Doll Portrait: Esme

Something I wanted to share :-) As you all know, I am a huge fan of Sarah Faber's Dolls (aka: Black-Eyed Suzie)

When her last shop update happened I was beaten to the draw by a very nimble-fingered friend. There is a reason we call her a comment ninja... she has uncanny powers of posting comments on drawings and photographs before you've even clicked the submission button.. it's truly amazing.

Not realizing she'd adopted the doll I had my eyes on, I sent her a very childish message full of moaning and wailing. Oops. Wasn't I embarrassed?! To show her I harboured no hard feelings, and was infact, overjoyed for her, I drew this little portrait of the doll, Esme.

And Annina's photograph of her:

The Beauty of an Original # 12

This year I finally was able to commision an Enchanted Doll - beautifull, fully articulated porcelain dolls hand made by an incredible young woman and fantastic artist, Marina Bychkova.

This was a big thing for me, after all, Enchanted Dolls are a serious purchase, with a waiting list and price tag to match. But she was worth it all, everything. Whenever I haven't posted art in a while, it's probably because I'm sewing outfits for this girl... who could blame me?

Marina was gracious enough to meet my meticulous customization demands, and created Fern for me.

I asked for a girl that embodied my aesthetics and what I strive to capture with the girls that I draw - wild girls of the woods, mischevious coquettes, mysterious ladies made of air and mist and ferns.

Fern - Enchanted Doll by Marina Bychkova

I've mentioned before that I like to think of the art-dolls that I purchase as muses. Inspired by Fern, (my Enchanted Doll) and my admiration for Marina, this was the perfect project to suit such a complicated process and technique.For myself and as a gift to the original artist.

 I really wanted to capture the intricacy and exquisite nature of Marina's dolls in an artwork. An etching seemed very fitting. A lengthy, time consuming process of drawing an image into a sheet of copper, letting acid eat into those lines, then printing it by hand with an etching press. The corset and collar were inspired by the intricate filigree silver costumes Marina creates for her dolls. The brambles and antlers were my own aesthetic creeping into the piece.

Enchanted Etching

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For interest, here's the initial and final revised sketch I made. Progress shots of the etching can be seen ~here~

The beauty of an original #11

I only recently discovered Sarah Faber's dolls, but let there be no doubt that it was love at first sight.

Giddy, aching, obsessive love. The sort of love where you want to be sitting at your writing table, with candles burning, dressed in a silk gown and lace shawl, writing detailed and lengthy love letters on ageing parchment with an ostrich feathered quill pen. Then you sprinkle scented parfum on those letters, seal the flowery envelope with wax and deliver by carrier pidgeon. Then you wait all night, by your window, staring into the deep night.........

too excesive? I'm sure you get the point, but that's how I feel about Black-Eyed Suzie dolls. The tattered Victorian in me fell helplessly, utterly and irrevocably in love with her characters and the stories she creates for them.

 Her dolls are all beautifully hand crafted. Tattered bits of lace and torn silks, whispy hair styles, pouting downturned cherry lips, and oh, the eyes. Beautiful, big, melancholy eyes she makes herself. I think it's definately the eyes that snagged me so.

So far I've survived two of her shop updates. By survive I mean waiting expectantly infront of my computer screen for the exact second her shop update happens, the heartwrenching process of choosing, the incredible self restraint not to click "purchase" on each little urchin that tugs at my hearstrings.

Before I gush any more and embarrass myself for life, let me introduce these little wild girls from the woods, shall I?

Black-Eyed Suzie (Sarah Faber)

Cecily & Philomena

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please do visit her :-) at etsy or at her blog

The beauty of an original #10

I have admired this artists work for a long time. I remember discovering her work as a teenager and just falling deeply in love with the characters she creates, and the melancholy world they inhabit. I have always been deeply inspired and in awe of the sheer amount of drawings Natalia has made. I do not know how she finds the hours in the day to produce all that she has. It is something I wish I could emulate, just draw draw draw!

Now that I'm in my frivolous Art-Collecting mode, I was delighted when she decided to sell this original, one of my favourites from her "Precious Things" limited-edition art-book. And it truly is amazing, to look at all the details up close in real life. Her style and technique is wonderful to behold in the flesh. It's definitely left me hungry for more.

So here's a little snapshot of her beautiful drawing after I framed it, and some of the other muses posing delightfully infront. They'll be introduced later!

Natalia Pierandrei - Pioggia (Rain)

The stars eat your body - Del Kathryn Barton

On Friday night I attended Del Kathryn Barton's 2009 solo show titled "The stars eat your body". I absolutely adore her work. Her figures mingle between being beautiful and grotesque, sexual and unsettling, whimsical and eery.

