Belinda Lindhardt

Friday, April 25, 2008

An abstract 2 landscapes and a Figure 4 new paintings

Last night I had a painting spree and started 4 new paintings. For the landscape i had the inspiration the other night i looked out into the sky just before it was dark and it had this strange dark blue / grey clouds with light blue peaking through. So i really wanted to create something like that so here was a little test run to give it a go and in doing so i think i have discovered something about the way i work.

Many artists work different ways, some use thumbnails some don't. Sometimes i do sometimes i don't, often i find especially with painting ideas from my head that i cant see whether the painting is going to work by using thumbnails as the painting often emerges during the process so to plan that out just doesn't seem to work. I think it's also to do with the application of the paint and using colours etc that you just can do without committing yourself to it.

Last night i started all the canvases as the same time. I did two larger ones and 2 smaller ones. These smaller ones I initially began to "use up the palette" i had already mixed but what it turned out to be was actually a preliminary painting to the larger one i was planning on doing for the landscape, and for the abstract one (which is still not completed) was merely a way to test out some paint effects i was going to try. It simply occurred to me as i was doing this.. that this method provides a cheap and effect "thumbnail" for me to test out my idea. This is not a new idea or way of doing things but for some reason i kept pushing the method aside as it wasn't working previously for me. It turns out that i simply needed to adapt it for a way that works for me. These little canvases are probably worth about $1.50- at the bargain store, it not quality art or something that you would sell for alot of money, its simply a step in the process to the bigger paintings. I think i am going to have to buy more of these i don't know why i haven't done it sooner.

On top of this i also tried out a new wet palette method for using acrylics. Thank you so much to Serena for posting her method on her blog. I have to say it really does work fantastically !!! and saves so much paint its going to be something i do continuously from now on.

During this painting session i also have to say after using oils for a while now i think i do prefer oil painting, just the feel, richness and application of the paint is more satisfying, but its so time consuming waiting for the layers to dry when trying to play around with the effects i wanted to for these ones i just didn't have that time. So its something to consider for future pieces. to oil or not to oil :)

Again apologies for the lack of photo quality, first drought now constant rain the weather is just all over the place atm.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Dark Forrest - Oils on canvas


"Dark Forrest" by Belinda Lindhardt 15X15cms Oils on Gallery wrapped canvas

Here is another little one i managed to finish today. Its only small and i had no plans for this one initially i wanted to play with getting a light/dark background which just emerged into a forest :)
Strange how things play out. Once this rain stops i hopefully will get a bit more light :)

Reflection - Oil Painting on Canvas

"Reflection"- By Belinda Lindhardt, Oils on Canvas

I finally finished this Reflection piece i appologise its just raining non stop for the last week and its hard to get a good photo, the colours are a bit different in the original and the hair is a bit darker than is shown here but you get the idea. This piece wasn't quite what i had envisaged but its one i am calling done. It actually quite appropriate for this time in my life as i am currently in bit of a reflection period. I wont disclose my private life to the whole world on my blog (sorry as entertaining as that might be :) other than to say that i am currently going through a separation to my partner of 12 years. We have a business and 2 kids together so please bare with me and be patient while i sort out my life and get myself sorted. It's sad but it actually quite liberating i think it will be a new chapter in my life and i am actually looking forward to getting on with it.

After the past few days I have also been playing with the piece On Top of the World and not really achieving much success with it at all. Yesterday, i gave myself permission to not struggle with it anymore and i painted over it with gesso. For a while now i realised my passion for creating the image had gone and i just couldn't get the effect i was after. To be honest i am not convinced pastelboard is the surface for me, i am thinking i am better with paper as i still have this tendancy to make everything smooth and blended which is hard to do on the pastelboard. Anyway, so i have painted over it in a effort to put my energy into something else and it feels great to have allowed myself to do that, i think i will move a couple of unfinished canvases which i am struggling with into the shed to put them aside and start fresh :) Sometimes it hard to give ourselves permission to do these things but when we do gosh it feels good :)

Monday, April 21, 2008

Artists Open Studtio Weekend Pt Clair to Patonga

This weekend there was an artists open studio weekend in my area so i took myself off to visit some of the local artists studios participating in the event. I had been working myself up to this for a few weeks now i was really excited about it.
I visited about 6 of the artists studios (i just couldn't make it to all of them) and 2 exhibitions which had a mixture of artists all of varying styles and expertise. It was fantastic to see the range and how artists presented themselves and just the different types of works that were being on display,

It was also enjoyable to have the chance to meet and talk with some of the artists, others it was just too hard with too many people to get in edge wise (and i am not pushy :) but one of the big things for me was how great it was to see their studios and see how they worked. I thought for this post i would talk about the 3 artists that stood out for me the most.

