Just June again

Welcome back to my monthly blog of what’s on in my art world. What happened in May and what might happen in June.

Hopefully the wet May has gone and a dry June will follow. It’s a beautiful day out there now, as I write this to you and as it is a long weekend let’s hope it continues. We celebrate the first Kings birthday this long weekend. It feels really weird saying that and not the Queens birthday. I also celebrated a big birthday in May ( one with a 0 on the end). I feel I have to paint faster now cos time is limited!!

Because I’m old, I feel I need to upskill in the area of social media. With that in mind I attended a workshop on social media strategy and ChatGPT run by Creative Bay of Plenty. Well! It blew me away. I’m sure I’ll get my head around it one day but the whole AI was mind blowing. I’m going to leave that subject there now. I need to process!

The Waihi plein air painters braved the weather and painted and sketched at the Waihi Railway Station. There were so many things to paint. Buildings and even the tourists who disembarked off the train as it pulled into the station. Even a couple who posed for us.

We went for a road trip to Wellington with some family and I even managed to do some sketches to record the occasion. We did a tour of Parliament Buildings and I learnt they also do a tour of their art collection. Next time in Wellington I want to do that one. Some amazing works from NZ artists in their archives.

Back home and I felt the need to paint those Wellington hills. I used my two favourite colours, paynes grey and quinacridone gold. I used a cut up credit card and scraped it across the paper. Letting the colours move and blend by themselves. When it was dry I felt it needed some definition and contrast so I went back into it with Indian ink line. The lines were made with the end of a paint brush handle so I could get variations in weight and movement without being controlled and exact.

After doing the hills of Wellington I needed to do some wet on wet landscapes again. Here’s what happened.

So that was May! Now it is June and although I will paint my way through it, it will be a time of reflection and gathering my thoughts for the rest of the year. Im already planning for exhibiting towards the end of the year and into next.

Thank you all for your support in following my progress. Don’t forget to give me feedback, pass my blog on to others, and check in next month.

Ka kite ano. Pamela