What is this ?

I dont know ... what this is .. but it feels good.

After my recent cp piece i just had to let loose... after testing out a new stapler .. it broke on this piece of paper .. and then i accidently poured coffee all over everything before i started... i was expecting this to be a diaster ... but it just appeared .. i dont know what it is .. but i think i might do some more ?

what would you remember?

Ok so this is spurred on from my recent post from Maggie. Its also something i have been thinking about for a while so i figured why not post it here to get a response...

I need to redo my website. I have been thinking about it for a while, i would be selling my art as well as my mirrors and a few other ideas i have in the pipeworks :) So rather than having belindalindhardt.com (which no one can ever spell lindhardt correctly)

how about

belindasart.com
or belsart.com
or belind.com


or another suggestion - which would you remember easily ? i like the idea of having a shorter domain from a marketing point of view :)
any ideas let me know

A Friendly Butt-Kicking from Your Favorite Blogging Artist

Yet another post from Maggie Stiefvater who just seems to be able to say all the right things to get your art but in gear. If you are wanting to become a professional artist have a read of it and get your but moving !!!

http://greywarenart.blogspot.com/2007/04/friendly-butt-kicking-from-your.html

It was all going so well....

...Until, well until i dont know when... but it looks like this is another one making it to the scrap heap and i am back to the drawing board.

I think this has happened on my last 4 pieces !!! i am not sure whats going on .. but i got to thinking i might be my lighting?? It seems if i can work in the day it works in fine .. but choices and colours i do at night seem (or when i am tired) dont seem to work so with cpencil being the way it is .. it looks like i am back to the drawing board :(

I wont go specifically into what areas arent working - unless you want me to .. but theres a couple of key areas just arent quite right.

Solution - work in the day - yeah technically that would be good .. but two young kids dictate otherwise ... hmmmm

Another Swing Uodate

Here is another swing update. One from the beginning and one from the end of the night :) I dont mind how its progressing ... i dont think my next peice will have much green in it tho. LOL i tired of seeing green.

Update

Here is an update for max on a swing. It's progressing not too badly.. i have redone the chains from the previous pic. I am not 100% positive how the grass will come out . i know i struggled with in on my horses piece. But i am pacing myself and really tested out my colours prior to starting so lets see how i go.

Max on a swing

First to everyone, sorry, had a wonderful title for this piece but i didnt write it down and now it has left me and i just cant remember it so we just have to live with this for now.

I have really struggled the past few days finding inspiration for my new piece, my wonderful friends at ScribbleTalk assured me that they all have the same thing from time to time and it will pass, and so it has (i think).

So here is a photo that i took a while ago that i have always loved of max. While it's a great photo there has been something about the photo that i always felt was missing, i think it is to do with the lighting on max as well as the trees in the background and just the romantisism of it all that i felt was lacking. So my goal with this one is to create and capture the "feeling" of that moment rather than just reproducing the photo as such.

So here it is so far here are a few points / goals i am remembering with this one:

- I am taking particular care with colours .. i really want the foreground tree to pop and it be very light in the back (a hard lesson with light colours for me).

- I choose this reference as i wanted to do something with which allows me to be a bit creative with the background and make my own mark on it, (obviously i wont be drawing each leaf and tree the same) its something i have enjoyed with my watercolour of late and its something i have observed i have resisited with my coloured pencils (i dont know why) so this one i am forced to go through that thought process with this subject.

- I am also keeping in mind to keep it really light touch and light colours where applicable. Its something i really really struggle with and is where i have failed in my recent pieces as i just get too heavy handed and my values get waaay too dark.

- Colour is also a major factor with this one, as you can see i have done a few swatches down the bottom .. i am using a kind of complementary grisaille on the dark tree and darker areas. i do struggle with it on the lighter colours (i just cant seem to do it on all of the whole picture) at one time

- process. process. process. the main thing with cp is that its a process of layers, i tend to get bored and try to hurry the process, its something i am pulling myself back on constantly. so i am making sure i do the background first and working dark to light also concentrating on mixing the colours properly eg. rather than using a dark umber colour i will be using blues and yellows and greens and red to build up my colour and get a much richer colour palette

So all in all theres a few goals with this one :) hopefully i can stick with it this time!

Its 11"X14" or 27.9cm X 35.5cm and i am back to the stonehenge paper on this one.

Beach Scene

well, following my recent watercolour exploits i thought i would do a larger WC peice. Well it started out as watercolour but i just cant help putting those coloured pencils in so i guess now it is Mixed Media.

Dont talk to me about the clouds. Not sure at all what happened there. I was testing out a WC technique i had read about and i guess i got carried away lol. I was sitting down at the time which i just have to stop doing when i work on larger areas as i need to get distance. *slap on the wrist*.... but if i crop this one its not too bad as you can see :)

Butterfly Mirror

Here is the latest in my series of mirrors. This is a butterfly one obviously, which might be one of my favourite ones so far i quite like it :) (sorry for the bad pic)

My thoughts for this one is that it contains an area where the customer can write their own childs name in the center bottom if desired. :) Rather than the glued on letters in my previous ones.

I think mirrors which have the letters / characters glued on will have to be at a slightly higher price range due to cost and time but that will all work itself out.

