I've been in Sydney for a few days catching up with family and my sweet grandchild Sofia, who- poor poppet Ive been babysitting since the crack of dawn cause she is a sick with some dam germ!  Its been a while since Ive seen so many cartoons for kids.... the up side is that it may be considered arty research for my forays into animation. 

Ive got to see some great art whilst here.... Francis Bacon and his tormented vision of the human condition and another interesting artist at Dominik Mersch Gallery Li Hongbo: Pure White Paper.

pic from gallery site. http://www.dominikmerschgallery.com/Exhibition.aspx

And that is what his work is made from, just pure white paper!! 

Some works give the effect of solid plaster and as you walk around the room a bit puzzled, because you realise its not plaster but paper cut and molded into a shape like a skull.  Or, like the work Girl 1 where the paper is more exposed by stretching it out in a concertina method to form extended limbs of the girl.  Very interesting and not laser cut!  on till Until December 22. 

We have been surrounded by the neighbours male peacocks on heat for the last few weeks... its almost like Hitchcock's film Birds... so beautiful but quite scary when they are all around.  Calling out loudly, spreading their beautiful plume, scratching my car, looking at themselves in the windows and pecking out my coriander as I am planting it!!!
Needless to say... some peacock feathers have made it into my latest photocollage.... :)

Group Attack!

I like it here better!

I'm Prettier!

Thrust and Parry

Started this drawing in Sydney during my residency at Ashfield.  A woman dancing on a vacuum cleaner.   Now living in Grafton along the Clarence River, I started drawing Ebb and Flo'.   A diptych pencil drawing worked from collaged ideas of the body, water, canoes inside the house!!  I decided that the vacuum cleaner drawing also needed a companion.  It worked best as two separate works put together too, to play off some ideas.   

So the collaged female needed to be riding something.  I decided on an old fashioned egg beater for inspiration.  I think it worked.  Thrust and Parry seemed the appropriate title. 

Mostly I like the meditive aspect of editioning.... getting out the inks, manipulating the colours, the wiping and the caressing nature of the printing process.... but last weekend I pushed myself beyond that quiet time into some nightmare of a migrane by the end of the session....

for Sway...hard ground, sugarlift, aquatint etching, a la poupee

It might have also been the accumulative stress of the latest series of funding cuts that the latest
bureaucrats in NSW State Government have decided to inflict on the Northern NSW tafe system....

I had a great opening and felt very privileged to be in this exhibition Going Gaga with Dada, held at Brenda May Gallery, Sydney and curated by Akky van Ogtrop.  The show contained some amazing historical works by artists such as Max Ernst, Theo Van Doesburg and Joseph Beuys... to name just a few.  Max Ernst is one of my favourite historical artists as well as Hannah Hoch (and Arcmiboldo) and I am going to make an artwork out of the room sheet as proof of my participation in a show with them!!

Some great works by contemporary Australian artists too of course!!






Rochelle's work on far left and historical works on back wall, Max Ernst included! 

 Article and links to show on the website Concrete Playground, too.

sydney.concreteplayground.com.au/event/76062/going-gaga-with-dada-and-zine-fest.htm

I am a finalist in the Grafton Regional Gallery’s 2012 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award!!!!  Ebb and Flo' with surrealist, canoeing and boudoir inspiration have got me in this year! Yeah!

Against the odds, such is the ilk of these art competitions.  Of the 418 entries from 310 Artists the Selection Panel selected 52 works by 52 artists.

framing costs next.... but hey who can complain... have more works on the go and in the pipeline.....

Finished this set of drawings, Ebb and Flo', surrealist in manner, and quite detailed in areas.  Pencil on Stonehenge. Inspired in parts, by dream, canoeing down the Clarence, Ashfield residency, and vintage boudoir photos.  I havent forgotton Swing, etching and aquatint of the blog post before last.  Still working out some colour ideas, sunset in yellows and browns so far. 



Ebb and Flo'



Hope to join you there!

I'm working on a new etching inspired by my time here by the Clarence River.   My female protagonist will be swinging across a water background.  This is a work in progress, 2 plates incorporating sugarlift for texture, aquatint for those lovely velvety tones and burnishing which helps give highlights.  Keep the fingers crossed for me, as its close to finished.  Working on completing the water highlights and the next step will be sorting out the colours.  I'm thinking of keeping it rather moody and more silvery moon light.  So far it has another world effect. 

