Cre-art-tive weekend

 

The Cre-Art-tive weekend of Kaz, Meegan ,Lisa & Alissa  .

 
 This weekend was weeks in the planning, coming out of a suggestion a few months ago – to take a whole lot of art gear, go away to the mountains or beach, hire a house and experiment with the equipment ! The vast majority of the gear was bought by Kaz and Meegan who both own an amazing amount of art equipment. There were paints, pencils, gels, liquids, papers, and tools. So we had the opportunity to do lots of layering, blending, and a bit of collage. Lisa & I bought along paints and art materials that we had at home, but never used. It was good to find out what it did and whether we would ever use it again.
 
We had a carful !
 
 
We decided it was best not to go to someone’s house, so that no one had the responsibility of being the host . We all agreed to  finding a house that would suit us, with  lots of light and tables. This house in the Blue Mountains, two hours from Sydney (in Friday night traffic) was perfect.
 
The only strict rules (which were happily agreed to) were for Lisa & I. We were not allowed to use sketchbooks and watercolours. And we had to draw big. You may be aware I usually use watercolour pencils and Lamy safari joy ink pen in a Moleskine watercolor sketchbook. 
 
We used the benchtop, dining table and a table bought in from outside  (all carefully covered with plastic sheet – no spills all weekend). Even though it is Spring in Sydney, the weather was cold and foggy, but it was cosy and warm inside. We did not have a reason to go  out,  as we had good music and food.
 

 

We arrived Friday night. After dinner, we spread out our Art gear over two tables to see what we had to play with. We couldn’t help ourselves, and had to try something out straight away and make some marks on paper. We made a decision that the next day we would start the day by each trying three materials we had never used before. We made ourselves go to bed by midnight, but only so that we could be up early and have a whole day of art, not waste time sleeping in.

 
 EXPERIMENTS  

 


trying soluble pens. I also tried a
parallel pen
– a new discovery and used again


liquid ink – with a dropper from a bottle
, then a watercolour wash




 I was determined to try a watercolour
wash and contrast colour of ink




THE CICADA SERIES

On Saturday morning I went outside to explore the backyard an found a shell, shed by a cicada beetle. This is my normal subject  – a small object drawn realistically – a study on a page. But by using something within my comfort zone (the subject matter)it allowed me feel at ease using other things outside my comfort zone. This was the key for me ! and I had a wonderful time and am really pleased with these results

Once I had my subject I began experimenting with materials and colours.  Most are on A3 paper and a few on old book pages



experiments for background



experiment with Tim Holz Distress Stain
 to see the colours for my cicada

 




A3 paper. Golden Liquid Acrylic background. I think the sketch is in crayon . I should have made more notes as I went
 
Derwent soluble graphite XL block and Pilot parallel pen on A3 paper
A3 paper. Derwent soluble graphite XL block background. I first painted an old newspaper with Distress Stain in a few brown colours, dried in , ripped roughly into strips that could fit into the pencil outline. Matte Medium to stick down & seal. The next morning it looked like it needed some intensity to pull it together – I  added scribbled lines with a thin marker




gold pen on A3 black board – unfinished. I am not sure where this was heading
 




smaller than A4 – old book , Rough texture liquid,mixed with acrylic colour. painted and scraped over the page It dries with a texture of course sand. I thought it was too rough to draw on for what I had in mind. I asked for suggestions. I drew and coloured cicada on transparent paper and stuck it down with that wonderful Matte Medium  . I really like this one
smaller than A4 – old book , face-on cicada

 
Cicada on Gestetner or Roneo

BEGINNING OF A GESTETNER SERIES

 
Meegan tried drawing on Gestetner (or it is Roneo paper ?) – remember it from school in the 1970’s, before photocopiers were around. It had lovely smelling purple ink. I really liked the effect it had on paper and tried my own experiment. I wrote on the paper, pressing though to make a copy. I then used the copy, adding water with a brush (it turns bright purple) and then stuck the Gestetner tracing paper over top.
 
 



twig covered in lichen

twig covered in lichen
  
OTHER ART

 
 There was heater, so we could lay painted sheets of paper out on the floor in front of it to dry while we started another page.  We were all working on a few projects at once, I tried some collage. My new favourite best friend is Matte Medium. I bought some on return to Sydney and will use this in the future


I created this one over the weekend .gluing scraps of paper down. finding images. The only real realistic drawing I did was the keys and then I stuck them down on the page and added the shadow.  This took a while to come together. It looked nothing at first and Kaz kept encouraging me to add more. By the end of the weekend I was so pleased with it.

newspaper . I sealed the page with matte medium and then painted with ink

 

 

AT THE END OF THE WEEKEND

I was inspired and motivated by letting the creative juices flow. I think that I need this sort of time (even a day would be good, but a weekend is more like a holiday) every 6 months or so . It is great to try a different sort of creativity for fun, with no pressure. It is also good for me to discover that I can do other sorts of art.

me !
 
 
Kaz 
Kaz’s art

 
 
 
 
 
Meegan
Meegan’s art
Meegan has a wonderful indepth blog of the weekend too  
 

Enjoy!
 

4 thoughts on “Cre-art-tive weekend”

  1. lee kline

    I am not certain my comment was recorded, so I will try again.

    I love your Cicadas. We have them here in the United States. Your large drawings of them are beautiful.

    Also, about Gestetner paper. Is that what we called Carbon Paper or is it use in some sort of semi liquid reproduction process like mimeograph and Ditto?

  2. Alissa Duke

    Hi Lee
    I am so pleased with my cicadas. I think they are universal, but many different types.

    The ones I have drawn previously are in Queensland and are the lovely green friendly looking “bladder” cicadas. Later in the weekend I found the bodies of these NSW cicadas – big and yellow and scary looking. I bought one home to draw this weekend.

    I looked up the Gesterner online .I think it is may also be called ditto, mimeograph, spirit duplicator, cyclostyle ???? All that I know and remember is the colour and the smell..

    (by the way, there is a delay , as Comments go to me first for moderation as I get slots of spam.)

  4. Alissa Duke

    thanks Sue . It was a very relaxed weekend, with no pressure. Since we had more than a day or a few hours it was more like a holiday. Great to be inspired by friends knowledge and ideas. I am not sure how much they learnt from me, but I gained a lot from them

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