Blessed beyond expression

 I began drawing today, instead of working on my website as I had planned, and I realized again how much I love it!

  There are so many downs in an artist's life and so much to do that really has nothing to do with actually drawing, that one sometimes begins to get bogged down into it all. But then I pick up my pencil expecting nothing, touch it to paper and suddenly I'm away into a world where a single line can excite me, a shadow can make me smile, and where an empty space can fill my spirit with gladness. Those moments make me feel like this, and this is what I feel now:

   I'm blessed beyond what I deserve to be able to draw! I can't wait to begin the big adventure and spend my whole summer drawing. I'm sure there will be low places and many very literal bogs, but that will only make the happy moments all the more memorable.

  This isn't the serious blog post I had planned, just a spontaneous response to my sudden joy of finding myself drawing a muddy old truck!

New Blog Design, and other news

    I spent most of today creating this! How do you like the new design, do you think it's better than the old one? I do, of course! I have also redesigned my website: equinefineart.net 

  Caleb and I have been working for the last month on ways to raise funding for 'The Art of a Hut' project. I am just a pennyless artist, actually I have more pennys than dollars at the moment! So that means we are going to have to raise money from somewhere to make this project possible. We have various ideas which we are working to put into action, involving newspaper articles, and radio broadcasts.

   The main thing at the moment is to make a video promoting our project to put on Boosted - a website based on public funding where people donate to help make projects possible. I'll post more about it later, but that's the general idea. The only problem with this is that I don't have a camera anymore! So what I've got to figure out next, how to make a video with no camera. I'll manage it somehow, necessity is the mother of invention after all...

 I am selling my oil painting 'Hot and Cold' on TradeMe at the moment. It's one of my favorite paintings which I took a looser approach too making it slightly stylistic/abstract instead of my usual realism. Hopefully something will come of that.

Drawings Around Home

Here are some recent sketches of places around Totara North where I live.

One of the old boat sheds down at the harbour. I sat in the warm sun on the wharf drawing this while Dad was working on a boat below.

I started a few drawings at the old Mill which is closed down now and all derelict and sad. It started raining so I had to come into one of the big sheds and draw a little office building from inside.

A pump shed at the Mill.

This old dark green building at the Mill attracted me with its boarded up windows and sway backed roof. I also liked the way the trees in the bank behind it seemed to be hugging protectively.

I drew all these drawings on 11 x 14 Strathmore toned drawing paper using charcoal pencils.

A New Adventure Begins!

A month ago I began brainstorming ideas for ways to start getting somewhere in my artistic career. I decided I needed to start working towards an exhibition, but I needed a subject, a theme. 

I began a list and wrote down 'Huts' and didn't get any further than that. I had been thinking about drawing or painting the old farm buildings and huts one sees everywhere in New Zealand. And now the idea suddenly came back to me.

My friend, Caleb, was with me at the time and, together, from the one idea of huts as the subject for an exhibition, we came up with a wild idea which has become quite a serious project! 

It's called 'The Art of a Hut'

This is what I wrote in my

The Art of a Hut Newsletter:

This summer, if all goes to plan, two friends and I will set off into the bush to disappear into the backcountry for six months. We will be traveling all around the North Island staying at DOC huts all the way. And I will be drawing each of the 50 or so huts that we stay at. After the six months I will go home to my studio (quite sick of the bush by then I'm sure!) and work on larger finished drawings of the huts and prepare my work for an exhibition sometime in the spring of 2014.

   I am really looking forwards to drawing the huts and anything else my pencil finds to sketch on the way. There will be a lot of tramping involved and a whole lot of roughing it. It will be quite an adventure and an amazing opportunity to experience my own country in places where our roots are still in sight. I will be taking a journal with me and keep up a written record of our adventures in the bush; for we also have in mind publishing a book of my sketches and the stories of the huts as we experience them.

   I have chosen pencils over paint, not only because this will be a lot cheaper and more realistic for me, but because I really love drawing as a medium in itself. I wish to promote it as an important aspect of the arts and show that it is not inferior to painting, and can stand alone as an artistic end in itself.

   This is a really ambitious project for me: a poor artist having barely started out in my career, but I believe it will definitely be worth it, and hopefully will be the means of opening many doors of opportunity into the future.

   So, there you have it! The rest of this winter will be spent in planning and fundraising and all that sort of thing which is going to be a whole new learning experience for us.

I plan to have this blog very involved with the project all the way, so 'stay tuned!' as they say.

Old Homestead Drawing

Last Friday I spent the day with friends, actually I spent the day with my sketchbook drawing their beautiful old house. I sat in the doorway of the garage/woodshed on a pile of wood keeping half an eye on the rain cloud that threatened overhead. Fortunately it didn't rain; I drew all morning and part of the afternoon until I felt it had been drawn to a conclusion.  It was really nice sitting there drawing away listening to the conversation of the people working in the garden, and watching the doves alighting of the roof where they nest.

For this drawing I used an A3 sketchbook of off white textured drawing paper using an B4 graphite pencil. 

The Elusive Glare

'The Elusive Glare'

Pen. 39 x 30 inches

Here is my most recent big piece of artwork. I drew it in pen on a big sheet of drawing board. I'm not exactly happy with it as my proportions are a bit off. I can see now everything wrong about it glaring out at me. But it was a good learning experience and it was fun to draw. I learnt allot of pen drawing techniques which will be very helpful. 

A New Start and New Ideas (In other words, I'm back!)

  Well, here I am again. I have taken a long unannounced break from the blogging world, but am back in full force, full of ideas and inspiration. It was good to have a break, sometimes the internet becomes so overwhelming I don't want to see a computer screen ever again. But I've run that out of my system and I'm excited about blogging again; sharing my ideas and learning from all my fellow artists out there.

   I'm finally discovering what the picture of my future career as an artist looks like and I am making new goals and exciting plans for the coming year. In fact it's quite a big project that a friend and I have hatched up. I wont say anything about it yet for it is barely a week old, but I will say it involves something like in the pictures below!