I grew up in Sydney surrounded by the Australian bush – the Royal National Park and those amazing displays of the sandstone Australian flora that Sydney seems to be steeped in. Even the buildings in Sydney reflect the legacy of all this sandstone.

I loved the bush – disappearing either by myself or with others and exploring the caves, bush track and creeks. Surrounded by blandly named streets – First Avenue, Second Avenue right up to Tenth Avenue, National Avenue…but I grew up in Primrose Place.

Primrose Place was a cul-de-sac nestled in amongst all these streets going somewhere – an enclosed street and neighbourhood community with a hill for billy cart racing, bike riding, skateboarding and roller skating with the other kids from this street, some of whom are still my friends.

Our house started out as a small 2 bedroom one bathroom fibro place right down the bottom, round the corner of the hill at the bottom end of the cul-de-sac.

I loved this street, the neighbourhood, the other kids in the street to play with, but central to it all was the closeness of the bush – the bushfires, exploring the sandstone caves, running away from snakes, abseiling with ropes we found in the shed (with no safety gear) and of course the wildflowers and wildlife. To this day I love the blush of pink and red new leaf growth of the eucalypts, the towering Gymea lily flower stalks and the absolute thrill of finding wild waratahs and flannel flowers.

I absolutely loved growing up there and in a time where we could go off as kids and just explore. Most of all I loved climbing trees. The bush is part of who we are and it is no accident to think that it has always remained with my brother who is involved in Bush Regeneration and Land Management and myself as an artist.

I love living where I do now but I miss the ‘wildness’ and familiarity of the Sydney Bush.

Days where we would go down to Audley in the Royal National Park sometimes and visit the Audley Boatshed (it’s still there and you can still hire boats).

When I started back into developing my arts practice and linocuts in about 1998, I worked not only with lino and design but I also went out and did drawing classes, calligraphy and watercolour classes. I learned through workshops, classes and my own arts practice how to work with watercolours, papers, calligraphy, drawing, design, photography and lino. I explored how I could blend all of these interests and worked at developing my own style.

This is an earlier work from 1998 – the black and white waratah images (including the one above) I had taken years before my first inspiration for this linocut.

I deliberately did not look at other linocut artists at this time – I knew a little of the historical linocut artists like Margaret Preston and Noel Counihan but again I put all of their images aside. I took lots of photos, did drawings, explored and played with ideas and media.

It was not until I felt comfortable with having developed my own voice to express myself through my artwork years later, that I then allowed myself to have a closer look at what others were doing.

Probably it was around the time when the I began to have more access to the internet and more information became available. Living in the country, raising children and looking after elderly relatives my access to the wider arts community and even traveling to larger cities like Brisbane and Sydney has been limited.

Not everyone works this way but it is just how I have worked and developed my own voice as an artist.

It has not been easy being a linocut artist working with more traditional subject matter as I have done. Galleries have found it difficult to fit my work into their collections. Within a traditional gallery paintings can be seen as ‘fine arts’ and linocuts as ‘crafts’, and within a contemporary gallery my more realistic representations and traditional working methods are not seen as ‘cutting edge’ enough. But I have tried to be true to my own vision of the work I am creating. I like beautiful interesting images and I love the Australian bush – wildflowers, birds and wildlife, so this is the work I try to create. I could have chosen to become more contemporary – have a different voice to fit in with the galleries view but it just wouldn’t be me. So I have continued down this path.

My website and business name is Soulsong – may sound a bit ‘out there’ but it isn’t really – the Australian wildflowers and wildlife I see as part of my soul, I can get lost and never lose my capacity to spend time in and around the bush and Australian wildflowers and wildlife. I never get tired of exploring this subject matter – it is embedded in my soul. My arts practice is my song, it is the way I express myself through my artwork – so quite simply my artwork is my soul’s song – Soulsong.

It has been a difficult path at times over the past 10 years and the busy pro-active arts practice I was developing from 1998 to 2002 had to be wound back until recently when I am again trying to re-establish myself as an artist. I have had children to raise who have needed me to be there and I have been a family carer for them and for my elderly relatives who have had no one else willing to step up and help them. I do not regret a day of any of that time, it was what was needed to be done, and I have many joyful experiences and learnt a lot along the way about myself and human nature.

At this point it is difficult to see where I fit -  ‘officially’ I  started producing my linocuts in 1998 so I am now considered a more ‘mid-career’ artist having moved beyond the around 5 years ‘emerging artist’ phase? But hang on a sec…I have been in a holding pattern circling unable to find a solid landing-place, unable to devote the time and energy needed to specifically move forward in a solid established career. For me I still see myself as an artist on hold, still trying to get on solid ground where I can make a some sort of steady income.

So I am trying again this year, despite the difficulties – and they are many – to re-establish a busy pro-active approach to my arts practice.

