Tag Archives: women

Imago Mundi

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The Imago Mundi web site says:

Art is born from a complex direct relationship with its surroundings and culture.
Imago Mundi’s ambition is to unite these diversities of our world in a common frame of artistic expression.

I am lucky that a friend opened the door for me to participate in this wonderful international exhibition. (Thanks Juliet)

Here is my tiny canvas for Imago Mundi.

women in politics judywatsonart 2015

‘Seen and not Heard’ (dedicated to Gillian Triggs)

I’m endlessly fascinated with vintage cabinet card portraits, so this came out of that space, and also from my interest in the cladding of women under layers and layers of ornament. There is a drawn woman under the coat. It’s a strange thing to add layers of clothing to a drawn woman and slowly hide her from view. (Something I explored earlier here.)

But I was also thinking of Professor Gillian Triggs trying to be heard in the Australian Federal Government arena as I made this artwork.

It’s made with acrylic paint, indian ink, felt tip, watercolour and collaged book pages on a very small canvas.

scraps of girls who will go somewhere else

scraps of girls who will go somewhere else

#IStandwithGillianTriggs

Calculus Doodles in Bed

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These were all done using a historical fashion book for reference and a differential calculus book as a canvas.

I first looked for interesting mathematical lines and diagrams, then found fashions that seemed to meld with them. The rest was a bit of swift improvisation. The women in the fashion book are (deliberately) bland and faceless. I added some life to the people, and altered poses, and fashion to suit the squiggles of my pen.

I do seem to find this kind of squiggling very relaxing. And it can be quite suggestive of all sorts of things… Astrakhan, embroidery, hedges…

calculus fashion judywatsonart lorescalculus fashion2 judywatsonart lores calculus fashion3 judywatsonart lores calculus fashion4 judywatsonart lores

calculus fashion5 judywatsonart lores

Cabinet Card Faces that tell a story

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Young actress wearing a hat

Young actress wearing a hat – This was my warm up sketch. Fast and loose.

Waiting for the kids while they are in their drama class on Wednesday afternoons, I am in the lap of luxury for an hour in a big leisure centre. There is a huge room with large tables, very few people and a nearby change room with fresh water for painting. This week I took my altered book sketching back-pack (have ink, can travel) and did some sketches there.

When I want to launch into something without thinking too much or wasting limited time finding a subject, I sometimes like to look at vintage cabinet cards, featuring studio portrait photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries. The faces are intriguing, the costumes often more interesting than today’s garb and usually the poses are wonderfully contrived. They are in black and white so the tonal values and detail are usually good for my purposes.

gentle faced woman

Italian ballet dancer with smiling eyes.

Italian ballet dancer with smiling eyes. This one was done after I got home and she has a touch of collage. I cut the face first, loosely without drawing an outline, to avoid getting caught up in detail.. 

This woman looked like she was having a ball being photographed. She had a confident pose, uplifted chin and laughing italian eyes with Audrey Hepburn style eye make-up and brows.

sad-eyed woman

There was something rather sad about this woman’s eyes that touched me. My sketch looks very little like the original woman, but it has retained the inward gaze. Although it’s not a particularly good picture, I find that I like her in a personal way, so she’s going up.