It was such lovely weather on Sunday and what better way to celebrate it than going to Art on the Hill organised by the Grafton Gallery Foundation.  Located at San Ramon a beautiful home on 214 acres with magnificent views overlooking the Clarence River right to the Pacific Ocean. 

Hey where was everyone?  A shame so many people missed out on this opportunity to enjoy the day...  but alot of artists enjoyed it and the hard working foundation members provided gourmet sausage sizzle and wines from the granite belt, or you could have brought your own picnic. 

funky view of artist Tracy Patemen through her fine silverware


It is hard to do justice to Tracy Patemen's work with quick photos.  She has just moved to the area from Canberra, she is in the tinker tailor soldier sailor exhibition which explores 100 great Australian women stories with 100 of Australia's finest women jewellers responding by making a brooch.  Check out the show if you are in Grafton. http://www.graftongallery.nsw.gov.au/  

Fergus in one of the best seats of the house!

The only thing growing in my vegie patch!

I was hoping to show off fantastic vegies but I forgot that all those wonderful wildlife creatures that I am enjoying here like to eat vegies!!  Once those crisp green leaves shot up for a satisfying glance... they were gone again, or rather decimated.  I now have some coz and rocket growing inside. 

Check out my neighbour.  He is a bit camera shy but loves to stroll around the garden.  In fact if I left the door open he would come in.  Have you ever heard a peacock call?  I was dreaming one morning there was an elephant outside trumpeting!!!  but its not really that sound... it sounds like a tug boat horn!

My colourful neighbour

From Ashfield Sydney to Seelands Grafton

Early morn shot of the local marsupials!

I'm sitting by the clarence river as I write this, the sun dapples through the grapevine and prettily on the river.  I have 2 kangaroos chewing the cud in front of me and a cat lazy and fast asleep beside me.  What a rural change from the city pace.


I really enjoyed my time in Sydney particularly socially.... meeting lots of lovely people at the workshops and the tennis club, Anthia and Gerard, a special thanks for their hard work at the council  and sipping wine at the art galleries with new friend and colleague Sandra Winkworth.  Will post the final finished drawings from the residency.  Have another on its way inspired by my time there and changes here. 

Wrap up party... and some of my etchings...

I'm getting into the rural lifestyle with a veggie patch on its way... doesnt look much right now...

weeds dug out and some herbs and veges planted

The last workshop

Elizabeth printing up a block

Lots of activity on the weekend as the last collagraph workshop of my residency was fully booked with a long queue of a variety of collagraph blocks.  Such an interesting process.... you collage all manner of textures to make a picture, which you then ink up and print.  They always produce a surprise result!!  I've tried snake skin, bandaids, egg shells, sandpaper, as well as a variety of fabrics and papers.  These guys had lots of successes!! 

Long view of studio room an my etching press

Joy of Dance- a preview

a preview of drawing in progress

I have always enjoyed Picasso's work... his overlaying of textures like newspaper to stand in for the act of reading, the texture of the tablecloth or perhaps the wallpaper.  When I saw his etchings and a couple of very small paintings in the NSW Art gallery, I felt a resonance with his work Two women running on the beach, 1922.  He captured that joy of the body and movement that I am trying to explore in my work.  So I started another drawing, here is its beginning..... I am going to leave open spaces in this work.  The oval drawings are a series that have a more baroque looking glass feel. 

Etching and Aquatint

A new aquatint box!! does that delicious rich velvety blacks that are such an intrinsic part of etching..... and made by eldest highly talented son Victor... of Volpe's Cabinetmaking... Cromer.



Laundry has become my extended studio!

I've got the rose plate back to speed.... the darks in the aquatint had a breaking down issue.... gave me a chance to get the box going with rich dark results...



1min 50sec bite with good boost of rosin for rich covering.

 

Domestic detruitus put to work

Two very inspired and inspiring women have given me a lovely reminder of my residency here with a bag made by Bharti and printed by Bharti and Kavitha. 

It is a collagraph block that Bharti made in one of the workshops.  It has a stencil that blocked out areas of the collagraph to form the image of a butterfly.  She is a daub hand at sewing too. 

Below we are standing in front of a display of some women's work that they made whilst in my workshops. 


Bharti at International Women's Day Ashfield



Collagraphs and etchings by International Womens Day female workshop artists

She's Dancing House

How can 2 months of this residency have passed already... so much more to do.  I need my quiet time- and drawing with pencil and paper- does it for me.  Still a work in progress, this drawing is coming along quite nicely.  Dorothea Tanning's soft scultpure work in particular the Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202   which I saw at the Pompidou Centre, several years ago, has never left my imagination.  Right now my female protagonist cant quite get out of the domestic.... so she is dancing house instead!

