Browsing Archive: June, 2016

UTS Library Artist-in-Residence Program (30 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Thursday, June 30, 2016, In : Professional

Last night I attended the VALA AGM and 2016 Williamson Lecture at the University of Melbourne's Baillieu Library.

Mal Booth is the University Librarian at UTS (University of Technology Sydney), and the 2016 Williamson Award recipient. He spoke about the UTS Library Artist-in-Residence Program that he began in 2012. I loved hearing about this program - such a great initiative that has reaped wonderful rewards in terms of cultural engagement with the library and its collections.

Mal has a great s...
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#ICAD2016 week 3 round up (30 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Thursday, June 30, 2016, In : Creativity

I'm running behind on the index card challenge (and #blogjune too), as I really needed a few days off after the semester finished. I'm not really worried about trying to catch up or keep up, though, as long as I just keep going.

To that end, I've started carrying some basic art supplies around with me, and several of the cards in this week's batch have been started or finished when I've find tiny pockets of spare time. Some of the cards were started while I was waiting for a lift, and then fin...
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A History of the Future: Imagining Melbourne (28 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Tuesday, June 28, 2016, In : Travel

There's a lovely little free exhibition on at the City Gallery in Melbourne Town Hall at the moment, called "A History of the Future: Imagining Melbourne". It runs until 12 August 2016 and features stories and images of ideas for development in and around the Melbourne CBD over the years.

There are proposals for elevated pedestrian walkways, canals, bizarre building designs, underground trams, pyramids and autogiro buses. There is also information about some design proposals that actually did ...
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More about charcoal (27 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Monday, June 27, 2016, In : Creativity

My blog post from yesterday was all about the first time I 'got' charcoal. I mentioned in it that the following week I really got stuck into making the most of the medium. This post is a quick one with some pictures from that class.

The podium in the drawing room was covered in a random assortment of objects, and depending on our position in the room and proximity to the podium, we were to draw a section of whatever we could see. I took a quick photo of the view from my easel. It included a to...
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Seven things I’m loving right now (27 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Monday, June 27, 2016,

Thanks to Kate for the idea behind this post :)

Seven things I’m loving right now:

1) School holidays. Two weeks of no classes, and I'm so glad to have some time off without the constant pressure of assignments. I'm not going away, as travel usually costs more when so many people are taking leave at the same time, but that's okay as I have heaps of things I want to catch up on during the break.

2) My personal cheer squad. I simply can't say enough how much I have appreciated people's support t...
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Learning to love charcoal (26 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Sunday, June 26, 2016, In : Creativity

In our first drawing class at art school, we were given sticks of charcoal to draw with. I had never used it before, and I hated it. Charcoal sticks are fragile, and dirty, and not pointy. You (and everything else) get covered in black dust when using it. It smudges easily. It's hard to draw clean, straight lines, and the width of the line isn't consistent as the charcoal constantly changes shape while it's being used. You need to seal drawings with fixative afterwards to stop it from smudgin...
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Reflections on the mid year review (23 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Thursday, June 23, 2016, In : Creativity

Thanks to all who offered kind wishes for my mid year review at art school yesterday :)

I was really happy with how it went. My display table looked good (see previous post), and although I didn't love every single piece that I produced this semester, overall I was pleased with my progress and how much I'd achieved. In fact I am quite chuffed.

In the formal review, I got some really good feedback about my skills development across the semester. The teachers said that pattern, colour and a dev...
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First semester nearly done (21 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Tuesday, June 21, 2016, In : Creativity

Yesterday I submitted my last assignment for the semester. It's been hard yakka all semester long, usually with five or six assignments on the go at any one time. It's such a relief to have a short break to look forward to! But the holidays aren't here yet ...

Today was the first day of our mid year review. In the morning I set up a table and display space with a selection of the first semester's work - all of the assignments, plus my six best pieces from life drawing and five best pieces from...
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#ICAD2016 week 2 round up (18 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Saturday, June 18, 2016, In : Creativity

Another seven index cards done, so another weekly round up. A collage of the second week's efforts is below :)

Index-Card-A-Day (#ICAD) 2016 Week 2 round up

I thought I would find it much harder to do the index cards while I'm also spending so much time and energy on my arts course. But so far I'm actually finding it a great outlet for doing my own thing creatively.

