Jane Davenport

Here is the latest video Angus and I just finished!
It’s me working in my Art Journal and having a lovely time.
I was playing around with ‘acrylic gel transfers’ for an online art class I am doing with Willowing. Basically, I can take one of my drawings and transfer it into my Art Journal and use it to create new work. The original sketches can stay safe and sound in their homes, and clones of them can come out to play.

Art Journalling is a wonderful way to experiment and it inspires new ideas. It is an active form of thought process for me. I have been transferring my photography in my journals as well, but I use a different process, which will be in future video. This has me considing my artwork in new and exciting ways.

Ps…my favourite part is the appearance Tinsel makes …that doglette is the cutest little critter…ever!

(click here if the video isn’t showing - )

Yesterday afternoon this was my studio. Overlooking the famous surf break called ‘The Pass’ at Byron Bay. How I LOVE my home! Love, love LOVE it. Angus was out surfing, and I sat and painted at a picnic table with the birds twittering all around me and a few curious onlookers. I intended to do some writing, but painting is all that happened!

The Magician is on the new journal I made myself (hello!) with a canvas cover and lovely water colour papers interleaved with glassine and tracing paper. I drew her that morning  as a preliminary sketch for a series of paintings I am working on.  I plan on doing the front cover tomorrow…!I might draw the little bird in the nest I photographed…or maybe transfer the photo onto the canvas and paint parts of it…or not….hmmm…some more experimentation on the way. Lovely!

The little girl with bugs-on-a-string is a sketch i drew ages ago. I transferred her into my Moleskine journal  to test making a gesso transfer (fun!) and painted her all pretty. I have no idea what will go in next to her, but she will wait until she is just the perfect background for some written thoughts.

I am just ENJOYING drawing and painting so, so, so much. My Art Journal is full of sketches and painting experiments, and that is why I started making my own journals as well- so I could include different papers to play around with. I love combining it with my photography. While the paint is drying  I flit over to my camera and set up  a scenario to shoot…flit back to the canvas…draw, mix paint, make marks…delicious stuff.

Choose happiness
x Jane

P.s. Also! I found an echidna in my driveway at the studio! After a bit of gentle persuasion, we coaxed the little guy into a box and returned him to the bush! Pics coming….

Why does working on a Sunday feel so great? I feel as if I am ‘catching up’ and ‘getting ahead’ ..which is so weird really, because I work for myself, and I can only get ahead of me!

So It has been a super-productive day (to make up for my super-UN-productive day yesterday. I went shopping at my favourite paper crafts store – oh, it was awesome and I came back with such a haul of goodies. Why do art supplies make me so happy?). I have been drawing all morning, and finishing the BEST drawing of my life (I’ll wait to show you it until I’ve painted it…)…plus a few other drawings spilled out (see below). I really like drawing in my Daler Rowney A4 sketchbook. The creeeeeeeamy pages WANT to be stroked with my pencil and petted with my kneaded eraser…

Reading in the Grass. Illustration © Jane Davenport

And then I had to photograph lots of my bigger artworks. I like to record each piece at various stages of completion. I find that recording the painting frees me up mentally to fling paint with wild abandon (or thoughtful posturing – depends on my mood du jour!) because I have a backup point. It must be from all my years of using Photoshop. Works for me!

And I also started work (finally) on an idea that has been RATTLING around in my mind for a while. So I was very fixated on carrying the concept over into reality ….so when my photographic studio lights weren’t bending themselves to my will with ESP and telekinesis (oh, how I wish I had those skills!) … le freaking out… And just as I was teetering on the Brink of Tantrum…I stepped away and saw this email:

” Hi, hope fully this email will reach Jane!

I just have to say after a recent visit to the Perth Zoo, I am absolutely blown away with the displays provided by you.

I am a professional photographer, and can only say that you have an amazing gift – I can honestly say that I (and my kids of course!) absolutely loved the photos as we travelled through the zoo.

Please keep up the good work as it is appreciated very much!

Chris

CK Images
www.ckimages.com.au”

aaaaawww, cool stuff. So that bad tanty Jane instantly dissolved and smiling happy Jane, emailed to and fro with Chris and then I easily rethought the lights and moved on with resolving my project (it’s all secret, hush-hush for now… let me marinate it some more, cook it a little, simmer, bubble, sautee.)

