Talk about inspiring!

Yes, I am still painting every day! Yay! It is good. What is really a surprise though is I've changed my painting media from acrylic to oils!!! I've used oils in the past but gave up due to allergies and health issues around chemical overload.

So why have I gone back? I was told to. (I'm so suggestible!) I was told to by none other than Vincent Fantauzzo (2008 Archibald Prize portrait of Heath Ledger) and Steven Jacks (I can't find a decent link to his work sorry, but believe me it is incredible!) when I was fortunate enough to meet them and spend a day with them in a painting workshop. It was particularly interesting because they share a studio and work together in an almost brotherly way. Their techniques are similar as are their views. It was most enjoyable.

No previews of my oil paintings yet. Oil paints are not blogging friendly as they take so much longer to finish. I can say I am excited to be finally working on my Paris paintings! It seems they were waiting in my mind until I rediscovered what is possible with oil paints.

These two are not Vince and Steven. They are in fact Parisians I spied and tried to capture.

What is it about Parisians and Paris itself that is so... what's the word... Parisian!?

Stretchy potato and tattoos

Here is my biggest culinary tip for visiting Paris - order Aligot. Pronounced "ah-lee-go" it is a specialty from the Auvergne region of France and is in fact stretchy cheesy potato. We had it at L'Ambassade d'Auvergne where the waiter brings it to the table, still in its copper saucepan, and beats it and stretches it quite flamboyantly. I believe this is to prove that they have in fact used the "right" cheese because we all know any cheesy potato we make at home wouldn't stretch like that.
Our visit to L'Ambassade d'Auvergne was a triumph on another level too. I had phoned to make the reservation quickly asking "parlez vous anglais" only to be told "non"! I proceeded to speak however, eternally grateful that the French for reservation is, well, reservation. I booked for 2 people on a specific day, date and time, I managed to spell my name in French and when we arrived on the arranged day and time, they were expecting us!

Back to my real life here in Coffs Harbour now. Yes, I've been committed to painting every day and yes, I've not been doing too well on that these last few days. I said I'd be honest. I do, however, have a good excuse but do good excuses cut it with these type of commitments? What I have been doing is writing an application for a residency. Doing this has been a big step forward in my commitment to my work actually and it certainly has been a huge learning curve. It was a lot of work and a lot of hard thinking. Translating that thinking into a cohesive project description was practically painful! But it is done and I am very proud of myself for having done it and submitted it on time. I'm not unrealistic enough to think that I stand much of a chance of being accepted, but I do know that my chances are better now that I've actually applied!

So today I will return to they physical act of painting every day and I am looking forward to it. I'm really enjoying the works on paper I've been making. This one is titled "Body of Work" and is a bit bigger than the other ones I've shown you here before (200mm x 200mm). It references my long interest in tattoos in my painting. I like the combination of the old travel guide plan collaged with the henna pattern inspired pencil and think they work really well together.

She's available in my Etsy shop now.

1 week down, 51 to go

Meet Rose Henna or should I have called her Henna Rose? She is one of my new mixed media paintings and I've just listed her in my Etsy shop.
I've had a great week, drawing, painting, sketching. Over the weekend I did let myself off the hook a little and just sketched or did nothing, but it was an unusually busy weekend. Still, I'm not going to beat myself up just because of a day off. That isn't the purpose of my commitment to painting everyday. Quite the opposite really. I am allowing myself to paint everyday and that's a positive thing.

When I was in Paris I picked up a new (to me) sketching pen - Pentel Pocket Brush Pen. As you can see it's quite a bold black and very calligraphic. This is the first drawing I did with it. It really is quite fun to use once you get over the shock of how bold every little touch of it is. I discovered going for bold was the best approach. I used this pen over the weekend to sketch Roly. I haven't scanned it yet but it's pretty weird. He never stands still for me, or if he does it is with his bum end pointed at me!
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I did this drawing on our first visit to the Lourve. On this particular day we only visited the outside. There is so much to see without even going in!

