An Emotional Immersion In Art

My niece Lauren gave me a $100.00 Eckersleys voucher for Christmas and my nephew James gave me a bottle of Tanqueray, I feel these two will go hand in hand to help with my art work enormously!! I should say that at the time of writing this, it is not yet Christmas Day but as I will be in Germany and James in the UK, we had an early Christmas here in Sydney.

Okay, I have decided to be brave and post my first attempts at watercolour and Inktense pencils after doing a Pen & Wash course at Mosman Evening College with Susan Bernasconi.

I have enjoyed it immensely and am not sure how I want to use it all yet, but for the moment I am just enjoying learning a new found talent?!

These are the Christmas cards that I made for my sister Dee, Lauren, James and his Girlfriend Chrissy.

Card for my sister Dee

Card for my niece Lauren

Card for my nephew James, no it is not The Grinch, it is just a Christmas tree with a face!

Card for my nephew's girlfriend Chrissy

Apart from the Christmas tree, I took inspiration for these sketches from a childhood book.

I have enrolled in Susan's class for February coming, called 'Drawing on the Masters', so naturally a trip to the New South Wales Art Gallery is coming up to see the exhibition before the course starts.
Another course I am doing concurrently at MEC is 'Perspective and Urban Composition' with Ada Cosmovici.

When I was a young girl I had two very favourite books which I now realise have affected/controlled my life unconsciously for as long as I can remember. The first is 'Born Free' (and also 'Living Free') by Joy Adamson about the life of Elsa and her cubs. I can remember reading the Publisher's Note at the end of Living Free telling of Elsa's death a month after the book was finished in 1960. I sobbed and sobbed whilst trying to make my bed that morning. That scene and feeling is still so strong in my whole being and when I finally got to work with cheetahs and young lions in Africa in 2010 I felt my heart would burst. I hugged and hugged those beautiful cats every moment I could get to be with them.

My very precious copies of these beautiful books

The second book that has stayed with me physically and emotionally all through the years is "Caroline and Her Friends" written and illustrated by Pierre Probst. The beautiful art work just draws you in and the looks on all the animals' faces has me and my sister Dee in fits of laughter every single time we look at it. The expressions on the faces of all the characters comes from an amazing ability of observation I would have thought.

Aren't these just the most delightful drawings?

I recently started reading a blog called The Great Affair by a very talented young lady called Candace Rose Rardon. I actually saw her work first in the American National Geographic. She has a gorgeous little book called "Beneath the Lantern's Glow", the drawings and her words just make you want to be there. She has started my interest in watercolour, a medium I have previously tried and given up due to my inability to be patient and relax!! This is what I am now slowly starting to learn to control in Susan's classes.