Tara

June 13, 2013 by Tara Leave a Comment

New painting alert. New new painting in fact.

I’ve been painting over some of the unloved old and unfinished canvases in my studio gradually since moving, and this is one such example. In fact, this one’s had two incarnations before this third and final one. See here for the first one {crikey, two boyfriends ago! And kind of embarrassing, but also real}, and here for some of the process from one to two.

It’s always a risk for me to show the paintings I cover up; sometimes people wonder why I replaced something they liked with something they think is shit. Fortunately, I don’t mind about that. Also I love a good before and after.

in the beginning {initially started about three years ago I think}

I wanted to make a piece that used a quote, and after some searching through the bajillion nuggets of bite sized wisdom I’ve gathered into my quotes file, I realised that I actually wanted to just use some of my own damn wisdom. Because let’s face it, I’m full of it.

incarnation number two, painted in december last year. this was never going to be the end of it, it was more an experiment.

So these previously neglected old paintings are gradually becoming objects to love again, and this one in its newly-lavished-with-love state has a real soft spot in my heart. I was about to elaborate on why that is when I realised I don’t actually know. Perhaps it’s the colours. Or the circle that is almost a prerequisite in my work. Or the words that, although I wrote them, I really can’t take credit for.

Who knows. Doesn’t really matter. The point is, now I can see those words writ large every time I come into the living room, and they bring me back to myself, remind me where to focus my attention, and just calm me down.

The words are from my poem ‘Peace Underneath‘.

Where the Jewels Are
mixed media on canvas
30 x 30 x 2 inches

Filed Under: mixed media art, mixed media painting, poetry, process Tagged With: mixed media painting, reworking old paintings, where the jewels are painting

June 12, 2013 by Tara 1 Comment

Dear Summer

This is why I love you.

And also because you let me be here:

dude. you just don’t understand how much i love my swing.

And you send your sunsets through the windows of my studio {not that I’m up there much lately}:

And you inspire me to cook easy simple food like aubergine and feta, and carrot cake.

Other bonuses: getting to be barefoot all the time; eating meals outside; the colour of the sea on sunny days; no need for heating; reading in my swing; an all over tan {the joy of an un-overlooked roof terrace }; my plants are making flowers; windows open; light light light.

I love you. Please consider staying all year. Thanks.

Love Tara xxx

Filed Under: photography, studio, the beach Tagged With: art studio, cooking, garden, sea, summer, swing seat, the beach

June 10, 2013 by Tara 4 Comments

Or, ‘Index Card A Day’, as it’s also known.

a reminder that this is for FUN

I blame Instagram. I kept seeing people using the icad hashtag, so the inquiring mind had to follow the breadcrumbs and find out what that meant. Cause it looked like it meant art.

soft pastels

Turns out it’s a creative venture started by Tammy at Daisy Yellow. That link will take you to all the details if you feel like joining in ~ it’s not too late and there’s no need to ‘catch up’; just start where you are.

watercolour background and sharpies

It’s a very simple premise; get a stack of index cards, and each day do something creative on one, then share it with your creative comrades via a number of channels {instagram, flickr, blogs etc}.

a poem i wrote ‘the real you’, as abstract art

I’m sticking with Instagram, since that’s where I live when I’m not here, technologically speaking, and it helps me keep it small and doable. With summer finally here I’ve hardly been indoors, let alone in the studio, so this way I can keep my eye in, connect with other creative peeps and still have plenty of time to swing in my swing and get a tan. Priorities.

collage squares

You can see here my first week’s worth of index cards. The ones I bought are 4×6 inches, and rather disappointingly have lines on both sides, but still totally useable. Tammy recommends that as the largest size; maybe even go 3×5 inches. The whole point is it’s no biggie, not precious, just simple and fun and creative.

oil pastels

Because I’m not in the studio much {although I have plenty of ideas mulling about in my bonce, and have been working minimally on a couple of pieces}, I’m enjoying getting a little creative blast each day on my way into or back from the garden or beach.

some words i heard today and liked. now on my fridge.

Keeping it all very low key seems to make me more likely to keep going, and it’s fun to see what everyone else comes up with. This ‘episode’ lasts throughout June and July, and you can jump in any time. Maybe see you over at #icad!

Filed Under: art development, creativity Tagged With: daisy yellow blog, icad, icad2013, index card a day, quick art

June 6, 2013 by Tara 3 Comments

I considered doing a ‘love it’ post on this one, but it didn’t seem to fit. My ‘love it’ posts are focused on painters usually, as an extension of my own work and where I find inspiration in that medium.

