A Sculptor lives next door

Trevor next door works in stone and bone and his partner Pam is a painter, mural artist and graphic artist like me.
Trevor has three commissioned tombstones on the go at the moment and Pam helps him sometimes with design drawings and I have occasionally helped Trevor with aspects of portrait design drawings and enlargement of design drawings for carvings.
Like mural and portrait commissions can often be, these tombstone commissions are very personal and close to a clients heart.
The privilege of trust and the pleasure of helping someone is often part of living the life of an artist.

One for Bernie Krausse, Fantails in the house

In the indigenous cosmology (read: local Maori legends..) Fantails inside the house herald messages from the Ancestors. Fantails are extremely aerobatic and catch minute insects on the wing, mosquitos, fruit flies, midges etc. and in the bush fly close around people to everyones delight and chirp away gaily but they are not being friendly it's just that the stink of human beings attracts tiny insects and the fantails come round for a feed! The message from the Ancestors they are bringing me is, I believe, John there are tiny flying insects in your house! The Fantails have been coming in the house since I tore up the floors in a couple of rooms of the house to replace piles etc. and took down the ceilings and parts of walls that were stuffed and I guess removing all the crap released the smell of decaying wood and attracted insects. The demolition is over now and I am rebuilding what was removed. A busy time. The first thing I did when I bought this house 5 years ago was plant native and Australian plants that birds love and this is now paying off

The Weekly Portrait: Sean in a green robe and the Artist with a chopped up hand

I drew our young model at the last life drawing class for the term and the next day, Thursday before Easter, I got my left hand sliced open for a carpal tunnel operation. Had both hands done now.

Art and Music Exhibition: a celebration..

The War Memorial Hall in Waihi's main street has been hired for Queen's birthday weekend, 29 May to 1 June for an exhibition of the artworks that have been developed from the studies of the local life drawing class, some artworks from local primary and secondary schools and local poets and musicians will be performing all through the two and a half days the exhibition is on.
Plenty of work to organize this but all involved are keen and we should have lots of fun.
The musicians shown here I photographed 2 Saturdays ago so Sheryl (that's her above on the Stratocaster) can make line drawings and paintings of the band. This band is called No Boys Allowed and these lovely ladies and many other musician friends and aquaintances will be entertaining the art and music lovers at our exhibition.

The Artist's House

It is time to renovate the artist's house. It is what is known locally as a 'pre 1914 goldminer's cottage', has been extensively modified and enlarged by several owners over the past few decades and it is a house with loads of character..... a tad too much character for my liking so I got stuck in and ripped out the ceilings and floors of 3 rooms.
A major undertaking. No hot water for a few weeks. And in the middle of this project I decide to put on an exhibition. A large complicated exhibition. Busy time to say the least but I am happy to have a challenge....

Life Drawing Class: Mother and Daughter models

Our young model, Samantha, has a go at drawing her Mum who was our other model at the class last night

Samantha throws us her special Star pose and the crowd goes wild..

Mother and Daughter together. Trying to draw two people in short poses was a challenge for everyone but lots of fun for Samantha's bright energy just lit up the whole room.

The Weekly Portrait: Eli

A portrait of my son Eli, drawn on the prepared canvas 2 years ago from life and finished today.
This is painted in oils and shark oil

The Weekly Portrait: Nuba the Staffy

Last night at the Life Drawing class our model brought along her dog, Nuba, so I took time out from looking out for the various artist's interests to draw her.
In this pose Nuba is obediantly playing "dead dog" and is laying beside her Mistress who is sitting on the podium with her arm around Nuba.
If you can't see our model's arm around the dog it's because you have no imagination at all or maybe because I didn't draw it. You choose.

The Weekly Portrait: the life drawing student

At last night's life drawing class I was not in good form, I'd had lots of stress from family stuff right in the middle of major renovations of my house. Stressed out and run down so I took time out from looking out for the class for a bit and did a large drawing as a personal rest and recreation exercise and then like a child I coloured it in. Sigh..
Oil pastels and water soluble oil pastels on paper

The Weekly Portrait: Georgia at the Life Drawing class

My drawing of Georgia, pastels on sugar paper

Janice's drawing of Georgia, pastels on wrapping paper
This drawing has a lovely feel to it.

The Weekly Portrait: Self Portrait, Azaria age just 6

I love kids art. I've used it as part of the design in many of my public art murals, faithfully reproduced borrowed kids art mostly or directly painted on the wall as part of the mural by the kids themselves where scaffolding height and safety concerns allow.

Truth is I am trying to get back to the freedom of expression that kids art has.
They inspire me at least as much as all the old masters of art
It is a beautiful world that we live in dear reader
Especially if you don't watch television or read newspapers
Life, growth and relationships and the small part we all have to play in the big picture.... kids art keeps me sane and grounded . . .

The Weekly Portrait: Heidi

This commission to decorate an antique oak door with Souvenir de Malmaison roses, violets and a renaissance style angels face became, in the fullness of time, a portrait of Heidi.
It took me ages to do, for reasons that I won't go into here, but when I finally delivered it to Heidi I really missed seeing it in my studio.

