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Click on this link to see what it is all about.

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Drawing Lessons - Every Saturday afternoon 2 - 4 pm

Word Cloud

I made this word cloud from words used in my profile. Interesting effect and inspirational.

What I like is that creativity, art and children stand out. My passion lies in developing these! 

To do the same check out this website: http://www.wordle.net/create





Natural Cycles Exhibition

24 March 2012 - Opening preview day

Since returning from my Summer Holiday, I was focused on finishing all the paintings for the Natural Cycles exhibition as well as getting everything ready for the big day. 

A solo exhibition is almost like a confession. It does not have the same dynamic as a group exhibition where weaker artists can hide behind stronger artists. If you go it alone you have to bear whatever the public view brings to you.

I am happy that the feedback I received was generally excellent. I achieved my goal of having this exhibition and putting my creative work out there. The pictures below are of the art work on display at The Depot Artspace gallery at 28 Clarence Street, Devonport, Auckland.

I will accept commissioned work to create similar works, but I could never reproduce any physical canvas. Contact me at:  info@theartworkshop.co.nz.  If you want to see more of my work click here: http://www.wix.com/sanemaribotha/theartworkshop#!

Natural Cycles 

Blissfully Unaware 

It seems Ok? 

Progress? 

Progress? (2) 

Roasting 

Consuming 

Where have all the flowers gone? 

From the other side 

From dust to dust...   

The tail end 

Natural Cycles Exhibition

I have been waiting for this moment a long time - probably as long as I can remember….

A solo exhibition in a public gallery! 

Natural cycles has been a journey of many steps.  Developing the idea, making the initial drawings, painting the initial drawings, repainting them and finally the finished product.  Throughout this process the series developed into something that (I believe) will be amazing to look at.

After the opening preview I will post photos of the series and I would love to know what you think.

Paint like a child....

Paint like a child....

Monday past, I spend a very productive day at The Learning Connexion (TLC) in Lower Hutt, Wellington.  It was interesting to spend time in a classroom environment with my tutor (Gary Freemantle) and other on site students. Feedback and interaction is freely used in the class and have sparked a few ideas that will hopefully serve as inspiration for future works of art.

I started the day off with strong colours and large paint brushes trying to paint without thinking about what I am doing - just doing shapes, lines, patterns. Like a child would, without any inhibitions.

This proved to be more difficult than what I thought. It is amazing how a trained mind want to force you to behave in a certain way, i.e. I like to be in control of my paintbrush/paint. Painting like a child is not like that. Eventually I let go and at the end of the day I liked the outcome. I poured, splattered and rubbed the paint with my fingers.  I definitely want to develop painting faces (abstract and otherwise) with dripping and running paint.

Below here are the work I did on this classroom day. It is in no particular order.

Natural Cycles

I watched a program on Discovery channel about the birth and death of a star, maybe our sun? I thought that might be a good follow on from the theme of MY BEAUTIFUL EARTH SERIES. 

The idea about this was that the star will become bigger and bigger as time passes. It will consume everything in its path when this happens, e.g. it will consume earth. 

(I know it sounds very doomsday!!!)

It will eventually explode due to the forming of certain metals, minerals and chemicals as it expands. When that happens it will leave a supernova in its place (and maybe even a black hole…..), but the end result is that it will be the beginning of something new.

Something like the reverse or start of what we believe when we are saying “from dust to dust”, as all the building blocks of our bodies can be found out there after the explosion took place.

 This process can take as long as millions of years and is not easy to understand by humans.

 I foresee that this series will consist out of 8 paintings, 24 x 24, acrylic on canvas.

Painting 1 - Blissfully unaware

To make this painting I used very little intervention from my paintbrush. Most of the colours and patterns were made by dripping or pouring the paint onto the canvas and then picking the canvas up and moving it around. E.g. tilting it for the straight lines and turning it from side to side for the other patterns. I filled the insides of the buildings in by dripping paint into the spaces in between the paint runs and letting the paint mix at free will to make new colours and patterns. This is a very wet method to work with and need patience. if you put the next layer on too quickly you can easily land up with brown!

Painting 1 Painting 1 Start and below Work in progress  

Painting 1 Final

I like this. It's vibrant, colourful and exactly how I intended it to be. It is also more interesting than painting 2. At this stage I do not contemplate adding anything else to the painting, but I will wait until it is completely dry to see what happens.

Painting 2 -"It seems OK"  - working Painting 20 x 20

Painting 2 is still very much in progress. This is the working painting on 20x20 size canvas. I am experimenting with colours and composition. I do think that it might end up similar to painting1 and that the flowers might just be changing colour - not so pink but a bit more brown. The sky will probably include some darker or grey clouds. The final painting will be done on 24 x 24 canvas with acrylic paint.

Painting 3 - Progress? - Working Painting 20 x 20

In my mind I had a visual picture of how I would like this painting 3 to look like. It had to be much more free than painting 2. I had to revert to let the paint do the work and not force the paintbrush to make lines that I thought should be represented from the working drawings. I did exactly that and I was surprised. I did many different layers of wet on wet and then when it was all dried I put thicker paint on, which which was not painted, but instead I moved the canvas around to get the desired effect.

I liked this a lot and was inspired to start with the painting 3 which will be showed at the exhibition. In the end, I might include this one as well. Size 20 x 20 Acrylic on canvas.