Window Frames @ Fringe Festival Melbourne 2010

This painting "beguiled" has been entered into the Fringe Festival Melbourne 2010, for the art competition "Window Frames" of the Sydney Road Brunswick Association.
I am thrilled that it got through. It was one of my strongest work done in 2008.

2010 Dawn's newest painting

One of Dawn's latest paintings for 2010, hot off the press and sold already. Some of Dawn's 2010 paintings in her 3 recent exhibitions are now on her website,
http://www.dawnlim.com

Emma Blee-"Closer to Home" art exhibition

Today's opening of Emma Blee's art exhibition at Space 22, was a colourful "memory patches" of paper dyed with coloured in an glued on canvas or boards. These artworks were made with paper in the another use of paper like Debbie Lloyds' previous exhibition. Everyone seems to be making paper things in Ballarat. I think this vein of paper works is more crafty than the usual paintings that I envisaged in an art show, but today different mediums are explored and used to good advantage.

Fiona Andrew's Exhibition

On Tuesday night, we went to the opening of Fiona Andrews' art exhibition at RADMAC gallery. Steve Monaghetti opened her exhibition. Fiona's painting of Steve was spot-on. We liked her swan with chicks painting too. The style was different to her usual ones and this one was very refreshing.

Opening of Debbie Loyld's art exhibition at Space22

Debbie Loyld's exhibition is interesting in the way she creates patterns with folded paper. It would drive me crazy folding thousands of little pieces of printed paper into patterns. Needs a lot of patience and precision fiddling with these if you are so inclined. Doug Wright opened her exhibition.

Connected10 Art Exhibition

Dawn entered the art exhibition and sold her painting even before the show was opened. There was a lot of entries and it was held at Melbourne Central in the main walkway to Myer. It was a well exposed area in Melbourne and we had breakfast there. It was opened by the Treasurer of  Victoria.

This weeks art exhibitions we saw

Starting from Sunday we went to the Geelong Gallery to see the Fletcher Jones 2010 $30,000.00 art prize. The winner was a piece that we didn't like. It had a Jaba like person (as in Star Wars movie) on a rock which was greyish in colour and reminded me of the American Hollywood influence from the movie. Aweful. Some of the other acquired pieces were much better art than this I thought.

Then today we went to Space 22 to see "the weather project", there was a really interesting installation of Erin McCuskey and Emma Stoneman.

Then we went to see the art students' exhibition at the Post Office Gallery of the University of Ballarat.
We saw Carolyn's altered book.

This piece reminded me of the book art of years past that was quite a favourite with craft hobbists.

The New Ballarat Golf Club - Super Draw Night

The New Ballarat Golf Club - Super Draw Night


Dawn at the super-draw

Article in Ballarat's Courier

Fighting rental agent

This week, our rental agent is upset with us, because they reckon they have made a series of clerical mistakes in our lease on our rented house. I think we only have to pay what we signed for in the lease, not a cent more or less. They wanted more, and the notices they send us for increase in rents were wrong too, or even illegal.

Posted via email from chailim's posterous

I thought I will share my husband, chai's exchange with Joy Tanksley because of her 
excellent article on her post "Four Steps to Finding Your Ideal
Writing Voice". 

http://www.copyblogger.com/writing-voice/

Author: Joy Tanksley
 

chai June 18, 2010 at 10:45 pm                                     85
I wrote my father?s story in Malaysian Chinese Voice and I failed my 
English, but the teacher said the ideas got A+. I am not English, please 
look at my pa?s war memoir on http://chaifamilyhistory.publishpath.com/  and tell 
me what you tell. Do I have voice? thanks

Joy June 19, 2010 at 9:08 am

    @Chai ? It has been my experience with students who are leaning a 
new language that voice and style are some of the last things to 
develop. I read a bit of your writing, and you really have some 
beautiful and powerful phrases in the piece about your pa. I think you 
are well on your way! My guess is that your voice is quite strong when 
you write in your native language, and that it will naturally become a 
part of your English writing in time. Good luck with the process!


June 19, 2010 at 12:37 pm

    Dear Joy, its too late for me, I am in my golden years, never 
written in my native language or spoken it for 40 years. Had only 
English all my life and I think I will never improve because I have not 
mastered English yet. My wife is English and she has also told me she 
has worried about my writing and has seen me write the same way for ever 
it seems. She has tried to help and proof read my English but to no 
avail! So What to do?

June 19, 2010 at 1:10 pm

    @Chai ? Sorry I misunderstood your situation! Honestly, I don?t even 
know what ?mastering English? would mean. You are writing about things 
that matter to you, clearly expressing your ideas, and (hopefully) 
enjoying doing it. I say, keep it up and let go of the concept of 
mastery. I think it gets in the way. Best wishes to you!

