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!

Art News

More work in progress...

For a couple of weeks now I have been aware of something, but not blogged it. I just honestly haven't gotten around to it.

Next Monday & Tuesday I will be attending a workshop at the Newcastle Region Art Gallery (our local art gallery) - appropriately dubbed 'Art Castle' - at which I will create art works individually and collaboratively with the other selected senior high school students within the group. I had to submit a written application and attach a reference from my art teacher, as this is a "scholarship" (ie: a charity organisation - The Smith Family - has paid for our gallery time and the materials we utilise, in addition to the catering and any travel expenses we may come across).

I was lucky enough to be accepted to attend this workshop, as was another girl in my art class. At the end of the two-day period, we will hold a mini exhibition, where our families and friends will be invited to see. I had to sign a release form type thing. The Smith Family will be documenting our work through photographs and other media for their own purposes. That's a little scary. It's very, very, very exciting to have my work "shown". I will take photos of my artwork on these days, and of course photograph our "exhibition".

Another arts-related event I will be taking part in will be the Hunter Region "Waste As Art" 2009 competition, run by the Hunter Waste Education Group (HWEG). Yesterday, quite coincidentally as I'd just finished my big clean-up, I randomly received a letter addressed to me which contained an entry form for the competition. Strange, I thought. But then I thought about it some more... and am developing my concepts.

Waste As Art encourages artists of all ages within our community to create works using recyclable materials and found objects (though not organic waste materials such as animal or plant parts, as stated in the competition guidelines). It is free to enter the competition and all artworks submitted are exhibited. First place and runner-up money prizes are awarded in each of the competition's categories, in addition to "People's Choice" and "Judges' Highly Commended" awards, which also present a reasonable amount of cash. Again, I would have to sign a release form.

I'd really like to take part in Waste As Art, as I am with Art Castle, as it allows me to experience the art world more thoroughly - through both contributing to an exhibition and being amongst peers.

Other than all this I am still doing what I usually do. Except it is the school holidays! So I have alot more time to do what I usually do, and even more. I am also taking alot more photos, mainly influenced by my new use of flickr. I need to buy art supplies but.

More graphites and a couple more VAPDs will do nicely, but I'll have to purchase larger diaries than what I usually buy. For home-use I generally buy A4 sized diaries, but at school I have been using 11 " x 12 " - or whatever that funny inbetween size is - for the past 2 years. So, as a result I've become rather accustomed to using a larger scale VAPD and really hate it when I have to down-size. That's probably the reason why I have been using so many pages in my school diary. Seriously, I only have half a dozen pages left and as such I have almost completed this VAPD in 1 term. In the past I have never finished a school diary within one term, let alone one full year!