Attempt The ImpossibleSince Failure Will Still Be Your SuccessAnnual ReviewMarie-Therese Wisniowski

Preamble
For your convenience I have listed below the annual reviews that span the life of this blogspot.
It's Been An Exciting Year (2010/2011)
Another Cheer - Another Year (2011/2012)
Where Did The Year Go? (2012/2013)
The Year of the Horse (2013/2014)
Cold and Windy - But on the Dawn of Renewal (2014/2015)
A Time To Reflect - A Time To Select (2015/2016)
A Time to Remember (2016/2017)
To Be or Not to Be (2017/2018)
The Night Too Quickly Passes (2018/2019)
The Year of Living Dangerously (2019/2020)
Attempt The Impossible Since Failure Will Still Be Your Success (2020/2021)
A Year of Climate Extremes (2021/2022)
I Love A Sunburnt Country (2022/2023)
Australian Rules (2023/2024)

Introduction
Many years ago when I was dating my husband, he told me a story that I have never forgotten. He was a 10-year-old student who was exceptional at arithmetic and science. In fact, he had a chemistry set at the age of six and would go to the local drug/pharmacy store to purchase chemicals he needed in order to investigate a range of chemical reactions.

He enjoyed being in the top percentile of his grade and one day, after the principal of the school had a serious discussion with his parents, he jumped third grade at his primary school. He was now the smallest student in statute in his class and was at least nearly two years younger than his fellow students since he was born late in his birth year. Suddenly, he was no longer the top student in his class in arithmetic and science, even though he was still in the top percentile.

In the middle of the year, when his mother received his report card she said to him at breakfast, 'You look depressed, even though your class teacher has said you have done exceptionally well, considering that you have jumped a grade.'

'There are at least three girls that are academically ahead of me now and they tease me because of my height due to my age in order to put me off competing against them.'

'Well son, my advice is to attempt the impossible in class since failure will still be your success!'

The following day his mother was called into the principal's office. 'We have given your son three weeks detention since he admitted that he produced rotten egg gas, albeit at very low concentrations, and streamed it through the school's ventillation system and so we had no choice but to evacuate the entire school. He said that you had advised him to attempt the impossible!'

Needless to say his mother was not pleased, even though my husband reached legend status within the school. The three girls stopped teasing him because he was now the talk of the school!

Since that day I have also adopted that motto as my modus operandi. Hence, one of my earliest ArtCloth works centred on the 'Four Seasons.' I wanted each component of the artworks, namely, Summer Bolt, Autumn Bolt, Winter Bolt and Spring Bolt - to overpower the onlooker and so be very intimidating in size and color. I wanted each ArtCloth work to be hand painted and heat transferred using disperse dyes on satin and so project very vibrant and vivid colors. I wanted the onlooker to feel the force of nature and more importantly, to realize how small they were compared to seismic shifts and weather events. I was attempting the impossible knowing that failure would still be my success!

Title: Winter Bolt (Four Australian Seasons – Bolt Series).
Technique: Hand painted and heat transferred using disperse dyes on satin.
Size: ca. 1.50 meters in width x 2.00 meters in length.
Held: Artist's Collection.

Attempt The Impossible Since Failure Will Still Be Your Success
The number of categories on this blogspot keeps growing. They are as follows: (i) ArtCloth and Art Quilt Textiles; (ii) Art Essays; (iii) Art Exhibitions/Installations/Talks; (iv) Artist's Profiles; (v) Art Resources; (vi) Art Review; (vii) Book Reviews/Interviews; (viii) Craft and Quilt Fairs; (ix) Fabric Lengths; (x) Glossaries; (xi) Guest Artists/Authors; (xii) Guest Editors; (xiii) Opinion Pieces; (xiv) Resource Reviews; (xv) Works On Paper; (xvi) Technical Articles; (xvii) Wearable Art; (xviii) Workshops and Master Classes (i.e. my students outputs).

Not all of these categories are present in any given year. For example, Art Exhibitions/Installations/Talks, Fabric Lengths, Guest Artists/Authors, Guest Editors, Workshops, Craft and Quilt Fairs, and Master Classes, Technical Articles etc did not make an appearance this year. After all it was a Covid year!

Also, judging a post by the one criterion namely, most amount of viewers, is not necessarily the smartest approach, since the length of stay might negate the former statistic. How often have you heard yourself say - oops I really didn't mean to google this hunk of a man in his underpants when I searched for "drawers." Nevertheless, this one statistic makes it so much easier for me to make a judgement and so it will be used as the final arbitrator, except in the case when two posts differ by less than two viewers then I will decree that both of them are winners!
Note: We are only talking about differences and not the absolute numbers.