She's Dancing House

Drypoint etching at the Villa

It is an amazing space here visually with surroundings of sport, open grass, and this heritage villa.  I have met some lovely people and having my etching press was worth the effort of getting it to Sydney.  It has opened up some great opportunities for the locals here.

Bharti designed her image and tested it on fabric with great success!

The classes on drypoint etching are fun for everyone as they can design an image, scratch and mark a plate and then ink it up with some lovely results in a day.



Kavitha was using traditional Indian designs to inspire her imagery!



Jenny scratching in designs that abstracted from nature!

Our next workshops are for International Womens Day which is celebrated on the 8th March.  I'm looking forward to the breakfast and our exhibition at the Ashfield Council.  More pics coming!!





dancing queenie

This female form was inspired by trying on a beautiful party dress and twirling around in it... dancing queenie I call her.. an older woman version of Abba's song!!

My last drawing she was dancing or purging on top of her house...in this work in progress- you can start to see her twirling on top of a vacuum cleaner and in what I want to be eventually, an evocative darkened room...

pencil drawing in process at ashfield

Champagne with the western suburbs lawn tennis association!!

Great job to all those who gave up their usual weekend to stick down interesting stuff and then play with messy inks to produce intaglio collagraph prints.  Jane and Emma had scrapbooking collage pieces as well as chinese stencils. 

Jane and Emma.. fun over the press!!

Fran, Nikki, and Jo

And if you don't believe me how messy these guys got just check out this pic!!  I came along to sort out a few things... dont let that put you off however, these collagraph textures make for some amazing results...

and afterwards I got to partake in a glass of bubbly with the Western Suburbs Lawn Tennis Association.... such a dedicated bunch... they really are this was later :)

Foraging and enquiry!



Monarch pen drawings


Patiently... working on etching plates... Beginning an offshoot project to stir up the creative juices..... About the female protagonist as butterfly woman and exploring her through collagraphs. Research began on some local butterflies and ones that I have found and seen on their particular erratic path... I have began drawing on a collagraph block after doing a test block to see how various fabrics could work... it was the first print off the press in my residency studio...



collagraph test block

First Ashfield weekend workshop alot of fun!

15 participants and everyone worked really hard and patiently and got some lovely successes!  Thank you to all who came along and made it such a successful first workshop in Sydney!  Lots of interesting textures and fine results accomplished in such a short time. 

Stephan and Nikki hard at work wiping collagraph blocks!

Stamping my presence on the studio

I've made this space quite cosy with lots of artwork on the walls, and there are plenty of tables to work on, which I've set up for community workshops.  It was definitely worth bringing down my press and I look forward to working on my etchings :)



Intaglio go girl!!

 I've set up some trestle tables and took down the hot plates, though just could not fit in the glass slabs, so a mirror has replaced it for ease of cleaning and working....


Drawings on wall, and photoetching on plinth.

out back in the courtyard at thirning villa

This villa is the only Georgian residence left in Ashfield, built in 1868.  There is a lovely courtyard with out buildings and I decided to work on my 2 plate etching Nestle on Monday reblocking out to tweak a couple of the tones. 

Courtyard Thirning Villa

I am making full use of every room in Thirning Villa for art work... the kitchen was useful for staining rice paper for chin colle to add textural and colour effects for Nestle.

Kitchen upstairs

Thirning Villa in Sydney

This is the Thirning Villa, a lovely home to stay in and make work for 3 months.  I share the area with the Western Suburbs lawn tennis on the left, and an oval at the back, Lawn bowls to the right and the historical society downstairs on the right.  Living quarters are upstairs (Ive set up photography studio in one of the rooms) and have an etching studio set up dwonstairs.  Spacious and green for a very rural acclimatized though orginally city girl....

Rochelle at Thirning Villa Artist in Residence Jan 2012

View from bedroom/ photography studio window!

Road trip to sydney Wednesday 4 Jan 2012



Richard and very packed car!

 What an upheaval!  cleaning and cleaning and more cleaning my home and now sort of jobless and houseless but heading to sydney for a new adventure.... for 3 months in Ashfield Sydney and working as artist in residence. 

Fitted so much more in car with Richard's superb packing!!


Me in front, equipment, artwork in back...