The Colourguru

the rest of the book

As promised, I have added a slide show at the end of this post of the rest of the fabric covered mixed media journal.  It has a combination of watercolour paper in various weights, pastel paper, decorative papers & acetate, as I said.  The thing that I am most glad about is to finally have coptic stitch down pat, so that I can call on it when I need to.  I am looking forward to creating all kinds of 'book forms' using this skill.

In the process of prepping for classes for this week - I cleaned out my old watercolour palette from all of my watercolours & faces I did last year & organised the colours according to hue & value so that I can use it for sea, landscape AND people painting.  I created a reference chart for myself notating the position of each of the colours, blotting my brush on the paper towel as I changed colour.  I usually keep the 'almost end' of paper towel rolls to use to blot brushes, glues & mess on & look what I accidentally created!  Some of my very own 'impressionist' flowers paper!   I never did to well at that whole 'intuitive watercolours' idea - so I am not sure what they will 'grow' into, but for now, I have cut it up & fixed it onto blank atcs - so stay tuned for that one! (like I have time to be making atc's right now!)....urgghhhh - DID I SAY how much I hate working with oil paint!  THAT'S IT!  I can NOT be bothered with it! I will NEVER be a REAL artist!    It takes so darn long to dry!  I am working on a 3 canvas ''triptych' - 2 canvases 18 x 24in & the centre on is 20 in.  Did I say that it was slow?  During my half year review, the panel said that I needed to work in a larger scale, so that's what I have done with this project - but seriously; all it means is canvas costs more, paint costs more, it takes longer both to paint & dry and it's more difficult to get around.  I don't get their logic!  LOL!!!

Am also working on my 'foot gestures' for my folio - they don't seem as difficult as hands - not so many of those pesty knuckles & folds!  LOL!!  They're coming along - I'll let you see some of them soon.

Still booking

I have spent half of this weekend in school, one of the courses I am doing requires some Saturdays, and yesterday was one of them.  It seemed like such a waste of time sitting in a lecture room, with sparkling sunlight twinkling in at us through the windows & the delicious feel of spring in the air. Today I wanted to make up for it.  Impending assessment dead lines are forcing me to commit to decisions (which may NOT be entirely a bad thing) and follow through instead of procrastenating about challenges, design ideas and possibilities with this book in a box I am making.  SO today I 'blocked' in the base of my 'Fed Square' book form, in order to make it open out better, stuck the 'top' on and am working on the pages.  I made the original of origami folded squares & triangles that mimiced the mosaic on the outside of the building, however they are separate pieces, glued together & I am working on trying to make it without glued sections to avoid the 'bulk' from double thicknesses in sections.  Still resolving that one.  A new challenge has presented itself.  Now that the base is blocked out, it seems to have 'pushed' out the walls of the box ever so slightly which has made the lid quite firm.  Consequently, I will definitely need some sort of 'opener' on the top - that DOESN'T wreck the asthetics of my 'mosaic' & will tie in appropriately.  I have the standard kind of things: 7 gypsies (which I LOVE, but doesn't work on this) - old door handles, (but this is an ULTRA modern new building, so that doesn't quite suit)...........hmmmmm...........thinking music............. mmmm...... thinking cap on - but it's rotating round & round of it's own accord!  Yep.... nothing yet - don't know what I'm quite going to do yet.... but HERE'S THE NEW EDITION - this book was made for a very dear friend that I have known for about 15 years.... she travels from time to time, & although is deep in business usually when she does, she is very creative & enjoys to paint & draw.  I have made her a hand stitched book that has a combination of high end cartridge for notes & drawings, watercolour paper, decorative pages to stick things on to & some other special bits.  These include mylar pockets, archival envelopes and pages of thick acetate (to use as a watercolour palette).  The out side is silk, the inside is cotton & there are pockets on the inside of both the front & back.  You don't get any sense of it at all from the slide show, but it is all shades of pink, from burgandy to soft baby pink.   I will post some more pics of this one finished in a few days.

a cultural project

Here are some pics of what I am working on right now - well actually - ONE of the things that I am working on right now - but not all of them are as interesting as this - I could bore you with details of how to design a language, literacy & numeracy test - but I am sure you'd perfer this!! LOL!!!