The establishing and creation of a new website and blogs, getting back to finish carving many designs, having new cards and posters commercially printed, and developing new artworks is my plan for 2012

It is only me – so it isn’t going to be easy being a one woman band/artist/wife/mother/carer/website developer/business person…but I am going to give it a try…so let’s see where go this year on this journey called life.

Reblogged from mythartology:

In the summer of 2011 I have met Mihail Pogarsky, a man who is hugely involved in the Russian Artist Book art scene. He organizes annual Artist Book Fairs in Moscow, publishes a magazine on the subject, initiates a variety of international book projects and creates beautiful books himself. Over coffee we’ve discussed many aspects of what we do and what’s happening in the book art world in Russia and USA. Several months later I have received an email from him asking me if I would be interested in …

Just came across this site – so impressed and daunted! Wonderful work. I actually didnlt know about ‘reblogging’ so here we go my first reblog and it is a stunner!

The Liebster Blog is to be given to bloggers who have less than 200 followers in order to spotlight these wonderful blogs.

Liebster is a German word, meaning dearest or beloved, but it can also mean favourite.

Rules for giving the award

These are the rules:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you (thank you, Mrs Daffodil!)
2. Reveal the five blogs you have chosen and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
3. Copy and paste the award onto your blog (see above)
4. Request the people you have chosen to receive the award pass it on to their favourite bloggers.

Mrs Daffodil’s other award-winners

The five bloggers to whom Mrs Daffodil has given her award are:

1. Pretty Green Bullet
2. Solid Gold Creativity
3. Soulsong Art
4. Candy Ping Pong
5. On the Way to School

It is difficult to tell how many followers people have – not everyone displays that information.

I actually have had enormous trouble choosing which blogs to highlight!

Anyhoo here are is my final selection of 5 Blogs for the award – I’ve added a little about why I like these blogs…

My award-winners are:

Bushranger – Exploring Australian bush – great blog from an amateur naturalist

Art out and About – Printmaker Pete McLean’s art & travels

A-roving I will go – A tale of travel & nature

What I Learnt Today – Interesting & Quirky info fro your day…

Karmic Gift – A wonderful blog about becoming parents from a different perspective – follow on blog is The Moore-Mazoue Pride

So far I have completed in transferring and updating 40 posts from this blog to a new one specifically for Linocut and Art tutorials. It is not ‘live’ yet but I will let you know when that happens.

I thought it might be easier to split the Art/Linocut Tutorials off into a separate space so those that want specific information quickly can find it.

When I started this blog it was just a general idea of like a diary or journal of my artwork, photos and a bit about life, but I do get a lot of requests for information about linocuts and tutorials/workshops.

Due to family commitments and insurance costs actual workshops are still difficult so I am setting up the separate blog for people to access information and to run alongside that I am working on tutorials and tuition for those that want to take things further with their linocuts in particular. Having an education degree might be a bit helpful with this as well!!

Integrating the social media is also another challenge!! So hopefully over the next month my aim is to get this all happening.

So Happy New Year to all my readers!!

2011 was an extremely difficult year for me especially in maintaining my arts practice so….sometimes life needs to take precedence to art.

My general overall resolution is to have a more peaceful and productive 2012.

My commitment for January is to get all the website, blog  and tuition information organised…we’ll see how I go by January 31st!!

]]> http://soulsongart.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/happy-new-year-changes-new-beginnings/feed/ 5 Lyn Weir Eucalyptus cassea Linocut Design http://soulsongart.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/storm-fronts-south-coast-nsw/ http://soulsongart.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/storm-fronts-south-coast-nsw/#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 02:29:27 +0000 Lyn Weir http://soulsongart.wordpress.com/?p=2486 ]]> I am still trying to play catch up after what seems more time away from home than here. This includes filing and cataloging all my digital photos onto external hard drives. Eventually I also do a gold cd/dvd back up about twice a year. I love digital photography but there was always a more permanent aspect to film where 50 years later you have a slide or piece of film you can still process – lose a hard drive and you lose the photos. As a consequence I tend to get a fair number of good ones processed and store them filed away from light (even though their lifespan is also limited) and double hard drive them as well as the gold cd backup.

These are some images I took whilst staying on the South Coast of NSW near Bateman’s Bay in October taken on different days. I must admit to loving clouds and regularly get lost watching the sky change some days. In particular I love storms and the dramatic clouds and lighting associated with them.

They are taken with my trusty old Canon 400D with no filters. I have only boosted the contrast levels a bit in photoshop and removed the mould spots from the lenses that have been plaguing me…need new lenses but as usual not on the urgent list for now…so I photoshop them out – time consuming but free! It has been a while since I used my camera for these types of photos so I was experimenting with different settings manually – nice to have a play around.

Spent a lovely morning in Ballina this morning catching up with a old friend and her family…sunny warm day and not too hot…but windy – I actually like windy days!

Took a couple of photos over the Richmond River at high king tide with seagull flying against the wind.