Lost, but it's a good thing

I decided not to bore you with daily posts titled anything to do with "pleased" so I've left it a few days to allow my fresh commitment to settle into my mind. I do seem to be learning so much more just by making myself do something every day. Mainly I've learned that those old sayings are true. The latest thing I learned is that you are nowhere if you aren't lost. If I think I know where I'm going with a work the results are staid and well, simply bad. If I'm lost, don't know what to do next, have to paint or draw myself out of a veritable corner the work is fresh, alive, interesting and I'm happy with it.

I don't know how many small works I've finished just this week, it must be about ten or so. Here is taste of what they are like. "Blue Henna" is small, just 10cm x 10cm, mixed media on paper. I will add her to my Etsy shop sometime today. I'm so happy to be able add some of my work to my shop in spite of getting ready for an exhibition next month!
I want to keep showing my Paris sketchbook drawings here too. Here are T and I sitting, as we did nearly every evening, at Cafe Parvis watching the Parisians walking by. During our first two weeks in Paris (T would say it wasn't 2 weeks, it was only 10 days! Men can be so pedantic.) the lift to our apartment was out of order and we had to walk up to our sixth floor attic home-away-from-home at the end of our day-long walking exploration of Paris. Cafe Parvis was a good place to rest before the ascent. We fortified ourselves with local beverages (eh hem) and inspired others who were using the spot for the same reason as ourselves to buy by the bottle and not just a glass!

Day 3 - Really pleased! (I'm going to have to think of a new post heading soon)

But I am. I am really pleased with my day yesterday and the turnaround I've made in my creating in just 3 days! Yesterday I finished 4 small paintings! These works are following on from some of my mixed media works of last year, layering pattern, book pages and images and they are all figurative which is the direction I want to take and persevere with. Well almost figurative, they are all faces.

During a pause in my process yesterday I was looking at the finished little works and I had a huge BFO (blinding flash of the obvious)! I was thinking something like "It'll be a shame when I have to stop working in this style to paint my Paris paintings." Uh hem. I don't have to stop! I have been working on a look or style for my Paris paintings and hadn't found one. This will do perfectly and it is how I want to work! Sometimes the obvious can be so obtuse. Now all I have to do is to start them.

Ah, starting. It seems it is true what they say "just begin" and it will work out. I began 3 days ago with the commitment to paint every day this year after a pretty dry creative period. It seems it is true, all it takes is to start! The problem with that sentence is that it implies that all you need to do is to start ONCE. The truth is that I must start constantly, start painting today, start a new painting, start the difficult part of the painting, start the finishing off etc.

I still don't have a scan of my new paintings to show you yet but I'm sure you will love to see another Paris sketchbook page so here is the dining room of the Musee Jacquemart Andre. I tried to capture the beautiful bronze, ceramic and red silk lamps but didn't do them justice at all.

Day 2 - pleased

Pleased I am. Spent almost all day yesterday reorganising my studio space. Moved just about everything to a new location, some of it into the storeroom, although not as much as I'd planned. The new layout might just work! But... it was late afternoon and I'd not painted. The room was a huge mess and I couldn't see the surface of my desk. I pushed a clear space in the mess and looked for something to paint on. A piece of watercolour paper 10cm x 10cm was in the mess pushed aside so I chose it and began. I started well, a bit of collage, a smear of gouache, some coloured pencil. Ugh, that stage where every fibre in my body seems to be screaming "Yuck! Stop it now! Try again." I persevered. I LOVE what resulted! I feel like I have broken the back of my block already. Painting everyday is going to be VERY good for me!

But there is a problem. I had that carefully cut piece of paper there for a project I'm not ready to talk about here. I actually have a couple of projects on the boil at the moment and I am not at a stage where I can show what I might paint. Solution A: If I paint every day it is likely that I'll be able to paint something just for fun and be able to show you that! Solution B: I'll show you some more of my Paris sketches, which is the solution I've chosen for today.

