Wednesday 24 March 2010

Painted Life Drawings 24 3 10



The life drawing class is now a private venture because community education budget cuts by a Government that believes in debt and poverty and other unimaginitive ideas has completely destroyed a 50 year tradition of Adult Community Education in High Schools all over the country.
With the assistance of the headmaster of our local College we are able to continue our class in the Drama room rent free.
Yay!
I have no real beginners to teach drawing to at present so I am endevouring to further inspire the regulars at the class with encouragement to try fast and free painting of the model and to get away from realism.
If Mr. Devery the Drama teacher whose room we use on Wednesday nights ever finds out I am encouraging the use of paint in his domain I will be growled at so I am taking extra special care to ensure the carpet remains pristine and paint free and no one will ever know. 'Cept you, of course, but I trust you to keep our little secret.
I am also finding more models, not necessarily nude but people with interesting faces or figures or dress sense to keep alive a sense of novelty and challenge.
The paintings above are my first attempts at teaching by example fast and free painting from life.

Sunday 21 March 2010

Table Top Etching Press For Sale


Etching Press Sale Enquiries: johnnymulvay@vodafone.co.nz



This little beauty was hastily rushed into service last week at the printmaking class I am teaching on Thursday nights in one of the art rooms at Waihi College and is being finished off to ready it for eventual sale.
I have six other etching presses in varying stages of completion. One of the table top presses I will have to keep for the class and one free standing press I will have to retain for my own use and five will go to new homes. This press was sold to a Wellington print-maker.



Monday 15 March 2010

Etching Presses For Sale


Etching Press Sale Enquiries:
johnnymulvay@vodafone.co.nz





I had a crap couple of weeks dear reader; I had a piece of steel removed from my eye that got in there I guess from all the grinding and sanding of ancient lead paint and steel and cast iron that these antique mangles are made of.
Then the eye continued to play up like nothing had changed, then my old darling cat, my most loyal buddy for 16 and a half years died and then my best girl, one I wanted to give all my love to, dumped me and I felt like I was living in a tragi-comedy soap opera.
Fuck
Then today I cruised on down to Porters Engineering and they had all six of the rollers for my three new etching presses machined down to shiny silver steel straight and true perfection.
Imagine my joy....
And I loosely assembled the three presses and photographed them.
They have only the final paint and press bed and press bed frames and felts to be made/added and they are ready to go! Yay!
Onward and upward, dodgy eye and dead favourite cat and brutally broken heart regardless eh?
Yeah, well, Porters Engineering are good but not that good dear reader.
I had to go down to the doctor, yes indeed I did, and that started with a trip up town to the hole in the wall to get out a hundred dollars and a wee visit to the local for 2 rums and one guinness and a Sandra Bullock comedy from the video store( I was hurting, you understand, there was pain, anguish and what-not) and then on to a mates place for medicine and some fine whiskey and then next door to another mates place to drink good home brewed beer and discuss life, death, the universe and love and sex and creativity and the possibility of creating a country music hit record of my tragic day/life...
We talked some crap and then, like a good boy, I went straight home to post the photos and this wee story.
Aint life grand?

Wednesday 10 March 2010

Wednesday's Life Drawing Class

At tonights life drawing class I got us a portrait model. I managed two drawings and this is the second one which is the better likeness

Tuesday 9 March 2010

Printmaking


Etching Press Sale Enquiries: johnnymulvay@vodafone.co.nz


This lithograph is a self portrait from some years ago


And this is a photo of some of my friends having fun, a recent photograph.
Like the people in the photo I have chosen to not have fear in my life and with this in mind and my love of printmaking I am teaching a printmaking course at our local high school with the theory in mind of 'we teach what we most want to learn'.
Not being an experienced printmaking tutor and being paid to give total beginners a good time and a good result at the course has forced me to be at my best and, like most teachers, to put in a whole lot more hours at the job than I am being paid for.
So it is that I am learning the most and working the hardest and the responsibility for others is what is driving me to get right into the subject.
There are those that do and there are those that teach..
Bummer. It's true, it's true, good art comes but rarely from my hand these days and I have to pay the bills.
I am also making etching presses to sell to printmakers which also pays the bills so my life for this year is not so much about making art as about making art making machines and fostering the abilities of budding artists.
Not much chance of my ego being blown out of proportion like that and maybe that's a good thing.

Thursday 4 March 2010

The Athlete at Life Drawing


At the recent Waitangi Day music festival here in Waihi I saw our local newspaper reporter crouched in front of me taking photos of one of the bands and I was dazzled by the beauty of her long and lean and sinewy arms and hands and immediately swooped on her and suggested she model for our life drawing class.
Sally agreed and told me she was not only a long distance runner but also a long distance swimmer.
Not a trace of fat does she have and Sally is a life drawing students dream in terms of the muscles and tendons of the body.

Monday 1 March 2010

Press Raw Materials

Etching Press Sale Enquiries: johnnymulvay@vodafone.co.nz


Two free standing etching presses and one table top etching press are what I am now working on full-time. Should be finished in two weeks and they better be 'cause I'm booked in to do some work for my accountant, Valda on the 21st and I want photos of these three beauties for sale on this blog and displayed in every teaching print studio and art school in the country by then.

A plan and a deadline. Wish me luck.