Mayan Art Tours just around the corner….

ArteSpiral ART & CULTURE Tours

MEXICO 2017

San Cristobal

I know its been a very long time between posts, and my only excuse it that I have been busy moving about, first I moved from New Zealand back to Australia in Feb last year. This was no small task, it took me a good 6 months to recuperate once I got to Australia. Then I took off to Mexico in September for my long awaited ‘Year in Mexico’, which I have been talking about for at least a decade!!

I have now been in Mexico for the last 8 months, looking for a base for my Mayan Art and Culture Tour Business, and I’m very happy to say I have finally found it; San Cristobal De Las Casas, a charming colonial town high up in the Chiapas mountains in Southern Mexico, close to the Guatemalan border. It has a strong Mayan indigenous population as well as a small expat population of mainly Europeans. Being surrounded by lush green mountains, and a great climate, it attracts its fair share of artist; the cobble stoned streets offering plenty of funky, bohemian cafes, art galleries and restaurants. A perfect base for my ART and CULTURE tours. Many people come for a visit and end up staying for good.

I wonder if I could be such a person….?

I have now been here for 2 months and have met some fantastic people who have been who have helped me to find not only the right people for my tours (scheduled February and March 2017), but also for my documentary film

‘A new medical emergency’.

I am now just finishing off the final little details of my three tours for next year and this information will be available in the next week or so. They are are:

Never stop believing in your Dreams

A Personal Story about the the Power of Intention.

I would like to tell you a fascinating and personal story about syncronicity and the power of intention. It all started around 25 years ago when I became interested in Mayan culture and art, and started painting my Mayan inspired paintings.

However it’s been a struggle to get the galleries intersted in my Mayan art, as it is to foreign and doesn’t fit into any ‘popular’ category. This is after all Australia. But despite this I have continued to follow my passion over the years believing that one day I would be rewarded for my efforts.

As 2012 is the year when a 5125 year long cycle comes to the end in the Mayan Calendar (often misquoted as the end of the Mayan Calendar and the end of the world) I knew this would bring media attention to the Maya. So about a year ago, I reluctantly approached the Aratoi Art Gallery in Masterton about having an exhibition about this once in a life time event. I sent them pictures of my work, and never received a reply back. Used to being rejected by Galleries, I simply took this for yet another ‘No not interested‘ reply and promptly forgot all about them.

Although the Mayan calendar has only become part of general knowledge in the last year or so, I have been awaiting this date for over 25 years! So I wanted to be somewhere special on this auspicious date. Last year I started up my new business ArteSpiral which specialises in art worshops and art tours to Mexcio. With this date in mind, I designed my first art tour to Mexico for November this year, with the plan being to remain after the tour and celebrate the 21st December at the very heart of the culture who created the calendar 2000 years ago, the Maya.

But fate would have it that I couldn’t get enough people for the tour and had to cancel. It was about this time that I was approached one day by Nick at the Arotoi Museum, who was inquiring about my ‘exhibition’ later this year….’What exhibition’ was my rather confused reply. He then told me I was booked in to have an exhibition in December. I was completly perplexed and heard myself asking him when the opening was, as I was already starting to think about the time factor and if I would have enough time to do the work. The 21st December was the answer….. ‘The 21st December’ I repeated back to him, just to make sure I had heard right. ‘Yes that’s right, would that be ok with you? he answered. I smiled to myself and said ‘Yes that should work’.

The person who I initially contacted at the Gallery had apparently booked me in after seeing my art work, but forgot to tell me about it. He then left the Gallery and the new exhibitions manager Nick saw my booking, but no description of my subject matter had been recorded. So when he popped me in for the 21st December he had absolutely no idea that this date was in fact the entire focus of my show. It just happened to fit in with their schedule…. If that is not SYNCHRONICITY I don’t know what is!

What this story illustrates to me is that if you really believe in something and keep working towards it, regardless of all the obstacles along the way, you will eventually create the desired outcome or better still something even better…

Having an art exhibition in 2012 about the Maya was my dream, but to have the opening on the 21st of December, well that was beyond my dream; that was a possibility I had never even considered! Thus the birth of the Exhibition “Maya 2012: Portals of Infinity” was born. The message being….

Don’t ever stop believing in your Dreams

Water Temple. Digital montage by Tania Williams

The Evolution of a Painting

Evolution of a Painting

Let your painting paint itself

Water Lily Dreaming by Tania Williams

Many beginner art students believe that experienced artists are in full control of what they are painting, and know exactly what they are doing, and exactly how their painting will turn out. This may be true for some ‘formula’ paintings, where the artist repeats the same kind of image over and over again, which means there is very little originality involved. However if an artist values originality this formula style will not generally play much of a role. In this case the artist is less in control and willingly allows the painting itself to dictate it’s wishes to the artist rather than the other way around.