‘Inspired by’ seemed a better choice; it’s not a formal or regular feature I do, but it fits. On this occasion however I’m not inspired to try out a technique, or learn from how another artist creates a particular style or artwork. I’m inspired in my soul, for want of a better way of putting it. I think you will understand what I mean, looking at these images.

Gregory Colbert is a photographer. I love photography as both a hobby and as a form of creative expression, but I don’t tend to buy it as art for my home. In terms of being viscerally moved, for me it tends to come from paint, the movements and feelings and energy of the painter transcribed onto canvas that I can feel in my skin and my heart when I stand in front of it.

Occasionally though, I come across a photographer whose work I absolutely dream of having on my walls, just so I could stand in front of it each day and feel my heart expand.

It is I think testament not just to Gregory Colbert’s extraordinary photographs but also to my recent breaking open {and its subsequent and ongoing consequences} that I was moved to tears just looking at his work on my little computer screen.

If you’ve read The Alchemist or The Little Prince you may have felt what these images show. I’ve mentioned before Paulo Coelho’s phrase ‘the soul of the world’, and for me these photographs show us what that looks like.

I am skirting the subject of actually trying to describe them, and really, any words I came up with would just be my own filter and detract from what anyone can see with their own eyes, and more to the point, with their own soul.

I only suggest that you take a few moments to really look, to soak up each image. Beyond the perfect compositions and beautiful specimens of the human and animal kingdom, look at what lies beyond that.

This is what Colbert says of his work:

I think of my life’s work as a celebration of all of nature, an orchestra that plays not the sounds of one musician, the music of one species, but rather an expression of all of nature’s songs.

To see more of his heart opening photographs and learn more about his work, visit his website.

Filed Under: artists, inspired by, photography Tagged With: gregory colbert, photography

June 1, 2013 by Tara 5 Comments

I can totally look at that title and be like, thewhatnow? Or, yeahyeahwhateverblahblahtheusualwoowooshit. And then I can also look and it and nod sagely and go, ah yes. Giving, receiving, all one. Like a wise old yogi. Or Yoda. It depends who I’m being when I’m looking at it.

In the first instance I’m peeping out from my limited ego self; the one I created to protect me a long time ago as a response to the world I saw and experienced around me. No longer useful and characteristically narrow minded, pinched off from anything joyful, and sceptical as hell.

In the second instance I am my Unlimited Wise Self, if you like. I KNOW the truth of those words because I have experienced it, and that is in the end the only way to know. You can read about it, talk about it, hear about it, think about it, but the knowing will not come until it’s experienced. Sometimes I’m one self, sometimes the other. Naturally I am working towards living continuously as the latter.

I have learned with extra clarity recently that when I feel like shit ~ angry, sad, irritable, frustrated, that kind of thing ~ the best thing to do is often to stop whatever I’m doing, get out of the house, and head to the beach. It used to be because the sea soothes me. That is still true, but I’ve realised there’s more to it. There’s a whole cycle I’ve unwittingly created, and it involves giving and receiving, and thus returning to centre.

Every step of the cycle involves giving and receiving, and each time I look at it I see more ways that that is true.

It starts with a walk on the beach; the beach gives me peace and quiet, reconnection to my soul, and stones to create {more} beauty with. It also gives me other unexpected treasures that I might use in art or just keep for a bit before returning them back to the beach. A guitar pick, wave worn driftwood, sea glass, monopoly money. {True story.} If I’m feeling especially gross I might ‘give’ my thoughts and feelings to the sea to wash away. Seriously, the giving and receiving is infinitely layered.

Next comes the part where I give the stones I chose a new life. Drawing and writing on them, colouring them in, just the smooth weight of them in my hands while I watch a movie in the evening is great meditative, simple, quick creative nourishment.

I confess the first time I decided to do a ‘guerilla stone drop’ as I have been calling my act of leaving the decorated stones in public places for people to find, was not as philanthropic as I might want it to seem! I just had them piling up at home and didn’t know what to do with them all. I know some people sell their stone art but these are so simple and basic ~ they take minutes to make, sometimes less ~ and I somehow don’t feel right about selling something made essentially by nature.

Sometimes it’s a message, sometimes it’s just a silly little picture.

