Had Some Fun But Its Good To Be Home

on the road again

watch out for kangaroos at dawn and dusk

Doreen, the lady who invited me to hold the workshop

we made a real mess

everyone is very busy

The River Murray near Murray Bridge

about 45 minutes from home

I had a really lovely time over the weekend. The ladies from Mt Gambier where an absolute pleasure to work with. They are textile artists so working with paper was something new to them but they all did a magnificent job. Doreen was kind enough to put me up for the night on Saturday night so I didn't have to drive back to my friend, Vanita's place in Naracoorte which is about an hour away from Mt Gambier. I don't like driving on country roads at dusk or dawn as that's when the kangaroos are out. They are prone to jump in front of the car. Not only does this kill or injury a beautiful animal, but it makes a real mess of your car and you risk injuring yourself to boot.

Although I had a great time I was itching to get back home and start on the dangling legs series. Its a series of four with each pair of feet doing something different like the toes pointing in or the ankles crossed etc. One of them will be with brightly coloured striped stockings, another with white little ankle socks etc etc. At the moment I'm calling them the 'Little Miss Series' with Little Miss Quirky, Little Miss Coy, Little Miss Prim and Little Miss Proper. These are just working titles and I may change it if I think of something better. They are of course larger than life size with each canvas being 91.4x60.9cm (36"x24"). For the background I am going for an old wall effect and it looks like the Little Misses are sitting on the wall. I've drawn them all and as soon as I draw the stripes on the stockings I'm ready to start on the backgrounds. I'm really pushing myself with these as I'm trying to get all four done in a week. Let's hope life doesn't get in the way as is usually the case. Today is eight weeks till delivery to the gallery so I'd better stop rambling and get back to it.

Do You Like Colouring-in?

I still love to colour in and have my own colouring-in book. Its got pictures of fairies in it and I like to sit in bed and colour it. I refuse to completely grow up. I thought it would be fun to do a painting of coloured pencils, larger than life of course to elevate their importance. To give you an idea of their size, the dark blue one is the length of my arm from shoulder to wrist. I had real fun with this painting as its got so many different colours in it.

Why Stay Within the Lines?
mixed media on canvas

60.9x50.8cm (24"x20")

I've set myself a goal of 30 paintings for the exhibition. That means there's 9 to go and 9 weeks to do them in. I will be working on a series of Zoe's dangling legs next. Again larger than life. There will be four in the series, each one with the legs in a different pose and with different socks or stockings on. That will leave another 5 and at this stage no ideas. I am thinking of another domestic painting, maybe with some washing on the line. I have visited washing on the line in an earlier work and have always wanted to do another. Maybe with a nice blue background representing a glorious blue sky. I also must ask April if she minds if I paint some cupcakes. She created some lovely collages of cupcakes and I would love to give them a try if she doesn't mind. Check them out on http://www.aprilsart.blogspot.com/ in one of the older posts.

I'm going away for the weekend. I'm leaving on Friday and back home on Monday. I'm giving a workshop in Mt Gambier which is about 5 hours drive from home. Its about an hour from Naracoorte so I'm going to stay with my friend Vanita on Friday and Sunday night (if she'll have me). I've bought all the materials so all that's left to do is pack and hope I don't forget anything.

Felting Fun

I know I've put way too many pics on here but how can you choose which ones to post when it was such a fabulous weekend? I must learn how to do that slide show thing.

There were 11 of us including the tutor, Val. It was just so great being with a group of women. We worked, we ate, we drank wine, we talked and above all we laughed. Women need to be with women from time to time I reckon. We stayed in Sylvania Park, a bed and breakfast and mohair farm just outside of Horsham, Victoria. The accommodation, food and wine was all included in the cost of the workshop and believe me there was so much food which Val had prepared for us. During the day when we worked Val had asked Pat to come and help with lunch. Pat was such a sweetheart. She would come around and make cups of coffee and tea for us and set up morning and afternoon tea so we didn't have to stop working. She would then come and whisk away any dirty dishes when we were finished. I could get used to that, I could get used to that very quickly.

Sylvania Park homesteads which is also home to the Mulgowrie Mohair Goat stud

500 acres only 15 minutes from the Grampians

Went for a walk and did some exploring when we arrived on the Friday

The Wimmera River is dry due to the drought with only stagnant pools here and there

Sunset and time to end my walk...

but not before finding this eagle's nest

I became a goat whisperer as I walked back through the paddock. I had to keep walking as stopping meant my clothes would get nibbled by the friendly goats.