Souvenir de Malmaison Roses

Painting commissions one learns a lot about many different things. In Heidi's painting on an old oak door she wanted Sounenir de Malmaison roses. Heidi is a keen gardener and these are one of her favourite roses.
I learnt that the Empress Josephine, years after Napoleons death, had a rose garden at her mansion; Malmaison. To a visitor she gave these roses she had bred and said they were a souvenir de Malmaison. This was around 1840 and I guess if that's so she must have been an old girl. Anyway it's a great story. The roses are big white blooms with a subtle pink to them.

The Weekly Portrait: Penny

Isn't she gorgeous? Penny is here playing her Bodhran as percussion for the all girl group "No Boys Allowed" she is singing harmony with.
It's Waitangi Day here in New Zealand which is a national holiday to celebrate political stuff from our colonial past, an agreement between the Maori and the British Crown back in 1840, read: we get Friday off to go to the Waitete Cafe and enjoy live music! Yay! Such pastimes are essential stuff for artist types like myself.... keep me dander up, you know, bathe in the warm glow of the atmosphere of creative people enjoying life....

The Art of Preserving Plums

Plum chutney, this is particularly tasty and keeps for years
2 kg plums
1/2 kg onions
2 cups raisins
1 clove garlic
4 cups soft brown sugar
2 tsp salt
1 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
4 cups malt vinegar (approx)
Chop and put all in pan. Add enough vinegar to almost cover. Stir well. Boil gently, stirring frequently about 2 hours or until thick and jam-like. Plum stones float to the top and can be removed
Put in sterilized jars. To sterilize jars, clean them, dry them and then cook them in the oven, put the hot chutney in the hot jars and cover with a clean cloth till they cool to just warm and then put on cellophane lids with rubber bands and then the jar's original metal screw top. Done!

This is some of the plums still left after I have picked more than I need for a years supply of plum jam and plum sauce and about a four year supply of plum chutney. As you can see the weight of the fruit bends the branches to the ground. Two branches broke and many were propped up with stakes. This tree's a freak of nature and creates so much work for me at this time of year 'cause I can't bear to waste those hundreds of huge dark red plums.
Today's job is to bottle this plum sauce and all the jam. All this work was in the middle of drawing designs for a proposed mural on Tairua Library. The first designs for the Tairua Library mural were delivered to Alicia at the Thames and Coromandel District Council yesterday and finishing the 2009 Plum harvest can be done and dusted by the end of today.

Plum Sauce
2.7 kg ( 6 lbs ) plums
1.7 litres ( 3 pints ) malt vinegar
1 kg ( 2 lbs ) soft brown sugar
2 teaspoons all spice
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon ground mace
6 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons ground ginger
50 g ( 2 ozs ) garlic
Put all ingredients into preserving pan and boil together until reduced to a pulp (about 2 - 3hours ) Plum stones float to the top and can be removed. Stain through sieve and bottle in sterilized bottles ( I don't strain mine)

Plum Jam
to 2.7 kg ( 6 lbs ) plums add 1 1/4 cups water. Cook slowly until fruit is pulped. Add 2 kg
( 4 & 1/2 lbs ) soft brown sugar and boil quickly for about 15 minutes. Test. Stones may be picked out as they float to the surface.
Put into sterilized jars and keep in the fridge once opened

Tairua Library, a wall that wants a mural

This is my current job. A mural is wanted on this wall and I will be submitting designs for it and hopefully will get the job. Wish me luck.

The Weekly Portrait: Andy a.k.a. Malibu Man a.k.a. the Karangahake Surfer

Andy's portrait composition worked out from life in chalk pastel, to be finished off later with paints and pastels in the studio from photos I took during the sitting? standing, whatever.

Andy's looking for a 9 foot board and until he gets one we had to mock one up for the purposes of the portrait. I reckon I can use artistic license to paint a 9 foot board in the picture.
Andy's recently come back from a four year stay in the U.S. Most of this time he spent in Malibu as a surf/beach bum, bar fly and handyman. Andy's got a degree in Physics and we enjoy drinking and talking about the Universe. Having interesting friends is a must for an Artist, this one anyway..
My son and grandson are back to stay for a while and my son Sam likes mowing lawns so the place is looking great! I've always got more important things to do than lawn mowing it seems.
Check out the great weather, it is the height of Summer here in New Zealand and it looks like being another hot one. Yay!

Portrait of a Woman

I like this painting very much. It's a commissioned portrait drawn from life straight onto the canvas with chalk pastels and finished off in the studio with chalk pastels and acrylic paints.
The pose I chose was one which spoke to me of Judy's personality. The Anthureums happened to be there in the room and I chose them as background for the painting to please myself with bright primary colours and blues and greens which are my favourite colours. Judy loves the colour orange so I imagined that the red and yellow of the Anthureum flower adds up to orange and it turns out that Anthureums have a special meaning to Judy and her family so my spontaneous choice of this plant was a serendipitous event.
Magic! Angelic guidence! I like this painting very much...

How to access your Right side of the Brain Potential !

How to access your Right side of the Brain potential.
Step One: Smash in the left side of your head by falling out of a moving old car with dodgy door latches head first into rock.
Step Two: Survive this event
Step Three: Begin to draw, dream and read
Step Four: Continue Step Three ad infinitum

Woodcut Print; Shirley

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