Wesley Exhibition 3-10 August,220 Pitt St Sydney!

Hi, Friends, if you come near, please come. 
Wesley building dreams exhibition 3-10 August (*facebook link)
Where: Wesley Conference Centre, 220 Pitt Street, Sydney 2000(map). Contact 02 9263 5500 
Yes, @ the heart of Sydney! Closest train station : Town Hall. 
Cost : Free 
Opening Hours : Everyday from 9 am to 5 pm. Except Saturday 9 August.
More Info : Wesley Mission 1800 021 821 
events@wesleymission.org.au 
Artworks are created by people with disability and school children joining our competition. Each piece of art will be designed to promote inclusiveness and the importance of recognising people's dreams and aspirations.

Children aged 6–18 can join an special art competition with the winning artworks featured in the exhibition. Five selected submissions will win $150 prize packs from our major partner Eckersley's Art & Craft.
If you, or anyone you know would be interested in it, an entry form is here.
http://www.wesleymission.org.au/images/Events/Wesley_Building_Dreams_Entry%20Form.pdf

Many children have already taken part the comp through their school. 
Best wishes to the participating schools. These schools are involved:

Cromer Public School
Kensington Public School
Nuwarra Public School
Lucas Heights Community School
Manifold Public School
Bulli Public School
The Oaks Public School
Tullibigeal centenary celebration page
West Ryde Public School
Attunga Public School 

Friends, thank you so much for visiting this blog and encouragements. Wesley team and I really appreciate your warm national and international cheers. Children, thank you for participating this event.
Also, my special thanks to the Wesley team and my wonderful mentrees. 

You, too, have a wonderful weekend and a week. And paint dreams and love!
Happy Painting!!!

**Click the image below. It will take you to Wesley's facebook.

Wesley Exhibition 3-10 August,220 Pitt St Sydney!

Wesley Building Dreams Inclusive Art Exhibition for People with Disability & Carers

Hi, Friends, our pop-up exhibition will be held in Sydney CBD, 3-10 August. I'm enjoying so much sharing time with wonderful students in Wesley Building Dreams Inclusive Art Exhibition. The theme of "Building Dreams" is "inclusiveness" and the importance of recognising the dreams and aspirations of all, especially those living with disability and their carers. Special thanks to the generous support of our partner Eckersley's Art & Craft that has also offered prizes for school children aged 6-18 across New South Wales in Australia. Already the project has involved15 schools. Wow, this big project is ongoing across NSW! Terrific, isn't it? School kids, come join it! Here, *Entry Form. True to the very nature of the pop-up show, the detailed venue is secret at the moment. Friends, look forward to Wesley Mission's official announcement! Now, I'm mentoring students called "people with disability." 

HOWEVER, I believe my lovely students are people with "THIS ability"!! Each client is unique and nothing different from other people. 
Mentoring is, for a mentor, equal to learning from mentrees. I'm learning how I can assist students rather than teaching them. Also, I want to be a good entertainer and serve them! In this work below, I'm demonstrating a "wax resist technique" and "lift up." These fun techniques amuse students. We chuckle together. Hey, don't say, "Sadami, you look too good in this picture?!" In addition, in my eyes, everyone and anyone is beautiful.

The key person in a Wesley Mission team and I agree that the most important point is to have fun with the clients and bring them dreams by art. I heartily hope the clients take initiatives. I deeply respect each client equally.  

A black and white drawing is based on a photo by courtesy of Wesley Mission. I gained the consent from the client to post the images. BTW, using a photo was very hard for me. Sounds strange? I'm not familiar with using photos to create portraits. For me, a live model is the best and much easier than photos. A live model's movements give me 3D info and I can get on a figure. So, I moved these two people in my mind and drew them on a paper (*Hope, my English makes sense!). 

Regarding using crayons, it's a handy water-resist technique to create white or any colours that depend on crayons, candles' original colours. See below, it's an example. It's up to you how to use it in watercolour painting. I use crayons very often for sketches and they are in my pencil case. 

Back to the topic, the Building Dreams Inclusive Art Exhibition. The Wesley Mission staff and I are working hard to achieve the same goal, "bringing hope and joy." Wesley Mission's positive feedback makes me happy. I want to make clients happy and I want to give carers a break by my art class. Fortunately, my many uni friends are, today, senior social workers and teachers. They cheer me up. Oh, I love the studnets and appreciate the Wesley team's backup, too. **Click a logo that will take you to Wesley Mission's site.  

"Building Dreams" is a part of a wider disability research and awareness campaign centred on the latest Wesley Report, Give Disability Carers a Break before They Break Down.  