Art Cloth and Art Quilt Textiles
There were eleven posts in this category in 2020/2021 with Stripweaves (West Africa) - Part III and Japanese Paintings on Silk being the most viewed. The latter had 42 more viewers and so is the winner in this category.

Comment: A Beauty Having A Smoke.
Artist: Utagawa Toyokuni (1769-1825).
Style: Kakemono.
Material: Colors on Silk.
Size: 101.5 x 36.0 cm.

Art Essay
There were nine posts in this category in the 2020/2021 season. The two most viewed posts were Art Quilts - Part VII and Tsutsugaki - Freehand Paste-Resist Dyeing, with the latter attracting 61 more viewers and so is the winner in this category.

Comment: Sash to carry a baby on the back. The family crest can be seen on the fabric.
Note: This technique produces some stunning visual effects.

Artist's Profile
There were two posts in this category in 2020/2021 and they were Jenny Kee and Jonah Jacobs with the former being viewed thirty more times than the latter and so is the winner in this category.

Comment: Iconic Jenny Kee jumper.

Art Resources
There were twelve posts in this category in 2020/2021 (one per month). The two posts with the most number of views were: Premetallized Dyes and Azoic Dyes with the latter having 15 more viewers and so is judged the winner in this category.

Comment: White silk satin printed with Azoic Dyes.

Art Review
There were three posts in this category in 2020/2021 with Abstract Designer Patterns and Birds and Flowers in Japanese Textile Designs being the most viewed. The first post had 20 more visitors and so won this category.

Designer: Rachael Taylor.

Book Reviews/Interviews
There was only one post in the 2020/2021 season in this category and it was my interview of Kalle Gayn about his novel - A Pheonix Rises. Naturally I interviewed him since he dedicated his novel to me, because I designed the front cover of his novel and did the layout for him. Bias you say, and if you do I would reply, 'You're right!'

Kalle Gayn, A Phoenix Rises (Front Cover).
Click on the link to read my author interview: A Pheonix Rises
Recommended retail price: AUD $24.99 (plus shipping).
ISBN 978-0-9873013-4-5.
The third novel in the Magrete trilogy is in the collection of the following libraries: National Library of Australia, University of Sydney Library, State Library of New South Wales and the NSW Parliamentary Library.
Online sale currently available from Art Quill & Co Pty Ltd.
To purchase the novel please email: admin@artquill.com.au

Resource Review
There was only one post in this castegory in the 2020/2021 season and that was Egyptian Museum Cairo - Part III.

Comment: Painted wooden statue of a maid-servant with duck (Dynasty DER EL-BAHRI).
There is a density of culture in so many of these historic artworks that can easily overwhelm you.

Wearable Art
There were four posts in the 2020/2021 season that highlighted wearable art. The two most popular posts in this category were String Theory and Street Play in Tokyo with the latter being more popular by 18 views.

Comment: Some street wearables in the Harajuku district. A typical Harajuku fashion store sign – “Clothing Without Prejudice”.

Works on Paper
There were five posts in the 2020/2021 season that featured works on paper. The two most popular were Aboriginal Art - Colour Power and Intaglio Prints Created Using Solar Plates, with the former attracting 155 more viewers that the latter and so winning this category.

Artist: Jirtin Pompey Siddon.
Title of Work: Warnajarra (1991).

Urban Explorers SeriesArtCloth PrintsMarie-Therese Wisniowski

Introduction
Over the years my research has demanded new and innovative ways of creating imagery to encapsulate and inform my concepts. I have been working on a new series of small prints based on my continuing concern about the effects of anthropogenic climate change on the species on our planet. This series explores the environmental effects on butterflies as habitat disappears.

Artist Statement
The ‘Urban Explorer’ series of prints explores the effects of anthropogenic climate change on butterfly species. The earliest record of butterflies dates back to 56 million years, to the Paleocene epoch. Butterflies are distributed worldwide, with an estimated 18,500 species discovered to date. Data gathered by Butterfly Conservation shows that butterflies are being strongly affected by climate change. The IPCC and recent Met Office reports conclude that there will be more extreme weather events in the future, with heavy rains and droughts becoming more frequent. This could have a devastating effect on butterflies and local extinction events will become more frequent [1] (for furthwer details go to - https://butterfly-conservation.org/news-and-blog/butterflies-at-massive-risk-from-climate-change).