So I started leaving them about the place, on benches, on posts, on the sea wall. I have absolutely no idea what becomes of any of them. Maybe they fall off and get lost, maybe the rain washes away the words and pictures, maybe sometimes people find them and feel cheered or comforted or amused by them. The best thing about this for me is that it is one place where I can fully detach from the outcome. I have no need to know what happens to them. I of course hope they sometimes go home in someone’s pocket, but it doesn’t matter. The sea gave them to me, I give them embellishment, then they move on, perhaps to give pleasure somewhere else.

In fact just the act of leaving them in selected places ~sometimes furtively as for some reason I don’t want anyone to see me doing so! ~ is sometimes enough to alter my mood. I get a little buzz of excitement. Perhaps the person who finds this one will need exactly the encouragement or sense of not being alone in the world that it offers.

Other kinds of treasures the beach gives me

I’ve discovered that giving, whether to someone specific or in a more general way, is giving to myself. It sounds obvious but there is a very specific connected feeling that comes with that, like a circle completing itself. I’ve been finding other ways to give while I’m squirrelled away on this retreat because it helps me to feel connected to the outside world even though I’m choosing not to actively be a part of it right now; the endless baking I seem to need to do produces more than I can eat on a regular basis, so I’ve started leaving it on the doorstep of friends. They love it! Then again, who wouldn’t love unexpected free baked goods.

It’s developing too; I’ve started taking care with how I package the gifts, writing notes, using ribbon, maybe including a painted stone or something else. I LOVE gift wrapping stuff. And I love to bake knowing that it’s not just for me. And it gets me out of the house, doing my deliveries. It takes me by the beach, where I find more stones…

Filed Under: creativity, healing, journey Tagged With: decorated stones, giving and receiving, guerilla stones, heart stones, painted stones

May 28, 2013 by Tara 4 Comments

I’ve been privately gorging on Christine Peloquin’s work for some weeks now. My ongoing interest in the face and body as parts of a painting is reflected clearly in her beautiful work. Also the way she uses fabric and collage as the base of each painting mirrors my own love of this kind of mixed media.

This video is a fascinating look at her process and style. I was mesmerised and deeply inspired.

In her words {my emphasis}:

“My intention is to weave an autobiographical tapestry invoking and addressing universal issues such as philosophy, spirituality, sexuality, motherhood and self-awareness. Most of the titles come from appropriate words found in the collage. I believe that art and life is always about becoming more conscious, more aware, and more of yourself. For me, this includes life as an artist, a woman and a mother.”

I love the painting above, in particular since I learned its title: ‘Be What You Already Are’. Incredible capturing of the facial expressions too; the mask looks sad and wistful, but the real face looks serene, content and beautiful.

I was interested to note in the video that Christine talks about a recent move in her work away from the brighter, primary colours to a softer, lighter palette, something that I have noticed in my own work recently and heard others mention too.

Another element I love is the size of some of her paintings. She works from very small right up to enormous, and it’s the huge paintings, often segmented into squares, that really spark my inspiration.

Christine creates abstract paintings as well as figurative and portrait, which really allow the patterns and textures of the textiles and collage she uses to come through.

Christine has an Etsy shop and a Facebook page, and can also be found on Pinterest.

She has made what looks like a beautiful book of her paintings too.

Filed Under: artists, love it Tagged With: christine peloquin

May 25, 2013 by Tara 4 Comments

I don’t often say this about my own work, but I’ve just finished a painting I think is bloody brilliant.

If you paint you’ll know that sometimes there is flow and sometimes there isn’t, but when there is, when a painting just comes together almost on its own, the adrenaline and excitement can make hours pass in moments and when you look at what you and creative source produced together, you literally want to jump up and down and run about squealing like a five year old.

I wish it was always like that.

The process was smooth, a liquid combination of an idea seed and a series of actions. With this song by Jonatha Brooke on a loop:

I started with a white canvas, knowing only that I wanted to make a textural painting with a white base, and that I wanted to leave the edges of the canvas bare.

I started with a few squeezes of Quinacridone Red straight onto the canvas, which I smooshed around with my fingers til I had a rough square.

While it was still wet I stuck on some tissue and a couple of stamps, on a whim.

When it was dry I went in with thick globs of gesso and a palette knife, covering all the red but allowing some to show through.

Then some smears of crackle paste, which turned out to be rather old and lumpy, but it just added to the texture.

I let that dry overnight and ended up leaving it for a couple of days while I loosely held the painting in the back of my mind to see what would come next.

