I know many authors who have tried publishing their writing through various online sources, and have found the experience, difficult, tedious and frustratingly slow. It needn’t be that way.
It is my pleasure this week to welcome guest blogger Holly Dunn, who works in the world of writing, books, and independent publishing. She is just the person to help if you are thinking about publishing a book, whether it be a novel, short stories, essays, memoirs … Continue reading
Ink & watercolour sketch
As I’ve mentioned before, I can get stuck with what I know when it comes to sketching, but nothing beats joining an art group from time to time and just going with ‘the flow’, literally. On the last two Saturday afternoons I attended Tony McNeight’s class in the teaching block close to my home. Centre table was a large striped vase filled with silk flowers and dotted around were a bundle of twigs, and numerous pots of coloured ink. ‘Mm’ the class said. Continue reading
Ready and waiting
The post I planned for this week was going to be about my process of executing a self portrait in oils – a first for me. That will happen, it is just that I needed to attend to a far more important matter, another first, which involved helping my friend Gabby decorate clothes-peg dolls, for an extremely important cause. Continue reading
Frances Hodgkins was born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1869 and died in England in 1947. Last weekend the exhibition, Frances Hodgkins: European Journeys finished its run at the Auckland Art Gallery. I made sure I saw the exhibits, over 150 in all, as this artist has been a trail-blazer for the many female New Zealand artists who have followed. This particular artist stands out from the crowd because she forged an art career at a time when the art world was completely male-dominated. Frances Hodgkins left her birthplace for Europe in 1901 at a time when just a handful of women travellers were experiencing the world. What made Hodgkins different from those women was not mere travel to exotic countries, but her personal mission of becoming an artist of international repute. Continue reading
ARTISTRY 