 I have called this post 'a cultural project' because this 'book form' is a box, with origami fold out 'pages' of one of Melbourne's significant public spaces - Federation Square.  It was designed by a London company of architects, draws on Aborignal cultural elements, amazing narrative tiling and has an Italian 'piazza' feel about it - see - sums up Melbourne perfectly - I am making a multi-cultural book form!

 
For the 'box form' that contains the book - I have used a garden variety $2 shop gift box that had a very shiny paper covering, after sanding that all back and sticking down whatever had 'frayed' away, I painted it all matt black, inside & out.  Despite my sanding & persistance, it didn't stick well & it was a candidate for a bit of the ol' Folden GAC' which helped to solve the problem.

I used postcards from the visitor centre, which are a glossy photo of the mosaic panels that cover the outer skin of some of the buildings, to cover the sides of the box and a 'visitor map' to line the inside. I am still working on perfecting my 'origami' fold out pages, (only in plain  kraft paper for now) and getting the size just right - the lid is working just fine - however the base is a little deep for the size of my fold.  I have tried a mock up with 'tabs' on the lower 'pages' to keep it together, without letting the viewer pull it out too far..which kinda works......but its still a bit awkward....., I considered cutting down the box, but I do want some height to it, to give the whole 'fold out accordian feel to it............ so at the moment I'm leaning toward 'packing up' the base of the box on the inside with something with a bit of weight - some timber or something..........which will do 2 things - lift up the pages so they clear the box sides when it is pulled out, & secondly, add some weight to the whole form, which will make it a bit more stable when you take the lid off.  

I am still working on the lid - and I am not sure yet whether I will use what I've made - I wanted to create some sort of 'handle', I haven't worked that out yet - but there isn't a lot of time for contemplation now - it's a very short term and assessment is in only FOUR - yes FOUR weeks!  So I have to get my 'roller skates' on, so to speak! LOL!!

  

Life in Focus

It took a while, but FINALLY we have done something at art college I feel competent at! LOL!!! The last half of last term was spent creating hand made, coptic bound books. It seemed like an incredibly upside down way to create them,however, I guess there's another difference between 'art' & 'craft'. PURPOSE.   With no project, purpose or design in mind, we were to 'tear' or 'cut' pages (depending on paper being used) into book pages, to be coptic bound. 

I had SOME trouble getting my head around 'creating' a book (that was not an art journal/notebook with plain pages) that had no definition - it created significant indecision within me as I struggled to 'design' with no 'purpose', particularly when we were expected to use high end materials.  I felt concern for the potential 'waste', not having cash to splash for art materials.  It's not a method I'd recommend, or you just end up with a whole lot of books that are beautiful, but useless.  I always, make my pages first, THEN make them into a book - unless I am creating a blank art journal to work in.

I have struggled with following 'book instructions' of coptic stitching in the past, and leaning on my 'embroidery' skills, I sort of made up my own version, which looked, ok, but a little less than elegant or even!  In the end I made up 4 books, this is the only one that I actually photographed in process, because I did alot of the work on this one at home, due to the complex (& messy) way I created the finish on the pages & cover.

It was incredibly frustrating to put all ofthe time and effor tinto creating this treasure, not to actually have any 'purpose' or 'subject' for it.  But the result IS beautiful, despite it being 'plain' pages.  My initial thought was some style of doodled drawings, but not being so confident of my drawing skills & unable to settle on a topic, it is just sitting in my shelf, a bit lonely at the moment.   I am sure that some creative use will come to me eventually....oh, and I forgot to mention - the holes wasn't in the cover, my very special DH cut those in for me!

