Backgrounds for more 'Emu Crossings' art work

I found I have left my Emu stencil at my studio in Perth so I'm just making up a whole bunch of canvas board backgrounds. I am amazed with the different colors that come out of these three paints (bronze, copper and iron) when I add the patina solution. I must have add water in my brush on this one and the paint goes from ble to green after about 30 min. You can see in the photo above what the third one down looked like at first. Then it changed to this shone in the photo below. I think the addition of the emu's on this one would be rather insignificant as they would be outdone by the bright colors! Quite beautiful though.

For the painting above, I used a piece of a cardboard box as a support which I primed with a layer of 'pastel ground'.  I have added the sky using alcoholic inks. I love these effects. Yum!

Oh! A Lesson Learned the Hard Way.

One of the things I will try to remember on my next residency is not to unpack a single thing on arrival. Instead take at least 2 days to recover from the energy it takes getting prepared because I end up having to take those 2 days anyway, but with added pain to deal with. 

Thinking back I was preparing work for an exhibition and packing up boxes for leading workshops and a 4-week residency. Not only deciding what to take but packing it up and loading stuff in and out of the car, and that's aside from all the home duties I didn't really need to do like shopping, vacuuming, cleaning floors and toilets and changing beds. I also had to visit the specialist and attend a 3hr art therapy tutorial before I left and finally, sitting in the car for over 2hrs just to get there! You get the picture. I knew I was knackered, but did I rest on my first day....No!

     Cross Country.            JPfeiffer   $380        40 x 60cm 

     Entry for 46th Beverley Easter Art Exhibition (sorry, still have to get a decent photo of this one)

So, by the evening of my second day here I crashed. I was walking around with my head in my hands, with my neck and shoulder muscles locked into flight or fight position, when all I wanted to do was r-e-l-a-x them, but it was too late. I'd already pushed myself past my limit and they were not budging one iota. With headache, backache, feet ache, a couple of pandol and a heat pack, I tried to let go by going to bed at 7:30! Up again at 4am still feeling the same, I got up and tried one of my other methods to bring my stressed muscles to submission...a scolding hot shower and I felt some release. I took more pandol and heated up a blue gel heat pack. Half asleep, I saw it blown up like a balloon through the microwave window and in a panic quickly turned it off. As it settled back to normal size, there didn't appear to be any damage, so I wrapped it in a pillowcase and headed back to bed. I woke up this morning feeling this cold slime running down my face...it definitely had a hole it!

Anyway I spent the rest of the morning stretching and releasing and keeping my neck and shoulders loose. I rang up the massage lady across the road where I am staying and sadly she was not open till Monday. I knew I would be ok by then. Any way I'm pleased to say the headache has finally lifted and I'm able to concentrate on blogging again. Just have to watch I don't sit in one position for too long so right now I'm going for a short walk!

The lesson for me is to be aware of my bodies subtle messages, and not just push through because I'm wanting to finish something, ( unless there is an actual deadline ) listen to the aches and pains before they become catastrophic, try to get a good nights sleep, drink more water than I want to and stop every 20 mins to stretch out a few muscles and get the blood circulation again.

And just in case I forget, can someone please remind me when I next head off for a one month residency ...on arrival, take those 2 days before doing anything else. Thank you!!

Elijah

My Elijah painting is an important focus for this residency. I will prayerfully be  bringing together all months of collected thoughts and ideas and visuals and laying them out on the table This will be my chance to stay focused and see what evolves. Just this morning during my quiet time yet another idea sprang to mind and I really want to develop this one further, especially as it incorporates all of the previous ideas I've had into one. This is a very rough and ready sketch with notes that are not meaning a great deal yet so it doesn't matter if it is a blurred photo. When I visulized this image in my mind, the Christ figure (cosmic Christ was Gold and the arms stretched over all four or five panels. The print down the bottom will replicate newspaper reports. I would love to create each panel the size of a door, but I think I will have to scale that idea right back as there is a limit to the permissible size for the  exhibition. Christ would be made out of some sort of gold wire with barbed-wire round his head. The rain on the blue panel will be made with my glue gun so it is three dimensional. The next panel is pure red, probably house paint so it runs and drips down the canvas (without the blue pen color as in this sketch here.

 

This is a great cave picture from the inside.

I

“Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Setting up the studio for some 'serious' Encaustic work while on my residency.

 So much stuff! I had six box fulls to load in my car before I left home! It feels good now to be all set up to start. I'll spend the week or so practicing about 10 techniques ready for the workshop I'm running after Easter, here at Beverley Station.

Last but by no means least is the trusty fire extinguisher, which was checked in January 2014 (thanks Graham from Rob Park for explaining that to me:))

And the health and safety handout that I pulled together for my students.

Let's get back to nature and connect with the earth.

I had a most wonderful experience at Pauline White's. 'Earth Cloth' workshop last weekend. We connected with the bush, collected whatever caught our attention and made a group mandala.

  

We ground up rocks from river beds and mixed them with textile medium and then printed onto the provided cloth with our found leaves and plants we had bought to the class from home.

   

We then used sun dye on our cloths. After masking out areas with natural plants we laid them out in the sun to dry. You can see clearly the sprigs of rosemary laid on this purple dyred cloth.

We also used flour and water to mix up a resist. After squeezing this mixture onto our cloth in a variety of shapes it was left to dry in the sun. Once dry we mixed up ground grass tree resin/sap mixed with textile medium and painted it ove the shapes. Next we picked of the flour-resist to reveal more interesting masked out, organic patterns. Let me tell you, I was in heaven! More of this will definitely be happening in my studio.  This workshop was supported by the Stirling council and was a very reasonable price. There were 11 of us and we spent 2 days together 9:30-4pm at the Hamersley Environmental Centre located in the middle of stunning bushland in North Beach.

Thank you Pauline White for your love and generous spirit.

Iron, Copper, Bronze and Patina

 'Emu's Crossing' JPfeiffer 40x51cm

Love this combination of special effects paint. The metal rusts and the bronze and copper do exciting things as they mix with the Light Green Patina. I end up with this yummy rustic finish on my canvas. The gold emu's just finish it off nicely and give it that country Aussie feel! Something the tourists might like as a reminder of their travels.

I hope to get a series of these done while in Beverley. I just hope I can buy some more canvases in York, the closest big town to where I am staying.

The Labyrinth and Phil Porter

This is Phil Porter walking the labyrinth. Made me chuckle and I could relate to this right now. I'm on a kind of retreat (AIR) but at the same time I feel like I'm running the walk!

Phil is co-founder of InterPlay, Minister of Art and Communication at the United Church of Christ, Berkeley. He is also a professional graphic designer, textile artist and composer! He visits Australia every year to teach InterPlay and I love learning from him as he is very wise and entertaining.