The first artist I visited was Greg Coates, i had seen Greg's "Seasonal Change" work at a local nursery a while ago, the photo on this website really doesn't do it justice i just love this piece (i mentioned in other posts that i have been loving monotone type works lately this is part of that :) I saw for the first time and also loved the two pieces "Snapshot" and "Tideline" which you can see here . I saw these at his studio and at one of the group exhibitions and i got to talk to Greg a fair bit about all sorts of things he has a fantastic space. I also love all of his other works and the colours which he features i enjoyed this alot.

I also visited Anna Collins's studio, i had the pleasure of attending one of Anna's life drawing workshops last year (i plan on going to another one just as soon as i can fit it in with the kids etc hopefully next month :). Anna does alot of life drawing and nudes as well as alot of pieces, to me alot of Anna's work "says something" i was listening to her talk to another lady and many of her pieces have a real story or meaning behind them. I had the pleasure of also looking through some of Anna's sketch books which are just fabulous and reminded myself that i really need to discipline myself to do this to progress my skill but as much as that its such a lovely thing to have. See some of Anna's work here.

Another artist which i enjoyed visiting was Graeme Balchin, Graeme does alot of pencil tree work which is right up my alley :). He has an exhibition at the moment in Gosford which is running for a couple more weeks which i really must get to (visit his website if your in the area for details). Graeme's oils and other works were also so fantastic to see i really enjoyed his figures and the way he paints is just fantastic. See Graeme's work here.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend of art, it was so inspiring and great to get out and talk to people. I got a bit of information about various life drawing classes etc on in the area hopefully i can make it there soon.

Friday, April 18, 2008


Here is a little doodle from me. :) Its only very small but if you look closely there is lots of little things happening in there, lots of people and flowers etc.
I always doodle all the time, this one i decided to do and take with me at the playcenter while the kids played, it definitely made the time go faster i was getting a few curious looks from some of the other mums i don't usually sketch / draw while i am out and this was quite therapeutic.

At the Semi-Permanent conference which i attended recently i bought the "Curvy" book, which is a book put together by the people by Yen magazine showcasing Women designers, illustrators and artists from all over the world, featured in the book is Australia artist / illustrator - Eleanor Yap, her work features all sorts of strange and wonderful patterns take a look here. It really opened my eyes that this kind of work could really be developed and sold as art or done for illustrations etc. For now anyway its just a bit of fun :) Something you might be seeing more of :)

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Round and Round in a Shell, Colored Pencil Sketch

Shelly sketch - Walnut Brown Polychromos by Belinda Lindhardt

Here is a shell we picked up at the beach a little while ago. I have so many unfinished projects at the moment but i felt like i just needed to sketch something light without worrying too much about anything. I am really loving monotone or simplistic type palettes at the moment so this one was nice. It wasnt on the best paper so i couldnt get too many layers and i used a colourless blender which didn't work too good on this paper but its a nice little one nonetheless.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Masterful Color by Arlene Steinberg - Review

I have just done a small review on my Aussie Coloured Pencils blog about Arlene's new book if your interested go check it out !

http://auscolouredpencils.blogspot.com/

Semi Permanent a wrap up !

So i have arrived home from Semi-permanent 2008 what a great 2 days of a coming together of creative minds.

The motion graphics, designers, art directors, animators etc were all really inspiring and being from this background / career I enjoyed their processes and presentations and "got" what they were all about but seeing my blog is mainly about art i will give a bit of a touch on the 3 artists that presented.

During the course of the event two Australian artists presented, both of which have considerable overseas success these were Anthony Lister (based now in New York) and Ben Frost a Sydney based artist. The other artist which was the one i was most looking forward to seeing was Amy Sol who is from the US and flew out for the event.

So, I will put it blankly, at a conference which was comprised by design and creative professionals (and students wanting to be professionals) the first two male artists presented themselves in my opinion poorly. I am a pretty open minded in all respects i think people were interested in hearing about the artists processes, seeing their work, hearing about their history and how they got to being where they were today. Anthony lister in particular who presented a slideshow of the behind the scenes parties of people doing weird things getting drunk and drug references by both of these artists kinda didn't really mix well with me but was obviously a big part of these artist's lives. I found it hard to understand what the @#$#@$ they were talking about probably 98% of the time. Maybe they were nervous ? Maybe they were trying to make a statement ? Both of them were a little easier to understand and follow towards the end of the presentation particularly when prompted by audience questions but for people who forked out good $ and time to hear them talk it was kinda hard to sit there for the whole hour for each.

In saying that though i like to look at the positives, one message i did get from them was that there is a responsibility they have taken upon themselves to make a statement about the world through their art, and they really wanted to make people stop and think about topics and certain things through what they do. They really had in depth thoughts and ideals about the world and it is that they were trying to convey in some respects, i am not sure many of the people "got" that this is what they were trying to say which means that their message was lost. I heard a bunch of design students talking about the way the artists presented themselves on the way home where they were discussing that they had been told "thats just what artists are like". I was thinking that was sad, does that mean your not a real artist if you dont speak in those weird abstract terms which leave you wondering "what? are you talking about".

In contrast to that there was Amy Sol's presentation, I only became a fan of her work when i saw it via the list of presentation speakers for Semi-Permanent. Amy's presentation was what we all wanted to see, we saw photos of her studio (tidy and untidy :) she had a good range and close up photos of her work she talked about the meaning of the various works, where she gets her inspiration from, her materials, her exhibitions, her process and best of all you could see she wasn't changing herself and really spoke from the heart. She wasn't trying to be cool or make a statement it was about the art. I could really identify with the way she spoke about her art and you can see it is really personal for her, she didn't always have a definite explanation of things sometimes she just "feels" things or makes things up doesn't know where it comes from and that was enough. The same design students I mentioned earlier were also saying "not all artists must be like that Amy Sol's presentation was great she wasn't like that at all" :)
So their is hope.

In conclusion one message i got from all of the presenters is to love what you do no matter what. Be ready to push yourself and explore new ways of doing things push the envelope so to speak and to keep going, you might not have the right client, style, skills whatever that might be but its really all about the process you will get to where you want to go in the end its all a journey you just have to keep taking it :) Who is talking in abstract terms now ? My gosh !!! ekkk am I an artist now?

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Semi-Permanent 2008

Apologies for not posting much this week, i have had a few personal events of late that are just taking everything out of me so i have just been managing to get through the days.

On another note tho, i will be away for the next two days attending this: Semi-Permanent 2008 its a conference in Sydney featuring designers, artists, illustrators, animators etc etc. i expect to come away from it with total brain and sensory overload from my tiny little life here with the two kids but i also expect it to be exciting, inspiring etc. That will be 2 days just for me i cant wait i need it.

For those of you who can't make it to the event i am sending the link of Amy Sol, who will be speaking at the event, have a look at her work its fantastic.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Reflection


Here is one i have been trying to finish off for a while now. It never really had a plan of where to go .. so now it kinda feels a bit lost. I am thinking maybe posting it will help me think of where i want it to go from here... so here goes.

Family Art Stories

Today i wanted to highlight a new blog, its really good idea. I have to admit i was a little skeptical of it (i dont know why) but once i started reading it i was stuck there for a little while - be warned :).

The blog is about the stories behind art, in particular family stories behind art. Part of the purpose of the blog is to encourage people who wouldn't normally look / buy art to become interested in it via the stories behind it. (I hope that explains it correctly). I found myself actually telling one of the stories (the one about painting the portrait of the derelict) to my family on the weekend when we were talking about art it stuck with me that much.

It's well worth the look and a read if you have a bit of time. I love history and art i would love to have this kind of thing in my family. It makes me think more about the art that i am creating and the stories behind it which is something I have been thinking about for a while.

Anywho, take a look - http://familyartstoriesrubbo.wordpress.com/