Urban Explorers Series

Title: Urban Explorer I.
Technique and Media: Improvisational, low relief and traditional silk screen prints employing wax crayons, textured items, dyes, transparent and opaque pigment on cotton.
Size: 21 cm (wide) x 24 cm (high).

Title: Urban Explorers II.
Technique and Media: Improvisational, low relief and traditional silk screen prints employing wax crayons, textured items, dyes, transparent and opaque pigment on cotton.
Size: 18 cm (wide) x 24 cm (high).

Title: Urban Explorer III.
Technique and Media: Deconstructed and traditional silk screen prints employing dyes and opaque pigment on cotton.
Size: 21 cm (wide) x 24 cm (high).

Title: Urban Explorers IV.
Technique and Media: Deconstructed and traditional silk screen prints employing dyes and opaque pigment on cotton.
Size: 21 cm (wide) x 24 cm (high).

Title: Urban Explorers V.
Technique and Media: Deconstructed and traditional silk screen prints employing dyes and opaque pigment on cotton.
Size: 21 cm (wide) x 24 cm (high).

Title: Urban Explorers VI – A Memory.
Technique and Media: Improvisational, low relief and traditional silk screen prints employing wax crayons, textured items, dyes, transparent and opaque pigment on cotton.
Size: 24 cm (wide) x 18 cm (high).

George Lambert's DrawingsArtist ProfileMarie-Therese Wisniowski

Introduction
Lambert was born in St Petersburg, Russia, the posthumous son of George Washington Lambert (1833 – 25 July 1873, in London) of Baltimore, Maryland. The younger Lambert's mother was Annie Matilda, née Firth, an Englishwoman. Mother and son soon moved to Württemberg, Germany, to be with Lambert's maternal grandfather. Lambert was educated at Kingston College, Yeovil, Somerset. The family, consisting of Lambert, his mother and three sisters, decided to emigrate to Australia. They arrived in Sydney aboard the Bengal on 20 January 1887.

George Lambert.

Lambert became an official Australian war artist in 1917 during the First World War. His painting, 'Anzac, The landing' (1915) depicted the landings on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey, which is the largest painting at the Australian War Memorial collection. Lambert, as an honorary captain, travelled to Gallipoli in 1919 to make sketches for the painting. Another noted work was 'A Sergeant of the Light Horse' (1920), painted in London after his travels in Palestine.

Anzac, The landing (1915).
Note: Most artists who draw, paint for a living!

Lambert married Amelia Beatrice 'Amy' Absell (1872–1963) in 1900. Their children were Maurice Lambert (1901–1964), a noted sculptor and associate of the Royal Academy. Constant Lambert, the British composer and conductor, born in London in 1905. Finally, Kit Lambert (1935–1981), who was their grandchild, and a manager of the rock group 'The Who.'

Lambert's sketch of his wife and child.

Lambert died on 29 May 1930 at Cobbitty, near Camden, New South Wales (Australia), and is buried in the Anglican section of South Head Cemetery. Some of his family papers from 1874-1942 are held in the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (Australia).

George Lambert's Drawings

Title: Déjeuner de la femme-de-ménage (ca. 1901-1905).
Notes: Sitter is the artist's wife.
Techniques and Materials: Pencil on paper.
Size: 27.5 x 22.9 cm.
Purchase: Newcastle Regional Art Gallery (1967).

Notes: Head study of Mrs Lambert (ca. 1901-1905).
Portrait of the artist's wife was drawn in London. In her biography of Lambert, "Thirty Years of an Artist's Life", Amy Lambert recalls that in the early years of the century when Lambert and his wife were living in London, 'he would sign his drawings as "G. W. Lambert of NSW" as there was another G.W. Lambert in the field of illustration.' See Amy Lambert, Thirty Years of an Artist's Life, Sydney 1938 (page 37).
Techniques and Materials: Pencil on paper.
Size: 29.5 x 22.9 cm.
Purchase: Newcastle Regional Art Gallery (1967).

Notes Drawing of a woman. Inscribed "GWL".
Techniques and Materials: Pencil on paper.
Size: 27.6 x 22.9 cm.
Purchase: Newcastle Regional Art Gallery (1967).

Notes: Sketch of a male model. Inscribed in lower case "GWL".
Techniques and Materials: Pencil on paper.
Size: 27.6 x 22.9 cm.
Gifted by Mrs Maurice Lambert: Newcastle Regional Art Gallery (1970).

Notes: Sketch of a crouching tiger.
Techniques and Materials: Pencil on paper.
Size: 12.6 x 19.7 cm.
Gifted by Mrs Maurice Lambert: Newcastle Regional Art Gallery (1970).

