pencil | spoon | mouse

A place for all sorts of things I play with, including images I've made with the various tools at hand, or making other people's creations look great or collecting images that inspire. Suzi

[pencilspoonmouse]

"Feeling Wonton"

Mixed media on paper

40 x 40 cm

from "Collected" exhibition SALA 2013

[pencilspoonmouse]

"Spilling the Beans"

Mixed media on paper

40 x 40 cm

Collected exhibition SALA 2013

[pencilspoonmouse]

One of the first drawings I finished for the SALA "collected" exhibition was "The Art of Tea" (40 x 40cm mixed media on paper). A lecturer I had, Chris Orchard used the term "slippage" when finding things happening in your work you didn't realise were there and have no control over. I like this concept and started with a much larger old drawing, cut it into smaller squares then drew over the top, erased, painted over and draw again til it was multi layered while also trying to keep some sparse areas. 

[pencilspoonmouse]

About 18 months ago I was asked to style 6 of Poh Ling Yoew's recipes for Malaysia Kitchen. Having a Malaysian Chinese dad, flavours of traditional Malaysian cooking are very familiar to me and it was great to spend the day with her talking about food and tasting so many great dishes. The brief was to use strong coloured backgrounds and as this was the first shoot for the website we needed to set the style, which has been continued in a shoot Randy and I did the following year with Poh and by other contributors to the recipe bank on the site.

I always really liked the flow of the crockery in this image and used it as the basis for the composition of "The Art of Tea "drawing. I think I will return to it again as there is still much to explore with this idea. Professional work always informs my personal work, and vice versa, but not always in such an obvious way.

[pencilspoonmouse]

Collected

The SALA Festival in South Australia started as just a week of celebrations of South Australian Living Artists exhibiting their work, opening their studios and bringing attention to the broad range of people in the state who work as artists both as professional and amateurs. After 15 years, it is now a month of exhibitions and events, this year having almost 5000 artists involved in over 500 exhibitions and events. 

This year I joined the exhibitors and exhibited some of my drawings at our local cafe, The Stranded Store.  An opening in a loved local is aways a community event, opportunity for people to catch up over wine despite having artwork to say polite things about. But polite and lovely things were said and red dots appeared. One of my drawings was bought by a friend's cousin, journalist Megan Lloyd, who then wrote an article on her blog, which taps into the essence of SALA - putting your self and your work out there...  

[pencilspoonmouse]

I've always loved jigsaw puzzles and love it when the pieces seem to make no sense at all and you cant see how it will ever come together, then the moment happens when quite suddenly one piece falls into place and the rest follow. This 'wall' of tins was like that and for a long time the various sizes fought with each other or they would stack with no rhythm or flow. The brief from the client was clear about having no 'products' in the image but the little space on the left just begged to have a dark chocolate macadamia in it and everyone was happy that it snuck in.

[pencilspoonmouse]

Hanging out with my son's Grade 1 class and making art with them has been a lovely way to spend a few afternoons in the last few weeks. With the Olympics as a theme in the classroom and their outside worlds it seemed a good time to draw inspiration from the first Olympics in Ancient Greece.  We looked at ceramic vases from the same era, in the style known as 'red figure painting.'

As six and seven years olds, some of them are very skilled at drawing, adding amazing details and attempts at the complex idea of objects in front of other objects,  others are just emerging from the stick figure stage of drawing. I tried to plan the project so that all could have success. From the beginning they knew there would be many steps and  we worked though them together. We traced around a choice of pot templates as a starting point, practiced copying and inventing patterns to use, and talked about the sports at the modern Olympics before they choose their favourite to draw on their vases.  The final painting stage was done in small groups so I could help them work slowly and carefully to finish. Cutting the vases out was the final step in making them stand out!

[pencilspoonmouse]

I just came across this photo of a card made a few months ago by my 8 year old for a cricket crazy mate's birthday. I love how he, to use his own words, "used a sketchy style because he is moving," also how the ball is large in the foreground with a stronger darker line and the softer lines are used in the background. He drew this fast and with great confidence. I hope that feeling lasts.

[pencilspoonmouse]

Gen Y! - Page 3 of the UniSA article about managing generational difference in the work force.

[pencilspoonmouse]

Earlier in the year I did a lovely styling project for UniSA Business Magazine. Art Director, Marco Cicchianni, wanted a photographic image of desktops to illustrate generational difference for an article about managing staff. After some discussion we decided the "things organised neatly" style would do this well and it was interesting working through this idea,  collecting appropriate props and laying it out within the strict framework that already had the text planned. Great to finally see it in print.

