Giovanna Scott artist

Sale Time

With all the crazy around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I thought I’d do my bit and have a little sale this weekend.

Saturday and Sunday only, head to the SHOP and receive 20% off everything in the store.

That’s it. No exclusions, nothing! Free postage within Australia (overseas buyers, we can talk postage via email).

So if you’ve been sitting on the fence, ummmmmm-ing and aaahhhh-ing, you now have no excuse.

REMEMBER: 9am Saturday until 9pm Sunday : 24-25 November 2018 (Brisbane time)

See you in Store!

www.madeit.com.au/GiovannaScottArtist
Giovanna

It’s been some time since I’ve shared a video with you of me doing the thing that I do. So, I used this awesome photo taken by my friend Gina Rodgers while she was on holiday through Europe. It’s just great in so many ways: the composition, the colours, the everything!!

So here’s the original photo I stole from her Instagram account: (used with permission)

(The Dürrensee is a lake in the Dolomites in South Tyrol, Italy)

And here’s me just getting it done (once I dusted off the filming equipment)!

Last year my friend Kate went on a sabbatical throughout Europe and I tell you, the photos were amazing! (Why just Europe? Well, it seems everyone was heading that way this year.) After a wine or two over lunch, I agreed to paint some as a birthday gift. I shared some process pics on Instagram and Facebook under the hashtag #somewhereineurope if you want to have a look.

Here are the original photos with the final painting. “Pont Neuf, Paris” , “Stockholm, Sweden” , “St Chamond, France”

Pont Neuf, Paris

Pont Neuf

Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm

St Chamond, France

St. Chamond

Landscapes are tricky but loveable little buggers. Sometimes more so than portraits. There’s a lot of detail and perspective, and the trick is knowing what to leave out while capturing the essence of the place. And you invariably have to crop it and tweak a few colours, buildings, horizon lines, etc to turn it into a great painting.

I loved doing them so much, I decided to do a 4th photo to enter into another group exhibition at Aspire Gallery, “Somewhere in Oslo”.

Somewhere in Oslo

It didn’t sell at the exhibition but a few days later got a message from my gorgeous friend Lindsay who has moved to Canada. Was “Oslo” available? Can she have it? Ummmm, lemme think……OMG YES!!!! (this is the 2nd time someone has messaged me after an exhibition!) Can I now say I’m an Internationally Renowned Artist? haha!

If this is something you’d like me to do for YOU, get in touch. This group of paintings are all 20x20cm on cradled hard board. They start at AUD120. The process is easy. You provide the photos, tell me what surface and size you’d like, I quote, I crop, I paint. Molto facile!

Remember, email address is hello <at> giovannascott <dot> com for a no-obligation chat.

Would love to hear from you.

xx Giovanna

Quickie Cards

I received a phone call from my friend KL. She’s pretty awesome and over the years she’s purchased my Art Cards to give to friends, family and clients. We keep each other happy … quite literally …. she’s hilarious and a beautiful soul. She wanted to know if I had any more greeting cards for clients. Well, I didn’t and hadn’t thought about it for years. So I asked her if she’d like the Quickie Project images (insert lewd exchange) and so the process began to put some of our collective favourites into Art Cards.

Art Card Series

And it’s not a quick process. First they had to be cleaned up in Photoshop (really basic skills here, I’m not even working at an Intermediate level) and then sent to the printing company here in Brisbane for placement and pricing and sizing and how big the logo would be, and where it would go, what type of stock and how heavy??? Lots of little details that I had forgotten about and in a language that had also been lost to me.

But after a few emails and phone calls we have these beautiful Art Cards that are a great weight and beautifully bright white with a smooth but not slippery surface – perfect for writing!

KL chose her favourites, and now I can offer them to you. I have 10 packs of all 5 cards available. They’ll come to you with their envelopes and simply and sustainably wrapped with a personal note from me on a tag adorned with my original hand-carved stamps.

They are listed on my Gallery Page, along with 2 designs available as single cards.

Like KL, if you would prefer to grab a few designs in bulk, or to feature these in your shop, please email me at hello@giovannascott.com and we can chat about what you’d like.

Without you and good friends like KL, I couldn’t continue to do what I do.

Many thanks,

Giovanna

Monochrome Series :: in progress

If you haven’t already figured, 2018 is an experimental and exploratory year. Creating in new ways with new media and tools has been exciting and has produced some crackers!

Some years ago I saw a demo using a black watercolour pencil and only white and clear gesso to produce a fabulous monochromatic piece with so many interesting values.

A couple of opportunities this year will allow me to see how well I can perfect this process. The first is at Aspire Gallery’s “Black & White” group exhibition in May. I’ve dug out some old long skinny canvases to work on a series of 3 rural women portraits.

The first from today is nearly complete and here are a few progress pictures

Clearly more work to be done on the background and other areas, but so far pretty chuffed.

