Jane Davenport Blog

Every time I go in to my Gallery, I am surprised by people’s reactions to me as ‘The Artist‘. I suppose meeting an artist is unusual. ( Sort of like when I met a Zoo Keeper who was in charge of Red Pandas and Zebras the other week…I was all…twinkle-eyed and magic-ified…I can’t think of another word for it!).

And I was asked the other day, “what does it feel like to be an artist?”. And the question really touched me and I am still thinking about it!

In my Gallery I show my photographic art, drawing, designing, writing, journalling and painting.
I’m often asked which is my favourite. I love them all. Correction; I am wildly, arms-spinning-in-circles in love with all the art forms I employ! I go through phases where one is more important than the others. Except for drawing. Drawing is my constant thread. I was the kid at school that could draw. I am still drawing every day.

But I am usually doing a little of everything. Today for instance, I started a new painting, photographed and varnished two more for the Gallery, ruined a painting and hid it away, photographed live butterflies, wrote this blog post, updated the online store (hello html?) , journaled, went in to my Gallery and spun around in circles and did some business stuff,  had a glass of champagne at the beach watching the sunset with my hubby  and downloaded some new music (yes, and the Rachel Zoe Project…so major!). This evening I will sketch as I watch my favourite tv show (Grand Designs).

Tomorrow will be totally different! But I bet there will be a bit of painting, a bit of photography, a smidge of drawing, a pinch of journaling and a skerrick of writing and some ‘serious’ business stuff all squeezed in. I will ‘ruin’ something, and fall in love with another piece! I highly recommend working on lots of different things all at once. That way if one feels like it is turning to crappola you have plenty to move on to..and then, later, with fresh, unfrustrated eyes, you can come back to annoyances and say – “Oh! Right! THATS’s what you were trying to tell me! Got it!  Repaint the eye 2cm higher up! Of course!!”. Or I may not feel like doing anything creative at all! On those flat sort of days I try and tidy-up, organise and get prepared for my next inspiration.

So, where am I going with my art? I have seen with my own eyes how my work can affect people. I have comforted people through tears and learned amazing, uplifting stories from my collectors about how my work has affected them.  I am blessed that my work seems to reach out and it is these experiences that I am always looking for. I get goosebumps thinking about the precious stories I have been told.  I have made a little nest around my heart of these tales from collectors, and when I am having a trying time bringing a creation to life, I can snuggle into that nest.

I suppose I am always looking for people who connect with my work as that gives me courage to keep creating.

But it is the artwork itself that inspires me. Creating it. Bringing my ideas into the real world. That is my driving force. My imagination is unrelenting! I need to get these stories and ideas out of my head.

I use a wide range of materials and methods to create my work. For instance, on this page are details from my new series called ‘The Sidekicks’. They are all created with colored pencils, a brand new medium for me…but one I have been smitten so hard by, I had to declare 2011 as Year of the Pencil! ( see that blog post here)

I am working towards more gallery shows, more large-scale, outdoor art installations in amazing gardens and finding more collectors and fellow artists to connect with with through my blog and websites.  I also have a few children’s books hidden in the secret pockets of my heart…
There will always be change; it is inevitable. You will see me add collections or series of work to all my artforms. It will evolve. I am VERY EXCITED about my next photographic series (very ,very veeeeeeeeery excited…bursting-out-of my-skin, 5-year-old-on-christmas-morning exctited!). You will also see me keep adding to all my existing series. I see them as life-long friends and we always keep in touch. I am a loyal person.

The hardest thing about being creative is getting used to it… it’s terrifying! Exhilarating! Free! Beautiful! All at the same time….and Worth it.

If you are on the creative edge…tippy toe-ing around…make a splash as you dive in! (or I’ll push you – haha! I would never do that! but…I will call to you…the water really is fine!)

Choose happiness!

Jane

It’s Australia Day!

And my mother, Liz Davenport,  has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the fashion industry, and the community. I’m always proud of her, but even extra, extra proud today!

Image Source - Daily Telegraph

Here are some stories about it (I have to go celebrate!):

“CELEBRATED fashion designer Liz Davenport is the only well known business identity honoured in the Australia Day awards.”

Ms Davenport, whose colourful collections have made her a household name, was made a member of the general division of the Order of Australia.: http://www.heraldsun.com.au

“Fashion queen says smile best accessory” : big pond news

I mean, how amazing is that? She is an inspiration and role model beyond compare – what a woman!

I needed a break from all this website building – it’s just me in my eagle’s eerie squirelling away at this stuff…( hmmm using squirrel and eagle in the same sentence made me nervous for the furry little guy…).

And what makes makes me forget about time and transports me to another place is painting. I chose a very large 1m x 1.5m canvas to have some fun with and selected the colours that really called to me in the moment… turquoises, cobolt, raw umber, gold…. I put some cute music on (Asteroid Galaxy Tour and Lykke Li) and painted as I danced… lots of texture and impasto (thickly applied paint) went on the canvas!

And feeling refreshed, I let my colours dry. The next day I just felt like painting circles…and so I did! I moved the canvas to a different part of the studio, and when I did I saw Marie Antoinette’s hair…a windswept concoction!

And my Blue Antoinette continued to appear in gold, and rich dark chocolate, moody blues and purples…paint and ink…shimmery glazes…layer after layer…and I became more and more graceful with my strokes, more thoughtful.

I love looking at all those delicious blues.

I like having visitors in my studio and to see wich of the works they are drawn to. At any one time I have as many as 20 different works in various stages all around. I had passionate response to my big blue painting! She was called a mermaid by some and two people asked me which godess she was… So I called her Deep Blue.

Here she is this morning….gold mica in her hair…drips everywhere….she is nearly finished.

