Storm / Figure / Morning Mist ??

"Storm" - By Belinda Lindhardt, Oils on gallery wrapped canvas

I can decide on the title for this one. Originally the darker area was supposed to resemble a figure or shadow, but it kinda looks a bit like a storm cloud ? Then again it could just be mist.
Thats what i like about these ones i will leave it up to you :)

There is a major storm about to hit my house so ... i will settle with storm for now :)

Contemplation

"Contemplation" - Oil on Gallerywrapped canvas by Belinda Lindhardt

I am not really sure why but i just seemed to get the feeling that this girl was contemplating something or longing for something.

I am not entirely sure this one is "finished" by i think it might be done for the time being :)

I would be interested to hear everyone's feedback on this style ? Do you like it ? Or do you feel the realism pieces have more commercial value? I feel like these ones seem to have alot of emotion and allows the view to have their own interpretation in comparison to the realism pieces. I actually enjoy doing both. These ones flow much faster tho as they come from within i am not checking a reference :)

Best Buddies

"Best Buddies" WIP, oils on gallery wrapped canvas

Here is the WIP for another one i started yesterday. I took the reference a while ago myself and it features lemons and rosemary (hence the best buddies as they cook so lovely together :) i had a couple of shots with garlic in there as well but decided against those shots.

I am using a bit of my cp knowledge on this one and started with a complementary coloured purple background as you can see once the brown goes on it really makes the background look fantastic. Also did this a bit on the lemons not sure how thats going to turn out.

So off i go lets see how this one works out :)

Painting Frenzy and MIA

Firstly i have to apologise i have been MIA. Late last week i decided that we all needed a family holiday in addition to work i needed to finish up, so in the effort of researching where to go, getting us all packed and finishing up the work i realised that i forgotten to blog about going away. So sorry about that.
We had a lovely time away, it was the first time in about 4 years with just us and we went to Port Macquarie which is up the coast about 4 hours from here (for all you overseas readers) its a lovely location with lots of beaches. It was a great break away before the madness of christmas is upon us as well as a large design / development job i hopefully we have beginning soon which will go for the next few months.

Anywho, so i its been a while since i have done something new and started today with a painting frenzy. (my sunset pic which i was going to finish got ripped this morning and hasnt made it back onto the easel which is sad but alas is there is a price that has to be paid with progress).
So i did some preliminary work on a figure for my trees pic plus i added more to the background. I ended up painting over a figure i created but i have worked out what i am doing there with quite a few sketches. So once it dries i will be back to finish up this one. I wish i could get a good photo of this one for you it does look alot better in RL.

Next up are these two i started. They are quite different to what i usually do, they just came out of no where really, i like the way they are progressing. Again waiting for the paint to dry a bit.

Morning Mist 12"x16"




Contemplation 18" X 18"

I also started another one which i have done a WIP for i will post this one tomorrow :)

Monets Garden

Here is a better pic of Monet's Garden as promised :)

Related Posts, follow the WIP here:

Monet Update

We have had a visit from the painting fairies!

Monets Garden Update

Monet Update

Monets Garden Update

Monet's Garden

Tree Girl

"Tree Girl" - By Belinda Lindhardt, watercolour and ink , A5

Here is one i have been working on the past couple of days. I have recently been looking at some oldmasters pen and ink illustrations and Katherine wrote a review a couple of weeks ago about a book where they discussed pens and nibs etc.

So this one was done old school way with ink and nibs :) it was good fun the original isnt quite as yellow as this but i liked it for my blog :)

I tell you i was frustrated dipping my pen every 3 strokes into the ink but it forced me not to rush it :) makes you appreciate how they did it in the good old days :)

Monet is done :)

"Monet's Garden" by Belinda Lindhardt, Oils on gallery wrapped canvas

Well it looks like i am done on my Monet inspired works. There are parts i am not happy with but i have lots of other things i want to progress onto so i am calling it done for the purpose of the exercise that it was.

Doing this work has really helped me to open up and be freerer with my strokes and colours and everything basically. It has really helped me work through some of my issues regarding painting everything smooth but also flat. I really enjoyed this one. I do admit while i did initially hope to stick to Monets palette and not include black i did get the black out in the end. But i feel like i warranted it and i had learnt my lesson with that whole theory.

So all in all a great little exercise i learnt alot. :) I am also glad that i stuck with this one enough to just finish it. i tend to move on with my paintings so i am glad i got it to the point where i am finished rather than put it away in the cupboard half done.

The oils are still wet so i will post a better pic once they dry a bit :)

Tree Pics

Well as promised here are some tree pics from last week, i had a good break away and trying to post on dialup was just hard i decided to wait till i was back to upload these last ones.

