art

I’m always on the look out for inspiring artists and Helen Musselwhite is one of those that instantly drew me.

Helen uses bold colors, strong graphic lines and familiar images and creates fictional almost fantasy scenes. She describes her work has having a distinctive hand crafted quality with hints of mid century design, folk and ethnic art. I also think it has a fantastic contemporary feel as fairy-tale land is a definite fashion and design trend. …and if it was not, who wouldn’t like to live with unicorns, rainbows, bunnies and all other lovely, harmless and good things.

These artworks are hand cut, folded and scored using a wide range of papers and cards and then further worked to create patterned and textured surfaces. Helen then uses this to build scenes in box frames.  To visit her etsy shop click here.

Last year I went to the Orangerie Museum (Monet’s Water Lilies Museum) in Paris and it completely changed my perspective of Claude Monet. I always knew his art was beautiful and serene but seeing them in real life, and in a museum designed with oval rooms and light ceilings to compliment the artworks … it completely took my breath away and I spent a long time just absorbing the mood and marveling at the power and calm of his huge paintings.

I found this excerpt a while ago from Monet Refuses the Operation and it gave me a deeper understanding of his works. He’s works are not in the style they are becuase he wanted them to be ‘blurred’ for a hundred deeper meanings that could be ascribed to it but because that was simply how he saw them. Here is the excerpt:

“I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.”

What I love most about this excerpt is that it made me realise that it is how you ’see’ things that makes the biggest difference. Not literally with your eyes, but with your heart. I love the way he transcends the boundaries of the physical.

What a great artist.

I really enjoying drawing and sketching. A few weeks back I picked up a charcoal stick after a long absence and sketched away at my cat Mischief. I really liked these rough sketches and realized that I still had the ability and the passion for drawing animals. This reminded me that when I was studying I advertised to do pet portraits which resulted in several commissioned pastel artworks that I thoroughly enjoyed doing…

How they work is: the commissioner sends me several photographs of their dog/cat. I then choose one but if I do not think any of the photos will work, this step takes a little longer. Once the photo is chosen I ask for the owner to write me a short story about the pet. This allows me to ‘know’ the dog or cat.

My aim for a pet portrait is not to make the picture a mirror image of the animal in a different medium (Photoshop can do that) but rather that the personality of the animal must come through. You must be able to look at the picture and like when you look in the face of a dog and you just know he is naughty, you must be able to look at the portrait and know the same. This is my favourite part becuase when I finish an artwork I feel as though I have made a new friend. It is also wonderful when you hand it over and the commissioner is more often than not, happy to the point of tears.

I grew up in Botswana and I think this is where my love for animals grew roots. (I always wanted to be vet but my biology marks did not agree). When I find a wonderful picture of an animal that I admire, such as the endangered Mountain Zebra that I think is beautiful with his brown lines and softer silhouette, I just have to draw it. Artworks such as the the Hippo I have sold at local galleries.

I have also done some oil and gouache artworks. This commissioned oil painting of Kalk Bay Harbour (below) is about 1m x 0.5m. It was the first oil piece I ever did.

I have decided to open an etsy shop called ‘Wendren’s Art’ where I can showcase my sketches, drawings and artworks and advertise to do pet portraits.

I have taken the Mischief sketches that I did early last month and had them mounted. These are now for sale in my etsy art shop.

My most treasured book in my bookshelf is ‘Colour: Travels Through The Paint Box’ by Victoria Finlay. (Note, the book has various covers).

This book is one of the few books I cannot read enough times. The first time I read it it took me two years to finish. I re-read pages, chapters, highlighted sections, underlined key phrases…..I studied it. It is a book of such value and wealth … I can go on and on but I think you get the picture.

Victoria Finlay fell in love with colour as a little girl growing up in India. Her fascination with colour has lead her all over the world. She tells stories about the history of colours, how they came to be discovered, used and what they meant. It is not a book about chemical process or industrial science, or even fashion. It is about the people behind the paints and pigments that have been used for centuries.

