Friday 10 June 2016

Sicily April 2016

This was a trip I did with others from my art group.  I had seen other parts of Italy and had always wanted to go to Sicily where Val and I were headed in 1973 but unfortunately were robbed and had to return to Rome to get a passport.

We briefly stayed in Catania after our flight before joining the small group in Ortegia (part of  Syracuse) on the Art Incontro trip.   We stayed in apartments and spent a lot of time sightseeing, visiting galleries & museums and doing printmaking - lino, woodcut and collagraph.  And some small artists' books.

I made some slideshows of my photos and decided to try and put them on my blog but soon found I had to first put them on You Tube.  So you can see them there or on this blog.  I posted the first two a few days ago and here is the larger of the three slideshows which I have saved as a video.



Tuesday 7 June 2016

Slideshows of Abu Dhabi and Oman travels in April 2016

This is my first attempt to post my slideshows on You Tube and then to this blog.  It has taken a lot of trial and error but I think I have got it to work.  Watch them in fullscreen (little square with arrows) as the images are too small as set out here.

Abu Dhabi  was only a  night and day stopover mainly to see the huge mosque and carpet. There were three of us on our way to Sicily - Ann, Robyn and me.


Oman was a five day trip on the way home from Sicily where Ann and I spent nearly three weeks doing art and sightseeing.  We met an American woman at our first hotel and shared a rental car with her to see some of the country, especially the sand dunes which were stunning.

 



Monday 6 June 2016

Linocuts

Last week I finished printing these linocuts so thought I'd put them here before I try and think of some new printmaking ideas tomorrow.

This colour linocut was modelled on an old photo of a Queensland sunset in the outback.

Sunset


These two were just a design based on sunlight when I was having fun cutting lino.

Linocut



Linocut



Friday 3 June 2016

More Pastel Paintings

I've been back a few weeks from my trip to Sicily and Oman but am not sure if I can post the slideshows I have made of my photos.  I will try later.

I'm now looking at some of the art I did earlier this year and am posting it here.  This pastel called "The dog walker" is based on a colour slide I took twenty years ago during the annual Floriade festival we have in Canberra.   The camera was set on a slow shutter speed to blur the moving person and dog and I've always liked it.

Walking the dog

 I did the next two pastels in a weekend workshop by Louise Corke with a concentration on light and composition.

One painting is a landscape with trees in the foreground and background;  the other is from a photo I took several years ago of the citadel of Carcassonne in France.


Pastel painting



Pastel paintings


I just finished this pastel of an old tree trying to use a cross-hatching technique in hard pastels to begin it - then scumble in soft pastels. I'm not sure how it has worked.

Pastel paintings