Gaye’s Studio News

The promise of summer

Very pleased to have sold the two paintings I had At the Art Society’s exhibition at Lady Franklin Gallery last month, The poetry of time as shown in last months news and Gateway at Ross, in a more traditional style.

I am having a few weeks break with my Doctors practice exhibitions but will be doing a change over at Sandy Bay early in December so will soon have to focus on that.

Still on the coastal theme. Frerks Creek at Safety Cove on the Tasman Peninsula, which we passed by in September, really inspired me to paint the scene in oils in a more traditional manner. I‘ve had a spare canvas hanging about for a few years just waiting for such an event. I think it is finished and I may enter it in Waterways Exhibition in February part of the Wooden Boat Festival. Enjoyed doing this.

For quite a while I have been intending to paint some aerial views of coastline in a semi abstract way. I used more usual oil and wax techniques to build up transparent layers and am quite happy with how they are going. There is a set of three; two are photographed here. The actual colours are a bit greener than they appear here. Still working on these but getting to the finish line.

These are about 50 cm x 70cm. I have started working on two smaller ones.

Plein air

The series of Plein Air Worshops with Rick Crossland is going well and I am learning heaps. It crosses over from knowing the theory to being able to confidently put it into practice. So many aspects to consider; placement of shapes, composition, colour, use of tone etc.

The first week we had to do a tonal painting of the bridge. Sounds easy but the light and shadows continually changed. That and changing weather conditions are the greatest challenges in plein air painting. See the photos.

My new stand up easel.

One of Rick demonstrating and my final paintings on the day.

My painting in about an hour and a half. I have since made another attempt at the stone building because I needed to figure out the problems in the composition. I have moved it towards the centre a little.

Cameras flatten images so it is much better to paint directly from reality. So in doing my second version I tried to work from memory. Still needs more work.

Struggling along with four floral still lifes. Think they are done but not how I intended them. Does that matter?

I have been distracted by family history research and recording which has been on the back burner for a while. It about addictive as painting!!!

Coming up for December is an exhibition at Lady Franklin Gallery in Lenah Valley titled Urban light. I have two works to exhibit.

Also coming up from Thursday 24th until Sunday 27th November is the Bellerive Community Art Centre annual show and sale. Lots of gift ideas and great prices. I have two larger paintings on display and a box of small paintings. Be great if you can get along.