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Mt Tomah Art, Mel Jones
Mel Jones at the opening of Journey into Nature.
Photo by Paul Cosgrave.
Mel Jones Artist in Residence, Roza Sage Local Member For Parliament, and Rob Smith Director of The Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mt Tomah.
Photo by Paul Cosgrave
Visitors moving through the exhibition.
The exhibition is still on until mid August, so you have time to visit!
For a overview of 2010 and 2011 art works that have been on exhibition, are for sale or sold, please visit the Original Pochoir Art Page. Some of these art works are at The Nook in Leura.
"Please enjoy your time with me and I hope you enjoy the art works I have presented here, this is not an exhaustive collection and I am always working on new visions and experimenting with new ideas."
'Middle Canopy'
Sold
A huge Pochoir and mixed media painting, 190cm x 137cm, on canvas.
This beautiful and dramatic painting will be on exhibition at the Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens in July.
Mel Jones is represented in the following galleries.
The Nook Arts and Crafts Gallery
133A The Mall, Leura.
NSW,2784, Australia
www.thenookleura.com.au
Mt Tomah Visitors Centre,
The Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mt Tomah
mel@journeymoonart.comor visit www.journeymoonart.com for more information. Journeymoon Art has Original Pochoir Paintings,
Pochoir Journals, Recycled Journals. All of the Art works you will see are original, please use the menu at the top to view a more comprehensive range of my original Australian Pochoir art works.
Please Note
Melinda Jones also retains the copyright ownership of any sold works.
Please note that all information,art works and pictures are the copyright of Melinda Jones, if you wish for a copy or specific print to be made for you please enquire to; mel@journeymoonart.com.
Any breeches of copyright will be pursued.
Thank you for visiting!
it is also available at
http://meljonesartblogmttomah.blogspot.com/view/magazine
Having been to Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens a number of times before with family and children, I’ve rarely had a chance to view the many aspects of the gardens through a focused artistic perspective.
Having now this opportunity to participate in the Artist in Residence Program, is a great privilege and a wonderful chance to focus my art practice in the one place.
With the diversity Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens have to offer anyone, and especially any artist, I hope through this regular blog to share with those interested how I view the Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens through my art, as well as how I develop from initial inspiration to a final painted image, or piece of experimental art, on canvas, paper or sculptural.
I will also share some of the ways I create my art, as well as share in some of my experiments as I travel through this Artist Residence Year. I’m sure not everything will workout as planned, but that is also when happy accidents spur us into new directions and new inspirations and new works of art.
I hope you enjoy this journey with me. And if you get a chance, visit the gardens and be inspired!
Mel Jones
Artist in Residence to The Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mt Tomah, July 2011 – July 2012.
Blog for July 18th to the 24th.
I’m starting to develop some ideas focusing on a few areas of the gardens, one area I’ve fallen in love with is the Bog Garden and the Carnivorous plants. When I look at them I’m seeing, strong lines and form, direction and strength in the colours and they draw me in.
I’m inserting my first picture that I’ve ever painted of these plants, it is still on display in the exhibition but is already sold. I am now developing ideas for a series of paintings about these beautiful and fascinating sculptural plans. When I have some drawings ready I’ll post them up onto the blog and web site for everyone to see.
Two other plants that I’m drawn to, of which I’ll be focusing a series of paintings upon, are the Lichen and Moss which attach themselves to various trees and bushes throughout different parts of the Mt Tomah Garden.
Experimenting with different ways of framing the subjects is an important part of beginning my paintings. Using photography as a tool, I focus on specific sections of the photo that I’ve taken; I isolate the section I feel my interest is drawn to most. This way I am beginning to work on details visually so I can focus my drawings and Pochoir Paintings on relating to eachother and connecting when there all completed.
I will then begin a series of drawings to bring the picture out. I may try to represent the photo I’ve taken as accurately as I feel I can, or I may use it as a guide and draw my interpretation of the image from a feel approach rather than a perfect representation. In this way I am not focused on being a realist painter, I am trying to build my attachment and feeling into the painting, and because of this my paintings can sometimes end up somewhat abstracted.
    