It may take a while to download the slide show, so here's the direct link, incase you have trouble viewing it.  http://tinyurl.com/ybbthvc

Hand Gestures

As promised, here's a slide show of my 'hand gesture' drawings.  Some of them are pretty ordinary - others are better.  I have made huge leaps and bounds with a change in tutor, Celeste Chandler - who is JUST AMAZING - I love her, what can I say??? LOL - I told her she is MY Australian Idol!  LOL!!  Despite being one of those amazingly 'gentle souls/flower children' that you can't help but love - she has a really nurturuing and encouraging way of teaching - that makes you come away thinking - ok - I didn't get it perfect, but I did some things well.  Which is really good for someone struggling to learn, juggling health issues.  No matter HOW terrible something is - she still manages to find something good to say about it.....as I said - I love her!  She just wonderful!

Washing off the Dust

Given that it's 'holidays' from collage at the moment, despite a 'truck load' of home work leading up to final assessment, I just HAD to let my hair down and do something just for fun!  It WAS only a LITTLE fun - this ATC was made for Paper Trader's monthly 'Winner Takes All' draw.  It ended up a little over worked, and the 'rub on' looks a little contrived, however, I had built up so many layers that I couldn't get anything to make marks on the surface (even 'Staz-On' paled to insignificance). 

Of course, there HAS been SERIOUS art work as well.  I have been working hard on my 'life drawings' at the moment putting a lot of time into drawing hands.  (which is also the subject of my oil paintings - can't WAIT 'til THAT trial is OVER!!!).  I am going to make a separate post for this because I want to create a 'catagory' for my life drawings, without people who'd like to see them having to 'wade' through lots of other stuff included in the same post.

It's a bit ironic that I am spending so much time drawing hands really, as movement in the joints of my right arm and hand is still a big health challenge and coitersone with a daily pain management drug regime is still my best friend!  In theory, my art course was supposed to relieve the stress that is apparently causing my 'joint' issues, in reality, I am not sure whether it is better or worse as the stress builds for assessment!   LOL!!!  I never have been very good at 'evaluations' - I find it hard to separate the 'assessment' from myself when the thing being 'assessed' has come from within me.  I guess it'll all that sensitive/creative type stuff.  Still - it's not my favourite thing and I cringe when people ask my opinion of their art, not sure if they really just want to be told - it's great (aka - you're ok) or here's how you can make it better (aka - let's work together to improve this).

If, as Picasso said 'The PURPOSE of Art is to wash the dust of daily life off our souls' in theory, the quality of the art doesn't matter.  It is THAT you do Art that does.  And so, I hold to the maxim I adopted about 18 months ago.  I am an artist - therefore I do art!  DAILY - it's what I do.

Here this is my art from the last week or so - tip in pages for Connie's journal.  BUT silly me, I had an old print out with the original configuration in landscape and it was revised to portrait, so I ended up doing them twice!  Once I realized my mistake (AFTER they were finished & I was posting them! LOL!!!) I initially thought I could 'cut them up' and make a 'joined' page out of pieces, adding appropriately to them - but that really didn't work out, so I only managed to save 2 of the 'mounted' picures.

The Many Shades of Blue

As an alternative & to create a more economical option for our Paper Trading members, Paper Traders have run a 'tip-in journal' concurrently to the Round Robin Journal this year.  The term 'tip-in' is actually a traditional book binding term, primarily refering to repairing or restoring books - meaning: 

'a method for incorporating loose pages -- a detached leaf, replacement page, errata sheet, or other insert -- into a bound volume.'

Silly me, I was already participating in the RR, then joined the 'tip-in' project.  Whilst I find the freedom of creating single unattached pages a little less intimidating than recieving a living art treasure each month in the mail - coming up with something for someone else's journal every second week has been a big ask & I have fallen behind a little.  These pages were made for Bekki's journal.... Blue is............ inviting participating artists' response to the colour blue.  I had great fun with this - finding the gradation of any colour in some from or other mesmarizing.  I started out with Neocolour II watercolour crayons on guache to get this composition going - then I added 'textured hatching' with my tech pen & then H2o highlights.  It has a kind of zentangle look about it, & it was fun to do.

life is galloping by

at a great rate of knots - and yes - for the first time this year - the 'C' word was mentioned yesterday - yes, you know the one, the one my year used to be measured by....

it's 3 months,
or 111 days,
or 2669 hours, or 160162 minutes or 9609728 seconds until Christmas - whew - no wonder it's galloping - those numbers just escallate!  I have had to (regretfully) acknowledge that The Princess (grandbaby) - Miss 3 - is NO LONGER a toddler and that I am approaching a very large number next year.

