Research & work in progress for the Mosman Art Award 2012

I have been working on an artwork that I'm hoping will be accepted into this year's Mosman Art Award. I've spent a few days over a couple of weeks visiting Mosman Park, absorbing and photographing the area.  Everything I saw was so beautiful! It was hard to decide on a image to work on.  The views are spectacular of the river from many vantage points.  I visited the area on a perfect blue-sky-day one week and the next week on a grey overcast day - how different the intensity of colours were. Even on a cloudy day the views of the river in Mosman Park are lovely.  Check out the photos below of two different sailing boats seen from Chidley Point, Mosman Park, one on a clear blue sky day, the other on an overcast day. 

I thought about depicting a lot scenes and decided that it might be fun to depict a place to sit and look at a great view.  I was most taken by Chidley Point.  Driving down into Chidley Point felt as though I was discovering a secret place that few people knew about (but I'm sure that plenty do). The small steep winding road that leads to the smaller car park can easily be overlooked. On a clear day there's just an immense sense of space.  The sky is so big here, so blue and the glistening, shimmering turquoise waters is magical against the white sandy shoreline.  Watching the moored boats bobbing and floating on the river with the limestone outcrops in the background was a dream. I decided that it will become one of my favourite places to be..or rather a favourite place of mine 'just to be'! 

Here's some more images of Chidley Point, Mosman Park, Western Australia. 

I settled on depicting a seat in the park with a glorious tree alongside it at Chidley Point. This is truly a great seat, it's freely available to anyone, anytime to appreciate the priceless view.  I really think my artistic depiction could never truly capture how magnificent our Swan River is from this seat, you really must visit and see it with your own eyes.  I took this photo below of the seat with a view on an overcast day.   

Here's the work in progress below.  The tree texture is torn up calico remnant bought at an Anglicare opshop, for the seat texture I've used strips of balsa wood (I glued down and then used a sealer over the top), the background outcrop is yellow paper card (scrapbook stamping remnants), the water is raw silk (I think) found in a Salvation Army opshop. The foreground is acid-free tissue paper.  I'm still working out what to use for the pointy leaves of the tree.  I have some shredded tissue paper that I think might work well. It's all glued down using a watered down acid free collage glue. I use Matisse paints and gesso. I will use a solvent based varnish that seals the whole canvas to preserve the completed work. 

I'll be back soon with photo of the finished work and others that I've been blogging about and have completed so far this year. In the meantime, I recommend that you visit Chidley Point in Mosman Park, take a picnic lunch and enjoy the view!

Artwork using scrap-booking & fabric remnants

I found a whole bunch of scrap-booking remnant papers the other week and thought it might be fun to use them as a texture in an artwork. I decided that they would make an excellent depiction of bushes in a forest. 

On a short holiday with my husband in January this year we visited Big Brook Dam in Pemberton, Western Australia.  The photo you see below was taken on a short walk trail adjacent to Big Brook Dam and it's my initial reference point for this mixed media work. 

Walk trail alongside Big Brook Dam, Pemberton, Western Australia

Yes, my artistic depiction in the work in progress below does look a bit different to the photo. Art for me is about playing with materials, applying paint expressively and not about being a master at copying. 

New work in progress

The paper remnants that I've glued to the canvas to make the background in this work originally appears to have been used to make cutout/stamped shapes for scrap-booking. Closer inspection of the background you will see an assortment of shapes star, feet, people, flower shapes.  The path is an old towel, the tree trunks are curtain gathering tape that I found in my sewing box, the foreground is torn up paper doilies.   The sky is a curtain/upholstery fabric remnant: compliments of Neil Elliott's collection that he gathered and shared from REmida, my idea of heaven! (REmida is a recycling warehouse in West Perth that I can't wait to go and forage around in).  

I'm not sure how the paint will go over the top of these textures, I kinda like it as a collage. There's always the fear that the paint won't grip to the textures that I've experimented with and that it won't work out. I will courageously conquer my fear and apply some paint to this work, hmmm, well, maybe this week after a coat of sealer and perhaps a coat of gesso.  I'm enjoying it just the way it is for now, it's the best time when I am in the act of creating - the hopeful moment when the work has so much potential! I like to just stare at it forever and wonder.  I hope at some point I'll shall stop staring at it as it is, start painting and show you the completed work soon.  Hopefully it will turn out great and won't need to be recycled :-)