Millthorpe Market

Earlier this month I had my first ever visit to the Millthorpe Markets. It was a great day out and VERY busy for a tiny place like Millthorpe. I am contemplating being a stall holder later this year, given it is only 40km from home and I have a fair stash of excess stock to clear. Big call, knowing me lately...

Anyway my score of the day was this fantastic find, sculpted from an old corrugated iron fence. How fabulous is he? At $40 I couldn't resist. I wondered if this was a flippant purchase but after two laps of the markets I just had to go back and pick up my pooch. I can't even put a link here for the metal artist, it was his friend selling them for him and it was a very low key commercial affair: not a business card in sight! Anyway. I worried someone might nab my new canine friend from my front yard. But, one month later, so far...so good!

Also: around the same time, I finally took the plunge and bought a new "point n shoot" camera. My trusty Canon PowerShot S30 (a whopping 3.2 megapixels!) had served me SO well for almost a decade, but it was finally showing its old age (no doubt after being dropped a few times and thrown off the roof of my house). So I bought the current equivalent: the Canon PowerShot S100. And oooh lah laaaaaah what a divine little camera it is. I love it. And I've been pointing and shooting a lot ever since.

See?

I SO have to do something about that tired painted concrete at the back of my house. Big job though. We'll see. Adios, for now. XO

Printing and Stitching!

Yep, 2nd blog post in as many months, nothing unusal here folks. But this doesn't mean I haven't been having fun in the Juicy Zone. I finished the first of a 2-skirt-commission for my great buddy Amanda (although I like to call her "Eumundi" because it sounds a bit like Amanda, and thats a good enough reason for a nickname here in Aus)...I'm hopeless at taking photos of completed garments. So I opt for the pic that shows the personalized message attached to the final product and the interfaced bits in fun fabric that no one else sees, but when you are putting on the garment, you see it and it makes you smile!
Hope it fits her. Skirt #2 is under construction. More about that one soon.

And I made this VERY easy lined pouched, my first ever experience with French seams, I found the tutorial here. I needed a home for my new set of pastel pencils that I take to my art class each week. It turned out cute and very practical. I love a quick sewing project. That's why I've never made a quilt. I'm getting quilting urges though. They have been percolating for a while now. Anyway. Pouches! Here it is:

Speaking of art class, I decided to dabble in some printmaking after many many months of merely thinking about it.  I've been gearing up to do some silk screening for what seems like FOREVER and I'm pretty sure the fact I have nothing to show for this desire apart from a giant pad full of scribbles is because a) I can't decide with any certainty what to print and probably more debilitatingly b) I'm dreading the troubleshooting I will have to tackle when I start experimenting with emulsion and my lightbox. So when I was in our local art shop and spotted a piece of LINO...I thought "awesome!" no muss, no fuss, just a piece of lino with some ink and carving tools. Get busy, girlfriend. So I did. I literally scribbed a rough design on a bit of paper and FORCED myself not to obsess over whether or not the design was worthy....off I went to art class and printed half a dozen or so of these:

Yes there are things I'd do differently design-wise...but maaaaaaaaan printing is FUN! The only reason I stopped is because I ran out of paper. I remember doing a lino print (the one and only!) in high school (we're talking 20 odd years ago, sheesh!). I dont remember what I drew, but I recall the lino being hard and brittle and not very easy to cut. My how things have changed. The lino was super soft and cutting was very manageable in comparison. These days the inks are water soluble too, so the prints dried quite quickly and the clean up afterwards was a breeze. I'm hooked. I'm working on another design, finally fiddling with some creative words that my talented friend Christina sent so many moons ago. I'll keep you posted. I promise! xo

Hooray for Aperture Priority!

And HOORAY for tripods!

I've had my Canon Digital SLR 400D for...ummm...like AGES! Its embarrassing how long its taken me to figure out some really basic things with it. I bought a little Canon Powershot 320 back in 2003 (for about $1,000 LOL) and I have had the best time with it - so easy, literally point n shoot, and I have had many great photos from it. I figured upgrading to the DSLR would be easy enough. Well for this untrained puppy, it was very very humbling.