It's funny, having always been mistaken for being much younger than I am, age has really never worried me, but having suffered a whole raft of mobility issues in the last couple of years, I am now beginning to seriously consider my own mortality and aging.  It's not a pleasant thought. I am even wondering about my pursuit of drawing - will I finally get it, just before I die and not ever produce anything worthwhile?  I am STILL a fledgling - better of course - I would even hesitate to say MUCH better - but I am still heavily reliant on copying and having something already 'flattened' into an image rather than drawing from life.  oh well - at least I won't be a 'stale' old grannie - you can't get too old if you are still learning!  These are some of my recent dry point etchings - and NO - they aren't drawn - they are primarily traced. The decision of how & in what manner to shade is where the 'art' comes in, as it alters the whole look of the piece.  Still impacted by my 'Degas' visit last year, the little dancer was first etched and printed, then I bathed the paper in walnut ink & detailed it with white chalk.  The magpies are from photographs I took of our little Master 2 1/2 feeding a family of magpies they have befriended at their home (of course they end up reversed when they are etched & printed).

Countdown to Christmas!

The Hand That Paints the Sky

 

I have had the priviledge of seeing this view for the last 18 years, knowing that our time here is drawing to a close, each one seems more amazing and more beautiful than the last.  These are just a sprinkling of the many shots I have from our front balcony.......having experienced a particularly beautiful one lately - I felt compelled to record it somehow in an artful way (other than photographing it)

 I had Letha's 'Monochromatic Me' RR Journal on my desk & I thought it would be a beautiful addition.  This page has many layers & is quite textured.  I have built up layers of Golden Acrylics (ahhhhhh - my first love - I am SO over OIL PAINT! [you know the stuff 'real artists use' - well that's what my tutors keep telling me! LOL!])  First I layed down a base of Hansa Yellow - which I know is quite bright, but I wanted to build a luminous feel to the pages.  There are layers of Burnt Sienna, Mars Yellow, Red Oxide, Indian Yellow Hue & Burnt Umber.  These were topped with a glaze of the delicious Qunacridone Nickel Azo Gold........followed by touches of perfect pearls, primary elements, H2o's, gold leaf & sealed with Liming Wax to stop the pages sticking.  It is quite built up & textured in real life.

WARNING TO ART JOURNALLERS

I know that heading is a little alarming - but it needs to be.  I help to moderate the fabulous mixed media yahoo group called Paper Traders & every year since our inception, we have had a Round Robin Journal Project & I have hosted the project for the last 3 years.  For the uninitiated, basically - 12 people (our limit) make a journal, decide on a topic, then send their journal of on a travelling adventure around the world.  The journals rotate monthly, and each artist makes a page in everyone's journal until they finally recieve their own back.  Each time we have done it, there have been glitches along the way & sadly, we have people who have not honoured their commitments and literally just not sent journals back to their owners - but what happened this last month has taken the cake!  This month it appears that a international, priority paid, tracked & insured parcel has been very carefully opened (SO CAREFULLY - I can't see how it's been done) and looked through the 3 journals & the other contents of the box - and decided to keep one of the journals and the extra bits & bobs sent to me by the previous artist - and carefully seal the box back up. 

The box left USA weighing 5lbs 8.5oz and arrived to me in Oz weighing barely 4lb.  Despite there being no signs what so ever of tampering, the box was crushed down one side where the journal and other things 'had been' and now the two remaining journals moved around in the box.  That's where the fun began - despite having all of the safeguards in place, no one could tell us (person who sent parcel, me as recipient or the missing journals' owner) at what point the weight of the parcel changed.  A claim has been put in for insurance, which is SOMETHING at least for the trouble, but I am sure that we'd all just prefer to be able to post our art and know it's safe.  I have to say, I have posted things all around the continent & the world for years, and for the most part, I haven't had a problem.  THIS ONE takes the cake though!   I would caution anyone reading this to think carefully about what you write as the 'contents' of a parcel sent.  You need to use words that are 'honest' for security reasons - but not descriptive enough to raise the interest of any 'would-be' thief.  Perhaps words like: book, paperwork, printed matter, if anyone has any others, it'd be good to hear them.

