Just Married

   Back on the internet again, under a new name! I am now Mrs Bergstrom! I was married on the 9th of January to an amazing man, Caleb Bergstrom who has appeared now and again in the background of this blog and who helped begin The Art of a Hut project.

  Here are a couple of wedding photos which were taken by my very talented sister who has a photography business, you can see more of her work here: Luce Bianca Photography.

   Being married is ideal and now there will be no more long distance calls and living only for the holidays. Now, I am married to the engineering student and get to share in his daily life of highs and lows. I am now in Christchurch which shall be my home for a year or two while Caleb completes two more years as a forestry engineering student. We have moved into the garage of his flat which is now composed of five guys and me.

 We have two little rooms in the garage and the front room has been converted into a studio 'Site' For us both, but with all my painting supplies I'm beginning to take over most of the room... Last week and this I have been biking about the city finding the best stores for art supplies. Coming from a small town in the far north to living in one of the main cities of New Zealand is a little overwhelming and the art shops here have so many of the equipment and tools I'd only heard of before, or would have to order online. It was as good as being in a chocolate shop with a dollar to spend.

   Now that I have come back to my blog again I plan to write a lot more here than last year, and post images of my future paintings and drawings so look out for more from me soon. As well as my newsletter which I will email soon.

  I am also working on a new portfolio website as blogger is a bit limited in that department. I will still keep this blog up... Though I will have to do something about updating the header.

Satin Dress Drawing

   I have been very busy all last week working on a commission. It's illustration work which is all very new and interesting, but more on that later. I did find time to do some drawing for myself and here is something I worked on bit by bit all week. 

'Satin Dress' pastel pencil on paper. aprox A3.

   Another from the series of photos I took of Tabitha. I concentrated on the dress in this drawing and made that my subject. I love the folds and how there is so much reflected light in the shadows. I would like to do a bigger drawing of a similar dress and spend more time on it. My favorite part is her lower foot on the ground and the train of the dress. 

   Today I started a still life painting of my violin again. I seem to enjoy that challenge! It's going really well and I hope to finish it this week. I had a few of those good moments when I applied something new I've learnt through reading and watching other artists paint and it worked! It's encouraging to know that what I want to achieve in painting is possible to learn. Also that all my hours I spend reading about painting and looking at paintings and watching videos of people paint are not entirely wasted time!

   This week again I shall be extra busy finishing my still life, doing lots of drawing, and starting on a new commission for a painting. I'm going to be painting a horse! I've been wanting to do that again lately. Also I hope to go out and get some plein air painting done.

Inspiration from the Masters. True Story.

   Have had a nice quiet weekend to myself, usually I'm off doing something with my friends, there's always something going on these days! I could have gone hunting and kayaking to an island but I thought it must be time for a quiet weekend and get myself into focus for the rest of the month.

   I've been reading my favorite art book, Richard Schmid's Alla Prima II, and doing a lot of reading of Articles on the internet. Just getting fully inspired really. 

   I somehow came across The Master Secrets. A website/blog of Kathryn Lloyd an enthusiastic artist and lover of art who has interviewed many amazing artists. Her interview with Daniel Gerhartz is very inspiring, and with Rosemary & Co brushes--very interesting and informative. It's good to hear interviews in which the interviewer is also an artist and can ask good questions that I want to hear the answers to. 

   One article I read, Finding your Artistic Voice,  contained advice to young artists about how to find a voice or style. Being a young aspiring artist myself which all that advice is aimed towards I am thinking I should take it on for real. I've known it for so long having heard it repeated over and over from many successful artists. Just paint, paint, paint, and draw, draw, draw. Do your best work. Don't worry about style, go after the important things. Learn the craft. Be honest.

   That is exactly what I did in the pastel portrait of Tabitha. I spent all my efforts getting every measurement right, making each mark have a purpose, and not thinking about style or effect. The result was what I consider my best portrait to date.

   And I suddenly realized one aspect of what I've always heard and sincerely believed only didn't understand. Only because I applied what I had learned was I able to really understand it. I should say begin to understand it. The more I learn the more I realize I have to learn! 

  This month I am going to start working hard to apply everything I've learned so far. I have a commission to work on, heaps of Virtual Art Academy assignments to complete, and heaps of ideas for lots of drawings and paintings. I already spend most of my time doing art related stuff, but I always seem to be caught up in other little jobs and leaving the fun 'til later. I need to forget that I have a hundred things to do and just spend all my time having fun with charcoal and paint.

