Teddy

After painting the 8x8" of Buddy, I'm going to be painting each of Vicki's cats - I guess that will make it a 'triptych' (sounds very fancy). Since I didn't have the right sized boards ready I did this 6x6" practice of my cat Teddy. Very sadly I gave him away last year so I could return to Italy so this will be a nice reminder of him to have on my wall. I'm still trying to get used to painting on these boards. My soft mongoose brushes are working the best... I also got into it with the palette knife for a bit.

Exciting news! I bought www.marniehanlon.com which will redirect to my blog for the moment but feel free to try it just for fun. I'm learning as much as I can about the art of 'marketing one's art' from the Blog Talk radio show Artists Helping Artists. It's brilliant. If you are trying to make a living as an artist here is all the information they should be teaching in art schools in the form of weekly podcasts by an incredibly generous artist called Leslie Saeta and her monthly co-hosts. There are interviews with well known artists and how-to's on just about everything you need to know how to do!

Buddy

Today I did 2 small 'portraits' of my aunt's dog Buddy. They are both on primed MDF boards which are quite different from painting on canvas. The surface is a bit slippery and I found my softer nylon brushes worked better than the bristles which tend to just scrape the paint off. I might experiment with different brushes until I get the effect I like. I need a lot of practice but it was quite fun doing these little quick paintings after spending a whole week on one and trying to keep up the enthusiasm for it. The close-up with red background was from a photo Vicki gave me on an 8x8" panel. The other one is 6x6" from a photo I took of Buddy today. I told him to sit as I backed away with the camera in hand. He kept a close eye on me waiting for the command to be released from his task!

Canowindra Talls exhibition and other musings

Every year the River Bank Gallery in Canowindra (pronounced Ca-noun-dra) holds serveral exhibitions open to anyone to enter. The up coming one is called Talls and works of any subject can be submitted as long as they are painted on the 24x12" canvases provided by the gallery. Vicki and I discovered this cute little town and its wonderful gallery when we were travelling the countryside back in 2009. We met Catherine the gallery owner and talented resident artist David Isbester and were really taken by their enthusiasm and commitment to local artists. A couple of years ago I submitted 2 works for the Smalls exhibition and they both sold. This is my Talls entry. I'm calling it "The Happy Gathering". The format is quite tricky! I did colour studies for 3 different ideas before I thought I had something that might work. I'm still not sure that it does but it's more 'brush mileage' under the belt and another step towards Improvement which sometimes feels painfully slow.

I've been painting for four and a half years now and I've definitely learned a lot in that time. But when the goal is to make a living and when I compare where I'm at with other artists that I love and admire, it's hard some days to fight off doubts and gloomy thoughts. I love Artists on Art, an online magazine (which I highly recommend if you're an artist. There are four issues a year and the cost is only US$14 a year). In the first issue was an article by Daniel Sprick which was encouraging for my impatience and helped me to see the big picture of an artist's journey:

It usually takes about ten years of intensive effort to achieve mastery in any domain, and in the arts it may require another ten years after that to begin to express anything that is truly one’s own. Artists must be patient and be true to themselves and trust their own tastes and their own habits of working and living, and be true to their own aesthetic preferences. Each individual has his or her own truth to tell, and with a mixture of sincere effort and good fortune it will be a meaningful one for others.

I'm staying with my mum for the next couple of months and I'm thrilled she's allowing me to paint in my bedroom! (it's all about drop sheets and towels - so far so good). The wonderful thing about my temporary studio is the south-facing aspect. The light is consistent for most of the day which makes a Big Difference compared to painting when the light is constantly shifting. I'm quietly thinking it's a bit sad I don't have a single south-facing room in my own house but maybe I'll become a pro at paintings called Interior with Sunlight.

From now on I won't be sending email notifications to those on my mailing list but if you would like to know when I've updated Marnie's Art, please pop your email into the box on the right that says 'follow this blog by email' and you'll (hopefully) not miss a thing! I haven't tried this system before so please let me know if you have any trouble with it. More soon...

Back to Oz

It may take a bit to get used to everyone speaking english and which side the passenger sits in the car, the lack of architectural wonders and the long distances between Things of Interest, but it's taken no time at all to readjust to the fresh air, eucalyptus trees full of lorikeets and kookaburras and the warm sunny winter days...

