Recycling / Reworking

1. Lately I have been reworking old paintings. Recycling has a dual purpose - it saves me money and also gives me an interesting background to work on instead of the dreaded white canvas. A couple are worth blogging about, several are still 'works in progress'.
Today I came up with something I like.

detail of 'Drift Away'

This is part of a triptych which started out as the 3 individual paintings below:

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I really liked the contrasts of tones, textures and lines, but there was no interest re sales, and being a triptych, it was a hassle to hang.

Yesterday I did myself proud by drilling into the timber stretchers and bolting the 3 of them together to form one painting (anything to do with nails, bolts and and big drills frightens me for some reason, but give me a 'dremel' drill and I am in 7th heaven).

I reworked the paintings and added some gold as I am also going through a bit of a 'gold phase'. This is the result. I love it even more now and I am tempted to keep it on my wall.

'Drift Away' 

300 x 900mm

2. Now to a totally different work....

I have been playing with painted/textured/dyed tissue papers and decided to do a simple work on a discarded canvas. This is what I ended up with. Gold features again.

'Gold Stripe #1'

500 x 400mm

I had the canvas on the deck with rocks weighing down the tissue covered mattboard and I love what the rocks add to the work - argh - now I want to make some rocks to glue to the work!!!!

3. Last month I submitted my entry into The SCAP art award - our Councils's major Art Event. They accept only 40 entries from all over Australia - I won't know it I have been accepted until the end of May. This was also painted over a previous painting.

'Journey'

900 x 1200mm

4. I was honoured to have one of my 'A Letter A Week' books featured on the front page of the February edition of the American books/calligraphy magazine - 'Bound and Lettered' - thanks to Fiona Dempster for curating this international project, exhibition and fabulous promotion.

My ALAW accordion fold book was based on photos I took on my travels to Europe and Morocco in 2011.

5. I am also honoured to be chosen to exhibit one of my small 'bojagi' fabric pieces in the upcoming Wangaratta Miniature Textiles Award.

'Walkabout'

300x 230mm

6. Another honour for me recently was having one of my artist's books chosen as a gift for our local councillor to take to the Tatebayashi Council in Japan for their 60 year celebrations. This book was exhibited in the local library last year on International Peace Day.

'On the Mountains'

25x10mm

Seeing my recent achievements listed like this gives me a bit more confidence - there are many times that I feel like I haven't been doing much.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog.