I have been awarded :)

Ann from Blue Bird Hill has given me this award and written some lovely things about me on her blog. It was so nice of her i was touched. The only problem i have is that all the other people she also awarded would be people i would likely tag myself (we are a close little bunch aren't we) so i wont award anyone else, but know that i would if you hadnt already been done.

I have been in this weird kinda zone these past few days, lately i have been feeling quite overwhelmed to be honest, i have lots of "hats" i need to fill, plus a house which is half renovated and no room to put anything. So in order to clear my head i have been organising and sorting, sorting through our outdoor shed that contains all manners of items we have accumulated over the years, half of which i have removed as we REALLY don't need to keep that stuff. I have gone through the studio and sorted out cupboards and materials so i can put things away when i am not using them and so that all my papers etc aren't in such a mess. I still have a few areas to do but my mind feels a little clearer.

Artwise, here is one that i have been working on for a while. It has been delayed as i ordered some more blue pencils online and i am STILL waiting on delivery (i have received half my order) which was back in January sometime. Needless to say i will soon be updating my Squidoo soon as a reflection of this lack of customer service !!!

Anywho, this one is of my neighbour's roof, we look out our window onto theirs and quite often these birds sit there, one day the light was just beautiful and i snapped it up with the camera :) I think i will call it "On top of the world". My youngest son sits and points saying BIRD! at the top of his voice i just felt like giving it a try.

It's coloured pencil on 8X10" Ampersand Pastelboard.

Also letting you know i have some family stuff to take care of in Sydney so i wont be on my blog for a few days. Be back soon.

046 Eggs on Flannel

"Eggs on Flannel" by Belinda Lindhardt 31X31cms Oils

I am not sure whether this one is done just yet so i am going to sit on it for a few days. It doesn't really photograph too well, the black is hard to capture against the white. I am actually doing a couple of these egg ones, this one was mainly just the trial run, so stay tunned for some more.

The Craft Shop Exhibition

Saturday 23rd February 2008, 10am - 2pm.

This Saturday some of my artwork will be on display and for sale this weekend at The Craft Shop's Art Exhibition in Woy Woy.
The exhibition will be outside the shop undercover, which is at Shop 6, The Pavilion 29-37 George Street Woy Woy.
I will also be including another artwork i think maybe my "Lovely Tomatoes" (everyone loves that one), so if you are in the area come take a look at my artwork plus other artists from the local area.

Pastelboard - Australian Supplier

I posted this on the Australian Art Forum, but i thought people might also be interested on my blog, so appologies if you are reading this twice.

As some of you are aware, I have been using some pastelboard lately for my cp work (which means i can just varnish the board and don't have to frame under glass) the brand that i have been using is Ampersand which i imported from the US (sooooo expensive). When flicking through a magazine lately i noted an Australian company S&S(whoelsaler) who had a similar product and where offering in a promotion a special sample pack so i sent off and I just got mine in the mail :)

For cp and pastelists who have been wanting to try good quality pastelboard, this one from Richeson looks pretty good. On first view the product looks very similar to the Ampersand board. It is a slightly lighter board and is little coarser than the Ampersand, but i think pastelists will enjoy it (if you like smooth supports for coloured pencil i am not sure you would, it's similar texture to colourfix paper quite rough, but if you dont mind this then you would probably like it).
I am yet to give it a try with pencils, as i am in the middle of another cp piece on the Ampersand, but just wanted to post a link to it as i came across the promotional coupon on their website, i thought others might like to give it a whirl before the promotion runs out. They also do the same surface on gatorboard, i am anxious to give that one a whirl. The sample also includes some paper with the same surface.

Here is the link, to the promotion, its the first photo on the right of the page a spread from a magazine, the caption is: Unison Pastels and Richeson premium pastel surfaces http://www.creativityunlimited.com.a...romotions.html
Also, you do have to pay $39.95 for the samples but if you consider the retail price and how much these types of supports would normally cost i think its a pretty good deal. Personally i am not wild on the colours i prefer just the white.

Petal Beauty Framed

"Petal Beauty" By Belinda Lindhardt Acrylic on Board.

I soooo love it when i get good service and find a good product.
I love it so much i feel like i have to tell everyone to pass it on, so here is one of those posts :)
I know most of you are overseas bare with me, this is probably most interesting for my Australian readers as these guys are based in Sydney.

So, I wanted to frame my Petal Beauty artwork for a local exhibition, it's an odd size as its from my own prepared board, i have 3 other boards at the same size so i wanted to be efficient and get frames at the same time for all of them.
Off i went down to the local framers, let me just say that weren't too keen on creating frames for me to insert the artwork myself (if fact they more or less told me i couldn't do it myself and they wanted to do it as they had some special gun for staples...hmmmm) then ontop of that after 20mins of debating with them on the moulding i preferred it turned out they didn't have the one i wanted and it would take another 3 weeks for me to get that. So needless to say i decided that i wasn't going to go ahead with them. I had more or less given up framing this one for the exhibition as its next week and didn't think i would be able to get something in time that is UNTIL.. i remembered a couple of links i had for online framing places that i thought i would check out. Gosh i love the internet...

http://www.frameshop.com.au - Your one stop frame shop
Here is where i purchased 3 frames to the size of my choice and can i just say its fanatastic, while i couldnt get the exact moulding i had chosen in my local framing shop, the one i chose is pretty similar (the one i have chosen is more silver than it looks in the photo). Best of all they say delivery will be within 48 hours AND it WAS! The quality of the frames is great, and it didn't cost me a small fortune, so now i can enter my exhibition and i have my extra frames there waiting for the new artworks to slide in when they are done.

In addition to this i now know that my framing is no longer going to be a hassle, i have a matt cutter and one of the things that always puts me off with the CP work is the framing and getting frames that aren't going to cost me the earth (cause lets face it at my level, customers aren't wanting to pay a fortune for getting framing which is 100% quality done and with a framer), now i know i have this service available its like a new world has opened up :).

So there you go i can totally reccommend these guys if you need some frames :) Doesn't my petal beauty look great ?

046 Eggs on Flannel

"Eggs on Flannel" WIP 31X31cm, Oils on Gallery wrapped canvas

Here is my latest, its actually a commission i have been sitting on for a while, do you think i can find white eggs anywhere for reference ?? So i had to get my MIL to bring me some from her neighbour's chooks :) Anywho here is the start so far :) I am liking so far the way its coming together :) I took lots of photos bought some nice soft material for the reference so i hope it comes out how i can see it :)

Sketches

I have been managing to get some sketching in lately but i havent been posting.
Mainly i am sketching poses for ideas for paintings. Also for my illustration side of things i have been sketching full bodies, faces and in particular childrens faces as i have come to realise that the only proportions i "know" are for adult faces and hence all my childrens faces look old.

So anyway this one is one of my better sketches which actually looks in proportion. The more i do the better i am getting so thats all part of the plan.

Peninsula Art Walk all finished, but i am still hanging

You may remember my post about a month ago here where i had 4 pieces participating in the Peninsula Art Walk, well a month has flown by already so yesterday was the day to go around and take the artworks down.

I am thrilled to tell you that two of the locations asked to keep the artworks on display and also requested other works to replace those ones and freshen them up and Gnostic Healing at Woy Woy asked for more paintings to hang in their shop so i ended up adding the "Summer Fields" ones which were at another shop to them. They are lovely ladies down there and really loved my "Contemplation" piece the "Summer Fields" looks really nice, i really enjoyed seeing their response to the artwork. So its all great they want me to do another piece for another space in their shop and now i have seen them all hanging there is no excuse i must get to it.

Here are a couple of photos.

You can visit the shop at:
Gnostic Healing
1/ 31 Chambers Pl, Woy Woy, NSW Australia

Petal Beauty - Acrylic on Board

"Petal Beauty" by Belinda Lindhardt, Acrylic on Board, 310 X 205 mm

Here is my "Petal Beauty" all finished. I have put a couple of layers of fixative and UV fixative on it. I will do a final few coats and then i will be done. The original is a little lighter than it appears in this pic, but i think it looks quite nice i think it will looked nice framed. I am going to have to get a custom frame for this one as its a longer size than normal i might do a series of these i think they are quite nice :)

Last night worked on my art website, i am actually still working on it right now but most of the major work has been done. I was never totally happy with the way my gallery worked, now i have updated it and i think its more intuitive. So if you need to use up some time go over there and check it out let me know what you think ! www.belindalindhardt.com.

Blanket - Illustration Friday

"Blanket" - Coloured Pencil on Drafting Film by Belinda Lindhardt, 6X4"

Here is my entry Illustration Friday for this week, the topic being "Blanket". I knew when the topic was suggested that i had the perfect thing to draw, Maxy looked all cosy wrapped up in this blanket. I have to admit I rushed it a bit as i have about 3 different works going atm, and i was frustrated as i the film wasn't taking more layers but isnt he darling :) you can tell i am biased.

Blog Design Update and Exciting News!

For those of you who notice these things you will see i have updated my blog design.
I didn't mind the last one but a few things were bugging me about it and i wanted to have a fresher look. There are a few things i would like to change further on this design but the template isnt letting me do it and i really should be moving onto other things so we just have to live with what we have for now. So there it is i hope you like it. If anyone has any comments about the width of my blog design i would be interested to know, i forced the page to be the 820pixels wide, i know some people with smaller monitors / resolutions may have problems if so let me know. I still havent updated my website with the relevant links etc yet but at least i can cross the blog update off the list of things to be done :)

Also i have some exciting news. My coloured pencil work was published this month in Artist's Palette Magazine no. 58 on page 18. Woot! This is pretty exciting for me as its the first time my work as actually been printed (apart from when i have done it myself). There are 4 photos of my artwork plus a little paragraph, here is a copy of the page i think its ok for me to post here seeing as its my work i am posting? And, there might be more of my work featured in future issues, i submitted some information they requested and a demo so lets see if that makes it in.
Anywho, thats my news how exciting.

