The alarm on my phone goes off to tell me it's time to quit with the administrivia and get onto painting. I move over to the drying rack and cautiously test each painting in turn. Wet. Wet. Wet. Wet. Wet. Wet.
It's been at least two weeks since I began painting the summer installment of the art filled cookbook. There are six paintings still wet and on the drying rack. I am waiting. Eventually one of them will dry and I may proceed with it's next layer.
In summer (it is midwinter where I am in country Victoria) the paintings go outside for a few hours on sunny days. This speeds up their drying time. Not due to the heat of the sun, but due to the UV. The 'drying' of oil paints is actually an oxidation and chemical cross linking process. Like many chemical processes it is helped by a small amount of heat, but the key ingredients are airflow and UV light. The air provides the oxygen the oil needs to combine with to oxidise and the UV acts as a catalyst.
The frustration of being stalled got me to thinking about recreating the summer conditions that enable the paintings to dry at a much faster pace. Ebay to the rescue, I am now the owner of a UV light designed to simulate rainforest sunlight for frogs in captivity. It's not the desert conditions I originally aimed for, but an experimental start that will be gentle on the paint pigments and, in theory, do away with the torture of paint never dries.
Imagine a city with no sculptures, no murals, no statues, no decorative facades or unique street furniture. If the only objects in the city were utilitarian traffic signal boxes, bins, buildings and streetlights. No historic objects, no banners, no decoration, no markings of any festivals. A city where everything looked as though it had come straight from a factory. Rather depressing?
As you may know, I have an arts column in the Ballarat Independent. My aim is to spread inspiration. I also prefer to wander a visually interesting city and while I certainly don't like every piece of public art I find, I'd rather have it around than not. Consider why...
To continue reading the full article, 'A new era of public art is dawning in Ballarat', head over to the Ballarat Independent.
Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here - this is a personal response to the work of Exploding Dog by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.
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| It was full of love |
Exploding Dog is the long time (since 2000!) semi weekly online drawing project run by 'Sam'. It is pure and simple genius. He asks people to send him a title, and he draws a picture based on what people send in.
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| We need to talk |
The drawings are so simple they could be called crude. If you poopoo the lack of finish you would entirely miss the point. These pictures are all about ideas. There is no clutter for the essence of the message to be lost in.
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| Hold on tight and don't let go |
Simple, quirky, hilarious and not what you'd expect to see drawn for the words provided. The titles might be obvious but what on earth will the drawing show?
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| We're having a baby |
About the Creative Cauldron series of posts
The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.
The art supply store attendant totalled up my purchases and enquired if I was a student. Students at art stores get a discount. I said no. I then asked whether the store stocks hardwood stretcher frames as I like to have a good idea of who stocks what for my infrequent and time consuming trips to Melbourne. Essentially the answer was no.
I won't go into the details of what they did stock and the rather unconvincing case put forward as to why their softwood frames are just as good as hardwood ones, but just leave it at mentioning their lack of what I was after and the eyerolling sales obsfucation that didn't work.
There was one a part of this encounter that I will elaborate on, however, as it was so subtle and strange that it had me perplexed for a full day before I figured it out.
It was this: the store attendant launched into a lecture on how (in their opinion) top quality materials are not necessary if you are 'just painting'. Students (like the lecture-giver) don't need top quality materials. The only people who do are those entering painting competitions where it definitely makes a difference.
What was so weird about this? I had already stated I was not a student. And despite the fact I was buying a load of professional quality painting materials and enquiring about further top quality materials, the idea that I might be a professional artist was obviously missed. It had been assumed that if I wasn't a student then I must be a hobbyist and professional artists don't exist. Which is super strange coming from a painting student working in an art supplies store.
Also sad and disturbing. The idea that art is not a 'real' career is alive and well, unfortunately.
However, over winter this year I will be keeping the spark of summer alive because I will be recipe testing and painting the summer season of the art vege cookbook.
Odd, yes.
I am jumping ahead and out of seasonal order and going straight from winter paintings to summer ones. There is logic behind this madness. For half the world it is actually summer, and these people can follow along the seasonal recipe postings and try them out at the right time of year. By the time I finish up the summer collection, it will be spring where I am, and then I will be in season again. If I were to continue on and do spring now, it would be out of season with everyone. And that seems kind of pointless.
Besides, I have a third of the summer recipes already tested and ready to go, whereas the spring cooking collection is still looking rather bare. Completing summer then spring gives me a bit more time to gather the spring recipes together.
Besides, I have a third of the summer recipes already tested and ready to go, whereas the spring cooking collection is still looking rather bare. Completing summer then spring gives me a bit more time to gather the spring recipes together.
So hellooo summer! Happily starting very soon.
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