As yet I’m not sure how many I’ll do or their final sizes, I do know that I feel the need to do at least one very large representation of the lichen and moss, and that the others will be smaller, focused paintings. As I aim to highlight a section, or single branch/trunk, rather than many.
I’m probably starting to sound very wishy washy, but that is what this artist blog is about for me, it is an important part of the process for me to start to translate and communicate my ideas.
I’ve also work shopped some pictures of the Wollemi Pines out the front of the gift shop, I really like the strength of them, I find them sculptural, and I will also be using them as inspiration too.
Again driving back on Tuesday it snowed along the Bells Line of Road, what a wonderful experience, only my second time of driving in heavy falling snow, I was listening to Abbess Hildegard von Bingen, which made the experience not only uplifting, but surreal.
Another great experience that was totally unexpected.
Have a great week!
Cheers
From Mel
Blog for 25th to the 31st of July 2011
Here trying to capture the shape form movement and texture of the lichen and moss in these images.
I want to show that the texture of the lichen and moss, that it isn’t just flaky or blobby, if studied with the natural eye, closely, for even a few minutes, the observer can see that it has depth, form. My eye focuses upon a patination that develops into a flowing form around the surface, almost like water, across the trunk or stem of the tree it inhabits.
Following the light and dark within the images, the contrast, (which I did increase when workshopping the images) has given me deeper defined lines to follow. There are beautiful differences between light and dark, something I not only love, but also am drawn to and can replicate in my art.
These are very inspiring to me and I love them.
I’m thinking again about the water imagery, and I really like the thought of it, lichen and moss flowing like water across the wood.
First stage;
Drawing; the first stage of the process.
I am using manila folders, as they are strong enough to hold together when cutting, but not too thick to make cutting unnecessarily difficult. Also when painting, they don’t absorb the wet paints as quickly as paper, and are therefore less likely to wrinkle or stretch, this keeps the painting and stencil together for long enough to paint it.
 
Potential problems; getting lost!
Now below is a partial cut of another drawing, forgot to scan it in before beginning cutting, sorry everyone, but what I’ve done is I’ve cut a left section, then I felt I was losing my way a little so I stopped cutting and re-defined the trunks again with my pencil, this way I have a stronger line and I know what is attached to what, making the directions easier for cutting. I don’t always do this, however I strongly recommend to any beginner to do this when starting out, that way you know where you’re cutting and where not to cut.
I now work differently, and I make my cutting decisions as I’m going, moving where I feel I need to. Providing me with a more fluid approach, and freeing my mind up for thinking about colours, if I haven’t visualised them already.
What does this all mean? Are you getting confused and lost where you’re cutting?
Then; Stop, look, re-define your direction with a darker line.
You’ll then be ready to continue cutting.
I’ve placed black paper behind the stencil so you can define where I’ve cut more easily. It is up to you where you prefer to begin cutting. Usually I start in a corner and spread my way across, while aiming to cut the smaller sections first. After this comes the first paint, before cutting larger sections and further weakening the stencil.
This staged approach to making Pochoir, helps to keep the stencil as strong as possible through the process of painting. Safeguarding the Pochoir from falling apart before you’ve cut everything, and finished your painting.
First Cut
Here is an example of the same above image ready for the first paint, and the first cut completed. I call this the First Cut.
Here is where my technique differs from the traditional French Pochoir. If I was doing this in France in the late 1900’s and early 20th century, I would replicate my image again onto a series of copper plates, each copper plate destined for use with one colour only.
If I was using 30 different colours in a painting, I would have 30 different copper plates with the different coloured sections cut into each. The first cut would be done, a sample produced and checked. If perfect painting and printing would begin.
It is important that only one colour per copper plate be remembered. Depending on the number of colours I would have in my painting would depend upon the number of copper plates I would need. My second cut would be my image drawn again onto an uncut copper plate and the second colour/area to be painted then cut out, and so on until all the colours are cut out onto the different copper plates etc.
The benefit of this method, is the consistency and accuracy with which a picture can be replicated many times over. Creating a very technical form of colour printing, to highly perfected and exacting standards.
However, it was extremely time consuming and difficult. This method also dictated that a great number of people be involved in its process. Some Pochoir Studio’s having as many as 15 – 30 people painting.
Being one person, and with only so much patience available to me, I have taken the ideals from the Pochoir perfection of the French model, and applied it to my own needs and abilities.
Avoiding cutting copper (as it’s expensive and difficult and I don’t have the knowledge to do this) as well as avoiding making multiple stencils for the one painting. I cut in sections.
After I have painted the above section, I will wait till the stencil has dried and I will cut the next section to paint, and continue this way until the Pochoir is completed.
From this I will produce a maximum of three paintings form the smaller stencils and only one painting for the larger ones. The obvious downfall of my method is the difficulty of painting the stencil more than three times or also more than once.
Except replicating the image often more than once is not my goal, and it does not bother me that I cannot make aw great number of copies, as I prefer to paint an image, finish it then move onto the next image.
The idea of painting the same stencil more than three times is now unattractive to me, having tried it in the past and not enjoyed it.
I have made a few multiple stencils, and I will again, just not today, and not for this series of art works. I’ll let you know when I do Multiple stencils and how I go about this process. I will do a few this year too.
First Paint
Here I am doing the first paint of the first cut, I call this First Paint.
When doing this is it important to stop and allow the stencil to dry. If you don’t allow your stencil to dry it will stick to your paper or canvas, and you get torn pieces of stencil stuck to everything, it is quite frustrating to get these off, or to paint over them. I’ve done this a number of times so relating to my experience, I now let everything dry and I don’t push through to get things quickly painted.
Below you can see I have applied the paint three separate times, allowing each time for the stencil and the canvas to dry. I keep going with this until I’m happy with it, then I will do the Second Cut.
  