Choose happiness

x Jane

art journal page by Jane Davenport - "Why Bugs?"

I really enjoyed posting some of my journal pages a few days ago! I carry mine with me everywhere I go. I catch ideas and pin them down before they flit away again….sort of like a flower pressing book. Anyway, I liberated some insect pages from an old World Book Encyclopedia (remember those?!!) and made a collage a while back. Played with some bright colour and shapes (messy and scrumptious).  And that was it for the time being.

Someone asked me “Why bugs” the other day…and when I was manically flipping through my journal in the attempt to distract myself  on the ROUGH flight home last night from Sydney (we didn’t hit any stray tornadoes though! Wild and weird weather…hope the Lennox Head tornado was a one off – NOT a sign of things to come!), the answers to why I just love wrangling insects for my art practice flowed on to the uncannily prepared surface.

i love these moment when ‘things’ just flow…

Choose happiness,

x Jane

Angus and I are venturing to Sydney tomorrow for a very important meeting with my favourite creative cohorts. I will be approving calendars, diaries and other exciting developments. And we are going to squeeze in a plethora of other things and meander around the exciting city.

I have to admit that I would never even consider leaving Byron Bay even just for a few days, if the weather had not finally turned to winter. It has been just so delightful…a chilly evening here and there, maybe…but love lovely loveliness….

Winter page from my art journal

But the rain has arrived, the slippers and doona are out of the cupboard!

Oh yeah! the journal! I started keeping one this year. I did a workshop with fellow Byron Bay artist Zom from pinchmetoseeifyouaredreaming. And I love the process of filling a book with drawings, thoughts, things. I sit on the beach and sketch, ponder, write lists, scribble in and tickle my cute art journals. They have become so precious and I delight in the time I spend working in them.

For some reason I decided to test every pen, pencil paint and marker. I filled many, many pages and it was a delicious experiment!

Here are a few…I just loooooove looking at the colours…rainbows

So every now and then I might share a page with you…

It feels like the year has only just started (yes, I know we are nearly halfway through! Time flies when you are having FUN!) and here I am showing you 2011 calendars…but I was so excited when they arrived from the USA today! I work with Leap Year Publishing, and have 4 titles with them for 2011..

In the Magic Garden

Love & DevOcean

The Sea Party

LadybirDelicious!

The WONDERFUL and EXCITING thing about having my work in calendars each year is that the images are reproduced in full blazing colour in a lovely large and juicy format. Delicious!

When my Australian calendars with OzCorp Publishing are ready to show off, I will let you know!

The drive home from Sydney to Byron Bay can be a real drag…time is measured out in coffee stops and toilet breaks. So any excitement along the way is always welcome, especially if it is of a close encounter with a giant bug!

As we passed a new sushi roadside diner at Coffs Harbour, my eyes clamped on a HUGE insect sitting on the lime green wall. Can you imagine how BIG it was to see it from the road? So I commando rolled out of the moving vehicle to dash over and have a close-up look…I split with excitement when I saw her huge pregnant belly, flourescent green eyes, and splashes of emerald down her wings. A magnificent site. And my mind started racing over the photo opps as I darted back to the now safely stationary car to grab my camera. And then I remembered…my camera was in Canon hospital getting repaired (the lens had locked with the camera body!). OK, not to worry, I will take her home. A quick google check (love my iphone!) revealed she was a species that lives in my area as well, so I could relocate her without guilt.

Now what to put her in? Well it just so happens that I never travel without a bug house in the car. Oh, right, it’s full of baby  stick insects ( a gift from one of my art collectors in Sydney – really!) and the mantis will definitely polish them off. So into a rinsed-out drink container she goes. I could hear her scrachety-scratching for the rest of the journey.

The next day, safe and sound in her own bug house, the mantis layed her eggs (told you she was preggers) and looked at me hungrily. I have been hunting grasshoppers for her ever since. And managed  to find a rocket frog, damselflies and a plethora of other little critters for lots of photographic fun over the long weekend!

Tenodera australasiae – aka: The Australian Mantid or Purple Winged mantid

As you can imagine, I have been very careful with my large guest and I prepared the studio carefully for her photo-session. I planned the images I wanted before picking up the camera (which arrived back safely – thanks Canon!).