 June 19, 2010 at 2:05 pm

    Thanks Joy, Just love your article, I am very passionate about 
family matters, and have a lot of time because we have no children. We 
are semi-retired and I read a lot and blog a great deal and in addition 
to family history, I delved into the art world with my wife who is an 
outsider artist. I like writing best without proof reading, the ideas 
just flow. I have just started to write in my website and have just got 
it running in just a few days. I code in html, and into computers and 
anything internet. I do seo and content management as a biz, but suffers 
from my defiency in my English. I am an old computer nerd, who started 
with a slide rule to log tables and pcs in 1981, and now still keen on 
pcs. Genealogy is my passion, biggest success is finding 42000 
descendants of my wife in Victoria, Australia.
    Thank you.

See the comment here: 
chaifamilyhistory.publishpath.com/i-dont-write-in-english 

Preview of new Painting

Sold
bird in the bush
oil on canvas
0.9 m X 0.9 m


Before I paint, I always ask for the Lord's help to inspire me to enjoy the process, and to tell the truth I really just play. I loved this painting as it came together. I felt it was a good painting, I liked the colours and the little face that appeared to the left of the bird. This painting gradually appeared over a couple of weeks and it was made in exactly the same way I have described before, making marks and going with the flow.

I don't write in English

My husband wrote,

I have been upset a lot of times, because I do not write good English, until I read this post

Four Steps to Finding Your Ideal Writing Voice | Copyblogger http://bit.ly/9jgFAP

I am saved, I will go on writing and blogging.

checkout my example in my blog writing

http://chaifamilyhistory.publishpath.com/

What I am doing

Emma and I are looking at my projects for the next year. Emma is my art mentor.

Projects that are coming up:- a solo show at Arthur Gallery next month, workshops and presentations for the rest of the year, and art awards applications. The workshops will hopefully be held at BRACE and RADMAC.

Another venue is "backspace"- a brand new exciting project organised by the City of Ballarat, to be held behind the Ballarat Fine Arts Gallery.

Noteworthy Art Exhibitions

This is the east wall of the Kelly Brother's art show at Arthur Gallery. The pencil drawings were magnificent and very detailed and beautifully worked. They were well liked by the patrons which you could tell by the number of works sold this week. The strong coloured oil paintings which are also Surreal were beautifully presented. Very well done.




I am still updating this blog because of its popularity.

I will run the same post as in http://ballaratoutsiderart.publishpath.com/dawns-outsider-art-noteworthy-exhibitions

Ongoing dialogue between Dan (foliotwist) and Chai

http://chailim.publishpath.com/new-artist-website

Chai wrote:
thanks Dan,
I don't think I will take up the offer, I had a very heavy workload doing that site.
I find this website is the simplest to do and more suitable for SEO then any that I have done, except for my first website for Dawn www.dawnlim.com
This one was in the best vein, that Moshe Mikanovsky, Hugh MacLeod and Peter Wolsely blogged on their sites about artists online advertising and SEO.
Since Google's new priority in SEO directions, I have taken to blogging a lot more than I usually do.
regards chai

June 17, 2010 @ 7:44 AM (Delete this comment)

Online Newsletter

Just found Hugh MacLeod's website, wonderful blogs. http://gapingvoid.com/n2/

So many artists so hard workers for their online presence, my other hero is Moshe.

One of the best blogs I have read is http://fineartviews.com//blog/17411/artists-online-presence-how-one-artist-does-it

Thanks guys.

website seo comparisions

New comment from Chai (chail1@optusnet.com.au):

follow the updates to this blog on my website
http://chailim.publishpath.com/
The CEO of foliotwist is helping us to find out why this site is performing better?
both websites were started at the same time and coded with similar keywords down to the names of the sites.
The first was not as flexible for seo than this one. Maybe that is why.

See the comment here: ballaratoutsiderart.publishpath.com/reply-to-foliotwist

Dawn's Outsider Art Website

Hi everyone,

I have updated my Outsider Art Website.

Please visit and tell me what you think.

http://ballaratoutsiderart.publishpath.com

thanks

dawn

Giclee Prints

For Aussie artists, I hope the following post that I wrote on the foliotwist forum is interesting and can spark a discussion of this procedure.


Don't know much about the US, but in Oz, we have a lot of print shops even in small regional towns that have 2mX2m giclee prints machines.
However, I feel that the first part of this process, ie that the digital image of your artwork is so critical. The common method is to use a professional photographer, but the Sydney giclee shop recommends that you use a large scale flat bed scanner and they are the only ones with the biggest in the southern hemisphere. Then comes the giclee prints and any of the 2mX2m large format giclee printer will do a good job of printing it on canvas usually on a good quality 100% cotton rag.
Good info, I hope?

New website for artist

hello fellow artists, I have come across a website created just for artists,
it might not be as easy to create as I found out but it had a lot of desirable features and once you set it up, you should be able to easily configure the contents yourself.
However my husband who runs a web design consulting and tutoring biz, finds it quite demanding to set it up.
The site is still under construction but he enjoyed the heavy workload and found it quite challenging.
I loved it, its at http://www.ballaratoutsiderart.com
thanks to Doc Pixel whose blog my husband follows.

