night night, sleep tight

Here`s the latest piece I`ve been working on, now in Johnstreet Gallery.  I painted this on top of a beach scene which just wasn`t going to plan, although I may try to do it again as I liked the family group I had in it, but the rest not.  So I decided to let the beach colour scheme come through in the final painting, and rubbed back lots of layers to try to create a more subtle background, since I wanted the sofa to have centre stage, so to speak.  Hopefully, the viewer will experience a sense of calm and peace with this one.............

There are several "hidden" objects, or at least you have to really look to find them.  I like people to be able to discover something new when they look at my paintings for a second or a third time.

 a place to lay your head

acrylics and fabric collage on canvas
44 x 34 inches including frame

Speaking of somewhere to lay your head, I`m off to do just that!  I`ve had a hectic past few days and very little sleep, trying to juggle everything.  Time for some shuteye.  If the bedbugs bite, you know what to do......

Extra hanging space at Montgomery`s!

Just found out yesterday that Johnstreet Gallery in Ballymena has secured, at least for the time being anyway, extra hanging space in the prestigious café-restaurant/furniture store Montgomery`s, which sadly closed some months ago, but is now set to reopen today!  If you`re in the Ballymena area or just walking down Ballymoney Street, why not pop in and have a peek.  Some of my work will be displayed there, and you never know, you might just see something you fancy, ( or even just for a wee nosey!!) I`ve a big painting ready for them, but just finishing the second coat of varnish, so it should be there tomorrow.  Will hopefully get a photo of it posted later today.  Judith x

Above, is an image I posted from their website; I tried to post a link to it here, but it wouldn`t work.  You can look it up yourselves if you`re interested (maybe they`re updating it?)

a little bit of colour again..

a voice in my ear, the world on my shoulders

45.5 x 33.5 cm (unframed measurements)

mixed media on paper 
mounted, glazed and framed

Back again!  Family is fed, watered, washed; downstairs is hoovered!!! Phew!  How come with all our gadgets women seem to be more stressed nowadays than ever before?  Don`t get me started on the plights of the 21st century... there`s a lot of good stuff going on too, but I don`t think we were meant to live life at this pace!  

Anyway, enough rambling! Yet more little birds!!  I would love to know what they`ve been telling her, but it can`t be too good because she doesn`t look all that happy!! Melancholic is the word!  Anyway, this was done on top of the ghost print that I took after doing the monotype  He loves me, he loves me not.  I hate wasting things and recycle when I can, even in art.  As you can see, I love to explore the same or similar subject matter in various media to see what happens.  I wish I`d done this one on watercolour paper though, but there`s always next time....  I forgot to put the thingymijig (spell?) over the feed dog on the sewing machine, or the bobbin tension wasn`t right or something (even though I tried it first on a scrap piece of paper), so the sewing in the hair is all bunched up on the reverse side, but it doesn`t show or have any effect on the finished piece.   I really love lace, especially the vintage sort.  Anything vintage, really....

Well, that`s the last blog of the day.  Typical me: no posts for 2 months, then 4 in one day!  I`m off to the studio now, since I`ve been busy doing other stuff all day and I promised the gallery in Johnstreet that I`d have some paintings finished by Wednesday.   The stress of it all!! I`m just going to pop up and see that Annabelle is OK; she prefers me to put her to bed rather than papá!!  I can hear her screaming, so the studio will just have to wait for a while...... Teething babies have to come first.

monotypes

  

a little bird told me

48 x 30cm 
monotype

a little bird told me II

37 x 47.5 cm
monotype

he loves me, he loves me not

38.5 x 52.5 cm
monotype

(all figures are approximate since these have to be mounted and framed)

These are monotypes as opposed to monoprints.  Not so long ago, I never knew there was a difference, but apparently there is!  So I decided to inform myself and here`s what I discovered: monoprints have something that is repeated in each print, e.g lines from a drypoint plate, which means that the artist can make an editioned set of prints.  Monotypes, on the other hand, are completely one-off, they can never be repeated.  As they say, you live and learn.  

Somebody told me recently that my work made them think of Chagall.  Apart from the name, and a few very famous pieces, I  never really knew that much about his art, but when I checked out more I discovered yes, I think there`s something?! His work is dreamlike, all about colour and he is one of the cornerstones of naive art, which, in my opinion, is a difficult, at times misunderstood genre, since sometimes I think people think naive is synonymous for childish.   Anyway, my women figures have turned out, practically of their own making, to be so sad-looking, melancholic, but I prefer pathos to a smileful of teeth?!

Printing with styrofoam

Since I have been exploring my interest in printmaking again, especially monotypes and drypoint, mainly because they don`t require so much expensive equipment, etc, I bought some cheap styrofoam, kind of like thin polystyrene, to try out some ideas and compositions.  This is used a lot in schools, since it`s cheap and easy to make marks on, but also by professional artists and craftspeople for its versatility.  Because it`s cheap, you tend not to panic about messing up and wasting expensive materials, so it`s great for experimenting on.   What I love  about it is that you can cut it easily so you don`t have to always print the typical rectangle format.  The downside, for me anyway, is that it`s hard to draw on properly with a pen or pencil or stylus, etc. and sometimes the lines come out as sort of "staggered", for want of a better word, although that could be an advantage depending on what you`re doing.......

like a fish out of water

artist`s proof

relief print on A4 cartridge paper

fleeting blossoms.........

