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.