So here they are, these were taken around the art gallery and hyde park area of sydney i can see a few paintings / drawings inspired by these in my future :)

A day out at the Art Gallery

Yesterday, I took myself off to the NSW Art Gallery - http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au.

No kids just me and the art, woot! It was a great day busy I was very tired and got lost finding it at one point. I had a bit of weird paranoia going on as I am not used to spending the whole day with no one to talk to surrounded by lots of people i felt a bit vunerable but that left me by the end of the day luckily.

It was really amazing as I walked around remembered parts of the gallery which i must have seen in primary school and some paintings from that time (just goes to show some of it sinks in). When I entered the Australian art room iit was great to see a few of the artists / artworks I had chosen to study in highschool so those memories came flooding back they felt like they were old friends.

To begin with I walked through the 19th century eurpoean art section and was I awed at seeing such large fabulous works. Then went to visit the Dobell Art Prize and contemporary galleries. They were good .. I recognised some artworks by Grace Cossington Smith. see the link below. In my opinion the one which one the Dobell looks much better on the internet than in real life. I stood and looked at it for a while it I can see why they chose it but .. yeah .. leave that one up to you guys. One thing to note is that all of the artworks were extremely large dimensions .. from someone who tends to work quite small I was amazing to see the work and level of detail in some of these larger works.

After this I went and had a coffee on my own no kids, no mummy I want, no spilling of coffee / sugar, no loud screeches and getting up and down off the table ... but there was also no smiles, no hugs, no mummy I love yous or little funny scenarios going on .... how torn we are as mothers...I enjoyed my coffee in peace but I also missed the company :)

Just as I was about to go see the aboriginal artworks they announced that a guided tour was about to begin so after a moments hesitation off I went up to take the tour. This was by far the highlight of the day. The lady was a volunteer guide called Norma she was fantastic so took me a couple of other people on the highlights tour of the 18-19th century European and Australian rooms I had already been in. I saw many more works I originally has missed she had so much information and stories about various artworks and artists and "the times" of what was occurring in the world and the thoughts of the people. Interesting things she noted was the distinct shift in what was being produced from one period to another the early period alot of the work was very formal foreground, middle ground and background. then this changed and we saw the shift to the artwork being more about the people and being drawn into various subjects and historical events particularly after the French revolution where people were freer with subjects, thoughts etc.

One the of interesting points was many of the paintings of Sydney in the earlier days showed alot of pollution, apparently Sydney was a very dirty city .. and there was a few painting from pristine bush looking back over the dirty city I don't know why this was news to be but I found this interesting.

She also pointed out on a few of the artworks particularly of French artists, how they began to leave parts of the canvas exposed .. it was apparently a style that began to emerge and after she pointed it out was able to see it in a few artworks

She also noted the transition of what occurred when artists had access to tube paint... from previously where they were mixing paint she showed areas where artists where squeezing the paint directly onto the canvas and manipulating it this way ( I have to try that) one particular one of note here was Frederick McCubbin - ON THE WALLABY TRACK, 1896
She actually talked about this one for a long time and this painting is one I had studied in one of my art classes at highschool ... she talked about how the painting drew you right into the scene and how until in this point in time this type of scene hadn't featured in artworks it was a significant shift. Also of note was the use of different colours such as mauve and blue and pinks in the foliage where previously it would have been painted in a classic style of a green. You could see where the leaves and handfuls from the earth had been used to create the effect he has in the foreground scraping the paint away.

We also saw a few works by Tom Roberts whose work I also recognised.
A few particular portraits which were done beautifully were interesting as she actually explained that they were advertisements for Australia to get ladies and gentlemen to come out here. Everyone thought at the time that the place was very rough and ruggered and convicts everywhere .. so the advertisements show ladies beautifully dressed in fine clothes in order to say that we were and doing fine. I found this really interesting also as you forget just the distance barriers these artists had at the time.

So onto some of my own photos of the day ... firstly I have to apologise they aren't that good .the guards kept watching me I did ask if i could take photos they said it was ok but I felt self-conscious... . and obviously I couldn't use a flash but I wanted to show you all I was there!!!! :)

First up for those of you who took up the Waterhouse project earlier this year .. there he is .. a waterhouse !!!! :) I have to say I was excited to see him there... I didn't take up the project but I do remember seeing this one in Katherine's and Maggies posts.



Next up all in the one area on the bottom row there you have Pissaro who I haven't studied but for some reason this painting seemed very familiar to me so I must know it. then you have a monet which I didn't recognise as Monet at first but nonetheless it was, some of the other paintings there are recognisable .. but there on the back wall there .. there sits van gough ... so woot it was exciting to be there with these ones.





The next couple were paintings that just struck me .. the first one is called "The First Born " by Gaston LaTouche -(better pic at the link) The lighting and story of this one was just fabulous and a sad story ..i was looking at this for a while.