[pencilspoonmouse]

Sometime you see people who have been thrust into fame suddenly and they appear to have no understanding of how to proceed from this point to keep control or sense of who they are. I don't get this feeling from hearing Wally de Backer, discuss his creative process in this grounded and articulate analysis.

Thanks to Emma Hack, a long time collaborator with Randy, for inviting him and Mike Wilson to document the painting she worked on with Wally to raise money for their favourite charities. A 1/1 edition large print will be auctioned at Art Melbourne 2012 with all proceeds going to The Thin Green Line and Make A Wish Australia.

[pencilspoonmouse]

Julia Mehretu, Stadia 11, 2004

Last year I had a project in my class which involved making 2 artworks (in a short time frame) based on a description written about another artist's work. Each person had a different description to work with.  After doing this we found out who our artist was. "My" artist, Julia Mehretu, an Ethiopian born, New York based artist, was a fabulous artist to discover. Her work was so exciting. I love the multi layered and dynamic compositions. Flashes of block colour patterns, with repetitive line patterns draw you around and around the work, reminiscent of maps, urban planning, signage and chaos. Their size would have a big impact on the viewer's response. I look forward to one day seeing her work in reality.

[pencilspoonmouse]

Late last year I came across the work of San Francisco artist, Wendy MacNaughton, whose pen and watercolour work illustrations tap into a humanity not often found in contemporary art and design. As a lover of libraries I bought her book The San Francisco Public Library in its own words,  which can be seen in full on her website and bought here. Observations of the everyday and how people use and move through the space were recorded over a month leaving us with a greater understanding of the role of the library than many wouldn't expect or appreciate. What I really love about her work is the non judgemental nature of her observations.

In late 2000 she worked in Rwanda on a design project to communicate information about the first upcoming democratic elections. She writes," I attempted to create a campaign that was culturally relevant, ethnically sensitive and easily understood, regardless of the viewerʼs level of literacy." A big ask in a complex country but done with thought and she writes honestly about both the success of the project but also of creating images that are sometimes read with differing meanings to their intent. 

I also love the simplicity of McNaughton's work, breaking complex ideas into essential elements. 

[randylarcombe]

Here is my latest collaboration with Mike Wilson. This movie about Collect magazine touches on a few issues close to my heart. Editor Josh Fanning reminds us that where we spend our money will determine what our cities will look like in the future and Creative Director, Adam Johnson gives an insight into the philosophy behind Collect’s distinctive covers.

[pencilspoonmouse]

One of the projects my husband, Randy Larcombe, has been working on recently was documenting local independantly published magazine Collect. I love this magazine, its beautifully designed, and writes of the value of your local people and places. Though Adelaide, based it also has a global viewpoint, and neighbourhoods can be ideological as well as geographical. Listening to Josh Fanning, editor/publisher, speaking about the role of the corner store in helping create communities always makes me hopeful.

[pencilspoonmouse]

Sometimes a commercial or agency client asks us to do some personal photography for them. This is always a honor as we know that they could have asked one of the other photographers they know. This image was the result of a lovely job, I got to style the various objects supplied and suggested, for an invitation to a 60th birthday. Reflecting their personal style, quirks, interests and history, the client and his family loved it.

[pencilspoonmouse]

I did this little painting a few years ago as a study in trying to create a beautiful painting of an ugly place. Constant development on the lovely Fleurieu Peninsula has led to some some very unthoughtful buildings! I enjoyed playing with the colours to take the banality of the houses to a different place.

I recently took this image as the basis for another play with intaglio printing on plastic sheet. There is only a line drawing scratched onto the printing plate but I did a series of monoprints from it, trying to find out how much ink I could get onto the plate with out losing the bones of the image. This is my favourite - a very different atmosphere to the original painting.

[pencilspoonmouse]

"Multi layered images incorporating coloured shapes and symbols/motifs found in cartography, architectual drawing and cartoons. Wlidly imaginative, densely populated images which suggest imagined spaces. Materially spare with the emphasis on the design rather then the medium."

Huh!?!

OK-  the homework was to create 2 explorations of working in the style described above.  Everyone in the class got a different description based on the work of an actual contemporary artist, who we will find out about further down the track.

I tried to tackle it in two very different ways.