In the kitchen having some pre dinner drinks

Dinner is nearly ready

My room, I loved it!

My work space in the back corner of the shearing shed

All the wool slivers laid out ready for felting my scarf

Val (in green) showing Glenn how to start felting her beret

Hard at work

I forgot what this technique is called but its felting onto silk chiffon. This was created by Wendy and it will be finished with some fresh water pearls being hand stitched here and there.

We made slippers and left them to dry near the fire. Mine are the blue ones.

Some hats.

We pinned folds into our berets and left them to dry on the on the fireplace

Here's Wendy creating another piece of beautiful silk chiffon with felt and fibre embellishments

Oops already uploaded this pic hehehe

The shearing shed was full of activity.

I had such a wonderful time it really recharged my batteries. I have put my name down for next year. I also bought a lot of wool slivers to take home. The first thing I want to make is a little bag for Zoe in her new favourite colour, pink.

Photos of My Week in Naracoorte

THE EXHIBITION OPENING

Interview for the local newspaper




THE COLLAGE WORKSHOP

some beautiful papers were stained

and altered

made some new friends

Hi Grant

lots of sticking, sticking and more sticking

WORK FROM STUDENTS OF NARACOORTE PRIMARY SCHOOL

I was really made to feel special in Naracoorte. The Naracoorte community is made up of such a wonderful, warm and friendly group of people, who accepted me into their midst, it brought a tear to my eye at my exhibition opening.

My week as Artist in Residence at Naracoorte Primary School was an absolute delight. I had so much fun with all the kids, some of whom came to my exhibition opening, that I felt quite heavy hearted to leave them. Hi to Graeme, Annie and Adele. I wish to sent a very big thank you to Dylan Bartels who was such a support to me that I really don't know how I would've managed without him. He gave up his recess and lunch times to help me clean the multitude of brushes, paint trays and water pots and helped me set up for the next class. He worked tirelessly putting out chairs and helping me without even being asked. He's such a special kid and I hope I get to see him again when next I'm in town.

I also enjoyed the collage workshop I gave and made some new friends. I love sharing information I've gathered in my artistic exploits and in sharing I also get so much back. The group who attended the workshop have inspired me with a whole lot of new ideas which are formulating in my head. My art will have to take a back seat for a little while as I've outgrown my studio space. I'm about to give the shed a good clean out and plan to be ruthless and throw out as much as Bob will let me. We used it as a pottery studio and now its storage and a general dumping ground. Well that's all about to change so I can set up a nice studio space where I can leave work in progress set up and not have to pack up every night. Oo I'm so excited, plan to start the clean up next week.

Anyway that's me all caught up after my exciting week away. Will be going away again around the 28th Aug. My exhibition needs to come down and then I will be joining a couple of new friends in a felting workshop weekend which is being held in Horsham. Have wanted to get serious about felting for some time now but never got around to it. What's that saying of Buddha, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear". That's how I feel about this felting workshop. The exhibition, residency and workshop I was working towards was over and I was ready to explore new grounds and a new media when I heard about this felting workshop. Spooky isn't it? hehehe.

One more thing, a big happy birthday to my Bob who is 57 today. He's still my knight in shining armour and my best friend :)

Paper Work

Yesterday was a day of catching up on some paper work. The way I figure it, if there's paper work you must be going forward. I wrote the proposal for an exhibition I'm planning to have with Julia and Zoe. Three generations of women. Worked on updating my CV and making it relevant to the proposal.

I also finalised the details for the artist in residence position coming up in the end of July at Naracoorte Primary School. I'm really looking forward to this one. I will be showing 350 primary school children (ages from 5 to 12 years) how to do collage. They each will get the chance to create a collage on a stretched canvas and the school will be having an exhibition in the art gallery. What fun, getting paid to play for a whole week.

I have a weekend workshop coming up in the beginning of August and I'm nearly organised for that as well. Just need a few more supplies.

My SALA exhibition plans are all coming along too. Just need to finish off the invitation. That's today's job.

The money I will be earning is going towards reclaiming our huge shed. We had it set up as a pottery studio and when we stopped doing that it just became a dumping ground and storage facility. Well I'm getting in some very big garbage skips and am going to be ruthless and throw everything out and turn it back into a studio. I had dreams of buying a new computer with that money but decided it would come to better use cleaning out the shed. I think its the next step in becoming more serious and professional with my artwork. I need a bigger studio space. A place where I can invite people to come and play with me. Some comfy chairs in front of the fire place (yes the shed has a fire place) to have a cup of coffee surrounded by art stuff, now that's what I call bliss.