BUT! After a LOT of reading, I am finally experimenting again. When lighting conditions are good, the camera is excellent. But inside my house can be tricky with the DSLR. The old powershot was a very faithful servant to capuring the light exactly as it was - but the SLR seems a lot more sensitive, and if the natural light available was slightly low, it would want to default to using the flash. Annoying! I'd been experimenting with the Apeture Priority mode to try and let as much light in as possible, but was still having mediocre results. Until I decided to use a tripod. What a world of difference.

Anyway I was excited about this photo because this nook in my home is actually quite a dark spot. But with the DSLR set on the largest aperture (i.e. the lowest f-stop, a concept it took me a while to absorb!) I managed to get this snap that I'm really happy with. I think I'm about to start taking pictures of all sorts of inanimate things. So be warned.

Like this phone, that was given to me by one of the Directors of the firm I work for, after I declared over a cup of tea that I "really wanted an old bakelite phone". He said he had one in his shed that I could have. And then he said "I've got a box full of rabbit traps you can have too"! I graciously declined that offer!

Hey how's my form - 2 posts in that same month. Unheard of.

New Things

As usual, I've been busy doing just about everything but blogging. But today, just for a change, I actually took a couple of pics of things I've been working on, and I'd like to share them.

First up, my little niece Ivy turns 10 tomorrow. Amazing. She can get away with wearing just about any colour but I thought I'd do something cute in black. Why are black kid's clothes such a rarity? They are PERFECT for hiding the spills! I bought the tshirt and embellished it with the little bird. I really must do a tutorial on that one day, its super easy and the tshirt was $5 from Big W. Makes for a very economical gift! The gathering on the skirt was a little more time consuming than I expected, but I thought it came up very cute. Can't wait to see her wearing it.

I've had that curtain cable from IKEA attached to the wall in my studio for a while now. I thought it would be a great place to hang things to be photographed, but it in between photos it has become a place to hang pattern pieces, and lovely things. Like the lino print (on the right) from my talented and gorgeous friend Janine who I hope to collaborate more with...one day.

Here is a detail of the little bird...

So. I've been LOVING my weekly art class, and am taking a punt here that my Dad doesn't read my blog. Because I'm about to post a picture of his Christmas present. He loves Australian birds, and I love blue things. It only seemed logical to draw him a splendid fairy wren. How exquisite are these little birds? And I was very happy with my 2nd ever attempt at a pastel "painting". I even got commissioned to do another one for someone who saw this in our local student art show. FLATTERED!

And just for fun here is my lovely furry girl Isis, who just happened to take time out from eating grass to let me take this snap of her. And if she ever does something bad to a splendid fairy wren, or any other Australian native bird for that matter, she will be banished to the inside of my house. Forever. Can something really be "banished" indoors?

Oh, and here is a very scary snap of my garage which I am quietly trying to transform into a space where I can do some silk screening. More about that later. Not a small task by any stretch of the imagination. It's pretty gross in there. I've found myself reading articles about how to deal with "rising damp". Short answer: You can't. Unless you're prepared to rebuild your house. Which at the moment, I'm not! Surely its something that can be tackled temporarily with some exit mold, a bit of ventilation and a coat of paint?!? Sigh!

New Creative Outlets

Well after a VERY ordinary Mother's Day Market way back in May, and a tax return that had me wondering what was the point of slaving away til all hours caught up in the throws of production...I decided to pull back, regroup, realign my creative energies and try something different.

The biggest news I have is that I started going to art class, thanks to a gentle but gigantic nudge in the right direction from my fabulistic sis-in-law, Snizza, who insisted we go together. I was petrified. It threw me so far out of my comfort zone it wasn't funny. For someone who had been drawing stick people and daisies for years, I was about to discover a whole new world of inspiration.

Now, traditional art is not reaaaaally my thing. I appreciate it, I respect it....but the idea of doing a still life of fruit or a hat kind of bores me. Give me colour! Big bold graphics! Draw a vase with some flowers? You're kidding me, right? Well I pushed all those feelings aside in the interest of actually LEARNING some new techniques, and I was so excited with what I discovered. I can actually draw! A bit. I'm random and rusty but there is definitely something going on in there somewhere.