Reference:
[1] Australian Drawings in the Newcastle Region Art Gallery, Newcastle Region Art Gallery, Newcastle (1982).

Drawing ArtArt ResourceMarie-Therese Wisniowski

Preamble
This is the first post in a new Art Resource series that specifically focuses on techniques used in creating artworks. For your convenience I have listed all the posts in this new series below:
Drawing Art
Painting Art - Part I
Painting Art - Part II
Painting Art - Part III
Painting Art - Part IV
Painting Art - Part V
Painting Art - Part VI
Home-Made Painting Art Materials
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part I
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part II
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part III
Historical Notes on Art - Part I
Historical Notes on Art - Part II
Historical Notes on Art - Part III
Historical Notes on Art - Part IV
Historical Notes on Art - Part V
Tempera Painting
Oil Painting - Part I
Oil Painting - Part II
Oil Painting - Part III
Oil Painting - Part IV
Oil Painting - Part V
Oil Painting - Part VI
Pigments
Classification of Pigments - Part I
Classification of Pigments - Part II
Classification of Pigments - Part III
Pigments for Oil Painting
Pigments for Water Color
Pigments for Tempera Painting
Pigments for Pastel
Japanese Pigments
Pigments for Fresco Painting - Part I
Pigments for Fresco Painting - Part II
Selected Fresco Palette for Permanent Frescoes
Properties of Pigments in Common Use
Blue Pigments - Part I
Blue Pigments - Part II
Blue Pigments - Part III

There have been one hundred and thirteen posts in a previous Art Resource series that focused on the following topics:
(i) Units used in dyeing and printing of fabrics.
(ii) Occupational, health & safety issues in an art studio.
(iii) Color theories and color schemes.
(iv) Optical properties of fiber materials.
(v) General properties of fiber polymers and fibers - Part I to Part V.
(vi) Protein fibers.
(vii) Natural and man-made cellulosic fibers.
(viii) Fiber blends and melt spun fibers.
(ix) Fabric construction.
(x) Techniques and woven fibers.
(xi) Basic and figured weaves.
(xii) Pile, woven and knot pile fabrics.
(xiii) Napped fabrics, double cloth and multicomponent fabrics.
(xiv) Fabric finishes.
(xv) Schrinkage, durable press and wash-wear finishes.
(xvi) Classification of dyes and dye blends.
(xvii) The general theory of printing.

To access any of the above resources click on the following link - Units Used in Dyeing and Printing of Fabrics. This link highlights the one hundred and thirteen posts in the previous Art Resource series.

There are eight data bases on this blogspot, namely: (1) the Glossary of Cultural and Architectural Terms; (2) Timelines of Fabrics, Dyes and Other Stuff; (3) A Fashion Data Base; (4) the Glossary of Colors, Dyes, Inks, Pigments and Resins; (5) the Glossary of Fabrics, Fibers, Finishes, Garments and Yarns; (6) Glossary of Art, Artists, Art Motifs and Art Movements; (7) Glossary of Paper, Photography, Printing, Prints and Publication Terms; (8) Glossary of Scientific Terms.
Note: From time-to-time all the above data bases will be updated.

If you find any post on this blog site useful, you can save it or copy and paste it into your own "Word" document for your future reference. For example, Safari allows you to save a post (e.g., click on "File", click on "Print" and release, click on "PDF" and then click on "Save As" and release - and a PDF should appear where you have stored it). Safari also allows you to mail a post to a friend (e.g., click on "File", and then point cursor to "Mail Contents On This Page" and release). Either way, this or any of the other posts on this site may be a useful Art Resource for you.

The new Art Resource series will be the first post in each calendar month. Remember, these Art Resource posts span information that will be useful for a home hobbyist to that required by a final year University Fine-Art student. Undoubtedly, some parts of any Art Resource post may appear far too technical for your needs (skip those mind boggling parts) and whilst other parts may be too simplistic with respect to your level of knowledge (ditto the skip). Hopefully, the trade-off between these two extremes will mean that the Art Resource posts will be useful in parts to most, but unfortunately, may not be satisfying to all!

Introduction
The study of artist materials and their application to various techniques covers a number of separate subjects, but they are all interrelated. The following general notes aim to be introductory in the sense that it treats the underlying principles and basic points and includes general remarks which is important to note before going into further details on the various single topics.

