I'm off to try out Port Macquarie Foreshore Market tomorrow. With a 4am start and 5 hours of driving, I am both hopeful and apprehensive about how this venture will turn out. That's a lot of petrol to cover on top of the stall cost to make this worthwhile. Fingers crossed. And I expect to need to sleep for a day afterwards.
Black ink pen on white watercolour paper 5x7" and matted ready to frame. Fits the very commonly available standard
size 8x10" frame.
All the currently available Meditative Studies are here, including this one:
Buy one, buy them all! $20 each, including postage within Australia. OS
airmail postage is $5 for 1, $8 for 2, $11 for 3+. Comment SOLD on the
photo of the one you want and include a contact email so I can send
payment details.
Three new Meditative Studies for the week, plus the previous one to show them as a set.
Black ink pen on white watercolour paper 5x7" and matted ready to frame. Fits the very commonly available standard
size 8x10" frame.
All the currently available Meditative Studies are here, including these ones:
Buy one, buy them all! $20 each, including postage within Australia. OS
airmail postage is $5 for 1, $8 for 2, $11 for 3+. Comment SOLD on the
photo of the one you want and include a contact email so I can send
payment details.
Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here - this is a personal response to the work of Sydney Long by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.
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| Sydney Long - Spirit of the Plains |
Spirit of the Plains is probably the best known work of Sydney Long. He spent part of his career striving for "soulful and graceful evocations of the spirit of the land, as did the Greeks and their beautiful myths." (thanks Wikipedia). This painting is the zenith of his work. Seen in real life, it's incredibly compelling.
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| Sydney Long - The West Wind |
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| Sydney Long - Pan |
He seems to be most well known for his symbolism paintings. He did achieve the poetry and evocation of the spirit he was aiming for, though it was a very Western spirit transplanted onto the very non-Western, Australian landscape. It was definitely a product of it's time (Art Nouveau era). Despite the oddness of ancient Greece myths set in the Australian bush, I think he achieved some stunningly beautiful work. Really being able to capture the spirit, or the essence, of a sentiment is difficult to do visually and something I admire.
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| Sydney Long - Flamingos |
And sometimes, like Tom Thomson, he uses a decorative, pattern based line that flows. I love this effect.
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| Sydney Long - The Drover |
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| Sydney Long - Pastoral Landscape |
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| Sydney Long - The Valley |
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| Sydney Long - Evening |
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| Sydney Long - Moonlight Pastoral |
Something that's not mentioned of Sydney Long's work is it's luminous quality. All of his paintings that I've seen have this luminous glow to them. Have a quick scan through the examples here and you will see that many of these are backlit. The sky is a great colourful light and the foreground is a pattern with deep rich colour. Gorgeous floating pastels contrasted with dark sumptuous colour. It's a recipe that works and I am taking note!
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| Sydney Long - Moonlit Pastorale |
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| Sydney Long - Moonlight Pastoral |
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| Sydney Long - Pastoral |
Just to put Art Nouveau in context, this is the sort of imagery that was being created at the time, also full of decorative sinuous linework:
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| Alfonse Mucha - Summer |
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| Aubrey Beardsley - The Peacock Skirt |
More Sydney Long links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Longhttp://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/long-sydney-7225
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.
Where have I been? Quietly practising away, experimenting and perfecting the solutions to drawing these beans.
Black ink pen on white watercolour paper 5x7" and matted ready to frame. Fits the very commonly available standard
size 8x10" frame.
All the currently available Meditative Studies are here, including this one from today:
$20 each, including postage within Australia. OS
airmail postage is $5 for 1, $8 for 2, $11 for 3+. Comment SOLD on the
photo of the one you want and include a contact email so I can send
payment details.
Sunday was the final day of the Buskers festival. This photo gives a much better idea of the crowds than my one from last weekend. It was also a long weekend, with Monday being a public holiday. True to my theory that selling art at markets works during festivals and holidays and not on ordinary market days, I had a great day (and so did the traders on either side of me). Funnily enough, the streets of Bellingen, renowned as a bit of a tourist drawcard, were basically empty on the public holiday despite the shops being open. There was no one on a long weekend getaway around. So I think it's safe to say the Buskers festival and not the public holiday was the magic ingredient.
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