To illustrate this concept I have documented the various stages of my conceptual painting Water Lilly Dreaming, which was created to fit in with the theme, The Last Piece, for the Greytown Arts Festival 2012 in conjunction with the puppet show ‘The Kitchen at the end of the world’. The idea was to create a painting which would be the last painting ever created.

1. First thing was to come up with a concept for this painting. After much thought I decided to rebel against the whole idea of the end of the world and a last painting, and instead putting forth the idea that there are no endings, only transformations from one form to another.

2. Next I had to decide how to present this idea in pictorial form, so I had a play around with a pen and paper and produced the following sketches.

First I played around with the idea of a curtain representing the end of the known world and then someone opening up the curtain to reveal another world/dimension… then the curtain transformed itself into a window, which then became a doorway. The doorway then got tested out on several locations including the ground, before eventually settling for being in the sky.

3. When I was fairly confident about my composition, I made a sketch on the canvas and started painting in the main features such as the tree, the door, the hand, the rather spherical horizon and the foreground. I used the paint rather thinly at this early stage as it would be built up as I progressed with the painting. Once I got the general shape of the tree in, I then painted the sky over it, as I knew I would return to it once I was happy with the sky. I then increased the brightness of the foreground and diffused the distant background, which is effected my atmospheric perspective (things get fuzzier, less bright and less defined as they recede). The moon got painted out as it was easier to paint the sky and then put it back in later (but I forgot). I then painted the outline of the foreground rocks. I changed my mind about the door having a blue frame and painted over it.

Once I was happy with the colour of the ground, I started to paint in the dead flowers, as it would be difficult to paint the background in between the flowers. The door frame got painted orange to tie in with the ground colour, then the paintbrushes appeared. I then decided to let one of the paintbrushes become a flower bulb to signify the transformation as well as the symbolism of paintbrushes (with a bit of paint, a paintbrush can transform anything).

But the painting still missed something, then I realised that the road had been painted over, so painted it back in. I also decided to let the water flow through the doorway into the painting to signify the blending of two realities, but specifically the ability of one reality to nourish another, in this case the water could flow in and feed the desert to allow flowers to grow once again (in the new world). Then the idea came to have a water lily hitching a ride on the in flowing water. But I still wasn’t happy with it and felt something was missing on the right. I then decided to put some more dead branches here implying another dead tree just out of the picture. By repeating an element (dead trees) in a composition it helps to unify it and make it hang together better.

I hope this has helped you to understand what I mean when I say that a painting can essentially paint itself. It’s just a matter of listening to what the painting wants and follow its’ instructions.

What is Creativity?

Creativity is

Allowing yourself to make mistakes.

Art is knowing which ones to keep.

— Scott Adams

How strong is your Left Brain?

At August 21, 2012
By artespiral11
In Drawing for beginners, How to Draw like a pro, Uncategorized
0

We live in a left brained world where logic, analysis and rational thinking rules. This is the reason why artists are a minority group; we favour the less dominant right hemisphere of our brain, the part which uses nonlinear, nonverbal and intuitive thought. However these preferences are not set in stone, which means just because you are a predominant left brain rocket scientist, you are not doomed to an uncreative life, or if you are a heavily right brained artist you don’t have to resign yourself to never figuring out how to do you tax. Learning to tap into your left or right brain is something that can be learned. Below is a chart illustrating the differences between the two hemispheres (taken from Betty Edwards book, Drawing on the right side of the brain) Following this there is a simple excercise which will help you determine where you sit on the right/left brain scale.

The Vase/Faces Drawing

A side benefit of learning to draw is getting to know your own brain a bit better.

Here is a quick exercise designed to illustrate the mental conflict that can occur between L-mode and R-mode.

This is a famous optical illusion drawing, called “Vase/Faces” because it can be seen as either two facing profiles or as a symmetrical vase in the center.

Your job, of course, is to complete the second profile, which will inadvertently complete the symmetrical vase in the center.

Before you begin:

read all the directions for the exercise below.

Redraw the profile on the left or draw a profile from memory. Just take your pencil and go over the lines, naming the parts as you go, like this: ” Forehead… nose… upper lip… lower lip… chin and neck.” Then, go to the other side and start to draw the missing profile that will complete the symmetrical vase.Watch for the faint signs from your brain that you are shifting modes of information processing. You may experience some mental conflict at some point in the drawing of the second profile. Observe this and also observe how you solve the problem. You will find you are doing the 2^ndprofile differently. This is right hemisphere drawing.

WHAT DO I DO IF I CANT GET OUT OF MY LEFT BRAIN?

Don’t panic! Take a deep breath and tell yourself that I CAN DO IT. It may just take a little longer that’s all. If you had difficulty getting the vase perfectly symmetrical, it means your LEFT brain is overpowering your Right brain. Try repeating the exercise but this time turn it upside down, and do not think of it as two profiles, but simply as a beautiful symmetrical vase. When you have finished it turn it up the right way and you may be surprised.