“Rose Alike” – Belinda Lindhardt
Artwork size: 44   X 68 cms
Framed: 78  X 91cms

I think we are done

This artwork will be on display and for sale this coming weekend at the Central Coast Grammar School Spring Fair Art Exhibition.

Details to come

Rose Alike Work in Progress – Coloured Pencil by Belinda Lindhardt

It’s past the middle and towards the end in the creative process when I often take the time to pause. It’s tempting to sign it off as finished tick another thing off the list.. but I “know” whether its done yet or not. “Knowing” is not dialogue its a gut feeling I have learnt to trust my gut and know when I am truly done, only then I can be satisfied and move on.

At the moment I am not done I am pausing to absorb what needs to be done further before I take the next step.
Technically I have sprayed with a few coats of workable fixative, this allows me to seal whats there already (the green was smearing everywhere as I was working) as well as allows me to add more layers particularly on areas where there is quite alot of pencil already. It kinds seems to put a bit of grit onto whats there if that makes sense. I find this spraying process also helps later on when I give some final coats of protective & UV varnish to my work for added protection Some artists I know have had problems with wax of the pencils showing through, but I have never had that problem I think the workable fixative at this points prevents this somewhat.

The is an art to pausing,  I am learning to love it

Work in Progress – by  Belinda Lindhardt

My Rose is forming This part of the creative process I struggle with. Its the middle. Its great in the beginning the planning, great at the end when you finish but in this middle piece its nothing but hard work especially on a coloured pencil peice this size. I estimate I am at around 40 hours so far and still a way to go.

Its the part that you have to keep pushing yourself forward and keep your “vision” in mind. A bit like life, I am getting better at it

Work in Progress – Coloured Pencil – Size is 440 X 680mm
Slowly getting there

“Rose Alike” - (Temp name) Work in Progress

Where did July go?

It seems somehow I lost a month somewhere in there, I can’t believe its really August is time speeding up or is it just me?

As I mentioned in my last blog post, during the past month or so I have been locked up in “webdesigner” mode redeveloping the Australian Coloured Pencils Website.

The site redo has been a really interesting process for me. For once in the 14 years I have been building websites I became my own client. Frustrated with the fact that it took longer than had been anticipated, annoyed with the fact that during this time WordPress decided to upgrade its version so it meant all sorts of conflicts and problems with plugins after I had already spent hours getting them working how I wanted. As well as trying to keep my members happy during the upgrade process and them experiencing errors that I wasn’t experiencing. Having issues with the “way” things worked wasnt quite how I really wanted them to work but limited by the functionality and trying to tie mulitple plugins and functions together.   Fun fun fun.
During all of this I kept remembering the 80/20 rule. As long as the site was 80% right then that was good enough I could fix the other 20% after. This is VERY hard for me to do as I am a bit of a perfectionist (not in a good way) as it comes to these things.

ARTWORK: As you can see I have started a new artwork as per the above. It’s my biggest coloured pencil work to date  – 68cmX44cm, and its being created in preparation for an exhibition I have coming up in September.   I hope to be having 4 coloured pencil pieces exhibited. I think it will be interesting to showcase a few various sizes and pieces in a show like this – stay tuned for the details.

I am also videoing this one as I work – those of you who follow me on facebook will have seen the video already. I hope to compile all the video together on completion really interested to see how it turns out.

Here is the video as posted on facebook a little while ago.

Pencils, pencils and more pencils

So this past month I have been busy, has it really been over a month? Oh yes it has.

Unbelievable. Anywho, I have been very busy this past month with pencils on the brain though I havent been doing any artwork.
Many of you may be aware I have started a while back the Australian Coloured Pencil network website. The site has been through a few changes and discussions regarding its future during the past year, everyone wants an Australian coloured pencil society but logistics of creating and managing one are somewhat restricted given logistics and location of willing members plus due to the fact that we are still a relatively small group of people.

Next best thing  was a redevelopment of a website, moving the existing site into more of a paid membership site. I would really love to continue providing the service for free, but I am not in the position to be able to provide this at the moment. So the choice was either redevelop or close the site all together.