A note to paints
I am using acrylics with impasto; this thickens them up and makes them nicer to paint with, especially when doing Pochoir. I have previously used Gouache with great success on paper and on canvas. I love Gouache, a wonderfully thick and opaque painting medium. And I have often used it on canvas to great affect. I’m not the first one to do so.
However it re-constitutes, meaning when something wet is applied onto it, it turns back into paint and mixes with the next layer, and this can be frustrating producing an unpleasant affect onto the painting. Especially if you wanted to change colours to that section!
It will also re-constitute if, like me, you dash to your car in the rain and don’t cover your gouache painting, you’ll have to go home and re-paint parts of it because it’ll have washed away. (A bit of a buggar that one!)
Acrylics are more constant, once dry they stay that way. The issue with acrylics is that they don’t have the smooth texture and silkiness of Gouache, which is so lovely to use. And they are thinner, even with the impasto to thicken them up.
It also takes a number of paintings over the dried acrylic to get the colours up to the standard that I like for my paintings, which you can see above, I’ve done three dryings and paintings, and about 2 hours work to get through the first paint.
Patience is needed, fast and thick painting of the surface with acrylic will inevitably leave you with fat blobs that remove the definition of the beautiful lines you spent so long drawing and cutting.
You can do it, just go slowly, have a cup of tea or a biscuit between each one. It makes the time pass. Of course you’ll also have to go to the loo more, which will also help the time pass, amongst other things.
Second Cut and Second Paint
It is obvious from the title that this is the next stage I take in my process. It is up to the individual how much or how little they choose to cut for the second cut. The piece that I’m demonstrating to you, as it is smaller than A4, I’m confident I can cut the rest and paint it without the stencil becoming too flimsy. This is the result.
 
I have to admit here that I am not too happy with the result, for me it is too distracted, the colours are not quite there and there is too much happening, so I’m going to cut again and try to simplify the background as it is affecting the foreground far too much. Then I’ll have a little more of a think about it and possibly simplify some other sections.
When I’m looking at a painting to see if it is working, I try to look for the distractions, or the factors that are bothering me the most and then I’ll set about a process of eliminating the distractions one by one to see if the painting settles within itself, once I feel it’s settled, then I know it’s finished.
So next I will go in and Re-cut my second cut, I’m also going to experiment with only softening the edges, and not completely removing the lines I cut in the first place, and see how that feels.
 
I feel more comfortable with this result. It’s late now and I’m going to sleep on it and have another look in the morning. I already know that there are some lines that I want to clean up, and I think I’ve lost a tree on the right side so I may have to re-paint this again.
It’s always good to let it go for a night, and take a look in the morning for me.
The two images side by side may make it easier for you to see the differences.
I am much happier with this result, next I am cleaning up the lines.
Cleaning and re-defining the lines.
With some paintings the lines will blur and not maintain their definition as much as I want them to. While I do like some of the effects or ‘happy accidents’, I also like the clarity of the defined line in my art works.
For this painting I will go back and redefine some of the lines now so the image is clearer. This is more common when painting on canvas than on paper. Most of the canvases I use are pre-stretched, during the course of painting they can bounce and stretch a little, this may shift the stencil a little, creating movement of the lines. Resulting in an unpleasant blur or smudge along some of the lines.
On paper, I find this rarely happens. The paper is held flat, and doesn’t bounce back like the canvas, I choose not to re-define my lines on my paper art works, as they very rarely need it.
Below are three images of the final art work, with stencil on painting, stencil with black paper behind (easier for you to see) and the finished painting.
Because of the number of art works that have been sold, this painting will be added to the exhibition by the end of today (26/7/11) and is available for sale through Mt Tomah. If you would like information about this painting please contact me or Mt Tomah, www.mounttomahbotanicgarden.com.au, or mel@journeymoonart.com.
It is 20.5 cm x 25.5 cm. "Lichen and Moss" 1st painting from my residency at The Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mt Tomah. It will retail from $85.00 Australian.
 
Cheers, and thank you for taking the time to visit my blog.
:)
Mel
Mel Jones' current art works are available at The Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mt Tomah.
Mel Jones is the current Artist in Residence to The Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mt Tomah.
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