Munupi ceramic tiles

Whilst we were in Pirlangimpi we visited the Munupi Art Centre a few times - mainly to talk to the artists; or on our way past on our morning walk.

I was always uplifted by the fact that the gallery part of the centre was totally painted in art that is reflected in many of the pieces in the gallery.

Barry Smith © Front door - Munipi Art Centre gallery

Barry Smith © Side of Munupi Art Centre

In the ramp that leads into the artist's painting area (collective studio) there were these 150mmX150mm tiles embed in the plain grey cement ramp. In all there would have been around 30 such tiles that 'shone' through the daily dust and mud that was applied to them as artists entered for their daily creation. The following are but a sample.

Barry Smith © Munupi tile

Barry Smith © Munupi tile

Barry Smith © Munupi tile

Barry Smith © Munupi tile

Barry Smith © Munupi tile

Barry Smith © Munupi tile

What quiet inspirational entry to a studio.

Natural jewels and colour fantasy

As we arrived 'home' from our morning walk around Pirlangimpi Fiona and I discovered a single gum leaf (about 150mm long) on the cement driveway. As you can see from the photos below it was so fresh and the rain over night had left crystal clear jewel like droplets on it. The cement was coloured dull brown by the red earth ground into it - so it provided a soft but textured background to the leaf.

Barry Smith © Gumleaf at dawn

Barry Smith © Raindrops on leaf

Barry Smith © Also Gumleaf at Dawn

Given the jewel like nature of the droplets of rain I was encouraged to alter the photos to give the leaf and the water droplets more colourful fantasy highlights and contrasts.

Barry Smith © Crystal highlights

Barry Smith © Solarised droplets on leaf

Barry Smith © Leaf with hint of rainbow

One of the things I am learning with the iPhoneography is that it is important to record one's application of the app filters and tricks before saving if one wants to share these with others. This will be done next time. But I am still having fun both playing with the zoom, focus and flash features of the iPhone camera. However, I must say on our walks I still get Fiona to take the macro shots with her camera. Maybe there is a macro app for the phone?

Some public art in Darwin

Last weekend Fiona and I were in Darwin and whilst we had to do some work-work we found some time to check out art galleries and places.

We visited a new wharf development and were pleased to find that they had included some public sculptures that referenced the flora and birdlife of the Northern Territory. The pieces below should be around for sometime as they are cast or created in aluminium and steel.

Barry Smith © Darwin sculpture - flora

Barry Smith © Darwin sculpture - detail flora

Barry Smith © Darwin sculpture - Jabiru

Barry Smith © Darwin sculpture - Jabiru

Barry Smith © Darwin sculpture - Fiona wandering through a forest of 'palms'.

Great to see that local governments in parts of Australia are encouraging-requiring developers to beautify the public spaces. Nice bit of rust for the 'palms'?

Colour fantasy from Pirlangimpi

The exploration of using the iPhone camera and apps to modify the originals continues. Though the shots were taken at Pilangimpi the post is done in Darwin after we have packed in preparation to return to the community for stage 2 this week.

Barry Smith © Dusk on Front Beach

Barry Smith © Receding tide Front Beach

Barry Smith © Sunsert from Barge Landing

I then used two FX Colour 'filters' to treat the shots - I was testing out various Colour Fantasy approaches - Solarize and Tritone - one gets some pretty amazing images. Some have possibilities as backgrounds to other design works.

Barry Smith © Tritone - Front Beach

Barry Smith © Tritone - Receding Tide

Barry Smith © Solarize - Sunset Barge Landing

Over the weekend we have had to enter survey data and post documents off etc - but we have managed to do some fun things in Darwin (see Fiona's perspective on this) as well including: checking out Framed and NT Galleries; going to two local markets (Parap and Rapid Creek; eating pizza and drinking shiraz; and picking up rusty bottle caps - but more about that later.

Sketches of the abandoned

Over the next couple of posts I will be sharing some photos of images from Pirlangimpi taken with my iPhone camera; but I will also be using photography applications to alter the images - a little creativity whilst we are away from home and our studios.

This post focuses on a few objects that have been abandoned and being reclaimed by nature.

Barry Smith© Pump and vines

Barry Smith © Sand reclaims boat

Barry Smith© 200l drum- crushed & rusted

I have then used an application to turn the images into art sketches. I'm not sure it has worked as well as I liked. It used FX Photo sketch filters and then gamma to adjust the light-contrast.