This next one by the artist Eioth Gruner the light and mood of this one was just absolutely stunning and again another one which draws you in ... This artist i will have to research some more on i really enjoyed his work.





Finally I wanted to show this work .. which was just gianormous .. by Edward John Poynter - The visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon. This work was also just inspiring it had so many things going on in it that I just wont attempt to explain .but the way he could achieve that is just amazing this would have been at the time of mixing his own paints apparently as well.



















To finish up this was a fabulous day I also took some great tree pictures which I will post for you tomorrow. As a note to myself and everyone reading this if ever you feel at a loss for inspiration or just feel like your in a rut with your art go visit a gallery it does wonders !!!


Links
Frederick McCubbin - http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/mccubbin_frederick.html
Tom Roberts - http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/roberts_tom.html
Gaston LaTouche - http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/la_touche_gaston.html
Grace Cossington Smith - http://www.nga.gov.au/Exhibition/cossingtonsmith/Default.cfm?mystartrow=13&realstartrow=13
Elioth Gruner - http://artyzm.com/e_artysta.php?id=334
Edward Poynter -http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/poynter_sir_edward.html

Hunter Valley Gardens

Its not often i post pictures of the family here (i try to keep it about the art) but on the weekend we took the kids to visit the Hunter Valley Gardens in the Hunter Valley for those of you from overseas its where many Australian Wines are made Its just beautiful there.
Here is a link to the their website.



On the day we went they were having a Teddy Bear's picnic for the kids which was ok but kids really they just loved running around on the paths and looking at the flowers and ducks and wot not :) They have a storybook garden where the garden is themed around many of the nursery rhymes which was good, i would recommend it for the kids. My youngest Will just loves flowers and he was stopping to smell the roses on many occasions he was too fast to get a good photo of though.

Anywho, back to the art i got lots of good reference shots and i throughly enjoyed the day out for this reason as well. As i was walking around i was thinking about Monet in his garden and what it must be building a garden like this from scratch and the inspiration of drawing with all the fabulous colours and shapes in it everyday. Unfortunately with two kids you dont get any time for sketching but i have a couple ideas there that i might post another time.

So i thought i would leave you with a few of the snapshots of the day.



Not sure whether you will be able to see but the picture with all the foliage and white flowers. On one of the leaves there is a butterfly in there which given the right treatment i think make a really good picture. I would love to do this one as a coloured pencil piece i think i could really make that beautiful unfortunately i think all those leaves would drive me completely mad so i am not brave enough to tackle that yet .. but you may see a few test runs in the future.

You will also notice in the spirit of Monet they had a water garden there with water lilies and lilly pads. It was all very dreamy :)

Treez 01

WIP - "treez01" oils on canvas by Belinda Lindhardt

Here is one i have had in hiding i have actually been working bits and pieces with it along with my monet. I actually had a pic to post of it the other day but it was still wet and the photo just looked odd.

Its not finished yet and the colours still aren't right yet but you get the idea. Its not so blue in RL. I am really thinking of putting a figure walking in the middle there.. i have a feeling i will mess it up if i do that i have a tenancy to over work things ... i was also tempted to put a few red / orange leaves in the trees sporadically i think that will really spruce it up ... anywho any comments / suggestions let me know.

I likely wont be around much this week i have a bunch of stuff to deal with so will try and get that out the way. :)

Illustration Friday - The Blues

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "The Blues" i am really feeling unmotivated and i am pushed for time atm (so its a quickie) but i forced myself to do this one. It's topic is pretty relevant atm actually.

It was pen on paper then went over it digitally.

Hope you all have a good weekend :) Hopefully i will get some work on my monet in :)

Treez 00

"treez 00" pen and neo colours
by Belinda Lindhardt

Here is a couple of little sketches i did last night. They are leaning to the right because i have a tree in my backyard that i have been "watching" throughout various times of the day/ night, this particular tree was next to a larger tree that was blown down in storms earlier this year and so all its branches lean to the right as the other tree was blocking its growth. My sketches aren't as per my backyard tree they are just from my head :)

I think these actually looked better before i put colour onto them :( but i cant help myself i find it hard to know when to stop :) Next one i will not put too much colour on i promise :)

Oh and whats the "00" you might ask on the title ? Well as you may or may not of read this is all part of keeping track of my work read my blog post here. While this is not a completed work so therefore doesn't fall under my other filenames / numbers, i am going to be doing lots of these tree sketches as i enjoy them. So i thought i would start giving them their own little naming convention and means they are easier to name/ save / post. I have given them their own label treez :) pssss. Did i tell you i am pedantic with the organizing of my files ? cause if you haven't guessed i am :)