As host, I felt just terrible about this happening - especially as the pics I had seen of the original journal showed that it was fabulous (no wonder 'peeping thomas/thomasina' decided to steal it!).  The subject was 'The White Rabbit' and being a big Alice fan, I had things on hand that I thought I would be able to use to restore the journal.  It's not perfect, but it is better than getting nothing back.  So here's some pics of the a couple of pages & the cover of the new journal, including a couple of litho etchings I did as my own contribution to the journal.

I'm assessed

For weeks now, I have been counting down to 2pm today - when I had my half year assessment for my art course.  Six subjects, all being assessed, all at the same time - 8 art journals (for 2 subjects I am already on my second one); 8 printworks; 5 oil paintings; a critical review of an art work, 20 drawings in various mediums, 12 life drawings; yada, yada, yada, basically, lots of stuff - all due at the one time, in the one place for a face to face review by a panel of 'art critics'.   Like a folio presentation.

I have spent the semester feeling TOTALLY out of my depth, still feeling 'drawingly challenged' so the whole process was summing up to be pretty scary!  They were kind, and gentle and encouraging.  I still feel like a 'fraud' artist (due to my lack of drawing skills) & like I don't belong, but I recieved some encouragement to persevere with my painting, great reviews for my print making.  The row of chairs is a 'relief print' carved out of matchbox sized cross grained wood with funny shaped tools that fit in your palm and are as sharp as a razor! (yes, I have the blood to prove it!)  This was really tricky to do, and although it was a requirement, it's probably not something I'd fuss about doing again.   My set of 5 paintings were elements of Melbourne life I called Urbania.  It included:  'Hands of Justice' (representing the court buildings and taken from a photograph of a statue of a judge); 'Diverse Culture' depicting street buskers (entertainers) & traditional ballet & our Art's Centre. I was required to create a 'hommage' to an artist & so my 'Man in the Street' panel was a hommage to the work of John Bracks - a Melbourne artist, most famous for his work titled 'Collins St at 5pm' (a CBD street - equivalent to Wall St, or Saville Row - a main, well known CBD street).  The other two panels were a retail one & one abstractly depicting Federation Square (another major Melbourne landmark)

Although none of this is altered arts - it's the path I am on at the moment for my art, I ache to get my hands in some acrylic paint & just 'squidge' around in it - but that's not to be right now - this is all pretty full on, and I am still battling physical constraints that are quite challenging at times.

We are done with 'relief' printing now where you work in the 'negative' - moving into 'intaglio' or dry point printing using etched plates & working in the 'positive'.  After working with this for only a couple of weeks, I am really liking the results of this, and see a much broader application for it.  It remains to be seen how well I do it, but I am encouraged by today's work - shown here - taken from a magazine photo of Snow Gums.  I would like to 're do' some Alice scenes & I think this would be a good medium to do it in.  The one from Tenniel with Alice at the tea party has always worried me, it seems to me that she has such a sullen pouty face, & she doesn't fit with the 'wonderlust' Alice that I have conjured up in my mind.  Also I have Teri's 'White Rabbit' journal due to arrive here, so that's a good excuse to work on something like that!  Something a bit less serious than my work in first semester.

a little piece of art

Connie from Paper Traders is running an 'Emotive Faces' swap and seeing as faces have been such a big part of my drawing journey of the last 12 months - I just HAD to join in.  This girl is one that I am just always enthralled with.  She has such a peaceful, langid look on her face, but it's still pensive.  For me (personally) she has all of the intrigue that comes with the Mona Lisa.  I have made 5 originals of her, (in reverse, because of how I made it) I started, by drawing the pic on to lino & then carving it out & making lino prints, hand burnishing ink onto the watercolour paper with a spoon. (this made the image in reverse to the original)
I then used pencils, chalks, watercolour paint & ink to work in the colours. Being originals, each one is different, but I only scanned one of them.

