Home Grown

Today I delivered one of my favourite paintings “Abound”, to The Ipswich Community Gallery.  It will be part of the Home Grown exhibition. 

It’s the first group show I have ever been a part of, so needless to say I am very excited and just a little bit chuffed!  

I’m really looking forward the opening event on Sunday; it will be very exciting to see my artwork displayed along side the creations of so many of my talented peers. 

Blogging Blah’s…..

I anticipated a bit of a slump, post my exhibition, but I thought I had planned cleverly enough to sneak past it…

I made plans to escape on a little camping break soon after the opening and I put off starting my eagerly awaited launch into encaustics until after our return from camping.

And as much as I loved the camping and the encaustics are all that I hoped they would be I am still in a bit of a blogging and inspiration blah.  The rest of life is swimming along just fine and I am still creating… mostly experimenting and learning with the encaustics.  I’m just not feeling those bolts of inspiration.

I’m normally so keen to blog, with my head full of more posts than I have time to share.  But lately I’m just not feeling it, I’m so out of touch in my blog reading and I have been seriously considering just closing down the blog and walking away.

In my heart I know this would be a mistake.  I value the friendships I have made through blogging to much and I know that being part of blogging community brings me inspiration and motivation.

I just need to give myself a kick in the pants and get back into the swing of things.  I know many of you must have been through this sort of thing before.  How did you pull yourself out of it? 

So my creative space is full of doubt…  Perhaps a little blog surfing around creative space land will provide me with the kick start I need???  See you at Kirsty’s.

Pondering…

Last night I attended the inaugural Philosophy Café in Ipswich.  It was a really enjoyable evening, vibrant conversation, good coffee and an engaging speaker (thankyou Gil!).

One little aside has had my head swimming ever since…  Whilst discussing what is or isn’t art, an audience member voiced her opinion that communication (or a desire to communicate something) was a key ingredient she used to measure if something was art.  I have always held a belief that passion was a necessary ingredient in art and now that I ponder it, communication hits a chord and rings true for me as well.   

“Is Communication the Key?”

Kylie Marie Stevens

Encaustic and collage on timber

235 x 290mm

2010

I’ve put together this little encaustic collage whilst I have been pondering this morning.   I’ve never worked with typography in my artwork before.  I’d love to know what you think… Both about this little piece and what you think art is…

Wishing you a soft beautiful Monday morning…

I wish you could smell this one, it’s divine.  

smitten with wax…

I have never been so challenged by a creative medium, but the beauty and the possibility of encaustics have me oh so smitten.  The smell is divine, the texture is dreamy and I am determined to master this.

I have played with including pastel between layers of wax…

Surfacing

Encaustic, pastel, paper and timber panel

235 x 290mm

I have melted, blown and glazed…

Hazy Days

Encaustic, pastel, paper and timber panel

235 x 290mm

I have embedded twine and stamped texture…

Gentle Lands

Encaustic, twine and timber panel

235 x 290mm

And last night I carved the surface with my lino carving tools…

work in progress

Encaustic, cheesecloth and timber panel

235 x 290mm

The texture for carving is just sublime; I have never carved anything with such ease.  I just want to spend every waking moment in the studio!  

I’ll catch up with all you creative types over at Kirsty’s this afternoon.  I am heading off for a site meeting with the builder now, to decide where all of the power points and plumbing will go.

We have a roof!

Well most of a roof!  Next week we should get windows – check out the size of those windows holes– we love them!  It really is going to feel like we are living in a tree house.

I have been hiding away in the studio….

Playing and learning.  Not only are the encaustics challenging, but photographing them is a nightmare.  Apparently the camera (and the scanner) can see right through the subtle white glazes….  

This is as close a representation as I can get for now…..

Hazy Day

Kylie Marie Stevens

235 x 290mm

Encaustic on paper and timber panel

2010

So much to learn….  You can check out the other piece I worked on today over here.  

Hot wax + naked flame = fun and experimentation in the studio……

Did I get your attention???  Sorry nothing kinky going on here!  I’m immersing myself in experimenting with encaustics.  I have fallen in love with this ancient and ethereal medium and I am determined to master it.  

Hopefully by next week I will have something beautiful to share with you, but for now it’s all mess and mistakes!  It’s all so exciting though; don’t you just love the buzz of learning something new?  My head is spinning with possibilities, I just need my skill set to catch up!

I wonder what the other creative types are up to today.

I’m back…..

I was away a little longer than I expected, but I feel the break has really done me good!  We spent some time camped by a river and some time hanging out at home.  I feel refreshed and keen to get stuck back into everything.

The first order of business is to draw the winner of my “lucky door prize”.  I used random.org to draw the number and Kelly Thiel is the winner with the 7^th comment.  I felt a bit funny about it at first as Kelly is one of my very favourite bloggers (she is a fabulous sculptor – you really must check out her work) and she has been such a big support to me lately.  But then I realised I have so many favourite bloggers, that it was very likely that what ever number random.org came up with they would be one of my favourites!!!!!  So Kelly the surprise lucky door prize will be jetting its way across the globe to you very soon.

I have been experimenting and playing with encaustics. I have been keen to give them a go for a couple of months, but I made myself wait until all of the exhibition work was done.  I think I am in love with painting with hot wax and naked flame!  More about that in another post…..

ps I was going to add a nice picky of our river side retreat, but I am getting a weird sign in to “Google Cloud Picker” message followed by and error message when I try to load a photo.  So for now – no piccies.  I have Googled the problem and found that I am not the only one suffering.  Hopefully it is all put right soon….. I’ll be in trouble if it isn’t what is an arty blog with no piccies?????  If you have had the same problem and found a solution, please share.