The media used to host your artwork whether it is paper, canvas, cloth, stone or bronze (the latter two being used in sculpting) have some bearing on what techniques are available to you. For example, cloth can be dyed, prints on paper can be marbled, canvas usually hosts oil paints, stone and bronze artworks are usually three-dimensionally shaped, ceramics are usually either vitrified or semi-vitrified. On the other hand, artistic film and video usually contain movement, even though that is not always guaranteed. Visual mixed media artworks can host a myriad of objects, shapes and countless variations of materials too numerous to detail, since the imagination of human beings is without limits.

Portrait of Margo Lewers (1967).
Artist: Judy Cassab (Australian, Austrian, and a Hungarian citizen (15 August 1920 - 03 November 2015).
Click on the link - Margo Lewis - to view a blog of her artwork.

Drawing
In most cases before a concept comes into fruitition sketching or drawing with pencil on paper is the easiest of beginnings. In the analogue world artists would often doodle and in this play, art ideas for further exploration would take shape.

Matt Lyon is the London-based graphic artist and illustrator behind this colourful and chaotic doodle. He comments on his website: "My work stems from incessant doodling, often laced with wild colours, shapes and patterns."

The simplest method of doodling is drawing with a lead pencil or a stick of chacoal or crayon. The surface of the uncoated paper is, miscroscopically, a weblike mass of long fibers; depending on the degree of coarseness of the finish and upon the crayon and pencil used, the fibers act like a file: they wear away the pigment particles and hold them within their interstices.

The paper texture is reflected in the line texture.

Ordinary lead pencils are made of a graphite mixed with variable amounts of clay according to the degree of hardness desired. The softest varieties contain very little or in fact no clay.

The degree of hardness of a pencil is printed on the pencil.
'H' stands for 'Hard'. 'HB' stands for 'Hard Black', which means 'medium hard'. 'F' stands for 'Firm'.

Graphite is a form of carbon that occurs in flat plates or flakes and so have a slippery or greasy feel. The pressure on the drawing stroke not only forces these particles into the interstices of the paper, but also creates a slight gloss or sheen by causing them to assume a flat, level position with their flat sides parallel to the surface, somewhat in the same way that wax is polished by causing it to assume a level, and continuous surface.

The 'Mona Lisa' drawn using a pencil.

Metallic lead has the same properties as graphite; when it is drawn across paper its particles are filed away and held in the mesh of the fibers. Subsequent exposure to the impurities in the atmosphere will make these lead drawings blacker.

Thin rods of metallic lead were used as pencils by the ancients, and although graphite was known and applied to various uses much earlier and crude graphite pencils began to be employed as early as the 17th Century, the modern graphite or lead pencil in the present wood-encased form dates from about the beginning of the 19th Century.

Around 1560, an Italian couple named Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti made what are likely the first blueprints for the modern, wood-encased carpentry pencil. Their version was a flat, oval, more compact type of pencil. Their concept involved the hollowing out of a stick of juniper wood. Shortly thereafter, a superior technique was discovered: two wooden halves were combined encasing the lead, a process which is still used to this day.

When metallic silver is drawn across paper that has been coated with a layer of white pigment, small dark particles of metal are held in the porous or grandular surface of the coating in the same way that the other materials are held by the fibers of uncoated paper.

Note how the fibers hold lead fragments.

Silver-point drawings, which were popularly esteemed in the past unlike the present, are characterized by a certain delicacy of line. Unless immediately protected by fixative, the lines tarnish as forms, on all silver surfaces; this color change, however, is usually desired, and the drawings are therefore left unfixed until it occurs.

Silver point drawing technique.

A number of commonly produced industrial coated papers will react with silver (as can be tested by a stroke on any silvered paper), but these are imvariably made with little or no rag content and are of doubtful permanence. If special silver-point paper is not available in the artists' supply shop, it can be made by coating pure, smooth water-color or drawing paper with a thin layer of Chinese white, using a broad sable or camel-hair brush. The silver point itself might be sharpened with a bit of silver wire held in an etching needle holder, or a thicker rod of silver ground to a point at one end and to a chisel edge at the other; both are procurable from a jeweler at a small cost. Gold and platinium will make similar drawings of somewhat different color. They do not change by tarnishing.

Artist: Marie-Therese Wisniowski.
Drawing created for the Hunter Rehabilitation Service Presentation Folder Cover and Corporate Identity Program (1995).
Technique and Material: India ink drawing on cartridge paper.
Size: 27 cm (height) x 27 cm (width).

Reference:
[1] The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques, R. Mayer, ed. E. Smith, 4th Edition, Faber and Faber, London (1981).