This is another sketch of those chimney pots I loved in our view from the apartment. This one has them almost obscured by T and the apartment itself, but I didn't think you'd mind. Ahh, Paris!

Day 1 of my new regime

I'm going to paint (or draw) every day this year.
Well, I took my sketchbook to the beach. I don't know why I haven't done that before. I love other peoples beach sketches! (I particularly love Marina's.) Maybe that's why I don't take mine there... I don't want to know mine are not as wonderful as theirs. Well, now I know it, but I also know practise will improve them!

On the painting front, I needed to do a bit more towards the reorganising of my studio space. I grandly call my little room my 'studio'. It is tiny and I have sooooo much stuff and furniture. I'm moving some of my stuff next door into a storeroom. It will mean I'll have to go in there on and off, but it will be better for painting. My problem is that the storeroom is already full so sorting, throwing out and reorganising is going on in both rooms. It will take time, but I'll get there. In the mean time I've almost made enough space to do some painting! Yay!

Well well well. I had to scan my Moleskine so I could show you my bad beach drawings so I scanned my Paris drawings at the same time. The reason I haven't shown you my drawings (I think) is that scanning them really means the trip is over. In my mind I race back to Paris at every moment I can. Scanning the drawings makes it really really over. Ahh, Paris!

Do I need to carry a sketchbook when I have an iPhone?

I'm packing to leave for Paris on the weekend. I have made my 'Perfect Journal' and am finally the owner of an iPhone 3GS. Both of these will slide into my shoulder bag and accompany me everywhere. Each has it's uses... but doesn't the iPhone win? (if there was a competition).


My iPhone is my new favourite thing. I will take a photo (at the very least) every where I go and these will be geotagged. T will be carrying a supa-dupa camera (it's his passion) and will be taking his own photos. My geotagged photos will assist him in identifying where he took his photos as he sifts through what will be thousands of shots when he gets back.

My iPhone will tell me where I am. We have a month in Paris and we are by nature wanderers. Last time we were there (which was also our first time) we frequently tossed up whether to go to ___ which is what we planned, or keep wandering because it was beautiful right where we were. (That's the thing about Paris, EVERYTHING is beautiful. You don't really have to see 'the sites' because what you are looking at every second is beautiful.)


The downside of being a wanderer is that you don't really know exactly where you are at any given time. We would get back to our apartment and find we had been just near ___ and not known, missed it completely. So our dilemma became whether to go purposefully back through our wandered territory, or go somewhere new. New always won of course, so there were things we missed. This time we will be able to wander AND to know where we are. But not only that, my iPhone will give us access to our Google Map.

We have created our own Google Map with place markers on it of all the places we would like to go "if we end up near there." We haven't put our must-see's on it, just the addresses of little shops, restaurants, markets and streets that we have read about or been told about. You know, you hear about a place and think "That sounds perfect! I must go there" and when you check the map it is way out to billy-o and it doesn't really warrant a full blown excursion just for the 'cute little ceramic shop'. But should we wander that way, we won't miss it this time!


And then there are the applications. It really is the 'apps' that makes the iPhone a winner over and above other smart phones. I have my translator app, the plan and tour app for the Palace of Versailles, lots of other travel apps. Then there are the photography apps. I was worried about the quality of the 3mpx camera, I would have like more, but the quality is surprisingly good and the sheer fun and pleasure the apps bring to taking photos is quite exhilarating. (I took these photos of my sketchbook with my iPhone!)


Oh and I can use it as a phone too. And email. And blogging and flickr and Facebook and twitter etc etc. Or listen to music. Or play games. (I wouldn't of course. I'd draw in my sketchbook instead!) So, my sexy little piece of hardware reduces the number of things I carry quite substantially; phone, camera, ipod, gps, guide book(s) and maps at the very least. And it weighs less than my ipod alone does.