Galleries on Great Ocean Road

We drove down to Lorne on the Great Ocean Road today and we visited a couple of galleries along the way.

QDos art gallery, we liked the most because of the paintings in it from Dawn's University of Ballarat lecturer, Ian Reed and a friend's, Ashley Harkness. The gallery was nested in woodlands and has surrounding gardens and was on a forest road. It had a cafe, and Japanese-style accomodation. It was peaceful and beautiful.

We decided to visit Geelong after trying to play golf with Martin at Curlewis and could not because of the rain and the large number of players.
First we stumbled onto Robyn Redman's studio at Pandora's cafe who had a very successful art show in Ballarat' Galley and had coffee and cake there, then we came across Art Worx after buying art supplies at Cavalier's.
At Art Worx, we met Steve and Jess Baker, father and youngest daughter who were running the new art supplies at Geelong. Steve himself is a painter and so is Jess who has been learning under Robyn.
Next stop was the Metropolis Gallery which was showing a remarkable artist David Newbury who sold a lot of art because he was dead. It is really sad that he did not reap the rewards when he was alive.
We also saw Aalto Gallery which is now defunct and finally we visited Robert Dowling, a National Gallery of Australia show. Robert was an 19th century Aussie painter who was quite accomplished but died early in the peak of his career at age 59. The front entrance of the Geelong Gallery did not do justice for the appearance of the gallery because inside it was a beautiful heritage building with lovely back gardens.

This month's notable art exhibition

Very beautiful photographs of trees in the landscape, printed on 100% cotton rag, showing at the University's Post Office Gallery.

Very bright colours that I liked. They were very good quality prints.

Art Competition

I am preparing my portfolio to apply for a couple of exhibitions by next monday.

Life is busy ... painting and writing and surfing the net.

Chai has been busy with the blogs and updating, trying to get rid of those pesky spam comments.

And preparing my paintings for the exhibition next month and life is busy!!!!

And Chai is sick, have to take care of him and life is busy!!!!!!!!

July 2010 Art Show at Arthur Gallery

David von Harten's exhibition at Radmc

Saw David's art today, very beautiful ink drawings.

nice one David.

Dawn's art classes

Dawn has been teaching art at Radmac and I think this is her 3rd year. It started with Carolyn's instigation at church and then she hired a space at Radmac and has been at it ever since.

This year we are preparing a workshop with a powerpoint presentation and hope to have the first draft to show her mentor end of this month.

Art in Ballarat

There are about a dozen art exhibitions in Ballarat this month. We have been to see a few, and I like the different mediums and genres there are, such a good variety for a small regional cetre like Ballarat.

The most interesting show, I like is the one of Gordon Monro's difference engine, (photos below) and an article in the newest art newsletter describing it.

Next I also liked Robyn Redman's show, especially the landscapes.

Paintings sold this year

This painting, Jugging was sold this year along with the next one, Bird in the Bush and another, Father's Tears.

Bird in the Bush was one of the newest painting done this year and sold as soon as it was finished.

Father's Tears goes back a few years and I have written a blog about it a few years ago.

Jugging.

Bird in the Bush

Michael Morgan's exhibition

Today we went to Michael Morgan's exhibition at the Convent in Daylesford. Michael was a fellow student and later casual staff during Dawn's undergraduate years at the Univerity. His exhibition was in the same style that we know he paints in. Brightly coloured and busy. It was his birthday too.

Michael Grant's exhibition

We went to Michael Grant's Prelude closing exhibition yesterday. It was fitting for this weekend being ANZAC day on Sunday. Michael was inspired by the battlefields of Papua New Guinea during his two visits there. The little painting exploration on show was a prelude to his future exhibitions for this year. Very good show.

Westpac Bank Ballarat

Dawn just finished exhibiting at Gallery on Sturt and the owner has retained this painting to show off at the Westpac Bank in Ballarat.

It looks terrific hanging at the entrance of the Bank.

Hopefully, this will give more exposure for Dawn's art.

Dawn's artist statement

dawn lim

abstract art and my spirituality

“When I start to paint I have no preconceived idea of what I want to do, just a feeling in my soul that I want to paint. Then I choose some colours and I begin mark making, helping me to create. The technique of mark making was first introduced by The Surrealist Andre Breton. It was called automatic drawing. This method has been invaluable to me, helping me create, not just copy. My paintings are also informed by a few artists, Elizabeth Cummings, Aida Tomescu, Willem De Kooning and Tony Tucson.

I pray before I paint, that I may be inspired and that I may enjoy a spiritual experience while I work. The subjects of my paintings are elusive and take a while before I may see any subject in them at all. They may not mean anything, because they are abstract, but sometimes I find a reflection of my sub conscious, or spirituality within them.

Some are informed by the world around me, such as climate change, lack of morals, or the violence and hopelessness in the world today but of course I also have some light hearted paintings, because after all I believe we are here to have joy.”

Dawn is a Ballarat artist who has lived here for 27 years. She also takes private & group art classes, taking students from where they are at and helping them to move on.

Opening Night at gallery on sturt