In Art Theory at the moment, we are studying Baroque artists, & Sir Peter Paul Rubens (June 28, 1577 – May 30, 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.

this one is a totally different style - but Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia has amazing detail in her clothing, which I find enchanting.

 

Progress at College

This week at Collage we have moved on to watercolour classes with the AMAZING Australian artist THORNTON WALKER - WOW - really great stuff - THIS was my fav (it looked like a stylized 'colour chart' - so OF COURSE it was my fav!) - but IT was hard to choose!  So much of his subject matter really appealled to me - still lifes that include china & fruit & interesting bits'n'bobs......the dissapointing part was that our first week was him 'introducing' us to inks - which he uses in conjunction with watercolours - obviously he wasn't aware that we had been working with them for 4 weeks previously.  The exercise was to sit opposite in pairs & draw each other using bamboo 'pens' (made from a sharpened piece of bamboo).  After several goes at this, I lost the plot a little and wandered over to something familiar.

I have finally completed my first lino cut in printmaking, which I have hand burnished out on to some old newsprint - it's a kind of play on some of my photographs of Melbourne cityscapes, and includes of some 'John Brack Collins St' people (down the bottom).  Lino cuts are quite fun to do (if you can move your arm that is!) - Lino is much more stable than the rubber (my earlier carving experiences), although it is difficult to get a 'positive' carving as it is a thin surface (about 1/4 inch), so to carve it all completely away, it is tricky to get it away (you often end up with striations) and so many are done in the negative.

More Pen & Ink

Most of what I do at Uni is hardly worth a mention, while there is lots of it, it is mostly big in scale (we usually work on A1 size cartridge, or bulky news, depending on the subject), which makes it difficult to scan or photograph, & it is often just 'exercises' and practising in various mediums.  We have come to the end of our 'pen & ink' workshops & the work was mostly done on a smaller scale, so I have scanned some to post.  I did a copy of a seahorse I did last year, in watercolour, as I thought the tonal variation leant itself to this medium.  Of course the scan doesn't show it up, but I have used irridescent & silver inks, which give this little critter a 'slippery' fish look & makes the water glisten.  The page of 'forest floor' bits is a pretty dodgy scan, & of course much of the detail is lost...& the last two are the front & back cover of a little 'Zutter' book I did of ATC sized 'tree studies' at various times of the day.  'The Most Significant Tree' appears in the puddling ink, so after it dried, I emphasised it in the composition.

Things Invisible

this amazing journal is another of the Paper Traders' current round robin art journal project.  Clever Connie has some how or another managed to bind pages between wooden palettes which are the front & back covers.  It was fun working on an obscure page shape.  Rather than cover the whole thing, I stuck a piece of cold press watercolour paper as a central block, which gave me a 'certain surface' that I knew would recieve ink in a particular manner, & then just gave the edges a framed, flow on effect. I was surprised to find myself reaching for 'pastel flowers' to complete the 'spring' side of the page, but there you go - never say NEVER!

VISION IS THE ART OF SEEING SOMETHING INVISIBLE

2 Up

While I was in China 18 months ago, I bought some solid calligraphy inks, but (gulping guiltily) I hadn't actually gotten around to using them, for lots of reasons.  Recently as a part of my course, we have been doing a 4 week block on ink drawing & as a result I have learned to use them & appreciate the detailing in the fine grain of the ground carbon.  It is a completely random effect as you have little control over how the ink 'puddles' & thus ultimately turns out.  This page I have complete is for Bekki's 'hands' journal, describing our traditional game of 2 up, played with pennies.  As Bek's is a fan of all things Asian, I thought this would be a good application for the inks.

(and YES, I managed to source some original pennies [these were discontinued in 1966 when our currency changed to decimal])

A colour quiz

	I AM YELLOW!