I knew I wanted a central image, something clean and simple, and for a while I thought it would be a figure, much like the one from my painting ‘Move’, but after rifling through various reference images and sketching a few shapes in pencil onto the painting, I could tell that wasn’t the way to go.

So I flicked through some old magazines I keep just for reference and cutting up, and I almost immediately found a photo of a herd of elephants. I didn’t even think about it, just started drawing.

I knew I definitely wanted a specific shade of blue around the elephant, so I painted in some Cerulean Blue Deep mixed with Titanium White around the initial sketch, and then starting to block in the darks and lights with Payne’s Grey and Titanium White.

It was interesting how I kept having to course correct; I’d find myself trying to get all the lines and lighting exactly right, and then remember that I was more interested in feel than accuracy. It kept it looser.

I went over the initial pencil lines with a black Stabilo all surface pencil, which I blended with a damp cotton bud. I wanted an outline but I wanted it soft and slightly broken.

I just kept going back and forth with the blocks of shading until I was happy.

Darkened some of the darks, and added a few chalk highlights which pick up the texture, and a layer of slightly darker blue directly around the elephant.

I love the texture of this painting, and the way the initial red just peeks through here and there, giving it some depth and background. And the way she is walking out of the painting towards you. I’ve called her Prajna, which means wisdom in Sanskrit I believe. {If I’m wrong about this, please let me know!}

I’ve hung her in the living room; she could easily be finished but part of me wants to see if there’s anything to add to really make her my own, something a little quirky. I’ve got a feeling to add some shimmer somewhere. Or perhaps the lack of circles is throwing me!

Elephant by Tara Leaver

Filed Under: art, mixed media art, mixed media painting, paintings, process Tagged With: elephant painting, mixed media elephant painting, wisdom elephant painting

May 24, 2013 by Tara 3 Comments

A couple more sketchbook portraits, drawn from reference images. With liberal use of my new friend the blending stick.

And this quick pencil and pastel sketch without a reference. I got annoyed afterwards because all my non-referenced portraits look the same. I’m slowly working my way through Misty Mawn’s Face to Face class and hoping the practice and assignments will allow me to expand my methods for putting a face together.

And this is my niece Amber with new puppy Frank. I wanted to make a really beautiful portrait and surprise my sister with it, but this first attempt, although I’m happy with it as a portrait, doesn’t actually look like her daughter. I’m thinking of trying it in a few different mediums; capturing the essence of someone’s spirit is hard! It’s all in the eyes I’m finding. Get them slightly off and you’ve drawn someone else.

I’m also working on a painting today that I’m really looking forward to sharing with you. Yay!

Filed Under: portraits, sketchbook, sketches Tagged With: face sketches, faces, sketchbook portraits

May 21, 2013 by Tara 5 Comments

There is what you might call an abundance of chat out there about gratitude and abundance. Sometimes it makes me want to punch people. Being grateful can sometimes seem so effing tedious and meaningless.

Obviously when I feel like that is exactly when I need to be finding things to be grateful for and noticing the abundance in my life the most, but sometimes, you know, just NO.

One thing you might think about taking a retreat from your own life and the usual people who populate it is that you would have heaps of time to waft about appreciating stuff.

That’s proving to be at least half true. I do have a lot of time. I spent maybe 98% of my time alone, most of that in silence {unless I’m watching Netflix}, and not having a nine to five means I can structure my days as I choose. I’m very rarely doing nothing at all but I’m working on that.

I know; dream, right? Well yes and no. It’s coming up for two months of living like this and I’m not gonna lie, a large percentage of those two months has been pretty hideous. Creating a space by removing everything that usually fills it means that everything is going to come up into that space for healing. Everything.

Memories you haven’t thought about in years, old wounds and heartbreaks, conditioning and programming that has been running your life without your conscious knowledge, patterns you don’t know how to begin to dissolve, behaviours you just can’t seem to stop, fear and grief, and let’s not even talk about how ex boyfriends suddenly start contacting you out of nowhere.

It’s intense, painful, frustrating, difficult, lonely, boring, seemingly relentlessly unchanging, and a whole bunch of other fun stuff.

HOWEVER.

This is in no way a complaint; I chose this. In a sense I was backed into a corner; the work I’d been doing with Tai Chi, Reiki, and consciously taking steps to becoming more of who I really am took me to a point where living as I always had suddenly became literally unbearable. Hence the time out.

