Exhibition preparation

For more than twelve months I have been working on highly detailed acrylic tree paintings for my exhibition Home Is Where the Light Is which I will be hanging at Montsalvat next week.

When I'm deep in the painting, it's pure bliss. I put on a podcast and lose myself in the work. There is nothing better than being in that flow.

But now that the painting is finished, it's time to do all the practical things that need to be done to make the exhibition happen.

A few weeks ago I varnished all the work. This is always a good feeling because it brings out the colour and the texture and really 'finishes' the paintings in a way that is exciting to see.

I also made a bunch of beautiful square-shaped business cards using some of the work from the show. I really love how they've turned out and I will have these available at the venue for people to take.

I am thinking about having a guest book for visitors to sign. What do you think?

A while ago I also put in some of my paintings to be framed. This is what they looked like before they went off.

When I picked them up today I was so thrilled. The framing job is exquisite and I am just so proud of how they've come up. Here's one, freshly unwrapped:

The next thing on my 'to do' list is to send out my first ever email newsletter. Would you like to receive it? My plan is for this to be a very occasional mail-out which will include newsy things and other interesting art-related stuff (I'm going to wing it, you'll just have to trust me).

If you would like to be on it you can sign up over on the right-hand sidebar where it says 'subscribe to my mailing list'.

I assure you, the mail-outs will be irregular!

As an incentive, anyone who signs up from now until this Sunday 22nd November 2015, 5pm (AEDT) will have a chance to win a set of three greeting cards depicting my painting 'Local Gum'. If you've already signed up, you're in the draw. This is open to anyone around the world.

My first newsletter mailout will be next week!

New painting: progress shots

I've just completed a painting which went to it's new home this week. I thought I'd show some progress shots of how it evolved.

This tree represents a time and place, a special marker of memory for its new owner. I love how trees are living, breathing monuments to our own personal histories. I don't know anyone who can't pinpoint a special tree in their past or their present. Or isn't moved by a particular kind of tree, usually one familiar from childhood. (For me, it's the gum tree. But you probably already figured that out!)

It's a painstaking process to describe the minute detail of a tree trunk with paint. (You can see in the collage above the teeny-tiny brush I use throughout the process.) But there is something soothing about the work. It's easy to slip into that beautiful state of creative flow almost as soon as I sit in front of the canvas.

This is the finished work:

Jodi Wiley - On Saunders Street (for Kath), acrylic on canvas, 30.5cm x 20.5cm, 2014

New Painting: Silver Princess

I was commissioned to paint a Silver Princess gum for a special birthday surprise so I tried not to show many work-in-progress shots online.

I did take a lot of photos along the way though, so I thought I'd make a collage of the process. It took many hours of patient layering.

 The bark of the Silver Princess is extraordinary and I enjoyed the intense detail of this work.

Jodi Wiley - Silver Princess on Forster Street, 30cm x 30cm, acrylic on canvas

Landscape series

I've been working on a series of landscapes. They're quite different from my detailed tree works but they share some similarities in theme.

They are about mood and light - which also interests me in my detailed works - but in these the surrounding are also important. I aim for subtle variations in the sky with the trees in silhouette against it. I am inspired by more rural settings here.

Although these paintings show a broader contextual view of trees, I am still interested in the individuality of trees in the landscape. There is usually one dominant tree in the image. Sometimes several.

I really enjoy working on these. They require more movement from me. I'll often work on them while I'm standing up, moving my hand extremely fast to blend the colours of the sky while the paint is still wet.

 

The physical process of these paintings is a nice contrast to the very tight, controlled, detailed work of my other paintings which require hours of concentration and limited movement from me, apart from the tiny strokes of a tiny brush, working on very small sections of canvas at the one time.

This series of landscapes (as well as my detailed tree artworks) will be on show at the end of the month at Apte Cafe, 538 Heidelberg Road, Alphington, Melbourne (from Friday 30th August).

Drawing Monet

When her eyesight began failing, Betty Churcher - a trained artist, art critic, academic and former Director of the National Gallery of Australia - undertook a project to draw her favourite paintings in order to etch their details in her mind's eye. She writes in her wonderful Notebooks:

'The act of drawing is a transforming device where I'm able to track down (and tie down) my visual enthusiasm.'

The purpose of drawing the work is not a personal interpretation of the art, she says, it's more like creating a 'shopping list' of what a great work contains.

She says:

'I believe that anyone can draw in this way, provided they are prepared to submerge personal ambitions and attitudes and become totally lost in the painting as it has been presented to the world by the artist.'

When I went to see the NGV Winter Masterpieces show, Monet's Garden, on the weekend I had Betty Churcher in mind.

'Too many visitors to galleries broad-scan a picture for its subject matter only before moving on to the next picture' but, in fact, 'we should always look at important works of art long and hard, with undivided attention'.

So I avoided the impulse to get value for money by studying each piece and slavishly reading the accompanying text, but instead, I walked into each room, scanned the paintings and then settled on a few which drew me to them. Then I spent some time with those ones.