So I have been busy building a site which contains: a forum, a member gallery, a directory, a membership system, a blog and other stuff to go along with it.
Anyone thinking of creating a website like this, even myself who is an experienced web designer and developer of over 15years has been surprised about just how long it has taken me to do and I am still not there yet! Tweaks, bugs, downloads updates the time to sort some of these out has been much longer than I would have thought. So I know there are a couple of business people reading this,  if you are thinking about this for your business be prepared!! And also be prepared that your web developer would have to charge for their time to sort these out. If  I had been charging for my time it would have been a costly exercise or I most definitely would have lost money – grrrr technical issues.

Now, the site has arrived at a workable stage – I have been so pleased to have the support of existing ACPN members who have supported me in the change over and become members of the site its been fantastic!

Head over to www.colouredpencils.com.au. You can visit the blog or signup for a limted time FREE membership. While I iron out all the bugs!

So that’s what I have been up to. I am glad to have a bit of a breather, still working on it but not as frantically as I have been. I am now able to concentrate on preparing for quite a few exhibitions I have coming up in September and October.  I have an idea for a new artwork but I am debating on whether to tackle it yet or get some other tasks out of the way first.

I have also had lots of inquiries regarding my workshops so I still have on the cards to offer some of my classes or workshops online. I am thinking it maynot be until the new year however? Or maybe in time for Christmas!!! Now there is an idea!

The end of the year will be here before you know it!

I just received a lovely supply of Zest-It and battery erasers they have for sale but some have been ordered to my lovely workshop attendees. If you are interested let me know

Speaking of my workshop I had great workshop last week (I cant believe it was over a week ago already). Here are a couple of pics.

This workshop was slightly different that the previous workshop I held earlier in June and I was glad to see many of the particpants had come back for a second dose . In this workshop I was covering a few more blending techniques, experimenting with different supporsts (drafting film) and various pencils and papers and solvents.

It was really interesting for those who were trialing with the cheaper pencils and papers they were unable to achieve the same level of colour and coverage than those who use the thicker paper and artist quality pencils. They were starting to get a bit frustrated. So again I will say it’s so important to use quality materials when doing these types of artworks even if your just practicing – otherwise your just practicing being frustrated rather than your technique.

I have some exciting news on the coloured pencil front but I am holding off on that for the moment. Stay tuned!

Tomorrow I have my second coloured pencils workshop for June  – Continuing on with Pencils

This workshop is where we will go beyond the basics and we will be working with complimentary colours, planning an artwork more advanced blending techniques.

I will demonstrate my processes with various supports for different effects and speeding up work time. From this workshop participants will gain exposure to different ways of working with pencils used in completing a coloured pencil artwork as well as guidance to laying down colour, doing an under painting.

Reference materials and photos will be supplied however if you have something specific you wish to work on please bring it along.

You don’t have to be a member to enjoy the society so there is no excuse hope to see you there!

Materials: As a guide it is best to use quality artists pencils and good quality paper for pencil work or you will be frustrated with the results.
So please bring along:  Stonehenge paper - can be bought in large sheets at Eckersleys (cut down into more manageable sizes)  or bring along your best drawing paper.
Pencils: Either Prismacolour or polychromos pencils

Time: 9:30am to 12:30pm

Location: Gosford Art Gallery – the Studios
32 Web St, EastGosford NSW

Cost: $10- Including Morning Tea

I will also have some other supports to try if you wish to experiment with some different techniques.

Still going with this one, layers layers and more layers

Progress on my latest work: As you can see,  I have added lots more layers of colour particularly on the yellow pear and some of the red.

For Artists: One of the things when I am at this stage of working is to be always checking my values.  I constantly check a black and white reference of the pears just to make sure I have the values of the shadows in the right position and that they are dark enough.
It’s really important with a round object like this to also use  pencil strokes in direction of the contours of the object you are creating.

This is where it’s really important to have knowledge of how the object is 3D / real life.   I tend to imagine how that curve is rather than try to copy what is on the photo. If I was to copy exactly what i see on the photo then  I would get a very flat looking piece.
This is why drawing from life regularly is so important even though you use  a photo as a reference in your final artwork, its important to understand how something REALLY is in order to capture that.

This is my first coloured pencil piece where I think I am going to leave a lot of the paper white. In most of my pieces i will  generally cover all areas of the paper but  I don’t think it needs it in this instance, we will see how it progresses when I get further to the end.

That’s it for now, on for more layers.