Happy Friday dear readers - as one thing finishes, another begins. Today marks the last day of the Maddabling 14 Day Blogtoberfest Photo Challenge. I hope you have enjoyed the daily blog posts with all of the wonderful imagery being created by the participants. My dear friend Starry of Starzyia has created a photo challenge which will be heaps of fun as well as challenging!
Ok, I digress. This week it is my great pleasure to introduce a fabulous Friday Friend and DUSTy Diva - meet Lori from LorikArt and and LorikArt Cat Jewellery.
I have mentioned before that part of the fun of doing Friday Friends Features is that I get to explore the lovely things that my Friday Friends create, so that I can share some of my favourites with you. Here are three pieces I just HAD to share.
With all of the stunning wildflowers in bloom at the moment, this Red Flower Brooch - Australian Waratah Altered Art Jewellery definitely caught my eye......
as did this summery Psychedelic Necklace Art Jewellery with Bright Blue Beads
and speaking of summer, early mornings at the beach..... then these are for you! The Orange Art Earrings are one of a kind, hand made jewellery which show an ocean sunrise and are set on lightweight wooden tiles which have been hand cut and smoothed.
I must also mention that every Monday Lori hosts a meme
"Mandarin Orange Monday". It is for all forms of art, photo art, photography
(must be edited/processed), painting, sculpture......etc . Lori invites people to
add their link to the linky list on the blog, but also on Mandarin Orange Monday
facebook (this is in the early stages) and Twitter.
It is now time for me to let you all see the all the glorious colour and to read Lori's story as you enjoy you time, Looking through the LorikArt Kaleidoscope. See you all this evening for the final post in the Maddabling 14 Day Blogtoberfest Photo Challenge.
Looking through the Lorikart Kaleidoscope
Who is LorikArt
LorikArt is the name I give my artwork - my name is Lori and last name is Kennett. Art is because the kind
of art I do changes -drawing, painting, sculpture, jewellery making and photo
art. Years ago I also enjoyed batik. I dabbled in ceramics and did a little
etching as a student. One art form that
I never really enjoyed was silk screen printing - on fabric or painting.
How and When did my artist journey begin
I suppose we all begin making art when we are quite tiny. I
remember drawing a lot as a child and I also remember "helping Daddy in
the shed" - making things with wood. I loved doing both. I painted using
boxes of water paint - showing my age here! I used to soak the paint squares in water to
make thicker paint. I bet they didn't last long!
At primary school I loved to paint and was very excited and proud
about having my paintings exhibited at the local bank. I wonder if banks still do that? I
don't think so.
Art was my favourite subject at high school but, because of an
under equipped art department, painting and drawing was all that was available.
Once we made little clay pendants which we embedded with glass beads. When I
was 15 my artwork was exhibited at the
bank Head Office in Sydney. And what was
that artwork? It was a textured, baroque-like style painting - the subject
being the Rolling Stones performing on stage! I had actually seen them perform
live at a matinee concert in Sydney. My final high school major work was a
portrait of a very good friend - a friend that I also had a secret crush on.
Years later he admitted to having had a similar crush. Just thought I would add
a little bit of romance there…. The style of the painting was baroque again -
lots of orange and tonal contrast.
I gained a scholarship to study art and art teaching. We had two
campuses - one was the National Art School at East Sydney (the art component)
and the other at what is now called KOFA (for the teaching method). I specialised in 2D (we could choose 3D or
2D) and did some etching (which I loved) and lots of painting and drawing. I loved life drawing, but it was
so hard! And yes, silk screen printing, both
on fabric and paper.
I taught art for many years in high schools and most of the time
enjoyed it. Those of you who are/were teachers will know about the many
"ups" and "downs" you experience as a teacher. While I was
teaching I discovered batik and did lots of that with children. I also enjoyed
teaching drawing - big, bold, fast figure drawings was very rewarding to teach.
The children would stand up on the table and I would count and then they would
quickly have to change pose…and so on. Fun.
I enjoyed teaching design too. At school I also discovered Photo shop
and ran the student newspaper and also
did a parent newsletter. I learnt a lot
then about desktop publishing and Photo shop - and so did the students. Besides
Visual Art, I also found myself teaching other subjects, namely Computer
Studies and Photography. Now I combine
these every day.
When I first retired the only art I made was photo art. I got
well-and-truly addicted to computers and photo shop. A friend of mine started
making beaded jewellery and decided to give her local market a go. Her local
market was in the picturesque Blue Mountains. I went along to give her moral
support. It wasn't long before I too was making and selling - not jewellery at
first, but greeting cards using my photo art. I specialised in cat cards.
Eventually I started making jewellery which incorporated my photo art - most
cats, but not just cats. I made jewellery using photos of peoples' pets. Of
course I "photo shopped" their photos first. I enjoyed selling my cards and jewellery at
markets for about 5 years - mostly in the Blue Mountains and at Windsor.
Sculpture - miniature sculpture - is something enjoy, but not the
cuts on my hands that often result! My father has provided me with lots of nice
wood, including Huon pine from Tasmania.
Some of this has become pendants.
I still do lots of photo art, I still make photo art jewellery and
I have long periods when I just paint for myself. I usually just stick to one
thing and do it for ages - then switch to another medium. Lately I have been
hand painting my pendants. I only wish that I painted more consistently. I had
to stop when I injured my back but now I am ready to start painting on canvas again. I will use my
photos and photo art as inspiration.
Favourite piece? One of my
canvas paintings. I would never sell it. Years ago - in the 80's, we visited
Dalgety, which is near the Snowy Mountains region of southern NSW. The
landscape is covered with huge round boulders. I photographed them. There was
one photograph I particularly liked and I did a series of digital variations.
Twenty years later I found the same boulders and photographed them again. It
was so interesting to see how time and
weathering had changed them. I did a big, square, orange-ish painting based on
them. It hangs in my dining room. There are some pieces of jewellery I can't
part with too - mostly hand painted pieces.
Aspirations?
More painting, more photo art and an exhibition with my friend
Ann. I am obsessed with rocks. Ann, at
the moment, is obsessed with the Australian Outback so a joint exhibition would
be interesting. Ann and her husband Chris have a blog - roadworkink.com. And I want to keep making jewellery using my
photo art - and wear it more often!
Dear Maddabling readers, would you like to explore the Art of LorikArt some more ? Or perhaps do a spot of shopping ? Here are some links for you to browse:
Buy lovely things on Etsy here :
and on Madeit here:
Read the inspirations Blogs here:
follow pretty pins on pinterest here:
become a fan on Facebook here:
and follow sweet tweets on Twitter here:
