Reflections « Jennie’s Palette

Archive for the 'Reflections' Category

Dec

New Nude: Lazy

By Jennie 1 Comment

Categories: Nudes and Reflections

Lazy - 20 x 8 Oils on Canvas by Jennie

I’m still working on smaller images and refining my techniques. the smaller you work, the more precise you need to be so I am learning a lot about myself, my techniques and patience. I think it is really paying off. While I have not created as many works as I wanted this year - the overall quality has improved substantially and I have to take pride in that! last year I did a lot of pieces in a rush for exhibitions, this year I’ve really been focussing more on my own work and evolving. I want to experiment more but I feel like I have the freedom at the moment to do so.

This piece was a great deal of fun. I think I am getting more confident to play with angles and perspective and I am really enjoying experimenting with new things. It’s fun to let my brain ramble the way it wants to with no set theme or concept. still nudes though, I can’t get tired of them!

Technorati Tags: art, creating art, Nude, painting

Sep

Adrift

By Jennie 0 Comments

Categories: Rambles and Reflections

Reaching - 18 x 36 Acrylic and Gesso on Canvas by Jennie
This Painting is For Sale

I am feeling a bit adrift in my career at the moment. I think being stuck between two artistic seasons can be quite confusing to say the least. the US season is hotting up which is great, I have a lot of calls to respond to, I’m selling online, but I want to work on exhibiting.

Without a doubt my work is better accepted in the US. my sales are better and I am receiving gallery offers all from overseas. this is wonderful, but I am facing a situation where I create paintings for an exhibition then crate them up and send them out without being able to attend my own shows. Some of you know that I have received an offer for a solo at a commercial gallery in Montreal. I’m delighted and am trying to raise the funds to ship my works and hopefully to be able to attend, but with the issues with my pension I haven’t been able to make a start.

I would love it if I could add some focus here as well, networking is easier and being able to attend shows means I can build my collector base better- but something keeps holding me back from pushing in Australia. I don’t know what it is - maybe I am just afraid of talking face to face these days.

Tags: art, art world, artist, creating art, gallery, musing

Sep

Do Unnatural Acts have a Place in The arts?

By Jennie 4 Comments

Categories: News and Reflections

Nude Drawing by Hitler

This echoes an age-old conundrum from the world of art. Can you value work produced by someone whose private life and acts you find appalling? Do the proclivities of those responsible for artistic or intellectual works have to be taken into account in their appreciation?
BBC NEWS | Magazine | Can the art of a paedophile be celebrated?:

I don’t know the answer to this, it’s something I’ve pondered at length over the years. This article starts with the debate over whether to ban textbooks written by a paedophile and examine other controversial works by reprehensible artists. this is an eternal question in the arts, part of what we are drawn to is the mystique and danger of these renegade artists, but when is it too much? when does it step beyond mystique to horrifying - and does the art itself change with the knowledge of the depravities that artists or capable of?

it’s been said that one of the marks of genius is unnatural sex drives, I can’t help but think of this when I consider these cases. it isn’t an excuse but I do think it might be a ..symptom, I guess. I think there is something in creative drives that can cause an instability that can easily slip over. for some artists it’s merely a depression or frustration and for others it can lead to horrible acts, violence and even murder. again, this is not an excuse for the acts that many artists have committed over the years (Hirst’s for the love of God not withstanding). Hitler was actually an accomplished artist, and Caravaggio was an accomplished murderer. I try to divorce my feelings about the artist and their lives from the works. It’s very difficult sometimes (especially with Hirst), but I think individual works need to be taken on their own merits and not upon the artist’s. critically anyway, individually I do admit to a very unartistic squeamishness.

Tags: art, art news, art world, artist, hitler, paedophilia, philosophy, politics

Aug

Nudity is an insult in Iraq

By Jennie 2 Comments

Categories: Reflections

Reflection - Oils on Canvas 36 x 21" by Jennie

Art is withering in Iran and Iraq, according to articles in the LA Times. Sculpture is considered idolatrous and the painting of a nude is considered an insult. The art galleries, if any are left, are dusty and filled with cobwebs. Car bombings, kidnappings, gunfights and mortar blasts litter the landscape of life. Check points have been established to ensure obedience to strict dress codes.

When there is no expression of the human imagination, what remains is violence and hatred. If art dies, we are robbed of our humanity. If the individual expression of human creativity is suppressed, what is left?
Karen Macedonio: If Human Creativity Dies, What is Left? - Living Now on The Huffington Post:

This article examines several of the things I have said in the past. Art and creativity are seen as luxuries, in different school systems, in business and in our attitudes. I maintain that art is necessary as breathing, it’s own separate life-cycle of creation and inspiration. when we see something that inspires us, emotionally, physically, creatively, it is nourishing our minds and spurs us on to make something, do something, say something. for that moment we are entranced and our minds are opened to the possibilities inherent to creation. and when we are aware of the possibilities - anything can happen. when art, music and books are drained from a culture then the color or the flavor is lost from society - impacting our lives, and our children’s lives and building a grey wall that sees only what is - not what can be. and in a country racked by war, what is is a very dark place.

Pushing the creative envelope may seem like an imposition, a threat to the way things are. I don’t suggest that nudes should be on billboards across iraq, but perhaps brushing the dust out of the galleries and getting a reaction, even a bad one, is better than an indifference to the arts and the slow eradication of creativity. perhaps, instead of troops, we should send artists, writers and musicians and bring some color and creativity to a bleak country wracked by war.