I'm back!! I know I've settled in somewhere when I've organised myself and surrounds enough to get painting. Relief! I've been up the road to do a quick plein air study (to warm up the brushes) and am currently working on an idea for this year's Talls exhibition at the gallery in Canowindra (near Orange NSW). All submissions are to be painted on a 24x12' canvas ordered from the gallery so they are all the same format. It will be an interesting exhibition and I'm looking forward to starting my painting when the canvas arrives...

So to fill you in on my final months in Italy... summer was very slow coming to Florence this year (and the rest of Europe by all accounts) so I despaired of having any warm weather before heading back for my fourth winter in a row (because of hemispheric changes). But after packing up my life, shipping off a box of my choicest items and farewelling the dear friends I have made, I headed south with the lovely Susan and her good friend Lillian (who's now my good friend too) and spent a week in the Bay of Naples soaking up the sun and enjoying a full week of splendid south Italian summer weather.

We rented an apartment in Vico Equense from where we could easily visit Naples, Pompei, Sorrento, Capri and Positano on the Amalfi Coast. Theoretically at least. In practice we found that random trains were cancelled because of unpaid workers striking (meaning over an hour waiting for the train at times) and although we had a marvellous view from our apartment, it came at the cost of lugging ourselves up a mean hill to get home every day... brilliant for the thighs no doubt but a bit of a strain after a hard day being a Tourist. No sympathy from an 80 year old local who'd lived there all her life and whose muscles were 'accustomed' to the hill!!

The highlights for me were definitely Pompei and Positano. Pompei was an endlessly fascinating step back in time by nearly 2000 years. We had an informative and entertaining guide called Fabio who added Italian vowels to the ending of eacha anda everya worda. He pointed out tiny details and nuances that we never would have noticed or thought to look for, like evidence of donkey parking and groves in cobblestones from the heavy iron wheels of chariots. A bakery where they found carbonised bread pieces and how stepping stones were used to cross the road without soiling one's feet in the general muck created by fountains and sewerage running freely through the streets. How I would love to time travel and see the city in it's day fully functioning and alive with the busyness of every day life.

We reached Positano via bus from Sorrento along the cliff-hanging roads hugging the stunning Amalfi coast. Stunning. The bus driver negotiated the curved and twisty road like one without fear of death and we stuck our noses to the windows like trusting little tourists and tried to capture some of the beauty on our snappy cameras in order to take it home with us. The bus stopped at the top of the town and the amble down the steep road to the centre was punctuated with the delight of the views on the left side and the pleasure of quaint little shops on the right. The streets were clean and colourful, the water clear turquoise, and the locals bright and friendly. It's hard to imagine a more beautiful place. No wonder it's a popular destination for weddings, honeymoons and beachside holidays. After our slow stroll down to sea level we stopped for a bite to eat and soaked up the carefree resort vibe and collectively marvelled at it all. We each managed to pick up a ceramic treasure or two on our amble back up the hill and the afternoon light over the cliffs and sea was something I've filed away in the 'best memories' section of my brain since the camera wasn't capable of doing it justice.

You can see pics and read a bit more commentary from our trip here

So my time in Italy is finished for now but my budding artist's journey is barely begun and I plan to keep a more regular account of my painting progress here so do stay tuned if you'd like to see what I'm getting on with. Thanks for reading and sharing this journey with me, more soon!

PS. I went to the NSW art gallery the other day and as always lingered over the Australian Impressionist section... there is an Arthur Streeton landscape there that I love called 'Still glides the stream and shall forever glide', which is a line from a poem by William Wordsworth:

'After-Thought'
I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away.--Vain sympathies!
For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish;--be it so!
Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.

Cobblestones and kookaburras

Greetings from Florence! The days are getting longer but as yet not exactly hotter. In fact today it is a wet and stormy 15 degrees. (Although I will admit it was a rather warm day when this photo was taken of me and Inga in Greve in Chianti). Non-the-less if the summer weather doesn't fully assert itself soon I'll be enveloped in a seemingly perpetual winter, since I'm returning to the southern hemisphere for good in just over 4 weeks time (four weeks! must be time to start counting the sleeps)...

