6. An afternoon at the National Gallery of Australia

Another beautiful, sunny day in Canberra and on Patrick's recommendation, took myself to the NGA to see the Cressida Campbell exhibition. Cressida is an Australian artist and was born 7 years before me. It was nice to see an exhibition of someone who is alive. There was a video to show us a bit of her house and her technique. She is a very interesting lady and has a very interesting house. She paints and then prints but it's not a simple process because she draws, then etches the outlines on a woodblock and can spend 3 to 4 weeks painting what she sees around her onto the woodblock in watercolour. Once she's finished that, she sprays paper, the painting, the paper and the painting before laying the paper over the painting, to create a print. She then peels the paper off 1 side at a time, to re-wet the painting and presses the paper down again. She often displays both the painting and the print. She then might touch up the painting a bit. The technique causes really interesting textures. The video that they showed at the gallery is worth a watch if you are interested. 

Some of the photos I took of her work were not of the whole composition because I was trying to capture the texture but here are just a few that I really liked!

Painting    

printed

printed

I like that the texture looks like the fabric.

unique woodcut, printed in watercolour, from one block

incised woodblock, painted in watercolour

How do you get such bold colour from painting in waterpaint?

Check out the size of her brushes!

I love the cushions!

and here is where I got to do my own drawing

Of course, there was more in the gallery, including 

And seeing as I was there, I kept going.

       This one made an impression on me. I had red wax melt over my mantle piece and down the wall at home in Surrey Hills. It's understandable that one's head of wax might fall off if it gets hot. Perhaps he should have put himself inside the regrigerator.

This is the scariest street cleaner I have ever seen.

This one represents the problem of plastic waste in Indonesia. Eko Nugroho 2018

I might be able to do something like this with all of my packing boxes.

At this point I needed to find the bathroom and wondered at my frizzy flat hair. Did I forget to condition or something????

I've decided that I really like Sidney Nolan.

This one made me laugh. I thought it was boy with mad monkey.

It was easy to recognise the McCubbin. This one is 'Violet and gold' 1911, Mt Macedon

I thought these were clever by Fiona Hall. They are made from or at least appear to be made from sardine tins. I was fascinated by them.

The gallery also has sculptures outside. It was such a nice day, I had to check them out as well.

Being so close to the lake, I had to pop down for a look.

This looks interesting, what's down there?

I decided that it would be nice to stay a while, have a drink (watermelon and kiwi fruit something) and listen to music.

It was nice looking around.

I need to find out what this building is. I don't think it's the yacht club.

Great! Now I know where to go. 

There is more in the area.

The Jetty is directly behind here.

And if you come to Canberra by plane, you can do this 😉