I just had to spend a day or two painting the cherry blossoms in our garden, before the wind blew them all off, and anyway, they don`t last very long.... Actually, I thought they`d have all bloomed and gone before we got back from Chile.  I think I got a bit messed up with the fact that it`s now Autumn over there.  Anyway, these were all painted outdoors about a week or so ago, when I knew that the sun still existed!! I love painting plein air since I tend to just go for it and not fuss so much.  I think these are the best studies of the ones I did, since I started to fiddle with one in the studio (will I ever learn?) and now I don`t like it so much, but hope it can be rescued, if not I can always paint on top of it.......

 blossom study I

 28.5 x 37 cm

blssom study II 

30 x 41 cm

 blossom study III

27 x 38cm

 various studies in watercolour (some with a little white gouache) on various textured watercolour papers

(All measurements are approximate since they are deckled edges and are unmounted.  I will change these once I get them mounted, framed and ready to hang)

 pink blossoms

oils on clear-primed linen canvas

27 x 45.5cm

(unframed)

SOLD

cherry blossom tree

 monotype on A3 cartridge paper using watercolours

I haven`t done this kind of printmaking since art college, but I really want to do more.  I love the uncertain, risky side to making monotypes, since you really never know how it`s going to turn out in the end.  I printed on a perspex plate which I sanded to help the paint to adhere better and this is the reverse image I got as a print.  I did another print using what paint was left on the plate, called a ghost print, and think I actually like that more, although it came out even paler in the photo below. 

There`s a Canadian artist called Flora Doehler, who has a lot of really good videos on youtube about printing  which I find really inspirational, and I`ve posted one below.  Hope you enjoy and learn as much as I did!

Back at last and homesick again!

Well actually, I`ve been back what around 3 weeks now, but there aren`t just enough hours in the day for me anymore!! It took us around a week to get back into the swing of things; the jetlag is always worse from Chile to Ireland, must be the time difference.  I couldn`t get to sleep until 3 or 4 am, now I still can`t get to sleep until that time, because Annabelle has a high temperature and is guerney (very Norn Irish word = irritable), because her 12 month vac. is hitting in! Poor wee thing!

Was I really in Chile?  When we arrived, it was so surreal, like it couldn`t possibly have been 3 years since we left; it felt like we never had.  And now, we`re back here, it`s like we never went to Chile at all............ but we did!

 Our first ever family shot, taken by a kind Australian tourist in Cerro San Cristobal. With a little photoshopping, this could be half decent.  We have no pics. of us all together.....

 

 3,000 metres above sea-level, one of my favourite places on earth, halfway up the Andes!

Valle Nevado is actually a ski resort but you can do trekking here in the summer. Here we are looking out for the condors at the Mirador de los cóndores.

Anyway, we had a GREAT time!! The only downside were the tremors.  The last one was the night before we left and I kind of had this weird feeling that there was going to be a quake just before it happened!  Freaky!  All fun on the ninth floor!!!  In 9 + years of living in Chile, of all the countless tremors that I experienced, I think the strongest was about a 4.5, and in 1 month we had 3 strong ones, 2  were 6.3 + on the Richter scale in Santiago.  Glad I missed the biggie in February 2010.   Chileans are used to them though, very few people panic, but we had to vacate the building for the last one using the stairway, and wait outside on the street. i had to wake the boys up, and their dad too! Thankfully the engineering in Chile really is second to none now, the buildings are built to withstand strong earthquakes, or at least minimise the damage, but building the tallest building in LatinAmerica is maybe tempting fate! I for one, wouldn`t want to work on the top floor, nice view or not!

Cerro San Cristobal, with the new Costanera Center building in the background and unfortunately a lot of smog as well!

And one of the best highlights of our trip, was of course that "abuela" got to meet Annabelle (as well as spoiling all 3 of them!) 

Of course  I crammed a pile of  art stuff into my suitcase, blindly ignoring the wise voice in me that said "you`ll never get the half of it done".  At least I managed to three-quarters fill a fat sketchbook with drawings, memories, clippings, etc.  and when the time is right I will use them for some paintings.  (Will maybe post a few of these sketches in due course.)  Since I`ve been back, don`t know how, but I`ve been doing some monoprinting in the studio, some I really like, some not, and have busied myself painting and drawing the cherry blossoms in the garden, since the flowers are so beautiful, but so transient! (No photos yet.)

Our studio gallery has now been painted with a special damp-proof paint and it`s working!!!! Hooray!  Next step is to get the rails up and a lot of my stuff framed.  I`m also doing stuff for Johnstreet Gallery. (They`ve got an e-sales up and running so check it out).  As busy as a bee!  Hope to see more of them if the weather would only change! 

¡Nos vemos pronto!