   Might need to order some more art supplies about now...

   I'll keep you posted with photos of some of my new work. Look out for some brilliant progress!

Painting, Music, and Apple Picking

   Since coming home from hut hopping life has gone back to normal-ish. I don't have so many things-to-do on my list which is really nice. I'm learning how to limit how much I bite off, because it's exhausting and disheartening trying to chew really fast to get through everything!

   So what am I doing with myself these days? 

   I've been painting. Last week I worked on a large painting of Rocks Ahead Hut, one of the huts I drew in the Kawekas last month. Here is a small detail from the painting when it was in an unfinished state. I had only my sketch from on location and my memory to work with. I did have photos of the hut but they were taken at a different time of day and the shadows and light were completely different so there were useless to me.

   I quite enjoyed painting again. It's nice to come back to after doing mostly drawing for a long time.

   I have been reading a lot too, these days. I have two large volumes about the Impressionist painters in the ninteenth century. It's full of beautiful paintings and I am enjoying reading all about the artists like Renoir, Monet, Cezanne, Dagas, Manet, etc. I love the Impressionists and there work and it is really interesting to become more familiar with their work and study their paintings and notice how really very like impressions they really are and yet what makes them so appealing and so beautiful that they have stood well the test of time and are still the most loved paintings in the world.

Monet

   I think it fascinating how all these painters who began the Impressionist movement all knew each other and influenced and encouraged one another in this new way of looking at the world and putting it on canvass. And yet they each had a different take on the same thing all contributing a certain aspect to the movement.

The Monet Family at their garden in Argenteuil. 1874 Edouard Manet

   There is so much information on the internet about these artists but it is often very confusing and possibly unreliable. I often comes across bad copies of the masters works passed of as the real thing on Pintrest and such sites when I'm looking for images of paintings. So I much prefer to read real books about artists, it's much nicer and easier to study them that way. I have just got a pile of books out of the library about Dagas and Cezanne which I am looking forward to reading through.

   When I am not painting or drawing or thinking or reading about painting and drawing I am spending a lot of time with Jenny, my piano. I am currently enjoying learning Chopin's Nocturne 2. Maybe I'll be able to play it as well as this someday:

      At the end of this month I am going to the South Island! Somewhere I've wanted to go for a long time. I'm going to join a couple of friends picking apples near Nelson for a month and then go traveling around and see a bit of my country. Of course while I'm down there I'll do the best I can to get to lots of huts to draw them for my project. The Art of a Hut.

  I'm really looking forwards to spending a couple of months down there picking apples which means earning money--a novelty for me! And then traveling around with my friends in a bright blue ford falcon '70. Lots of fun, my sketchbook will be ever at my side and when I come back I'll share them with you. So you won't hear much from me here in the months of April and May but I'm not going away just yet and I plan to do a fair bit of blogging this month.

Sailing and drawing

  Firstly, forgive my long absence from blogging. I've had a very long holidays busy with people toing and froing and doing lots of sailing.

And with this and that and one thing or another I haven't found time even to begin my art course yet! But I am going to try that this week along with trying to finally finish my big beautiful white horse who is going off to Texas when finished! 

I am also working on illustrations for my Mums book of short stories which she hopes to begin trying to get published this year. 

And I am still drawing every day! Am on day 95 now! This is what I drew today, I spent more time on my drawing today than I have for ages. And when there is nobody else to draw, well there's always one's own face! 

Here are a few more of the latest and best:

That's all for today. But I've broken my 'bloggers block' so hopefully you will be hearing from me again soon. 

Artists who Inspire Me: Hsin-Yao Tseng

  I have a bookmarks folder called 'artists' and the list has grown quite long now as I continue to come across amazing artists whose work is so inspiring.

  This weekend I discovered an incredible artist via the online Artists On Art magazine. He wrote an article on the importance of Pochades, or quick paintings. His name is Hsin-Yao Tseng. He is just a young artist, born in '86, and still has half his career before him. But already he is a successful artist and his work is so good, I look forward to seeing his future work as he can only get better!

  Here are a few examples of his work, I just love his drawings. You can see lots more on his well designed website.

As you can see he can paint in a totally different style as in the painting above.

 Here is a video promotion from an exhibition of his about a year ago.

A slideshow of his paintings. I just love the first piece of music in the video, I'm learning it on my piano at the moment.