I wonder where the drawings come from! My pencil was scratching the paper and then there they were...

Some doodles I was fiddling with after seeing some scrapbooking stuff.

Journal Drawings

These are sketches from my journal

Art in the School Holidays

I wonder if Leonardo got distracted by family illness, school holidays and sleepless nights walking toddlers up and down the passage while they yelled angrily at him because they couldn't understand why they were feeling so horrid and why he couldn't just wave a magic wand and make it all better. I've planned a number of paintings and produced only 2 preliminary sketches. I visited a brilliant site that Reeva recommended with illustrators producing the most amazing work.
My work is so different to any trends I've seen or work I've seen at recent exhibitions. Although somewhat isolating, this is exactly what I want. My intention is to produce a body of work that is driven by motivation and that comes completely from me without any "additives" as it were. People are so quick to offer advise on what you should paint that will be popular and will definitely sell - although well intended, all you really want is to sit down and produce work without interuption. (That would be another suggestion to anyone dealing with an artist: even although you're trying to help, never offer suggestions on what to paint - even if the artist asks for suggestions, throw it back at them and ask what they're really passionate about, what they really love)
The process you go through is not always easy going - you have low and high points in a painting - pretty much like when a runner hits the wall. At these times I usually moan to those around me, and that's when I start being told what to paint. I still haven't learnt to deal with the "wall" in silence!
It's difficult to explain the artistic process to someone who doesn't really believe art is a career. It's hard to explain that an artist has to love and feel something for what they are doing in order for it to actually work - and look appealling. You can see immediately when an artwork is forced: it jars the eye. I've also seen that an artist is successful with a medium they've worked with for a while and that they really enjoy. The biggest mistake you can make is see something that is selling, and try and immitate it with no experience in the technique and not much feeling for the material or subject. This cheapens the whole artistic process and inevitably your work is a seasonal knock-off.
I have had the most fascinating suggestions of topics to paint: from clowns to pansies with cats eyes.

How to Deal With An Artist in the Family

As a reclusive artist stuck amidst suburbia, I have some invaluable advice to all those who consider themselves void of any artistic or creative ability whatsoever:
Conceptual visualisation no. 1 when dealing with an artist:
Never assume that an artist can fulfill all creative roles. Yes, there are some painful individuals who excel at just about anything they attempt and those of us who don't fall into that category look on enviously, but on the whole, just because you can paint a portrait, doesn't mean you can decorate a table or a room. Oh, if I only had a rand for every time I heard "Oh, you're creative, you can do this job" I'd be a millionaire and capable of giving up my day job and painting to my heart's content! Yes, even in the current economic climate of South Africa, I would still have enough money to do this!!
Conceptual visualisation no. 2 when dealing with an artist - but probably the most important rule of all...
Never EVER EVER refer to an artist's work or career as a HOBBY. As your mouth forms this word in slow motion, the said artist is throwing a million curses at you in their head - or, if they're Italian they're screaming the curses out loud. Yes, the artist might have to have a day job to bring in the bread and butter, but don't ever let that fool you into thinking the artist doesn't sit all day at a desk and imagine a million paintings and drawings and compositions... The artist's mind never stops creating and planning even if the fingers aren't involved. A visitor to our home was looking at some of my paintings and he accidentally mentioned the word hobby - but to his credit, he hastily covered up his error and replaced it with the illustrious brightly shining word: career. My, did he impress me. I have to say, I wondered if this was a result of having an artist in the family, or whether my face gave something away! It might have been a bit of both.
Conceptual visualisation no. 3 when dealing with an artist:
Never venture to ask if there's really any money in art - that just shows how narrow minded and uninformed you are. There are so many artists making enough money not only to build lavish houses - even in the current South African economic crisis - and live lifestyles of the rich and famous, that it's absurd to assume, as many do, that your fortune as an artist will only be made once you're pushing up daisies. You may be wondering then, why I'm still sitting at a desk imagining paintings, artworks and composition structures all morning - well, let's just say I'm a late bloomer and tenacious about sticking to a goal.
So, that's pretty much the ground work of dealing with an artist. I'm sure I've forgotten many other rules, but don't worry, the people around me remind me regularly of the rules and I'll be sure to share them with you as I get reminded. I'll grit my teeth and grin... maybe I should carry a piece of leather around... But then pretty soon the secret will be out and whenever I reach for the leather, everyone will know they've overstepped the art rule boundaries... Of course, by that time, the leather will be as thin as a tissue and it'll be time to change tactics anyway!