041Petal Beauty WIP

"Petal Beauty" WIP by Belinda Lindhardt - 310 X 205 mm Acrylic

So here is the WIP so far for this one. I am finding it difficult to achieve the softness and delicacy of the petal with the acrylic than i would have done with the CP but i think its getting there. Still got a bit to go, the dimensions of this one are actually longer than i am showing here which looks quite nice, but it wouldnt fit on my scanner.

Will post more soon :)

Atelier Interactive Acrylic

I started two new pieces today, both were supposed to be coloured pencil on board. One was on pastelboard and the other was on a board that i had prepared myself with colourfix paint.

I began layering my cp on my prepared board and well lets just say it came to the point where i just thought this isn't working and i am not going to fight it. I am not sure whether i hadn't put enough layers of the paint on the board or i used the wrong board, or the error was in my application of the paint but the cp layers just weren't happening. At this point i could have given up but decided i wasn't going to abandon the piece i was going to try painting it.
So i got started, decided that acrylics we the go, i watered them down alot and was using it abit like watercolours with lots of layers and washes. It was working out ok until i realised i was missing a colour that i just couldn't mix and i really need to buy it for the artwork to have the colour it needed to work.

Recently, I read an article about Atelier Interactive Acrylics , i have seen these for ages in the shops but never really could work out what they were about. The article made them sound good so i thought well nows the time to give it a go. Can i just say that i think i am now converted !!!

This paint allows you to work wet in wet, allows the paint to dry and for you to go in and blur / blend the edges on dry paint, it blends easily with the other non interactive acrylics (tho i dont know if they reccommend that) and depending on the ratio allows you to use them a bit like the interactive ones. Its much like watercolour except its opaque so you can paint over areas if you need to and seeing as i was working on board its not like watercolour where you are worried about getting the paper too wet and causing problems. It means that you can go back and correct, pull back and soften your lines and it suits me perfectly. This is what i do with my coloured pencil work as well. I am working with very light washes and also thick areas of paint. I am really liking it for this type of detailed work i am doing on this piece.

I will post the full pic of what i am working on tomorrow.

Beware use pastelboard at your own risk!

I worried you for a moment then didn't I ?
I kinda feel embarrassed about posting this one but i knew you would get a laugh out of it so....

Yesterday, i suffered an injury while opening a packet of pastelbord. I was discussing something with my four year old, ( i cant remember what now maybe my brain was also injured?) so i was struggling to pull off the shrinkwrap around a packet of 9X12inch pastelboard. I was pulling and pulling and couldn't get the silly thing off, so i pulled harder and harder, when all of a sudden the wrapping gave way jumped out of the packet and hit me quite severly on the chin.
OWWWW it hurt i still have a lump on my chin today and i couldnt sleep on that side of my face last night (i sleep on my tummy) because my chin kept hurting when that side of my face was on the pillow.. so you heard it from me beaware of pastelboard its dangerous stuff!!!

Here is the photo to prove it (ok it doesnt look that bad here) but my gosh i can feel it.

Best Buddies - Still Life oil on gallery wrapped canvas WIP

"Best Buddies" WIP - By Belinda Lindhardt, 40.5cm X 30.5cm, 16 X 12 inches

Here is the continuing WIP of Best Buddies pic i have vowed to finish it. One day a little while ago this one was the victim of one of my "mood" sessions with paint (which usually means i get really rough and loose and use really thick palette knives and fingers etc), my original intention was to do this one really smooth and realistic, to be honest in RL i think its working out to be a nice combination of the two :) If i can get it to end up how i see it in my head. Here is my original post.

Apologies, for the lack of posts this week i have been in "design and development mode" which basically means everything else goes out the door until i finish the design and development!! (when i am in the land of code i just seem to go into this zone which i cant pop out of till i am done).
When i say EVERYTHING i mean EVERYTHING, i guess i feed the kids and washed them from time to time but the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning, the tidying, the dusting, the playing, the gardening, is all put on the backburner till i am done and now i have finished i have LOTS of catching up to do.

I have been redoing my graphic design / web design business's website - steelkey designs. I am not sure whether i have posted about it before but this year i really need to start pulling an income again either via my artwork or my graphics skills. I really want to continue to stay at home with my kids for a few more years (i haven't worked in an office for like 6 years) so i really need to start promoting my services, update my portfolio and revisit some of my marketing avenues. The design and graphics side of things actually crosses over into the art aspect and vice versa so i think they go hand in hand, i am also really keen to do some more illustrations so the website is a way to try to get this all going. i still have to edit some text etc. but if your keen to have a look go to www.steelkey.com.au .

So, anywho, thats what i have been up to. I have already began to sketch again i did a few lessons this morning from my Drawing the Human Figure from your Mind and i hope to be back to IF this week. woot! :)