In The Pipeline - Jen's Online Art Blog

A sample of what Jen's been making in the studio and other inspiration.

Updated at least once a week so check back soon!

All artwork & images © Jen Mickelborough

Peacock Colours

A textile exploration of the colours found refracted in a peacock feather.  This piece will be layers of paint, crayon, textiles and embroidery.

Life Drawing Classes

I went to a 10 week Tutored Life Drawing class, my first time drawing from live models.  Most classes started with quick poses and would then move into 30 minute to 1 hour poses.  The class aimed to teach different drawing techniques as well as improve your life drawing technique - those extra little lines and shadows that truly define the shape and form.  The biggest lesson for me was that even if I wasn't in the mood I could produce at least one drawing during the night I was really pleased with.

Inky Depths

These paintings were a very serepdipitous result of my waste-no-paint policy using the leftovers from the Peacock piece, in fact I enjoyed it so much I made some more the next day.  They won't be left like this, I'd like to add more layers of paint and work into them with oil pastels and crayons too, so watch this space...

Leafy Moments

I love art about trees. I find the silhouettes of leafless trees in winter very stunning and beautiful. I also love a lot of tree art I see other people making, like my friend Han Stoney who uses promotional fliers as the leaves.  Not sure when this will become a piece of art but it definately mulls around in my visual thoughts.

Desert Storm

I found this image in an Extreme Weather Calendar and loved how powerful it is and the possibility for rich colours in the desert floor, a clean deep blue sky background and a soft but powerful accumulation of colour and texture to bring out the ominousness of the storm cloud and the stream of life-water cascading from it.  A final textile piece is almost finished but I can see myself making more and much bigger versions!

Winter in the Mountains

After coming to Queenstown in July 2006 for the first time it took me quite a while to adjust to the different colour palette here.  Queenstown is pretty arid, in summer the mountains can get very brown and muted. In winter the mountains become much more striking with the rocky outcrops a soft velvety charcoal against the crisp white snow, distant peaks fading into blu and purple and long meadow grasses varying through muted greens and pinky reds to rusty orange and bleached out blonde.  These pieces will be a meditation on those colours using textiles and embroidery over a painted base layer.

Inner Heart

These pieces are a visualisation of some healing I'm experiencing in my heart and a reflection of a journey towards wholeness.  I'd like to work these up to some mixed media pantings using lots of layers added to the canvas and lots of layers of paint.

Hands Uplifted

A development of some earlier pieces, this is a simplified and larger version playing with colour and using a more developed sense of identity and style.  The background is an acrylic wash with gold acrylic applied & scraped off again, the hands painted over the top in oils for deep and rich colour. Available to purchase on the For Sale page.

Peacock Colours

Finished Peacock Colours piece - acrylic background, pencil crayon, fabric and embriodery.  It's hard to capture the fullness of the piece in a front on photo, I love the detail and colors in the close ups! Available to purchase on the For Sale page.

Mountain Colours Developing

This textile piece is reflecting the colour of winter in the mountains here in the Southern Alps of New Zealand.  In winter the mountains take on deep bluey purple colours which contrast quite vivdly with the still long summer meadow grasses now bleaching blonde with deeper orange, pink and russet tones.  I'm working over these painted acrylic backgrounds with pencil crayon and adding slices of fabric before they'll finally be embroidered.

Complimentary Colour

This textile pieces are experiments in complimentary colour - the colours found on opposite sides of the colour wheel - and the creation of shape and form with simple lines.