I love these plants!! The spiky long thin leaves can swirl in amazing patterns and have a blue/green tinge about them. But when the flower stalk emerges their true architectural quality can be seen. Here are some photos of the stalk emerging from the spiky ball.

Slowly the stalk gains height and eventually it erupts in tiny nectar laden white flowers that attract birds and insects. Unfortunately I was away for the actual flowering of my own Grass tree but I took these photos last year at a friends place of their grass tree flowers.

Eventually after the flowers all emerge – from the base of the flower head upwards, the stalk gets covered in spiky seed pods.

These eventually fade and the ‘kangaroo tail’ as they are often called are left to whither and fall off until they are replaced by a new flower stalk to begin again.

I am hoping that mine flowers again next year and I will be here to see the actual flowers – maybe I will even get more than one stalk this time!

This time it is a Crested Pigeon – Ocyphaps lophotes. These lovely soft grey pigeons can often be heard around my home cooing softly to each other as they sit in the large poinciana tree in my backyard or just wander around on the grass looking for seed.

We have in the past had a little crop of baby crested pigeons so it was a great delight to find that another nest has joined in the the Tawnies and Magpies at my friends house. We will be watching carefully over the next few weeks to see what develops in the pigeon family!

If you look carefully you can see the nesting mother – can’t wait to see if we get another little brood.

]]> http://soulsongart.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/what-a-productive-happening-community-this-old-olive-tree-is/feed/ 1 Lyn Weir Top Knot Pidgeon 1 TopKnot Pidgeon Nest 2 TopKnot Pidgeon Nest 1 TopKnot Pidgeon Nest 3 http://soulsongart.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/bart-the-magpie-baby/ http://soulsongart.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/bart-the-magpie-baby/#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2011 05:02:30 +0000 Lyn Weir http://soulsongart.wordpress.com/?p=2445 ]]> In the vicinity of the baby Tawny Frogmouth tree is an Australian Magpie – Gymnorhina tibicen – nest. I must say although Tawny frogmouths are my favourite native bird, magpies with their beautiful calls come a close second.

A few days ago in the stormy weather one of the young ones fell out. Unlike the baby Tawny Frogmouth that was only a few days old this baby is a bit bigger and is starting to get its feathers. It cannot really walk and uses its wings a bit to get around and it is looking pretty scrawny.

The magpie parents continued to feed the baby on the ground and my friend took it in at night away from feral animals and snuck out early in the morning to return this little one to the bushes where it sat and was fed by its parents all day.

It has been staying on top of the wood pile out of direct harms way and the parents are continuing to feed it there.

My friend has named it ‘Bart’ and I must say it seems to suit it.

Bart has now been moved higher onto a branch of the Olive tree below the tawny Frogmouth nest, but with wilder winds and rain today, he has either fallen or jumped over the edge to the ground and made his way to a nearby rubbish pit where he runs the risk of being taken by some ground dwelling creature. Despite being put back twice onto the branch where the parents are coming to feed him he seems a determined little bird still taking the risk of going into dangerous territory on the ground! Maybe he doesn’t like heights!

Perhaps he may just have to reside back in the laundry this evening otherwise he may not survive the night!

 ’Bart’ seems to have a bit of ‘tude happening there!

]]> http://soulsongart.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/bart-the-magpie-baby/feed/ 0 Lyn Weir Baby Magpie 2 Baby Magpie 4 Baby Magpie 5 Baby Magpie 6 Baby Magpie 7 Baby Magpie 8 Baby Magpie 1 http://soulsongart.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/attempting-wa-in-my-garden-hakea-multilineata/ http://soulsongart.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/attempting-wa-in-my-garden-hakea-multilineata/#comments Tue, 29 Nov 2011 07:43:40 +0000 Lyn Weir http://soulsongart.wordpress.com/?p=2381 ]]> In my garden I grow indigenous species from this region but I also grow – or perhaps I should say ‘attempt to grow’ – species form other regions. Some plants are more successful than others – but often I manage to get a season or two and some photographs I can use in my work or keep in my extensive photographic catalogue. As I work always from my own photographs or friends that have taken photos for me I find attempting to grow some of these plants really worthwhile.

One of these is the Western Australian Hakea multilineata – Grass-leaved Hakea that was I was fortunate to pick up as a grafted plant and has been growing successfully here – in a scraggly fashion for a number of years.

It has the most gorgeous pink large hake flowers down the stem with long lined thin leaves. Sometimes I would pick them as they were quite spectacular but really quite high up on the tree.

After flowering it produced seed pods as you can see here.

These then dried and eventually opened to release its seeds.

It has been looking worse for the wear over recent months – perhaps too much rain – and looked like it was slowly dying. The other morning though after a storm the night before we came out to find the small tree snapped off at the base and over the driveway.So this is what is left…

…got some great photos though!

…and maybe a design too…