I have quite a few now primed so its production line for me. I went to my local mall on the weekend and noted that first saturday of every month they have markets in the mall. So i might have to make an apperance there in the lead up to to christmas. All my ideas are flowing for selling all this work :) all i have to do is produce it :)

Ink and Watercolour

Japanese Garden at Gosford Regional Gallery - Belinda Lindhardt

My favourite new art thing are these Pitt Artist Pens by Faber Castell. They are indian ink, waterproof, lightfast and come in various tip sizes as well as colours. I recently bought one and just tested it out on the above study. I love it! I got the sepia colour and you might not be able to see in this post but the watercolour goes on lovely over the top. and i want to buy more more more. They even come in a brush tip that would be interesting to try. This above one was just a quicky but i really enjoyed it. Definately more to come !

Pitt Artist Pen by Faber Castell.

I have been working i promise!

Gardens at Gosford Regional Art Gallery

Apologies for not posting much of late, i have been working i promise, i have been sketching! I have been doing alot of those videos mentioned in my earlier post as well as characters and ideas of cute little illustrations. Its something i really enjoy doing and i seem to have a little more confidence with it all these days so that is really fun. I am going to work some of them a little further and will post some soon.

On Sunday i went to visit the Gosford Regional Art Gallery which i have been meaning to go visit for months now and i had seen an advertisement for the local Watercolour society's Exhibition so i just had to go!

I was a little early so i took advantage of the "kid free" time and just sat and had a coffee in the lovely coffee shop there and had a look around. I was disappointed i had forgotten to take my sketch pad and note book (as i would have had a fantastic post for you) so i just sat there and enjoyed my coffee. As i did so a feeling of utter relaxation began to come over me, i realised that i couldn't remember when the last time was i had felt so relaxed normally my hawks eye would be looking out for dangers, grabbing utensils off the children, stopping them from climbing, running and generally causing havoc to myself and those around them and basically i would be in a constant state of aggitation. So this was a fabulous outing just to let alone sit but i also got to see all the fabulous works as well!!!

There was an exhibition on the main gallery which was great but a little weird for my tastes. Various artwork on the walls and sculptures one of which was a rack hanging with coloured gstrings with symbolic pubic hair... - kinda just wasn't doing it for me. They do have lovely japanese gardens there which if it wasn't raining i would have spent more time in. I will definitely be going back. The kids can feed the koi too so that should be some family time too.

The watercolour exhibition was beautiful some lovely works ranging in expertise. They look like a good group i am considering going along to some of their meetings. They meet reguarly and have plein air sessions as well as studio and various other artists come along and do workshops. Even though i am not a watercolour artist i think i would enjoy it. :)

They don't have a website but there is one for the Central Coast Art Society which has some of the artists featured.
One of the artists who stood out for me was David Clarke. You can see some of his artwork here: http://www.artcentralcoast.asn.au/html/david_clarke_3.html ( i am not posting it as i am not sure i can copyright reasons) but you should definately check it out. He doesnt have a website that i can find but he had some fantastic works that would be something i would aspire to.

The CCAS has a botantical exhibition coming up in May so i am definately off to that. So now i am all inspired and should be relatively relaxed no more excuses!!!!

Girl Swirl Mirror

Here is the first in my series of mirrors i will be painting for sale. You may have read about my kids mirrors in previous posts. The plan is to do a bunch of these and try to sell them.

This one has quite a bit more detail than is really cost effective but i was enjoying myself :) This one is in a bit of a different style than the others but I have had this craving for a while now to do some swirls, i thought might be cute for an older girls room or even an adult.

Once i get a few more of these together i will be putting a website up for purchase / viewing online. The price range i think will be around the $55- AU mark. I will also be accepting custom orders. All enquiries please email belinda.l@steelkey.com.au.

The Structure of Man

A few posts ago i talked briefly about some drawing videos i had found on You-Tube. After doing quite a few of these i decided to buy the first dvd of the series. Its just so much easier to have them on DVD (there are 5 Dvd's you can buy them all together if you wish) and the cost is very reasonable.

This first dvd contains 70 vidoes and i cant praise it enough if you want to learn to draw not just the human figure but anything at all. Even if you are already good at drawing i would urge you just to take a look for interest sake in the way this drawing is taught.

In doing the video you learn how to think of the human figure as an invention rather than the symbols already in your head and therefore you will retrain your brian so you can easily draw from your head the angles and structure of the human body and face. For someone like me who seems to be fighting with my left and right side of the brain atm .. this is just fantastic. The guidelines he teaches you also help with any life drawing or other types of drawing you might try to tackle.

I cant praise it enough .. i am off to do a few more .. you can do some and see for yourself here: http://the-structure-of-man.blogspot.com/

Art from a young age

Belinda Lindhardt age: ?about 3?

My three year old boy Maxy wanted to see some photos of mummy when she was a little girl today, so out came the old album and i came across this one of me doing some lovely watercolours that i thought i just had to share with you:) So i really did do art from a young age here is the proof!!

I had started a new piece this week on some of my MDF primed board and i had hope to show you a piece which was well on its way to success, but it has since been scrapped!!!! Thats about the 3rd piece of late which hasnt made it to the finishing stages. I am not sure whats going on there i think i am envolving in my art into something new so i am struggling between the old and new stuff. Scrapping this latest one was good also as i was having a problem with paper holding enough colour but seeing as this last piece was on board and not paper this tells me that its not my paper and my technique is actually off... I was reading a post on ScribbleTalk about layers which are very very light .. and i think this has been my downfall my painting hand is lending into my CP hand and i am being too harsh. Anywho live and learn i hope to have something new to show you soon !