Tags: art, censorship, controversy, creating art, iraq, nudes, philosophy, war

Jul

Hiding Away

By Jennie 0 Comments

Categories: Reflections

Hiding - 18 x 18 Oils on Canvas by Jennie
This Painting is For Sale

For the past few weeks I have been stuck in a hole. I’ve been shutting myself away from friends and family and not bothering to stir myself to focus on anything. I’ve been doing little bits here and there but not completing anything. partially this is because I’ve been sick and the cold has gotten into my injury making me sluggish, but mostly I think it’s because every so often we need to hide in a hole for a while and pretend the world doesn’t exist.

Now, I have decided, it’s time to get out of this hole and back into my usual pace. I am still going to try to keep my working hours to less than 12 per day, and I am going to focus on maintaining things I already have in place, rather than spiraling off in all directions looking for the newest thing. One of these, that has been sorely neglected, is my blog.

Darren Rowse, of Problogger fame, has set a project for his readers this week called Rediscover Your Blogging Groove. this couldn’t have come at a better time for me, and even though I am a bit behind I am going to work on this project and try to recapture my blogging spirit once again.

Tags: blog project, blogging

Apr

Back from Festival

By Jennie 0 Comments

Categories: Reflections

Festival Sketch,
by Jennie

Well, I am back, slowly getting into the swing of things again and resting up from a full easter. I am part of a historical reenactment group and use it to indulge my love of costume making, singing and historical research (yes I am a geek, but we already knew that!). the event was a week long camping event and although I couldn’t last the entire distance I did have fun.

I also got back into one of my old habits. When I was a kid and dreamed of being an artist, I was told that many artists sharpened their hands and eyes and characterization by sitting somewhere busy and drawing passers-by. candid portraits of people who don’t know you’re there, they don’t pose, they don’t stay still and you need to be on the ball to capture the essence of their face before you lose it all together. I used to sit in food courts and just draw faces for hours on end.

It took me a while to slide back into the mindset, but once I did I couldn’t stop. I bought a new sketchbook, leather bound (for a revoltingly cheap price) and took it everywhere, drawing. at least until my pencil broke. I intend to take this book to events and try to capture looks and faces that inspire me.

Tags: art, artist, portrait, sca

Mar

testing

By Jennie 0 Comments

Categories: Reflections

Ova - 24x 30 Acrylic and Gesso on Canvas<br />
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Ova - 24x 30 Acrylic and Gesso on Canvas,
by Jennie

Apologies about the rather emo post yesterday, I am experimenting in some new media, working completely outside of my normal sphere of knowledge or control. most of my techniques have evolved from practices I have been working on for years. Now, for the first time in a very long time, I am working in something completely new and different. a media that is very temperamental with completely alien control.

The thing about testing is that it helps you gain experience and work out all the kinks before bringing it into the real world. it’s good to have these bad experiences now and work out where you went wrong before destroying a proper piece. I am learning all the time but it is exceptionally frustrating, especially when it all goes horribly wrong. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and when something doesn’t go right (or wrong in the right way) I come down hard.

Mar

Seclusion

By Jennie 0 Comments

Categories: Creating Art and Reflections

Cocoon,
by Jennie

Sorry I haven’t been posting as much lately, I seem to be going through one of my periodic antisocial phases when I hide away from the world. I liken these phases to being in a cocoon because my art focus triples and usually I come out of it with something I didn’t have before- a belief, a technique, new ideas, new ways of looking.. It isn’t something I can force, if I try I lose whatever it was I was trying to gain- like a soap bubble.

I think that over the past couple of months I have been trying to force it. to push through with my usual bullheaded workaholic tendencies. I have been pushing out paintings before their time has come in response to some inane clock ticking away in my head. I think that is why my latest pieces have been very mediocre - I need to work on their timetable, not mine.

Mar

Abstract Shapes or Abstract Ideas?

By Jennie 0 Comments

Categories: Reflections

Picture 1,
by noInfluenceArt

noinfluenceArt — Like the title portrays, this program shows you art without any influence,
its just random.
Its Computer Generated Art, Why dont you see what your mac can draw?

Computers do a great job of drawing without any outside influences.
Made to inspire artists to think outside the box.
noinfluenceArt 1.0 - MacUpdate:

I have fallen in love with this toy. as an inspirational tool it is very interesting but also in terms of art influence it is fascinating.

noInfluenceArt was made with the idea to inspire artists. I certainly do find it inspiring, the shapes work in a similar way to a rorschach test creating an image in the mind rather than on the screen.

but does it make a comment on art creation as well? on modern art consciously created from abstract shapes versus the random creations of a computer? I hazard a guess to say both. like the way a rorschach works these seemingly random creations draw something from our minds and we assign a meaning, a form, a function. Abstract art and software like this frequently rely on mathematical constructs that we process automatically, like a complex piece of music.

Of course there will always be some people who look at modern art and see random shapes, just as they may see it in this software, but people who are rich in imagination and experience will draw something from both. and that still remains my personal definition of art.

Tags: abstract, Art, artist, musing, philosophy

Mar

Cycles

By Jennie 0 Comments

Categories: Creating Art and Reflections

Sketch,
by Jennie

I seem to be in a loop of trying to get motivated to do anything and sketching franticly, putting in marathon efforts. I tend to be a fairly sporadic person as it is, but it seems to have spun into a very strong cycle of creation and recovering from said creation. All I seem to be creating are ideas, I don’t have the energy to commit to anything finished but I am so excited by the ideas that are emerging. my work seems to be evolving, gaining in complexity and emotive content. it’s a bizarre time but I guess I have to ride out these waves until it calms down and wait to see what emerges from the storm. it’s exciting and terrifying at the same time.

Tags: artist, creating art, inspiring