textures of the outback .....

There has been much experimenting again in the studio this week.  For the moment I have put the story of our land on hold though having had some very good ideas from my partner Steve about how I can present the work, I am pretty excited about getting back to it soon.

Another body of work I am working on for our exhibition is drawing on all the outback travels I have had around Australia over the last years.  I am going to let go any specificity regarding the work and where the inspiration for each piece has been drawn, and just present the work as 'the textures of Australia' or something like that.  For the moment I have been working on building texture to give the feel of flying over our land and the marks one sees from above, and also the texture of canyon walls, salt deserts etc.  With this work I am also planning to balance each textural piece with more realistic drawings.  I saw a really lovely artwork in New Zealand where a realistic drawing was presented with an addition of a separate mark making work and it enthralled me ..... am trying to marry the two ways I have of working - the love of the abstract and the mark with my background of drawing.

In April I did a workshop with Noela Mills on textures and had enormous fun, learnt plenty and then worked out how to run with some of those ideas and make them 'mine' or experiment further and see what I could achieve.  I am still trying to push boundaries here but am quite excited by some of the outcomes.

I bought some transparent paper from Sydney and have been working on it, seeing how I can make marks and get some textures.  Playing with different charcoal and graphite tools - generally having fun and making scribbled notes so that I remember what it is I was using.

You can see a little of the textural work here .... some of the pieces will end up in final work.  I just have to keep making lots and lots of pieces and drawings and then see how I want to marry the work together.

No completed pieces yet but heading in the right direction.  I also think I will try and make some artist's books using these textural ideas as well.  So many ideas .... hope there is enough time.  At the end of the day though, one can only exhibit what one has time to make!