You'll find a fun quiz here at True Value paint - try it just for fun!  You are quite the powerful thinker. It’s this talent that allows you to overcome a plethora of great obstacles. Luckily, this doesn’t affect your ego and you give off a pretty easy-going appearance. You enjoy the finer things in life and also have an attraction to art. If you can help it, you try not to rock the boat. But you also can’t stop yourself from searching for new ideas, methods or styles. I am not sure whether it's predictable or just quirky, or that the questions are similar - but I got the same answer at Better Homes & Garden's Quiz - YELLOW!!! Your color personality is: Yellow Like yellow's strongest symbol, the sun, you radiate warmth. Others love to be around you because you have a gift for always looking on the bright side, and your ready smile can be infectious. Chances are your calendar is packed -- yellow lovers tend to be always on the go! Your signature color indicates someone imaginative and creative, so don't be afraid to express yourself through the way you dress and the way you decorate your home. Cheerful yellow is the ideal hue for a kitchen, laundry room, or any room that needs some extra brightness. .........bahhh humbug - this couldn't be FURTHER from the truth the last few months!!! HA! this is what Wikipedia call shades of yellow - my favs are chartreuse; green-yellow & Lime...oh, and olive and pear........... Amber Apricot Beige Buff Chartreuse yellow Cream Dark goldenrod Ecru Flax Gamboge                     Golden Goldenrod Golden poppy Golden yellow Green-yellow Khaki Lemon Lemon chiffon Lime Maize                     Metallic gold Mustard Navajo white Old Gold Olive Papaya whip Peach-yellow Pear Saffron School bus yellow                     Selective yellow Tangerine yellow Yellow

hmmmm.........yellow might be the right answer to my responses - but deep down I am obviously actually a green girl!

thank you

  thank you for your kind words and encouragement for my art and life journey.  I have gone walkabout......... we will talk later

.

finally emerging from a blur

I think that this is the longest timespan I have ever had between blog posts, since I began blogging 3 years ago.  The legacy of preparing to evacuate 3 times, packing & unpacking, commencing uni and ongoing problems with my knee have left me rather despondant and not particularly communicative.  It's times like this that I hermitize.  So I apologise to anyone that was wondering.  I am still here - just a little caught up iwth myself.  Thankfully - our state is no longer on the high alerts we lived with for the last month......it has been both exhausting and mentally & emotionally draining not knowing if you are safe, being in a state of panic & the adrenaline rush as you once again try to prepare for the worst.  Then the drain from all of the heightened emotions kicks in which has left me feeling not very creative.  Anything I create could be burnt tomorrow - or next week - I haven't even been drawing (which is sad after faithfully drawing everyday for 7 months!) Thankfully we are all safe and without loss.  Regretfully - so many others aren't.  Tragedy is all around and there is a pervading sense of loss and disbelief.

My 'creating' over the last month has been sporadic - I have commenced my course - which is an adventure of itself - but have been mostly working night & day to get some 'wares' prepared for my little market stall at the Soul Arts Retreat.  These are some little 'cupcake' pincushions I have for sale, which were fun to do - but VERY time consuming - if I was paid an hourly rate - they'd have to sell for about $80!!  I know - few people actually MAKE money from art - it just doesn't happen.  OK - working on NOT being cynical - it's difficult to recoupe a reasonable rate for the hours it takes to make something!  It's late & I'm tired - I just wanted to break the ice & write something - I hope to talk more tomorrow.

The House of Dying

Moving on from all of the 'metallness' I wus telling you about in the last post - now my house kinda looks like a Chinese laundry!!!!  I am doing a whole lot of dying, packaging up beautiful threads, embroideries & fabrics in preparation for a fabulous Creative Soul retreat.  My classes are with Stephanie Lee & DJ Pettitt, which I am JUST ACHING for - Bernie Berlin is also going to be there spreading her cleverness to everything she touches!  It's only three weeks away now, I booked in SUCH a long time ago, and finally it is here.  My hubbie is EXTREMELY easy going to put up with this - there is hardly a surface that doesn't have a bowl on it with dye in it, or things being laid out to cut up - or some other mess!  There are some benefits to having a messy husband - at the times when you are happy to have things messy - he's cool and it doesn't worry him.  I found out a long time ago, as long as it doesn't disrupt eating or sleeping - he doesn't care what I'm doing!  LOL!!!