I cheekily took a few snapshots of my favourite sections from one of her wall-sized paintings, and wanted to share them here. I can't say I've seen any direct influence of her style on my own work, but I do find it incredibly inspiring. Since Friday night I've been itching to find a porcelain watercolour palette and start working BIG... And by big I mean big for me, you know.... A3 or A2 sized, teehee :-)

The beauty of an original #9

Caroline Kha

I was delighted when an artist friend gave this beautiful painting as a Christmas gift a few years ago. It was a beautiful gesture, and greatly appreciated. I love the painting, it reminds me of a nostalgic idea of youth, romance, and melancholy. I definately have a melancholy streak to me, and just can't get enough of art that portrays that mood in a hauntingly beautiful way.

Obstacles and an Opening

That marvelous etching I was working on in my last post? It did not go so well... Some technical mysteries popped up, and we're not really sure what went wrong. First of all.... the "copper" seems to not really be copper, yet I'm unable to identify what on earth it is, it isn't zinc, and it doesn't look like aluminium. It's a mystery metal. It had to be left in the ferric chloride acid bath for a lot longer. Luckily though, the lines did get etched in nice and seemingly deep.
When it came to printing the image, the first proof came out almost perfectly - oh I was *so* happy. The next proof... well, almost as good as the first, but the girls face didn't seem to print... then it went downhill from there, with each consecutive print coming out fainter and fainter. What a nightmare.
So, we'll see. I'll save the prints I did pull, and turn them into "mixed media" works, using watercolours, pens and inks. I think, it will actually be fun. But I definately missed my deadline in mind.

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On an more positive note, my partner Rudy Kistler had his third solo Art Exhibition a couple nights ago. "Shadow on the Back Block" at Charles Hewitt Gallery in Paddington. He is a painter and works in oils on board and canvas. This year he went on a long painting trip for six months, painting the fruit growing regions in Australia from Sydney down to Mildura. He had been very stressed in the weeks leading up to the exhibition, but I think it was a great success. The gallery did an amazing job of curating the pieces, and so many of our friends came to show their support.

Sadly, my camera does not seem to like documenting humans, and the photographs I managed to take were, well... shocking.  And even more sadly, we didn't manage to get my outfit on camera either... and I really worked hard on trying to steal the show!
So I'm sharing the one decent shot I got of one of the walls, and my two favourites from the 53 paintings he has exhibited!
You can visit the Charles Hewitt Gallery website to see the rest: http://www.charleshewitt.com.au/

The beauty of an original #2

Part two in documenting and sharing my small art collection.

Two One - Thousand cans

This artist had a show in Sydney in April of 2008. At the time I was working at the gallery on opening nights, taking care of the invoice book. And this was a busy show.

Hiroyasu Tsuri, who goes by the monicker of Two One, was exhibiting a project that took him 18 months to complete, inspired by the tale of Sadako and the thousand paper cranes. His intricate and highly detailed drawings are painted on old spray cans, turning old waste into unique artworks. I felt drawn to this aspect as well as his style, as I was drawing tiny insects on old bottle caps at the time, and writing a detailed paper for my final year at art school titled 'Social Refuse and Natural Detritus'.

I bought these two cans during the show, one for me and one for my partner. As I mentioned, it was an incredibly busy show and I was writing invoices as fast as I could. Hiroyasu was very sweet and gave me a third one as thanks for helping out. I do not have a photograph of that one, it was of a phoenix. My brother loved everything about these cans, so I gave that one to him as a gift last Christmas.

Here's his website, where you can see all of the cans from the Thousand Cans show: One Thousand Cans

Inspiration Wall

It's been quiet hasn't it? It seems like a time of waiting and biding right now...

I hate cleaning. And packing. But alas, it has to be done! As I've slowly been taking apart my studio room, I took a quick shot of my "inspiration wall".

I posted a picture of my worktable a little while ago, this can be seen as the sequel.

I realised when I tried to draw on a trip recently, that 4 out of 5 drawings did not live up to my standards, and it wasn't until I got them home, sat back at my little worktable, surrounded by my inspirational nest/mess of a studio, that I saved said drawings when I coloured them in. For the first time it was the 'colouring in' that was stronger than my linework, rather than the other way around.

I don't even really look up at the wall too much, but just having it there seems to create a better environment for me to draw and feel at ease. I daydream a lot too, and I guess gazing off into the distance at this wall creates better daydreams than if it was blank ; )