Did you know? 

• Over one third of Australian households are involved with disabilities. 
• 4.2 million Australians are classified as having disabilities. 
• There are 2.7 million informal carers of individuals living with a disability in Australia.  (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012)

Sadly, what others do not realise is that carers are often forced to sacrifice their own lives to look after someone they love. This project aims at supporting both carers and artists with disabilities. 

**Click a logo that will take you to Wesley Mission's site.

My dream is that this project will go on "annually" like One Word One Day for indigenous children's literacy, we, Australian picture book illustrators have been supporting across a nation wide. If "Building Dreams Inclusive Art Exhibition," such a wonderful project is only for a once, it would be sad and a bit shame..., although it's really hard to gain stead resources in a welfare system. Let us hope this exhibition will go well and we can demonstrate a good result in order to get an enough budget. I'm happy to weekly assist clients throughout a year, if the project needs me.

You'll see your heart will know, "Dreams are more precious than gold," I like Enya's song.
Indeed, we need dreams to live our lives lively and happily, don't we?

I really thank for Wesley Mission's kindness and this wonderful opportunity to do pay back society by art. Big cheers for Wesley, my students and school children willing to join this exhibition.
Friends, Happy Painting!
**Click a logo that will take you to Wesley's site. 

Wesley Building Dreams Inclusive Art Exhibition for People with Disability & Carers

Sketching Children@NAIDOC, Library

Hi, Friends, are you enjoying sketching children? All of us want to capture their innocent beauty, don't we? I love capturing emotional children. I hope it would be the quality of my picture book illustration. 

Capturing children is not hard, I've learned. First of all, I've realised the importance of trust in my own eyes. All of us can tell how old a child is and what feeling s/he has. If so, we all have wonderful knowledge about what children are. Just use my eyes' perception and depict kids on paper. But why and how? I've observed children carefully with Qs. Always have a Q is a good approach. Just looking is not looking (does it make sense?). I often set a theme in a time frame, for example, "movement for 2 months" and tried it. Answers have become my precious artistic assets. A child's face expression and movement interest me most.

A first sketch is an Indigenous boy dancing a traditional dance at NAIDOC week event, (="National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee") in Parramatta yesterday. His movement and body language was so strong and full of pride. It was really lovely to see Aboriginal people's languages and cultures.

This was a black and white sketch. Immediately, I got on colour. 

NAIDOC Week celebrations are held around Australia each July to appreciate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. If you have interest, please click their NAIDOC History Timeline that shows Indigenous Australians' hard and painful history, yet, full of their pride and fight for human rights. It is, certainly, our Australian history. 　

A second sketch is at a library where I go to study children picture books. A girl stood up and looked back for a moment, which was so charming for me. I could not resist it, although I did not draw the detail. A simplified drawing, in my view, can send a stronger message than complicated work.

A third sketch was a boy just standing. He was so cute! I simply like sketching and do it. Each child has a different age, a gender, body language and emotions. Furthermore, their human interactions always give me awe and joy in drawing and painting. These tens of thousands of sketches are my important references. I'd capture emotional moments and hope one day I can create it from my memories freely. Still a long way to go, but I love sketching children and people! In addition, please respect the privacy of a model and always gain permission from a model. I gain a permission from children's parents/care givers. 

BTW, I've just finished up the illustrations. Editor Helen, Author and Mentor Ann are very happy, which makes me really happy, too! Also, big names such as Libby Gleeson and Elise Hurst celebrate my illustration work done.
I'd come back to sketching. Although the hand still has a pain, it gets much better. Really thank you for warm cheers. I'll enjoy mentoring people with disability, too. I want to grow as a person and artist.
Friends, Happy Painting!!

Sketching Children@NAIDOC, Library

My Work "Dignity" in Official Catalogue of World Watercolour Comp 2014

Worldly renouned magazine, The Art of Watercolour will publish The Official catalogue of the competition : Over 1,600 artists and their painting(s) shown. My work, "Dignity" will be included in the catalogue, as I got through the first round. Very happy, even though I did not get through the second round. The detailed publication info is below. 

Publication in October 2014 - Colissimo International.
• The jurors’ comments
• Competition timeline 
• A world map of all the participants 
• French/English bilingual edition 
• 292 pages (projected) • 24 x 28 cm format 
• Printed on high-quality paper 
• Flexible binding with flaps

Additional Information

Page number	292
Size	24 x 28 cm
Reference number	8095-1979
Editor	Diverti Editions

According to their entry condition... 

