Linda E Clarke Illustration

Little Aussie Bees

Today was a glorious autumn day, too nice to stay inside so I went for a walk to local park to see if I could find some inspiration for my drawing. I was hoping to see some autumnal colours but no, it all looked very green. I guess all the trees in the park are natives, non deciduous which is a good thing! Anyway I saw a beautiful gum tree and asked my daughter (who was acting as photographer) to take some pictures of the beautiful delicate pink blossoms... and then I saw them, the cute little Aussie bees working their little socks off gathering pollen to make their honey. I don't think I would have seen them if I hadn't expressly gone out to look through eyes that were seeking the small things that we normally pass by.

Photo credit, Holly Clarke.

Seraphine, outsider artist

Last night I was fortunate enough to chance upon a French/Belgian film on TV called Seraphine, the story of Seraphine Louis also called Seraphine de Senlis. Seraphine, (born in 1864) was an orphan by the time she was 8 years old which meant a life of servitude and cleaning people's houses lay ahead of her.

Seraphine had a secret passion however, she believed angels were guiding her to paint pictures. She created wonderful images of nature, colourful flowers and leaves were woven into magical creations that were way ahead of their time.

Seraphine was extremely devout and was inspired by her religious faith and the beautiful colours in stained glass windows. She was discovered by an art collector who she worked for who spotted her talent and encouraged her gift and became her patron. The story is not a happy ever after tale, but it is a beautifully told story of a simple but driven woman who was an intuitive artist, driven to express her spirituality through her art. The film demonstrates the fine line between passion and obsession and mental illness and is very moving.. Even if you don't want to watch the movie, you may like to look at some of her art. Seraphine died in 1942.

Oil Pastel.... because sometimes you just need to play.

I recently found my oil pastels and decided to have a play. Do you remember when you were a little kid making images with crayons where you would put lots of colours on the page, cover them with a darker colour and scratch an image out? Maybe it was just me! The images I produced became more developed as I progressed in this experimentation, for instance the tree in the first image is less intense in colour than the second image of the tree.

I love the way you can produce an image by scratching your particular method of mark making onto
the oil pastel. It is almost a way of sculpting an image by using a sharp tool. No two images will ever be the same as the mark making is random.

It is possible to manipulate the random nature of the colour by choosing where to place the colours on the bottom layer.

The image above had the hue changed in Photoshop to produce a different feel.

This method of image making produces images which are full of texture and which have an ethereal feel.

Do you dream in colour?

In Adelaide we are coming to the end of what is known as Mad March. There are so many events on in March in Adelaide that it would be impossible to go to all of them. I had the pleasure of seeing Neil Finn and Paul Kelly play a free concert in the city a couple of weeks ago to open the Adelaide Festival.

http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/

https://www.facebook.com/adelaidefestival

This was one event amongst many since as well as the Festival there was the Fringe festival which is the second biggest Fringe in the world after Edinburgh.

http://www.adelaidefringe.com.au/

There were artists from all over wandering around entertaining us for weeks. And still it goes on. If you ever want to come to Adelaide come in March when Adelaide becomes Radelaide!

It has been exciting having so much artistry going on around me but I still managed to get into my shedio. (shed/studio) A while ago I posted some black and white images which I had made through a visualisation technique, well I finally got around to resolving those images in colour by using acrylic paint.

See previous images here.

http://lindaeclarke.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/visualisation-way-i-see-it.html

These are my colour renderings. I haven't decided if I like the black and white ones or these best. What do you think?

"And the whale jumped over the moon." acrylic on board

"Have you heard the news!" acrylic on board

. I made a few changes as you can see particularly by making the flower into a more open style flower. I particularly enjoy seeing my images in colour as they have gone through many stages before this, roughs,sketches, tonal studies and finally the colour rendering.
I dream in colour!

Creativity and Self Doubt

I just read an article which was very inspiring regarding creativity and self doubt.

The article stated that self doubt can be the biggest block to our creativity. The fear of being judged or misunderstood can be very strong and can stop creativity in it's tracks.
The author suggests 10 ways in which to overcome your self doubt and get your creativity back on track. I found this article really helpful, especially the reminder of why I create, it is not to impress people but to express myself in a way that fulfills a brief. The illustrator Carla Sonheim was one of those who were interviewed. Carla is an extremely daring and innovative creative who very generously shares lots of ideas about creativity and how she goes about the creative process in her image making. Carla quotes Alan Alda;

“Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You cannot get there by bus, only by hard work, risking and by not quite knowing what you are doing. What you will discover will be wonderful: Yourself.”

Have a look at Carla's website here.

In the spirit of putting myself out there and sharing my creativity here are 2 collages I recently finished. The cat was a project I started at uni and wanted to complete, it lead to the bunny. They are both paper collage using old projects I tore up, out of print book pages and some hand painted paper. I like the way that random pieces add interest to the image.

Cat, paper collage

Bunny, paper collage

Back to my Roots...2

Summer is coming to a close here in the Southern Hemisphere. Many people will be breathing
a huge sigh of relief as we have had floods, fire and extreme storms as well as the beautiful summer days with scalding heat. I have missed most of it however and spent December and January at my family home in County Fermanagh, N. Ireland. It was a surreal experience to be catapulted back into winter from the 40 degree heat which we left.

At Crom Castle, Co Fermanagh

Lough Erne, Co.Fermanagh.

Enniskillen Castle.

Enniskillen, Co.Fermanagh

Lough Erne, Co.Fermanagh

I love winter. I love the skeleton trees which look like huge sculptures on the landscape. It was wonderful to be immersed in the colour palette of winter again; blues, smoky greys, gold, greens of every shade of course. I love the smell of the crisp fresh air, and the dark gloomy skies make me feel snug and cosy and remind me of the long winters I spent as a child when we just hung out for the slightest whiff of spring. We would cast off winter clothes and walk around in the nippy air feeling free and unencumbered, no coats, no boots, no gloves or tights.

I spent a wonderful day at the Ulster American Folk park, my favourite place in the world! This is a park set up with original houses from the various time in the past from Northern Ireland and from America where so many Ulster people emigrated to. I have been trying to analyse why I love this place so much. It might be the peaceful atmosphere, no cars, no technology, no artificial noise, just the birds singing and the hens, roosters and ducks making their noises. The fireplaces have turf fires and smell amazing. The windows are like little works of art framing beautiful scenery. I think I photographed every window in every house in the park. It always takes me right back to my roots and reminds me of happy times when I used to stay with my granny in her little house with no electricity. The images below are from some of the houses there.

It was such a treat to see a beautiful Irish Red Deer at Castle Archdale. He was in an enclosure with another deer and he was so tame. He came right up to the fence and let us touch him, so beautiful. I have never been this close to a deer before. Well actually when I was about three I was playing in my sandpit and a deer came right up to me but nobody believed me....I can still see him in my memory!

It is lovely to get back to your roots and immerse yourself in where you have come from. It is so good to see family and friends and renew old relationships with people who knew you since you were born! All good things come to an end though and it is now time to get back to image making. I feel refreshed, renewed and ready to go!

As we were leaving the snowdrops were just blooming. Spring is on the way.

Graduation show

Well the day came and went for our end of course graduation show. It was a good experience to have to get ready for the public to view my work. Putting your work out in front of people is a little like exposing yourself yourself in public! On the whole we illustrators can be a fairly reclusive lot so to have to mingle and chat and talk about ourselves is fairly painful but I survived!

Here are some pictures of my table and the items I showed.