‘Colour: Travels Through the Painbox’ is broken down into colour chapters: ochre, black and brown, white, red, orange, yellow, green blue, indigo and violet. Each chapter is full of stories…my favourite story is probably in the Red chapter about how a young explorer travel led through South America searching for the secret of the Spanish Red. He found it in the Cochineal beetle and managed to steal a few which he brought back to Europe. Nobody believed that the little white beetles were the source of the rich red and he died before Europe discovered he was telling the truth. Another fantastic story is the search for Indian Yellow. It was believed to be obtained by collecting the urine from a holy cow after it gorged on mango leaves! The book is absolutely wonderful!

I am not much of a knitter - in fact, I don’t and can’t knit at all! However, that does not prevent me from admiring Sandra Backlund’s heavy wool collage kniting. She is unlike any other ‘knitter’ I have come across - she is an artist and sculptor whose medium is wool and whose paint brush is in the form of two knitting needles.

She has an amazing understanding of form and structure. When designing she starts with the human body - “I am really fascinated by all the ways you can highlight, distort and transform the natural silhouette with clothes and accessories.”

The thing she loves most about her knitting is “the freedom to make your own fabric while working. For me it is the absolute challenge. All the levels of skills you have to pass before you can even think about starting to improvise. It is the real thing and everything that the modern fashion industry is not.”

Her work is truly amazing!

I’ve just heard about a really exciting exhibition that is happening soon in the town right next to mine. Lino, a coffee-shop-come-gallery, is hosting their first exhibition of art and handmade goods all to do with wool. It will feature and sell the work of local artists Jesse Breytenbach, Karen Suskin, Liezl Trautman, Hanna Morris, Sandy Mitchell and Hilda Gertze.

This can only be a fantastic event with so many of South Africa’s top handmade artists - I’ve already got the date, May 2 at 6pm in Kalk Bay, highlighted with bright flouresnt yellow marker. Can’t wait…

P.S. lino is in colyn rd, kalk bay, up the road from the ice cafe (opposite the station).

I collect all kinds of things that I find inspirational. I have scrapbooks and just recently I compiled 3 huge books of images I like. One of my favourite images in these books is by Elisa Ann Lidstrom.

She is a ‘full-time emerging artist’ (I love that description) and works mostly in acrylic paint but also loves working with charcoal, conte crayons, pastel and gouache. Her bird sketches are my favourite and were one of the inspirations behind the wren logo.

Recently I discovered her blog and she has a fantastic concept: ‘Name my art Friday’! How it works is: Every Friday she puts up her untitled work(s) and anyone who wishes can ‘comment’ on titles they feel would work best for the piece. If she picks your title she will send you a free handmade note card and will give you credit for the title. I have made a BIG mental note to think of title names for Elisa’s ‘Name my art Friday’ in hope of winning and getting one of her gorgeous note cards.

Visit Elisa Anne Lidstrom’s etsy shop to see more of her work.

I had to stop and take a photograph of it. It reminds me of ‘Alice in wonderland’. I wonder if I could climb inside and get lost in another world…..

Silhouettes have an amazingly calming effect. I have two silhouettes pasted on my bedroom walls.

I came across this poor cat silhouette, all tattered and torn sorting through my mom’s old school stuff (she was a Grade 2/Sub b teacher) and became transfixed with it. It was so beautiful I couldn’t let it be thrown away. So…I got hold of some charcoal card, traced the shape and cut it out. It now sits on my skirting board and every time I see it, it’s simple beauty calms me.

The other cut-out I have are three swallows.

I have a fascination with maps and I hate the way that old maps, artworks, just get chucked away. My first idea to ‘rescue’ them was to create paper bags out of them. But this never materialized and I still have a stack of old maps under my bed. At the same time as this was going on I was busy doing a textile design with birds and loved the shapes I was coming across. I choose the swallow silhouette, worked on it a bit and cut it out of the maps. They now fly above my bed and fill a wall that would ordinarily be quite boring and plain. I love the correlation created by the swallow and the map. I have gotten a lot of compliments about them and really all they were was an experiment to fill a space when I had no money and little time. I have grown to love them and think I will keep them when I move one day.