Deep Blue has been placed in my Gallery now in a commanding position. I know she was once Royal, and I fancy I can see the way she rules over everyone that steps into her space.

Thank you for visiting my studio,

Choose happiness,

Jane

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I have  just placed her in my on-line store as a print- click here

Wow – I decided to update this blog…and then I started tinkering with my store website… and 3 x 16 hour days days later! Ta-dah! I have bent WordPress to my will….I am feeling slightly invincible. There is still tweaking to do…but …woah…I updated all the text…all the images  (they were too small)…

The new Institute of Cute Website! yay!

Isn’t it funny how a light switch goes off (or on?) in our mind and we have the impulse and drive to do the thing we had been putting off  for the longest time? To sit here, tethered to my computer for days has actually been an adrenaline fuelled rush! I have really had to push myself to learn how to wrangle the code…or how to get my wrangle-ations translated into code.

This is the old Institute of cute website...ladybirds galore!

Anyway, I have emerged victorious! Well that is how i am feeling at the moment…hopefully when I wake up tomorrow, i still look at all my work and go  “Woah, good one girl!”. Well maybe I’ll leave the sites for a few days actually. I haven’t painted for three days and my easel is starting to get in a snit, my paints are all jealous of my keyboard and the paintbrushes are seductively fluttering their bristles at me…

Have a peep…!  instituteofcute.com.au

Thank you for sharing this bumpy, sometimes exhaltant, sometimes co-herent, sometimes succinct ride with me. I appreciate right through to the marrow of my bones.

x

Jane

Lest We Forget - RIP old blog - You were loved!

I woke up this morning and I just had to change my  website!

so…there will continue to be some changes – or as David Bowie said ” Ch..ch..ch..ch…changes!”.
( I laugh everytime I look at the page and see that photo of me with my Abba style ‘flicks’… cripes! Who has time for a portrait? )

I have been operating on the “Institute of Cute” website too… Sometimes it is terrifying, but it has mostly been exhilarating to bend my tools to my will… woo!

Let me know what you think!

Yes – I am calling it! It’s 2011 and it’s the Year of the Pencil!

Surely I am not the only one obsessed by these little sticks of colourful goodness? well I know for a fact that I am not, because I have been watching ebay LIKE A HAWK for a particular discontinued brand, and they are going for big money (well, in coloured pencil terms!). I am talking USED pencils, people! Holy soft lead Batman…I can’t get NEAR them! And lets not even remind me of the mysterious Japanese 150 coloured pencil set that I am planning a trip to Tokyo just to get….

I have in excess of 800 coloured pencils now – not counting the repeats. Yes, you read that number correctly. I am counting my pastel pencils and watercolour pencils in that vast sum, because in my experience they are interchangeable. And I love them all. I have special pencil sharpeners for each brand because they are all a different.

I am working on a series of reviews for all of them. In short, I am now a pencil nerd. Pencil pencil pencil!

There is a lot to be said for them as an art tool. They are so IMMEDIATE! No set-up time, no washing up. No waiting to dry between layers. I can’t spill them.They don’t seem to go ‘off’. They don’t smell  bad (each brand does have its own scent though!). I can use them at the beach because sand doesn’t worry them (sand and paint or oil pastels – bad combinations!)They are expressive and fun to use. And the colours….oh, the colours…

They look so pretty just sitting on my desk, waiting patiently for me. But i also have a travel set in a super-nifty binder where each pencil is held separately (no banging around in a pencil case for my pencils!). I have a set in the TV room, so I can pencil-potter during movies. I have a set up near my computer desk. I have sprinkled their rainbowy goodness all around me.

So YAY, YAY, YAY for my skinny little colourful friends in their special year – the Year of the Pencil!

I am planning a big party for my pencils on the 11.11.2011!  They will all be a lot shorter by then…they would have helped me draw many, many more things…

What’s your favourite coloured pencil?

Art Journal pages - week 2 of Strathmore class

Did you know that charcoal and oil pastel were made for each other? I didn’t either! And they are, they are! they smoodge together to make a shabby, messy mix of delight.

Scribble a bit of charcoal pencil, and scribble an  oil pastel over the top – then rub the concotion with your finger tip…and yes…beautiful. You can see the effect around the girls hair, around her neck, around her eyes…i like it – a lot!

And where did I discover this? At the FREE Strathmore paper online workshops that have just started. Come on over! It’s fun and you will pick up some great ideas and tips from our teacher, Pam Carriker, and from classmates. What I call Art Journaling, they call Visual Journaling, but it’s all the same thing.

The message on this page has been burning a hole in my head for a year! And it was as I was chatting with my BFF  on a quick trip to Sydney to see her while she is home from Singapore, that she managed to whip my jumbled, incoherent thoughts into a little neat parcel.

I have been struggling with explaining why drawing and Painting have become so, so, so important to me (and will just become more so!) and why photography is not my only obsession anymore. I have felt guilty over it ( my poor little camera is doing puppy dog eyes at me now, I can see it from the corner of my eye…). and worried that all that I have worked so hard to build would collapse if I allowed myself to expand in this new direction…but you know what? I can’t resist. I am growing and changing and EXPLORING MY IMAGINATION! I paint and draw things that don’t exist. I draw from memory, imagination, nothing  and everything. Oh Lord – save me! i’m babbling! just talking about this stuff ignites me.

ok, ok….deep breaths….and my photographic art is how I explore the KNOWN WORLD…because I am photographing things that already exist…Invention versus interpretation. Well, there is no winner. They are both the tools of an artist!  But it is invention that is getting me up at 5am every day!

But camera do not fear, I still love, and adore you – it’s just that we have an ‘open relationship’ now. You need to share me. My horizons expand, and so does my heart!

Jane