What have I been up to since my last post?? Well, last term I struggled somewhat to keep up with everything and progressively saw myself falling behind at school. This term I dropped back to part time while I tried to sort out some health problems, which seem to have finally come into the light just of last week (anemia caused by endometriosis)... So it's been perfect going to school just for painting in the mornings with the afternoons off and I also joined the first years to continue on with still life which I'm enjoying immensely. I'm learning much with our new teacher and in the process of all the cuffuffle I've realised I want to focus my energies to still life, interiors and landscapes. I like these the best and since I'm not starting out my painting career at 20 I'm seeing a benefit to becoming really good at some things rather than ok at everything. So for now I'm putting figures and portraits aside and concentrating on what I love doing the most. Life is short!!



Some of the things I've done during the past 5 months that have whipped by since Christmas... I visited one of the oldest pharmacies in the world (opened in 1221); I saw my first river rat along the banks of the Arno after secretly thinking they might be an urban myth... they do exist; I learned to knit! (first project being a hotwater bottle cover, see pics); I moved from my much loved little apartment in Santo Spirito complete with stunning views to the south and right across the road from the Boboli Gardens to a BIG town-house out in the burbs with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, loungeroom, basement AND garden (I sincerely thought I'd miss my little flat but I haven't looked back - goodbye 'I can't turn around without knocking anything over', hello 'I'm getting my morning walk just going to the kitchen for breakfast') - I'm minding the house of some aussie friends while they are on sabbatical in Australia for 5 months; I experienced the yearly easter event of the 'burning of the cart' which was just as exciting and spectacular as the first time I went; I found out that Italian doctors are Most Excellent and Extremely Nice and I learned that it's a great thing to have travel insurance; I did some gardening (weeding mainly but also mowing - if you can call cutting the grass by hand with secateurs mowing... I wasn't up to wrestling the whipper snipper into action); I had lots of baths!; I had Inga's mum and dad stay in one of my Spare Rooms while they were in Florence visiting Inga, during which time I joined them on a day trip to Greve in Chianti (heart of Tuscan wine country) as well as (my personal highlight) Carrara where Michelangelo used to get his marble and Viareggio where everyone goes to the beach from Florence in summer; I found a brilliant podcast called Artists Helping Artists which I listen to while I'm working at home or knitting and which is filling my mind with great ideas and possibilities for working as an artist in the future; I had 8 church friends over for a lively and abundant lunch which I had been wanting to do forever but didn't have space in my old place (took me 3 days to recover from the effort though!); I played tourist and joined a tour of the Vasari Corridor with a focus on the art of women in Florence - entirely fascinating with a terrific guide and we each got a book about women artists and the campaign that's happening (thanks to 2 american women) to get all their artworks out of the storage rooms of museums all over Florence...



Being in Italy for 2 and a half years has been amazingly wonderful. I have a feeling I won't fully appreciate all that I've learned or all that I've become until I'm looking back on it from Australia. Living in a place for some time really gives you a chance to let it become a part of you, to take major artistic wonders for granted like a local, to make life long friendships with people from all over the world and just to walk over the same cobblestones as centuries of outstanding artists that have gone before you.

At the same time there are some things that I'm really looking forward to about being back in Australia (aside from family and friends which goes without saying): gum trees, fresh air (Florence air quality is the worst in Italy), lorikeets and kookaburras, the salty sea air and beautiful beaches, my church and being back in my own house again.

I'm presuming this will be my last post until I'm back in oz. I do plan to take up blogging more regularly when I'm back (and hopefully in a more energetic state of health) with the particular focus on what I'm working on painting-wise. So do stay tuned! Thanks for sharing this journey with me. I leave you with some photos here and a lovely quote I found somewhere...

An artist's every thought and all his energy must
be bestowed upon his work, and such time as he has
to spare were best spent among the meadows and
hedgerows, where under clear skies he can breathe
fresh air, which will do him far more good and help
him better in his inspired calling.
Albert Toft

Old endings and new beginnings

I'm trying to conjure an acceptable excuse for not reporting on my life for the past six months, but really there isn't one so I'll just get on with a brief summary and leave the rest to the photos (with captions) that you may like to wade through afterwards (there's rather a lot).