This approach was fairly new to me and one I will definitely try again. While I did consider each painting (after all, when again will I see so many Monets in one place?) I didn't think it my duty to stand at length in front of each one, or read each word written about them.

This depth approach (rather than breadth) meant my viewing experience was much more meaningful, and I didn't once think about the gift shop or my post-exhibition coffee. (Hey, we've all been there ;)

I was unable to sit and draw in detail because of the sheer crowd attending the show. So I stood back from each painting I had selected, making a quick thumbnail and some notes about what drew me to that work.

Doing this led me to a deeper contemplation of each painting as well as the body of work presented. And while I sketched, my mind wandered to thoughts of what Monet was trying to do (especially with light, reflections and water) which led me back to my own art practice and what I'm trying to do.

Observing how many times Monet painted waterlilies (a lot) and how many years he dedicated to painting his own garden (many) I became a little more comfortable with my own obsession with trees and, in particular, suburban trees.

While they still hold interest and mystery for me, I will continue to paint them.

Monet said, 'It took me a while to understand my waterlilies'. That thought is comforting to me.

From writing to painting: my story

My whole life I have been seeking the perfect expression of creativity. I have always felt the need to make and create things. And for most of my life I wanted to be a writer. That's what I thought was my creative calling.

I wrote stories in my spare time at primary school. I continued this habit in high school. And at university I took all the creative writing classes available. I kept a personal journal and carried a pocketbook everywhere in which I'd jot down story ideas and snippets of dialogue. After a 'gap year' travelling I came back to study 'Professional Writing'.

And that extinguished the passion.

I tried to write a novel. It sucked. I wrote short stories. They sucked.

But I did find that what I liked was writing non-fiction. I had some stuff published. It felt good. But there was still some essential part of me that I couldn't access or express through writing alone.

Now I still love to write. I blog for the sheer enjoyment of punching out words when I get ideas and the satisfying immediacy of hitting the 'publish' button. Every now and again when I get an idea that's a little bigger, I'll write it up, send it out to publications, and see if it takes. I won't ever 'give up' writing.

But all this time it turns out what was missing was art.

I feel a bigger sense of 'wholeness' now I've found it. I didn't start painting until I was 31 (just after my first daughter was born) and I can't even begin to explain how grateful I am that I stumbled upon it.

When I'm painting I feel like I'm executing ideas and expressing feelings that would be impossible to put into words.

And drawing is often a more pleasurable way of recording my life than writing. Back when I kept a written journal there was a lot of complaining in it. When I draw my life I am looking for beauty and singularity. I'm looking to celebrate everyday life and express gratitude in the act of recording it.

And maybe all this will change. Maybe the balance will tip. Perhaps oneday I will focus more on writing again, or the emphasis will shift to drawing instead of painting. Or maybe there will be something else I haven't even thought of yet; some other way to say the things I want to say.

All I know is that if you keep trying to find your 'thing', keep trying to make stuff that can only come uniquely from you; if you keep chipping away at your creative expression until you find the core, you'll get closer and closer to what it is to live a meaningful, whole, creative life.

That's what I reckon, anyway.

New painting

Last week I finished a new painting (as yet untitled). I took photos along the way so I thought I'd put together a collage of this work's progress. Apologies for the bad shots - many were taken at night and with my phone. But I think you get the idea of the tree's journey.

Painting daily

I started and finished a painting this week, which must be some kind of record for me. And I started work on another today.

Jodi Wiley - work in progress

I have very clear ideas about the next four paintings I'll be working on and it feels good to have that structure and certainty.

But after that, I'm not sure where I'll head. And I like that feeling too.

Up Close

I recently finished a very detailed painting which took me about six weeks of intensive work to complete.

Now I'm taking a short break. I always intend to launch straight into a new painting, but then find I'm exhausted by the end of such a long period of focus and I need to recharge by sketching, reading, taking photographs.

Up Close, Late Afternoon is inspired by a tree in my neighbourhood. It's next to the local footy ground. I love that. The fact that we are surrounded by these beautiful trees in the most prosaic places.

Click here if you'd like to see the finished work.

Documenting the process

From the archive: Thursday, June 20, 2013

This year I have photographed the development of my paintings on an almost daily basis. I find these photos interesting to look back on because once a painting is complete, it's easy to forget the stages you've gone through to get there.

During every painting I seem to experience a period where I think it's not working and possibly not even salvageable. Keeping a photographic record reminds me that this is just a hump I need to get over. When I look back at the photos later I can see more objectively how the painting was taking shape.

Stages of 'Roadside Gum' - Jodi Wiley (Acrylic on canvas)

The other way I document the work is through keeping a studio journal. I see this as a thinking tool and not as something that needs to look pretty.

 

I might do rough thumbnail sketches in it but mostly it's words. It helps me clarify my thoughts about the paintings and capture fleeting germs of ideas that might grow into something or might not.

Flicking though the book which I started in August last year it's interesting to see how many times I repeat myself. Which reminded me about this post I wrote a while back about ideas.

The studio journal is a net to catch ideas and a way of working out what I think through writing. Joan Didion apparently said, 'I don't know what I think until I write it down' and I can certainly identify with that.