My works are still showing at the Art Factory Gallery, Merivale St, South Brisbane.

I had a good time at the opening night and enjoyed spending time at the gallery on the weekend, but would be happier if I had sold something!  The art will be there until Sunday evening if you’re interested in checking it out.

With all this going on as well as lots of stuff for school, I am proud I managed to get something done for Inspire Me Thursday this week.  The topic was “wardrobe” - I had to think for a while but finally came up with an idea I liked for this:

I took some photos of the different patterns of clothes in my wardrobe - As you can see I wear a lot of flowery things - more than I thought I did, actually!  I played around with the images with photo program to make them a bit more interesting.

Then I printed the images onto some scrapbooking paper (which has a linen like texture).  I used a few different colours of paper.  I painted a canvas with dark blue paint (it looks black here but it is actually a very dark blue), and then glued the paper to the canvas.  I added some details using “dimensional magic” and some silver paint.  I also draped some threads over the top and attached them with dimensional magic.

I’m quite happy with the finished project - let me know what you think!

I wanted to create something with lots of texture.  This is what I came up with:

Sorry, it isn’t a very good picture.  The painting is quite large and I took this photo standing on the table and holding the camera as high as the ceiling, and it still doesn’t quite all fit in the frame.  Hope it shows a little bit of the texture I tried to create.

In other news, next week I will be involved in an exhibition called “Through My Eyes”.  I am one of 6 artists exhibiting, and it is the biggest exhibition I have been involved in.  So, if you’re interested and live in the Brisbane area, I’d love to see you there!  Come along to our opening night and you can sip a glass of wine, meet the artists and view some art.

“Through My Eyes”
Opening night 6pm 08/08/08
& 11am - 6pm on 9, 10, 11 & 12 August

Art Factory Gallery
84 Merivale St,
South Brisbane

You’ll notice that the background is made up of overlapping circles.  I don’t know if they really count as polka dots seeing as they overlap, but oh well.

I will be entering this painting into a community art exhibition at Bella Art Gallery this coming weekend.  Let me know what you think!

I haven’t given up however - I have another exhibition coming up early next month:

I will be including 4 of my paintings in “Art on the Hill”, an exhibition run by St Thomas’ Catholic Primary School, Camp Hill.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

In the meantime, I have some exciting news! I am currently showing my art in my very first exhibition!! OK, it’s not in a gallery and only 6 of my paintings are hanging, but yesterday I hung my paintings at Toscani’s Cavill Ave. Matt will tell you I was a nervous wreck on the way there, and I am still a bit nervous, wondering whether I am wasting my time. I’m not expecting to make any money out of this venture (although enough to buy some more canvases would be great!), but I would be thrilled to sell even one painting.

Update:  I am now featured in the “What’s On” section of the Toscani’s website!  Check it out here.

Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve played around with melted crayons…

I remember very distinctly one winter morning when my brother and I were little, we woke up before mum and dad.  We sat up next to the old oil heater and for some reason came up with the idea of creating our own multi-coloured crayons: by melting them on the heater and mixing the colours together.

Of course, we didn’t quite perfect the process of catching the melted wax - so basically mum got up to find wax crayons melted all over the heater and into the carpet.  Let’s just say, we never tried that little trick again.

This time around I was a little more sensible in my approach, and I melted the wax with a teaspoon and a candle - and it still felt a little naughty.

I used a technique I do all the time with the kids at school - draw a picture onto a piece of paper using crayons (I used oil pastels here because it’s the closest thing I have). Then, paint over the top of it - the paint will not stick to the spots with the oil pastels. It’s great for doing seascapes with kids, but I chose to do some trees using my white oil pastel & watercolour paints:

Let me know what you think! (I think the top one is the better of the two)

I decided I’m not very good at painting actual doors so this is a doorway:

“Asleep on His Shoulder”

“Sleeping Together” - The title is meant literally - it’s not a euphemism!

My entries are both watercolours:

“Seed Patterns”                                “Seeds”

Let me know what you think!