Term 7 Weekend Courses

Gary Freemantle – Canvas stretching and easel making

A cheap way of getting an easel for home $45,a little flimsy but very adequate, just make sure the screws are not centred but two to each joint at 45^o to stop twisting.

The canvas can be bought at the school shop, it should be washed first to get the starch out and stretched over the frame evenly around the edge, pulling as taut as you can. You must prepare the canvas before painting, traditionally rabbit skin glue is used to seal and tighten the canvas before you gesso the canvas. I did not gesso one of the frames, just painted on top, the ‘tooth’ was very fine and the paint seemed to soak in resulting in a matt finish to the piece. It came out quite nicely.

Jude Robertson – Alternative processes: Cyanotypes

What a lot of fun, to see an image emerge out of simply sitting in the sun. I wanted to reproduce old family photos on fabric to make a memory quilt but the more successful images  were created with actual objects made by a better artists hand than mine.

According to u-tube the chemicals are easy to come by and store, but of course here in New Zealand the chemicals are not available except to import them from B & H New York at large expense.

Eva Yocum – Arts Marketing

What a Valuable class, I do feel this should be at least be a block week and compulsory for all to attend. Just doing ‘art’ will possible satisfy our own need and stretch our abilities, our talent, our souls, but if we are to show the ‘world’ our talent and possibly make some sort of living to continue to do what we love, we have to know how to sell.

Eva suggests we all have clear in our heads, clear enough to write a few paragraphs anyway, why we do what we do. So first an Artists statement, because people want to know what’s behind the art they see. Know that art is subjective so keep around you your cheerleaders, people who support you to counter act the nay sayer’s, the critics (because you’ll always have them). Know the copyright  laws, you have intellectual ownership of work created by you for your life time, and your family can own it for 50 years after you die, it is then public. If you are going to make money record everything, your in comings have tax owing and your bills can be offset, claim for deductions. I could go on but the weekend resulted in 11 pages of notes so I do encourage you to go on the course.