My sketchbook, on the other hand, does the exact opposite. It creates more things I need to carry. I need my pens, my watercolours, water brushes, blotting paper, tissues to clean up with, glue, (and if the world was a different place) scissors or a knife; lucky I don't carry pencils and erasers any more.


The photos I intend to take are different from the ones T will take. They will be shots of patterns, details and reference shots for paintings I intend to do when I come back. I can get a lot of these shots taken in the time it takes to do a single sketch. It was the time it takes to do the sketches that surprised me last time. When you have the possibility of fitting in seeing Place Vendome this afternoon versus finishing the sketch you are doing in Place des Voges instead it actually gets a little stressful. We didn't see Place Vendome last time. It is on our list (and the Google Map) for this time.

This is part of the reason I wanted to stay for so long this time. To ease the pressure around the time it takes to sit and draw and see and experience and even wander. I don't know if we will actually have time to see everything on our list even with a month! But if I didn't take my sketchbook, if I only took my iPhone we could get around it all. I could paint from the photos I take and those photos would take me right back to the spot... or would they?

And I think that is the real difference between my sketchbook and my iPhone. When I look back through my sketchbooks I am truly transported back to that exact moment. I can see, hear, smell it all again. Vividly. When I flip back through my photos of last time I find myself thinking "where was that?"

I'll carry them both. I'll let you know who wins. I suspect there actually won't be a winner, that it will be more of a truce. But I'll let you know.
ps. This time I made my perfect travel journal out of a book with the all-time perfect title. Guess how long I'm going to be in Paris!? I filled it with my favourite paper - all the one kind this time because that is how I wanted it to be. It also has some pages from an old Paris Guide Book scattered throughout. I had another Paris book with beautiful illustrations in it that I was also going to incorporate. The book is in poor condition so a prime candidate for rebinding however I discovered it is a reasonably valuable book and a first edition. I couldn't bring myself to pull it apart. It has an elastic closer and a ribbon place marker, some loose sheets of blotting paper, but that is all this time. I wanted a simple version of my usual rebound journal this time. I love it. It IS perfect!

Ooh la la - a French Flaunt-It Friday

The last in my mini series of posts about books from my collection. These ones I WILL be pulling apart and rebinding when I figure out what they 'need'.
From the top (above) we have Muirhead's Short Guide to Paris from 1951. It is the style of travel book I love most with lots of fold out maps and floorplans to major buildings. It is also set out as a walking guide so it tells you who or what happened in a particular building on a street and then walks you further along it and points out the next place of interest. I have found the 'recent' history very interesting as it is almost 60 years old and Paris has changed so much since then. It has other little touches that send it straight to my heart too, like a ribbon place marker and the original owners name and address penned on the endpaper (DF Woodhouse, 229 Stanley Park Road, Carshalton, Surrey, England). It's a little gem! (Open in front below.)

The second book (open at back above) is really interesting. On the spine it is titled The Silent Traveller in Paris, written and illustrated by Chiang Yee. On the front cover this information is in Chinese calligraphy. Published in 1956, the book contains beautiful watercolour and ink illustrations that are both very Parisian and very Chinese. It is a different way of seeing Paris. Unfortunately the cover is in quite bad condition so I don't know if it is a good rebinding project after all. I will use the pages at the very least though and might add them to the last book I've got here A Month in Paris by Mrs Robert Henrey (on the bottom in all three photos).

This gem of gems is from 1954. Why is it the gem of gems? It doesn't have maps, or ribbons or much in the way of illustrations (other than the portrait of Mrs Robert Henery by Honor Earl). I haven't read it yet but I will... before I spend my month in Paris later this year!!! Yes, that's what it has - the perfect title! This rebound sketchbook will be mine, all mine!

And strangely these last two books must have been in the collection of the one person before I collected them too. They both have watercolour blotches of colour on their foredges. You can see it in this last photo. There is no paint on the pages, just splashed onto the foredge. I can almost imagine the quirky studio of an travelling artist...