In my course I am constantly pushed outside of my comfort zone, while here in the index card challenge I am free to play around with the patterns and colours that I love. I'm n...
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Cherry Tree in Autumn (13 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Monday, June 13, 2016, In : Creativity

I'm totally in love with the colours on my cherry tree right now. Every time I catch a glimpse of it through my laundry window, or step outside my back door, it makes me feel happy. A reminder of the beauty in the world.

Love the golden colours on my cherry tree right now!

Last week I desperately needed some inspiration for an assignment on modernism that I was really struggling with. I had ideas, but just couldn't pull them together and move forward. One of my friends suggested taking inspiration from a landscape, and suddenly everything came t...
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The first assignment (12 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Sunday, June 12, 2016, In : Creativity

Well, I guess I really have been nervous about sharing my artwork, as it's nearly halfway through June and I still haven't posted anything from my course yet!

It's funny - I don't feel any hesitation about sharing the results of my daily creative challenges. I suspect it's because they're quick and small, and of necessity there are limitations on how much time and effort I can spend on them.

My art school assignments are a different matter. I've spent more time on them, and put more thought and...
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The cumquats are coming (10 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Friday, June 10, 2016,

It may be a little premature to be blogging about my much anticipated cumquat harvest while the fruit are still green (counting my chickens before they're hatched?), but ooh I hope this lot ripens successfully :)

Last year, after our cat Roxy died, my friends at work bought me a cumquat tree. I'm not sure who contributed, but I know it was Rose that remembered my reminiscences about growing up with a cumquat tree, and I was so touched at receiving such a personal gift at that time.

I took this ...
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#ICAD2016 week 1 round up (8 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Wednesday, June 8, 2016, In : Creativity

I just realised I've already done my first seven cards for this year's Index-Card-A-Day challenge (#ICAD2016), so it's time for a weekly round up.

I've been posting them each day to Flickr, and also to Instagram and Tumblr. A collage of the first week's efforts is below.

Index-Card-A-Day (#ICAD) 2016 Week 1 round up

Again, never easy to make time to do these, but it's such a worthwhile activity for switching gears, engaging creativity and developing skills. It's a bit like a shared daily sketchbook habit, really.

I had a few leftover wa...

Smells and memories (7 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Tuesday, June 7, 2016,

Oops, missed a couple of days already. Oh well, I don't think anyone's counting my blog posts except for me. I'll manage what I can :)

Anyway, this morning I tried a new shampoo sample. It had a coconut fragrance that instantly took me back to living in Darwin. Not that we were surrounded by coconuts up there (although we did have a coconut tree above our pool that was rather alarming - I was so worried about getting hit on the head by a falling coconut that we put up a shade cloth for protec...

The 100 Day Project (4 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Saturday, June 4, 2016, In : Creativity

I mentioned in my first #blogjune post for this year, that I'm taking part in a couple of creative challenges this month. One is the Index-Card-A-Day challenge that I've done for the last two years - I'll be posting updates on that here on the blog every week or so. The other challenge is The 100 Day Project (#the100dayproject).

I first heard about #the100dayproject when it was mentioned by a few artists and illustrators that I follow on Instagram who were planning to take part. Intrigued, I i...

The Light in Winter (3 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Friday, June 3, 2016, In : Travel

Last night I caught up with a good friend for dinner in the city. As we walked towards Flinders St Station at the end of the night, our eyes were caught by the illuminated buildings of Federation Square, which were covered in colourful patterns. I wandered over for a closer look, and learnt that the light installation was part of Fed Square's tenth anniversary The Light in Winter.

The light projections on the building facades are called Federation Squared, created by Reko Rennie and The Electr...
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Design Futures Forum (2 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Thursday, June 2, 2016, In : Professional

A couple of days ago I attended the annual Design Futures Forum (agIdeas), hosted by Ideas On Design at the Melbourne Convention Centre. It was a great event, and the calibre of the speakers was amazing.

Nicolas Hogios - Toyota Motor Corp (automotive designer)

Nick spoke about his career in automotive design, including some cutting edge futures work. He finished with a 5 minute live demonstration of creating a new car design, which was really interesting to watch.

Raphael Pimentel - Luma Picture...

Challenge addict (1 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Wednesday, June 1, 2016, In : Creativity

It's the first day of June, and as I mentioned in my last post, that means it's #blogjune time again :)

I always look forward to taking part, although my posts will have to be short and sweet this time around. You see, it appears that I'm a sucker for challenges, so this will be one of *three* daily challenges that I'll be doing throughout June this year.

1) #blogjune - blogging every day of June, along with a lovely bunch of library folk

2) #ICAD2016 - creating art on an index card every day o...