This is the last week to view Aspire Gallery’s “Scapes” exhibition and RQAS’ “Brisbane” exhibition where my 2 Kurilpa Bridge pastel paintings are hanging.

Happy week!!

100 Days of Something

There are a few things that keep me motivated and inspire new artwork. One of them is dipping occasionally into LONG TERM PROJECTS. The latest is the hashtag movement 100 DAY PROJECT spearheaded by Elle Luna and Co (read about its origins HERE).

While I began with collage in mind, it ~~slowly~~ very quickly morphed into just doing what needed to be done each and every day. Because every day should be creative (not necessarily “arty”) from keeping your kids amused on holidays, to preparing a meal, to getting clothes on your bod without looking like a bag lady…. our language, our outward expression and our compassion – all takes creativity.

I’ve taken my own advice and just posted STUFF every day almost since the start of the month. And there are a few things I’ve noticed about my own practice : I work in small, stolen chunks of time (especially now during school holidays) and don’t particularly enjoy sitting for too long on one thing; I love the structure of projects, like Randel Plowman’s “The Collage Workbook” which has 50 projects so stretching them over the 100 days won’t be difficult; and that I love the outdoors, so am putting together my en plein air kit to get me out more often to create.

Two big exhibitions this month:

Framed and delivered one of my pastel paintings “Quay to Kurilpa” to the Royal Queensland Art Society’s exhibition, “Brisbane: Landmarks, Landscapes and Personalities”. It runs from 3-20 April so if you’re nearby, make sure you drop in to their gallery on Petrie Terrace ..

and yes, it’s for sale.

My other homage to Kurilpa Bridge “Kurilpa by Night” is hanging at Aspire Gallery’s “Landscapes, Seascapes, Streetscapes” exhibition from 11-21 April. They’re on Kennedy Terrace in Paddington.

The Opening Night at Aspire is this Saturday afternoon but I have another function and won’t be there this time. Aspire’s Openings are always buzzing with excitement, so make sure you get along. Things sell quickly.

100 Days is 10 days in already.

This lino cut is part of my #100dayproject and deserves its own blog post, so keep your eyes peeled for that one!

Pastel un-Princess

As it happens, I’m sitting here with my new spectacles, brand new rolls of blue painter’s masking tape, new pastel paper (Italian, of course) and asking “How the hell did I get here?”

One day I was elbow deep into acrylics and all the delicious mediums, the next I’m SITTING down and working on paper, getting smudgy and finding little nuances in each shape and mapping out colour and light in a really loose loose LOOSE way

and
loving
it
IMG_20180120_180205_615
Sometimes it drives me nuts but I put it down to having always worked with acrylics and being used to how they work. I recall feeling the same way when I did a bit with watercolour and gouache a couple of years ago. The difference is how comfortable I feel with the layering and blending, something I didn’t feel with the watery media. Maybe I’m just in a smudgy mood, I dunno. I’m just embracing it and seeing where I can take it.

I felt great putting this one in the Royal Queensland Art Society’s “Brisbane: Landmarks, Landscapes and Personalities” exhibition (3-20 April), especially learning how to frame a pastel, which is SOOOO different to framing anything else. I’ve now created a monster who is looking at every old framed piece in the house and feeling an unnatural desire to re-frame EVERYTHING!

truly
unnatural

And the pastel path has been my little saviour this month. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster and the distraction of figuring out all this pastel bizzo has afforded me some quiet head-time and a little “ah-me” time. I don’t mind that much being interrupted with pastels, they don’t dry out, and in Brisbane, that’s a real selling point!

I’ve had some disasters that have gone in the bin and I think the big lesson I’ve learned is ABSTRACTION. The need to do plenty of prelim sketches and doing the whole reductive thing with each sketch, works for me. Painting one right off the cuff, not so much.

20180120_083946 I’m sure the whole Pastel Art community would just die laughing if they saw my process, but for me it’s a little more than the finished product at this moment. If I want to start with the foreground, I’ll damn well start there! (My training buddy Kim – who is also a kickarse pastel artist, laughed so damn hard when I told her that! She was polite enough not to laugh too loudly, but I know deep down, she was, and that’s okay, I laugh and me too)

Takeaway from this month: do what pleases, don’t follow ALL the rules, seek advice where you can, dispel negative thoughts by immersing yourself in your art practice (sounds weird, right), reach out and spend time with people who make you happy about yourself, and for the love of God – BACK YOURSELF!

Remember, all the daily stuff happens on Instagram which then feeds all that goodness to my Facebook Business Page (Giovanna Scott Artist) and Twitter (@gidget_scott).

For those who have asked, I will definitely spend some time in April putting up a GALLERY page and a COMMISSION/WORK-WITH-ME page, but in the meantime, you can always contact me at hello@giovannascott.com to ask any questions about any creative-related matter.

Go kindly….