It's a glorious final day of the year here in Florence and I sit somewhat sponge-like in my sun-drenched kitchen soaking up vitamin D and looking out to the magnificent hills (almost lost in aerial perspective) for inspiration and rest for the eyes. School is out for winter break and I've just spent 2 weeks in Germany... a week in Berlin with Susan and a week in Hamburg with Inga and her family for Christmas. We managed to traverse the length of breadth of Berlin visiting christmas markets, palaces, museums and old parts of the berlin wall as well as a concert of Handel's Messiah on the last night. It was particularly special to end the trip with a day of snow which made the -4 degrees all the merrier - although the mulled wine might have been a contributing factor now that I think about it...

Temperatures "soared" across europe after we left Berlin and by my second day in Hamburg the snow was vanishing before our eyes as I lamented the loss of my little dream to have a white christmas. In fact it got up to 12 degrees on Christmas day which felt quite summery after being in temperatures below zero. Snow aside it was like one of my fondly remembered childhood christmases with family, food fest, games and the all important pressie frenzie. We also had a Russian girl staying with us, (Ksusha who translated for us at school this term), and Inga's family folded us in like we'd always been there and weren't speaking a different language. I was so touched by their love and hospitality, I'm still marveling at it.

As for school this term, there were a few changes, one being the addition of the new first year students, making 3 years of students for the first time, since this is only the 3rd year of the school's existence. For that reason we needed more studio space which they managed to acquire upstairs in the same building. It's the smallest of the 3 studios and since us second years are the smallest group, up we went. The most charming aspect of the new studio being it's enormous terrace with mouth-opening view of the Duomo. It's amusing to watch people come onto the terrace for the first time and gasp as they turn and see the giant dome in all its splendour right in front of them.

We had a new drawing teacher this term who was lovely but just not the same as Sergey who gave me a love of drawing and made me feel successful at it. I didn't do so well this term which brought the realisation of how much Sergey was guiding me. Apart from the fact that I've missed a lot of the anatomy instruction (being in the evenings which I have no strength for) and since we are now only doing portraits (and upper body) I feel like I'm losing my way a bit. Next year we will focus on the whole figure (all year) with a heavy emphasis on anatomy. Since my love is still life and interiors I've decided to come home at the end of this academic year and continue my learning in Australia.

Since I made the decision to come home at the end of June, it suddenly seems like time is short so I'm going to make my way through a list of 'to see's that I've had for a while and make the most of being here while I can. Click here to see photos of my 'summer' break in australia and here to see photos of the last few months including my time in Germany. Use the top right link to see latest artworks...

Happy new year and lots of love! Marnie xxxxx

End of academic year

The scholastic year is coming to a close here in the northern hemisphere as summer settles in and the tourists arrive in droves. In fact it seems most schools are already out as of this weekend (I happened across a joyfully noisy and chaotic teenage water fight centered around the fountain in Piazza Santo Spirito today which was presumably a needed release of stress after the high school final exams)... At the Russian Academy we have another week to go and are half way through 2 weeks of our anatomy intensive with Aleksy our guest teacher from Russia. We all seem to be rather lead-footed and ready for the holidays. Looking back over the past year I think (I hope) I've learned a lot since I've been with the Russians, although the more I learn the more I realise there is to learn. I'm planning to come back for another year but meanwhile I need a dose of Australia (and just as importantly I need to not be in Florence for the sweaty mosh-pit of August), so I'm heading home for 3 months, leaving the week after next and counting the sleeps til I'll be off the dreaded long-haul flight with my feet planted safely on the land of kangaroos and eucalyptus trees.



Reflecting on leaving Florence for a bit and how much I take for granted now all the object d'arte I see around me every day I decided to make a pictorial account of my daily trip to school. There are the great and obvious architectural feats and sculptures to behold and then there are the small details like door knockers and street lamps and things which could happily belong in a museum, or on a movie set. Click here to see the pics as well as of our final exhibition and a few other things that have been happening. Lots of love! marnie xxxxx