It’s like Real Me stopped whispering and started shouting. So I kind of had to listen. I did choose this but I also couldn’t have carried on as things were without probably having some kind of breakdown. And now of course I can never go back. Not that I’d want to, but walking this path is a strange combination of desire and necessity and knowing there is No Other Way for you to live now. Even though you don’t know what is the way you’re going to live, who you’re going to be. There’s this big old space.

So yeah, getting a bit intense there. Another thing I’m finding on this trip is that words are becoming less and less useful to accurately describe things. It’s like they only stretch so far in their meanings and then there’s this gap before the full extent of their meanings becomes known and understood and experienced.

My point is, {yes, sorry, I forgot there was one for a moment there}, gratitude has not been my favourite tool while all this has been going on, despite knowing full well it is actually an awesome tool for bringing more of the good stuff into your life. Where the mind goes, energy flows.

And then something shifted.

It all feels very fragile and slippery, as if even talking about it might scare it away, but I feel it; something inside me has just moved. And although I’m well aware that appreciating the abundance of goodness in one’s life is much easier when one feels good already, I’m also finding a depth to each little thing that wasn’t there before.

So here is what’s good in a whole new way:

* Waking unexpectedly at 5am and going to the beach before anyone else. The quiet, the waves lapping, the blue sky; it was like being abroad on holiday and going down to the beach before the tourists get there.

* Treating myself to a hammock chair that hangs from a pole for my roof garden. I can curl up in it and swing and look at the sky and my plants and imagine anything I like. Which is mainly how I’m going to revamp the roof garden at the moment.

* Greek yoghurt with honey and blueberries. Cold and smooth and crunchy.

* My azalea plant that has busted out some serious magenta blooms; just a quick look gives me a happy.

* A bluetit that landed on the railing; tiny and quick and so perfectly blue and yellow. Birds don’t tend to land on the roof garden because I’m there so much. I gasped and clapped like a child.

* Leaving some extra baking I’d made on a friend’s doorstep and her genuine delight in receiving it without needing anything further from me {she understands I’m still on retreat. Doesn’t mean I can’t share though}.

* Meandering along the shoreline picking up treasures; a piece of sea glass, a heart stone, a glimmering shell.

* Just sitting.

All these little things, suddenly not just a list but genuinely rich moments, like a really good chocolate mousse that has depth to it.

I’m changing on the inside; there’s no point even trying to say how but it’s happening. Maybe I just needed to note this down to refer to in the event of a slip. I’ve made my peace with this retreat perhaps lasting many months more than I’d initially imagined, and maybe that’s allowed me to begin to relax into what is. There is a lot of letting go, a lot of acceptance, a lot of being present required. And at last, the continuous daily practise ~ the seed that seemed like it was never going to sprout ~ is starting to become a lived experience. So yeah, I’m grateful.

***********************

Edit:

I just found this quote and it feels very appropriate ~

“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.” - Rumi

Filed Under: healing, journey, the beach Tagged With: abundance, gratitude

May 18, 2013 by Tara 6 Comments

TA DA!!!!

I don’t usually begin with so much pink enthusiasm, but something unexpected just happened. I finished a painting. {What the….} I’m very pleased because it’s been quite a while since I’ve a} finished a painting and b} done a process post. So yay on all counts.

As I mentioned the other day, I have a big old chunk of unfinished paintings hanging around in the studio, and I had some vague and ambitious notion to complete them all by the end of the year. As we come up to the midway part of the year I realise now that that was a hilarious moment of insanity, but I’m ok with that. {Aren’t they the best kind?!} You can see some of the piece that is underneath the painting I finished this morning.

I suppose you might say it was reworked, rather than finished, as pretty much none of the original remains. Since it was an experiment in colour and mark making I was happy to let it go and see what happened.

As you can see, the changes became more and more subtle as the painting went on. You can barely see what I did this morning because it was layer after layer of soft, pale glazes. I was quite glad I’d consolidated some ideas about how to finish a painting last week as I called on those ideas for this. In particular I went back and forth softening all the areas that were jarring to me {a benefit of having a long studio}.

Here it is hanging out with some buddies in the living room. Those colours make me die a little bit.

I’ll be putting it in the shop shortly. In the meantime, you can enjoy it here

In Flow by Tara Leaver

Filed Under: acrylic painting, intuitive painting, mixed media art, mixed media painting, process, work in progress Tagged With: aqua fish painting, in flow by tara leaver, mixed media fish painting, process of a painting