Category Archives: Artful Challenge

Do you dare?

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Playing with my new Brilliants

Yes, that is their name. Brilliants. Art’s honest truth. Micador watercolour round palette portable set of TWENTY FOUR.

A Heart Might Grow in a Prickly Place
Sally Swain © art

Delicious.

watercolour brilliant art

Tree Or Body?
Sally Swain © art

I’m loving them. They weren’t that easy to track down, either. A set of 12 is more common, but hey – 24 means there’s a deeply nourishing rosey crimson, a bottle green, a sheeny cream and more than one shade of yellow.

Uluru watercolour

the water in the air
the air in the earth
the earth in the water    (ooo that Uluru continues to permeate my being and emerge in unexpected moments)
Sally Swain © art

I don’t often crave an art material. In this case, I coveted my friend’s set of 24 Brilliants in the way that you might have had an aching desire for a set of 72 Derwents (coloured pencils) when you were in primary school in the 60s or 70s. Did you?

Oh. And have I told you

I am the proud owner of 24 Brilliants?

My car and house might be falling apart; care responsibilities might be denting my soul, but Continue reading →

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Get Your Art Eyes On

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I catch myself thinking drab thoughts.

turn ugly to beautiful

A cigarette butt converses with a dried leaf
Sally Swain
Get Your Art Eyes On

I am in a drab place. I must trudge across an underground carpark and it is eternal.

Trudge This Way
Sally Swain
Get Your Art Eyes On

It is the Sahara desert and I am weary. Where’s the camel when you need it? Oh. That’d be the fully functioning car I just parked. I forget to be grateful for the privileged first world life I lead. Facebook friends post photos of exotic meals in exotic spas in exotic forests near exotic mountains. I am in a carpark.

There’s a feather if you look
Sally Swain
Get Your Art Eyes On

I snap

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Light on Art

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Continuing the Even if … Make Art series,

here’s a teeny weeny squeeny post

with a teeny weeny squeeny picture,

Swain small art

Even if it’s a bit light on,
make art
Sally Swain © original paintage

containing a teeny weeny squeeny pun

to do with lightness and chandeliers.

Even if it’s a bit light on, make art

grew (not very largely) from this

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Making Art Palatable

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Swain small art

Even If It’s Tiny, Make Art
Sally Swain
play-in-progress

Or Should I Say Palette-able?

How to approach art-making when you’re daunted?

Chunk it down.

The vast blank canvas smirks at you. It might look innocent enough, all pure and fresh, but when nobody else is in the room, it snarls,

‘What makes you think you can paint on me? You’re not good enough. You’re not an artist and never will be.’

What to do?

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Clouds of Hope

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Clouds get bad press.

 

hope art postcard Swain

Some Clouds Paint Their Own Sunshine 1
Sally Swain © original art
contributed to Hope Postcard Art Exchange

Why is that? I enjoy sunshine and blue sky like the rest of ‘em, but why the doomy gloomy assumptions?

Cloudy day = misery.

‘Her face clouded over’ = negative thoughts.

‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’ = sunshine and blue sky.

My question to you :

What’s wrong with a cloud or two, or three or ninety?

What’s wrong

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Yellow is the Colour of Hope

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The Not-Very-Big Reveal.

Remember the Secret Art of Hope?
Shhh.

Yellow Hope Bird Cancer Council Sally Swain

Yellow is the Colour of Hope
Sally Swain © original art

Breakthrough Art Festival exhibition was a huge success, raising over $25,000 for NSW Cancer Council.
I held

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Divine Play

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The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

Carl Jung

Peronelle with Cushion Wings Ruby Foster-Swain for Random Acts of Travelling Sculpture

Peronelle with Cushion Wings
Ruby Foster-Swain for
Random Acts of Travelling Sculpture

Do you have any idea how much time, energy and focus went into this hairdo?

Let me tell you it was

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How to make art without making art

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Huh?

Over any extended period of time, being an artist requires enthusiasm more than discipline. Enthusiasm is not an emotional state. It is a spiritual commitment, a loving surrender to our creative process, a loving recognition of all the creativity around us.
The Artist’s Way
Julia Cameron

Random Acts of Travelling Sculpture

Random Acts of Travelling Sculpture
Sally’s tenor ukulele goes to Athol, South Island, NZ

Let’s revisit the Random Acts of Travelling Sculpture Challenge, or should I call it an Invitation?

In this world of push and shove, an Invitation sounds less demanding; more…playful.

I’m

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