Barry Smith © 'Sketch' sand reclaims boat

Barry Smith © 'Sketch' rusted drum

Barry Smith © 'Sketch' - pump and vines

iPhoneography in Pirlangimpi

When Fiona and I knew we were going to Pirlangimpi and Umbakumba for work-work we discussed what we would do from an art-creativity perspective. Fiona decided to sketch and stitch. Given that iPhone cameras are now much better quality and we tend to carry our phones more than our cameras, I decided to learn how to use my iPhone camera; and how to use applications to alter images to make them a bit more creative. I was inspired to do this when I came across a book in Singapore called The Art of iPhoneography (A guide to Mobile Creativity) by Stephanie C. Roberts.

So today I started. Whilst I haven't finished reading the whole book I did read enough to understand some of the features of my iPhone (e.g. the focus and zoom); and I identified applications I wanted to buy to alter and edit the photos. App-wise I got PS Express; Photo Studio; and Camera+.

The photos below were taken this afternoon on our walk around the community.

Barry Smith © Front Beach Pirlangimpi

Barry Smith © Waterline Pirlangimpi

Fiona Dempster © Valve Barge Landing Pirlangimpi

And the same photos have been altered using the Photo Studio.  Quite a lot of fun and a good start. And hope you enjoy the original shots of Pirlangimpi anyway.

Barry Smith© Front Beach Pirlangimpi - brushstrokes

Barry Smith © Waterline - rainbow

Barry Smith © Valve - invert image

Textured colour

One of the impressive things about Hanoi we noticed in our recent trip is the burgeoning art industry. Whilst there was a good presence of copy artists and small art galleries we felt that since our first visit in 2004 there has been an explosion of colour - almost every street in the centre of the city has several copy shops or galleries.

Barry Smith © Copy artist Hanoi

Barry Smith © Tree - thick knife texture 

One of the in-vogue art practises is trees using very thick oil paint applied with a painting knife. As you can see from the photos below it can result in very colourful palettes; and great texture in the paintings.

Barry Smith © Palette 1

Barry Smith © Palette 2

Barry Smith © Painting colour texture 1

Barry Smith © Painting colour texture 2

Barry Smith © Painting colour texture 3

Attack of the vampire 'worm'?

In the lead up to our work trip away there has been the normal flurry of activity - all those maintenance jobs to be done including mowing and whipper snipping the weeds in the coffee plantation and down on the terraces.

Mowing was done before lunch and whipper snipping after. When I came in I noticed a trail of blood on the floor - I had been 'attacked' by a leech.  Fiona found it by my boot downstairs and took the photo below. The leech filled with my blood is about 80mm long and about 8-10mm round at the thickest point. I must have pulled it off with my sock when taking my work boots off.

Barry Smith © Leech - fully loaded

Leeches have a great anti coagulating chemical in their bite - hench the blood still pouring out of my foot - it will continue to bleed for an hour or so.

Barry Smith © A little Aussie bleeder

So much excitement on the block.

Flipside Friday

As Fiona has indicated on her Thursday thoughts, the last month has been pretty full of what we call "work-work" = work that pays the bills = "the day job". Whilst we enjoy what we do (social research) it can get in the way of time in the studio. And we have been away from home quite a bit as well - bit harder to access the computers etc etc.

Anyway this week we have been madly preparing to head off for three weeks to Pirlangimpi a small Indigenous community on Melville Island and Umbakumba on Groote Eylandt  in the NT. Today I promised myself an hour or two in the garage-studio doing an assemblage piece using the beautiful weaving shuttles and brass taps and bits below that I 'picked up' from a secondhand place when we were returning from the artists book exhibition in Lismore.

Barry Smith © Weaving shuttles

Barry Smith © Interesting brass bits

But it didn't work out that way. Instead my creativity went into making a balustrade on the steps up to the mezzanine in the shed. We are trying to get the shed approved for use as a teaching studio. We attempted to have a final inspection today - but it could not go ahead without the balustrade - so out the window with the assemblage work and on with finishing the shed - certainly was not on the agenda before we headed off. Still it is done and one step closer to creating a printmaking studio space.

Building regulations in SCC say that you can't have a drop of more than 1m on the side of stairs - hence a very linear response to the issue.