I''m the guest speaker at an upcoming exhibition

I've been invited by the 2012 Certificate IV students from Marden Senior College to open their upcoming art exhibition called 'Creative Fusion'. 

Below is the invite along with a little blurb about the exhibition. 

      Creative Fusion (Marden Senior College)

     Painting & Textile Art Works by Marden Senior College Graduates

      2 - 26 April 2013

Address: Phone: Fax:

558 Magill Rd, Magill (Corner Pepper St & Magill Rd) (08) 8364 6154 (08) 8332 3164

Email: Open Hours:

pepperstreet@burnside.sa.gov.au Tuesday to Saturday 12 noon - 5pm Find us on Facebook

How to clean soft pastels

Found this great post on how to clean your soft pastels.

The pastel on the right is after it has been cleaned in rice of all things.
http://artprojectgirl.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/tuesdays-tip-how-to-get-dirty-pastels.html

A pastel drawing I'd forgotten about.

My last post showed my work published in the latest issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. I've had several textile pieces published before but realised I've had a pastel drawing published before. Below is a pastel drawing of mine that was published in a calendar that was distributed to all florists and nurseries around South Australia. I really wish I had more time to work on my drawing skills. It isn't my strongest area and definitely something I would like to improve.

various drawings

I was going through my map drawers yesterday looking for some paper and found these two drawings I did about 2 years ago. I had this fantastic drawing teacher at a place called Studio 11. She was really inspiring and really talented.

I'm a qualified art teacher but drawing has never been my forte. I find it quite stressful when trying to do high quality stuff. I've always had really high standards for myself and find it frustating when I'm not good at something. I can teach others how to draw because I studied it and know the principles etc. but I just don't do much myself. I did the drawing course to build up my confidence a bit. I had a scary lecturer when doing drawing at uni and he told me I was crap and used to rub my pictures out and tell me start again. I had him for painting as well. Hence I wasn't overly keen to stay in the painting or drawing class. 

I love my pastel drawing of the succulent it took me ages. I also like the pencil drawing of the older man. He was a life drawing model but we were studying faces only. I only had an hour to draw him but I'm glad I actually didn't finish all of his face, I like it better that way.