Category Archives: Books

Today (instead of getting ready to move house) I tried out a technique that I read about in Quilting Arts Magazine which described how acrylic paint resists India Ink.

The ink soaks into and sticks to the paper left bare and washes off the painted areas.  I need to work on my process a bit more to prevent the paint from becoming too fragile during the wash off.

The above piece is the first one I made and I have another one drying out in the kitchen.  I’m definitly keen to get into this a bit more… so stay tuned 🙂

It is time I shared some great links I’ve found recently:

Peter Sharp is an artist living in Sydney. I had a ‘connect’ between the Quilting Arts article and a magazine profile of Peter. I love the lines in his work, they have a quality that I’ve been striving for and this technique seemed to fit. Reading back over the article it appears he uses a similar technique but with unprimed canvas with acrylic paint resisting oil paint/glazes.

Aesthetic Outburst is the blog of Abbey in New York. In addition to fab links, Abbey creates wonderful drawings and paintings. I’ll be checking back often.

Inspiration Boards is a new blog by Lori Pickert featuring the inspirations boards, wires and walls of featured artists. Each artist is interviewed about their inspirations and artistic practice.

Elizabeth Duffy is a scupturer (a very wierd word to spell!). Her work is inspiring for me as she makes striking scupture out of the most ordinary materials… like sticky tape and lint, or wax paper and wire mesh. This is reassuring given that I’m just about to move to one of the most isolated towns in Australia.

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Remember the little grey painting I showed a few weeks ago?  It is now a grey and yellow painting and is one of three.  I’m definitely going to hang them somewhere.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks.  Last week was all about felting, I made another hat and spent many nights working hard at making a felted jacket, which ended up more as a felted jumper (sweater).  I haven’t got photos of either, but I’m rather pleased with both … even if the jumper is a bit too short and a bit too wide.

Last weekend we went skiing with our friends Wendy, Kim, Lauren, Anthony and Nathan.  I totally sucked.  What a contrast to just a month ago.  If we could find the camera downloading thingy then I could show you a little video that Riscy took of me skiing like crap (luckily he didn’t film the tantrum(s), me crying, me sitting halfway down a hill, me sliding down the hill on my bum or me throwing in the towel and chosing to carry my skis up a big hill rather than ski anymore). 

Still, we are thinking of abandoning our plans to go to India this summer for possibly skiing in Japan where I might regain my mojo.  Both options are appealing from a textile point of view, so I’m sort of leaning towards Japan.

This week I have been sick. A full blown cold. I’m a sneeze machine.  Hopefully normal creativity will resume shortly.

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My workroom is cleaned and I have done three little paintings (15x15cm). I’m a sucker for cute little things and these tiny stretched canvases jumped right into my hands when I dropped by a local art supply shop (when I say local…I mean the next town over, but it sure beats mail ordering these things!).

The other two are pretty much the same as the one above. I’ve been trying to photograph them together all week, but the light hasn’t been good enough or my photos have been tragically wonky and definitely NOT blog worthy.

I also mucked around printing paint onto some fabric using a piece of found plastic as a stamp. I’m definitely going to explore this direction more as I love the immediate results and the element of play (which has been sorely missing in my recent textile work, I reckon.)

The swirly quilting wasn’t a good idea, the swirls just didn’t work in the little nooks and crannys and I think it distracts from the printed shapes and the composition… which I really like. But, these little quilts are all about experimentation, so failure is allowed (sometimes LOL).

I have come across two more wonderful and inspiring blogs this week:

Desire to Inspire: Do you love browsing interior decoration magazines? I do too 🙂 This blog is a real treasure featuring all sorts of interior design photography, and has kept me drooling all week long.

Caroline Paintings Journal: The blog of Caroline Havers. Her large sparrow paintings grabbed my attention as sparrows are one of my most favourite birds, they are so hoppy and so friendly and bold. I like that Carolines paintings combine these bird images with a elements which scream ‘urban’ to me. Because sparrows are the most urban of birds.

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While I was away from this blog I started a visual journal: it was to be a non-precious place for ideas, collage, painting and sketching.

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Bracken Fern from Shallow Inlet

Riscy and I just had an extended weekend camping on the coast. A little break.

We had a wonderful, relaxing time together. Swimming, reading, and trying to find creative ways to prepare our meals given the Total Fire Ban which meant that strictly we were not to use our primus stove. Tuna Salad and sandwiches 🙂 Yay!

It has been very, very hot here, on Thursday we it was well over 40degrees again and humid to boot which is not pleasant. We also had thunderstorms and I’m pleased to announce that our cheapie OzTrail tent was waterproof (well, except for one zip area).

I love our tent, it is tall enough so we can get dressed standing up and there is a handy vestibule and porch so we could sit in comfort drinking our wine while the rain came down.

The above drawing is of part of the Bracken Fern frond I used to shoo the flys away whilst reading the mystery novel Riscy bought me for Christmas. Continue reading →

My plans for a weekend of printmaking have all but halted. I spoke to the ‘person in question’ on Friday, and she is not keen for me to use the workshop for various reasons, I accept her decision, and I’m very happy to move on. I’ve got a million ideas, and most of them don’t include the use of a hulking big etching press LOL.

AND I must get a grip, why do I always need millions of supplies, just the right paper, the correct glue, the fancy fabric, a workshop space etc to START creating. It is just bullshit delay tactics because I’m too petrified to start.

NaNoWriMo, is a delay tactic. BUT I am foiling this by turning it around to suit my goal. Which is to produce art. Carol, I’m sure you will support me in this, as it is still the same philosophy as NaNo… which is to stop the procrastination and start working. There is huge value in this as you can’t stall by convincing yourself that the first attepmt has to be perfect. So I re-name this month Claire’s Art Production Month – ClaArProMo.

By the end of this month there will be 30 works of art to show.

The first one is above. I may blacken the white squares at a latter date, but for the purposes of this exercise, it is done.

Tonight I will do a collage, work a bit more on the mechanical book project and perhaps a postcard size charcoal or pastel drawing… I need to accelerate my out put so I can catch up, but also because I’m going to Tasmania for a wedding latter on this month and may not work on this for a few days. I’m very happy about ClaArProMo, I hope you will forgive my swap. Continue reading →

I occasionally get the urge to buy art supplies. Last week I bought a pen nib and holder and some sepia ink. I wanted to practice drawing… something I’m not natural at, but I know I can improve with practice.

I also drew heaps of studies of the bottle of ink. I improved heaps even in just a few tries. The key here is to not expect perfection, just plunge in and try, learn from the bits that don’t work and continue. I wish I could take my own advice LOL

I framed up some of the little collagraphs (I spelt it wrong in the last post) and they are now hanging on a wall in our sitting room, pretty swish looking 🙂 I wish I had a frame which would accomodate the squashed cake tin print, but alas, I don’t. The question is, where do I store these prints now? I think it will neccesitate buying a large portfolio folder thingy, so I can slip them in beside the shelves in my sewing room.

Talking about sewing. I NEED to clean my sewing room out again, it is attracting clutter like you wouldn’t believe and I haven’t worked in there for months.

We are just about to send our second Ipod back to Apple. It has the same problems as the first one they replaced. Very annoying!! Especially since the work I’ve been doing lately (at work) requires a fair level of concentration and piping music into my ears cuts out all those ‘open plan’ office distractions.

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