SO. Here is my "tonal study" of some bottles. It was the first time I'd ever picked up a stick of charcoal. It was FUN!


Then it was time for a still life with pastels. Did you hear that? STILL LIFE! Woah things got a bit wonky with this one...and it was the first time I'd ever attempted using pastels too. I found them wildy confusing, yet strangely exhilerating!



Being a bit crazy about fashion photography I thought I'd try and draw a few fabulous looking models, with charcoal (I'm loving how TEMPORARY charcoal is: hmmm that line is in the wrong place....just give it a rub and its gone! I spent the entire first drawing class not knowing this LOL!)



I Iove her hair. The bend in her left leg is totally in the wrong spot tho. Funny how you can hone in on these things after not looking at it for a while.



It was around this time I declared drawing faces REALLY intimidated me, so my teacher encouraged me to have a go at "Nikolai". Who is pretty much JUST a face. No hair, no eyebrows. Just a sculpture of an accurately sized human head. Here he is:


Now I should mention that it was the lovely man in my life who decided a few months back that he wanted to start drawing more, and pretty much right away, came up with this:


So I INSISTED he go to art class too. Because obviously, there is a very talented artist lurking beneath his rugged exterior. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

And Merilyn Rice is a wonderfully talented teacher, and an inspiration as a succulent wild woman. I get very excited when I see creative women who have mastered the ever-so-elusive art of making a living from their passion. An art form that continues to elude me....for now!

Oh, and I also got busy madly making costumes for my brother's ridiculous bash he throws for the Aussie Rules Grand Final. My friend and I decided to revisit our uni days and go as our favourite band EVER and...well...lets just say I felt very OLD when a couple of younger people asked who we were....


See? I have been creative, I just haven't been blogging.
xo

Gocco Success! HOORAY

Wow. What a highly thrilling moment!
Apparently the problems I was having burning a good screen was a mixture of moisture in the paper, and excess carbon. This was collectively solved by ironing the photocopy (regular iron with no steam) covered with a sheet of baking paper to remove excess carbon. Simple as that. I had two dud prints at the start and I was off to the races. Apologies for ordinary photos with this post. I struggle to get things right with the light in my studio...



I'd read that it was important to be liberal with ink...and I was!



It was SO TRUE about being liberal with ink. I printed about 100 of these without even the slightest hint I was running out of ink.



I ran out of SPACE to put the prints before running out of ink! Guess those Gocco card drying racks might have been a good investment after all! I spent a bit of time worrying about my cat coming to investigate when the tables in my studio looked like this!



What an awesome little unit. I'm so glad I didn't flog it off on ebay when I had ordinary results last year. Want to know more about gocco? Read about it here or there!

Gocco Long Weekend

I was horrified to note that my last GOCCO experiment was the Queen's Birthday LAST YEAR. Gasp! The good news is that I did purchase some more supplies around Christmas...but have not yet found (made?) time to actually continue my experiments. I couldn't possibly let another YEAR go by without progressing so I decided to use the Queen's Birthday THIS YEAR to dabble once more.
I pitched a cross-continental collaboration with my very talented friend Christina who lives in Canada: a series of quotes (her words and my designs), printed using Gocco, onto postcards. She held up her end of the bargain and gave me lots of inspirational words. My deadline of 31 January 2011 made that awesome WHOOSHING sound as it whipped by. My excuse? I went to the Australian Open! OK that accounts for the week of January 31, the other five months? I got nothin.
SO given I still have not had a decent print from my Gocco, I thought I'd tackle that challenge before pitching my designs to her. One of her suggestions was a series of cards that say simply "hello friend".
So here is what I will print on Monday:


Birdy has no legs coz I plan to draw those later. Cheating with one screen, you see.

And I like this one too:


I am going to try to keep this to one screen too: block around the spider and then draw the thin web strand after.
That is, if I can burn a good master. Fingers crossed!
I'll keep you posted. I promise.
PS Thanks to Lara and Nic for their tips re: Gocco from my last post...A YEAR AGO! Yikes.