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.

my banner and table

the givewaway bookmarks I made featuring my images

                                                          

                                        the book I got printed and some of my original images

                                     my business cards and postcards featuring my images

Happy Day!

My graduate exhibition is next week and I was thinking about how I was going to show some of my original paintings which have been incorporated into my narrative project. I remembered seeing some table top easels at one of my favourite vintage and used goods shops recently. I was so happy that they still had some left. It will make it so much easier displaying my work next week. I love them better because they are old and worn and another painter used them before me.

Visualisation, the way I see it.

 Visualisation..........

"the act or process of interpreting in visual terms or of putting into visible form"

It was an interesting concept to take three words and think about them to see what images could be produced. At first the really obvious images associated with the words came to mind but after a while weird upside down things started to happen and exciting images began to develop. The images were produced in black and white.
The words gender, bell, grass produced this image. I had the idea of this wild free ladybug flying through the grass on a Canterbury Bell with her bonnet off, having a great time, while the other less uninhibited bugs look on shocked, a litle like village gossips talking behind their hands!

It is a message about being yourself!

The other image I produced was based on the words, transport, light and cloud. It started off really obvious;

but after idea generation was used to think of things in a different way  it developed into this image.

Visualisation is a great thing to do as part of the illustration process because it forces you to think deeper about image making. When you apply idea generation to the process it can create exciting possibilities. I will write more about idea generation and image making soon.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Here in South Australia at this time of the year leading up to Christmas the jacaranda trees are in bloom. They are so beautiful with their bluey purple flowers. It always makes me think of the song  "Christmas where the gum trees grow".

Christmas where the gumtrees grow,
there is no frost and there is no snow,
Christmas in Australia's hot,
cold and frosty's what it's not,
when the bloom of the jacaranda tree is here,
Christmas time is near.

 by Val Donlan and Lesley Sabogal

You can't be grumpy and sing that song!



Another thing particularly associated with South Australian Christmas is the delicious cherries grown in the Adelaide Hills. Here is an image I created to capture the mood of Adelaide Christmas, the iconic cherry and the heart representing the love that is what Christmas is all about.

This is another image from my narrative project. These happy little mice are enjoying the summer outdoors!





Summer's coming!

It's a lovely day today so here is a cheery bunny picture to remind us that summer is on it's way! This is another spread from my narrative project.

Remembrance

As you may know it was Remembrance Day on Sunday where we pause to think of all those people who lost their lives in defence of their country. I wanted to share these beautiful poppies with you. I took these photos in the garden of some lovely friends. What strong visual communication poppies are. I can't look at them and not remember the tragedy of war. . 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are some quick watercolour studies I did in my sketchbook