Twisted Sisters

Twisted Sisters - 2B, 4B, & 8B graphite; compressed black charcoal, and white charcoal drawing on paper

The body of work I have created for my art class. I am yet to receive a mark. The concept behind these drawings are self-image, how one presents themselves, and how other people can distort that image. This is not in any way related to body image.

Breaking It Down

(compressed black charcoal, white charcoal, 2B, 4B & 8B graphite on paper)

I made this for my body of work on the human body - hahaha, a play on words - at school. I have a couple more to do yet. But this is the first completed one. I'll be mounting it on black card. I've cropped this image digitally to what I want it to like like, but I'll have to cut it in real life.

The concept of this image deals with misinterpretation of who a person is / what they stand for. This is a distort external self, that everyone sees. This is not about body image or anorexia or whatever. This is about self worth.

Experimentation...

Ink pen, charcoal and graphite in VAPD

I have just been so lazy lately with drawing and art lately. I've had some really good things in terms of inspiration over the past few weeks, but as soon as I put pencil to paper I just lose it.
I'm lacking energy in everything: art, guitar, school, exercise. Especially school & exercise. I've been sick 3 weeks in May alone - from 2 or 3 different illnesses - and I feel so bored and lethargic and fat. I've only been to school 4 days over those 3 weeks, and I haven't been to the gym in a month or so. That's BAD. I had a viral cold and my monthlies for a week and a half, was on antibiotics and then just as I was starting to get better I got a tummy bug that started from my little cousin - and it's been attacking the whole family.

Basically, this afternoon I decided I was going to combat this artistic impairment. I told myself: just draw something. Muck around with mediums and texture and imagery. It doesn't matter what you freakin' do. JUST DO SOMETHING.

This isn't good by any standards. I just thought I'd post it to keep motivating myself. SO: I am soldiering on. Which is technically kind of a play on IMT's theme of "warrior" this week. I know. Tacky. But oh well.

Petals

For IMT this week we have been given the theme "Petals".

Burial

It is pure coincidence that I took photographs - not dissimilar to the one above - two days ago. I found that after the heavy, late-Autumn rains of the weekend, on Tuesday many of the developing flowers in our yard were virtually dead. I picked this one of the ground and decided to give it a "sea burial" in our pool.

Dead Bird of Paradise flower - willow & compressed charcoal, white pastel, graphite on paper

It is also with this theme that I have reflected on the subject, and just how petals - and, naturally, flowers - are used in my art. Flowers are great symbolically. They represent everything about women: how strong we are, how delicate we can be, how charming we are, how memorable we are.

The charcoal drawing above was done at the ArtCastle workshop I attended in April. It is of a decaying Bird of Paradise flower: a flower that has such unique petal structure - something which is even more fabulous when it's a bit on the dead side.

For more flower-inspired art, check out my deviantArt account.

ArtCastle Workshop!

On Monday and Tuesday this week I attended a creative workshop at the Newcastle Region Art Gallery, which was called ArtCastle. It was freaking amazing!
Visit the Art Castle blog: http://artcastle.wordpress.com/

Basically, we created artworks through experimenting with different mediums and adapted the styles of artists on show in the gallery with the help, advice, critique and praise of our three tutors: Luke, Lucas and Michael. Luke and Lucas are professional artists, and Michael is training to be an art teacher.

On Monday we did charcoal and ink drawings of dried up plantlife (on the verge of death) which drew from elements of Brett Whiteley's works, and then moved on to do a street-art inspired piece on primed calico material, mainly influenced by David Griggs - which I wasn't able to complete but will finish at home.

Me & one of my charcoal drawing of a decaying Birds of Paradise, in our "exhibition" :)

On Tuesday we created a canvas piece influenced by Amanda Davies, in which we painted a 12" x 16" canvas a certain colour or a mix of colours, then on a sheet PVC plastic drew a design and decorated the design. We had to draw our design on backwards, as the PVC had to have the design side (with all the "raw" materials) placed on the canvas side so as the design was sealed and couldn't be erased when the PVC was stretched over the canvas. Oh yes, I actually learnt how to stretch my own materials for art purposes :)

Me and my Amanda Davies inspired work. After two days I was pretty tired, as you can see with my droopy eyes.

At the end of the two day workshop they held a mini "exhibition" of our work, while they played a slideshow of pictures to one wall of our artmaking processes. My Mum and cousin Hollie came to see the exhibition. Myself and two other girls - Rebecca and Charmaine - made a speech about what we so enjoyed about the ArtCastle experience. This year was the event's first time in Newcastle, there had been one event of this type in Sydney last year. It felt really special to be involved in the first Newcastle event. The Smith Family - the charity organising the event - invited a representative from their major sponsor, Clemenger's Group (a transnational media/advertising/marketing company based in Australia) to view the works we created.

I had an amazing, wonderful, glorious, fantastic time at Art Castle. I met some amazing people, got to create some shmick artworks, learnt some cool new techniques and tricks, and of course I feel alot more confident in my abilities now and want to develop more and more and more. The art gallery even gave us a kit with decent drawing materials and a new art diary - to keep! Also! I exchanged details with a girl named Rebecca (the same Rebecca that I made the speech with) and we're going to keep in touch and even do some collaborative work :)

It was just great. This first taste of non-school art has me craving more!