What are the different phases in the competition?
In order to designate the winners of the “World Watercolour Competition 2014”, a jury of four renowned watercolour artists, moreover whose quality is 
recognised by the editorial staff of L’ART DE L’AQUARELLE and THE ART OF WATERCOLOUR, will judge the works submitted in five phases.
Phase One: 600 artists will be selected by the editorial staff of L’ART DE L’AQUARELLE based on the digital documents received as part of the application process. Selection will take place in November 2013.
Phase Two: 250 artists will be selected by the jury of four judges from the 600 selected in the first round. 
Phase Three: A shortlist of 20 artists will be selected by the jury to participate in the fourth phase based on the digital photos received. These artists will then send the two works to the address provided so that the jury can deliberate and designate the winners. These two works will be exhibited at the Narbonne Watercolour Biennial to be held in October 2014.
Phase Four: The jury of five judges will select the prizewinners in situ during the Narbonne Watercolour Biennial.
Phase Five: The results will be announced and prizes awarded at the opening of the Narbonne Watercolour Biennial.

                                               *          *          *

I'd send special thanks for the model (*who happily gave permission to submit it to a competition), nurses and friends who have encouraged me  -- you're one of them, Frineds. Also, I'd say, let us "enjoy" challenge. I hope I will grow as a person and an artist. 
"Life is beautiful and people are lovely," is my mantra.  
Happy Painting, Friends. 

My Work "Dignity" in Official Catalogue of World Watercolour Comp 2014

Let's Enjoy Life Drawing!

Hi, Friends, did you enjoy a weekend? I did! Regarding the picture book illustration, one more spread to go. Thank you for warm cheers. This week, I'd chat over my colourful life drawings. Friends, how do you enjoy life drawing? I try varied ways to explore life drawing and find something new so that I can use it for other work. I'm interested in "moody direct painting," in particular.

1) Direct Painting
Below, I hardly drew lines and directly started putting colours on darker areas. Interesting! In a process, a figure looked like a negative space. Although balancing weight in colours was a hard task, it was a great fun and other life drawing members had an entertainment together. As this work had only a few lines, accuracy is questionable. But the mood comes up well that makes me happy. I need more practices to get used to direct painting. It's worth trying and will be fun. (*I always set a paper vertical.) 

*All used paper sizes are A2. Try a large paper. In my personal opinion, a bigger paper gives you more freedom and creativity. Look at little children's nice drawings on big papers. Strong brush strokes and confident lines are already a beauty!

2) Lines and Washes
This one is opposite to the first one. I emphasised lots of lines and played with washes to create a mood. Mmm... could be too busy. Never mind, try next!

BTW, what do you try in life drawing? Accuracy, proportion, value, what else? But they do not interest me much. Always a model's face expression and a mood fascinate me most. What do you think? In my view, we should enjoy life drawing rather than simply chasing up rigid meticulousness. We know it bores many of us at school or in workshops, class and ... sadly, some of us stop drawing! I want to tell others how fun life drawing is! Actually, I almost sing, whistle, dance from joy in life drawing class (**I do it silently! So, other members smile at me or laugh together).

My motivation for life drawing is simple and strong. What did/do you feel, when you see a human body? When I saw our human body, the awesome beauty really touched my heart and I chose watercolour  --- black and white was not sufficient enough to depict my awe.
My class's leader is wonderful, who encourages each of us to be "what I am" most. She loves my experiments and urges me to do lots more. It inspires me, especially, when I get stuck in picture book illustrations and portraits. So, I'm very happy to come and see life drawing class members... and want to enjoy life drawing more!

2) Quick Painting with a Big Hake Brush
My flat Hake brush is 9cm (=3.5 inches) wide. I'm still playing it around to learn how to use it. That rediculously wide brush, at once, won other members interest! Yes, that's the way it is -- "having fun together"! I'll try it more in a next term.

I'm playing with lines and value, below.
What about you? How do you enjoy life drawing? Let me hear your story.

Regarding picture book illustration, I'm working on "roughs" for the spread. Author, Editor Helen Chamberlin and Mentor Ann James help me to create it. I'm enjoying this project.
(NOTE *Rough = tries in black & white, colour in picture book illustration.)
Also, special thank you for your kind regards. My hands and the leg get better, which makes a physio and a hand therapist happy, too. They encourage me so much and I work on the given menu more than ever.

Let's enjoy life drawing in a unique way and share joy with same minded people. Take care (*we're in winter, brrrr!!!!). Have a wonderful week!
Friends, Happy Painting! 

Let's Enjoy Life Drawing!