Art School Waihi

Last Saturday the World's Smallest Art School was officially created. The launch of the Art School was a splendid formal occassion attended by such dignitaries and jet-setting glitterattis as Keri Ann and John.
Lucinda Williams entertained the guests live on the stereo and a sumptuous repast of home made plum wine was served.
The New Zealand Art School is unique in that it provides international no star Class Backpacker Accommodation for visiting artists and has solid financial backers including Waimata Kiwifruit Packhouse where John works part-time for minimum wage.
Built upon a firm foundation of vast imagination and endless hope the school is truly infinite in potential.
You, one or two of your friends and some other people are welcome to visit, attend classes and bring something nice for morning tea like chocolate eclairs anytime.
All are welcome. And if you are a musician you get free entry to the beer fridge and plum wine stash.
We'll let you know when you've had enough.
Fuckin amazing or what?!!
And this is only the beginning, I'm like, Wow man! Let's go!


At the New Zealand Art School we support and provide succour and much needed vital assistance to repressed minorities like children.
And their labour is so cheap!

Painted Life Drawings 7 April '10

At life drawing class I am continueing to experiment with fast acrylic painting. This one is painted on a canvas that had a not so good fast life study on it that I scrubbed out with solvent and painted over with primer in order to reuse the canvas.
I am trying to get, every week, something magic in one go. Don't think this one will last too long, I painted, then overpainted, the figure 3 times and painted and painted again the background 5 times.
Overworked. I kinda like the colours though.

One Hundred Strokes ( and what it will do)

After brushing Soraya's hair with one hundred strokes she not only had great looking hair but also felt great and had to try on and show me her two best dresses, kiss her Dad and pose for photos like a fashion model. Grooming and playing dress-up and getting all excited and then I shoot off home and leave her Dad to face the consequences.
Other peoples children are the best fun and there is no down side.
And anyway what would I know or care about red food colouring, too much sugar and over excitement. Cleaning that up is the parent's job . . . .

Portraits of Children 2; Enter the Rat ! !

Soraya, Stardust and Winona

I can use this and two other photos to get the second portrait right. I was hoping to draw a finished portrait from life but that dream, like many another, ended up in the too hard basket.

Here I am on Easter Monday hard at work tuning up the portrait of Winona I began on Easter Saturday.
Soraya has grabbed my camera, Winona stole and hid my clip on sunnies and I must fondle a rat in a desperate attempt to coax a little girl to SIT STILL!!!
No way.
I count myself lucky I was able to coax Winona into sitting for a photo for the several seconds she begrudgingly favoured me with.

Portraits of Children

This is a work in progress, a commission to make a portrait of a friend's daughter, Winona, first sketch above, second sketch below.
I have not caught her yet, it's a good likeness but the magic isn't there. I've gotten familiar with Winona's features though.
Try again tomorrow morning. I want to get this from life and not use the camera at all but we will see what we will see. . . . It's a nice way to spend mornings over the Easter break anyway.

A 20 Minute Portrait Painting

At life drawing class I am exploring fast painting from life and encouraging the other artists to come along for the ride.

Waihi Printmaking Class

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

Creative Waihi hired me to run a printmaking class for beginners.
Two hours a week for 6 weeks.
If you know anything about printmaking you will know that that is an almost impossibly short time to have 13 total beginners each produce a pleasing print at the end of but all went well and the class was a success.
To begin with I was teacher and we went through preparing the plates, applying the grounds and transferring the various designs and etching the plates in acid.
Then came the first printing and we discovered that all the plates were overbitten and not printing well because of my underestimation of the strength of the acid and the time the plates should spend in the acid.
Week 4 I softened the ink with plate oil, introduced best quality printmaking paper, increased the press pressure to the max and encouraged the students to leave some plate colour so as not to wipe off too much ink.
These measures worked and reasonable results were achieved.
Week 5 and 6 they all went crazy!
My expensive paper was vanishing at an alarming rate, they were tearing into all the coloured ink and making their own colours, queueing at the press, not listening to me, not going home at home time but working on and on. Ink and mess all over the place. Like kids in a toy shop on a sugar and colouring rush. The energy was amazing, the time flew by, as no one was listening to me I had to teach by example and inked a few plates in unusual ways and introduced texture effects and was constantly interrupted by pleas, demands and questions so my head was spinning. It was an amazing experience and we got some great results and many printmaking techniques explored and many interesting and elusive effects changing a simple and pleasant design into something much more.
The poor things are now all addicted to printmaking.
My God! What have I done!!

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.

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.

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'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

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.

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.

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.