Category Archives: Misc

I just deleted a screed of crap which consisted of me venting frustration with my creative output in a fairly negative way. You don’t need to read it and I don’t need it recorded here forever. So, this is my second, slightly more positive, attempt.

I have some creative issues to work through. I need to pose a challenge for myself, with a deadline to force myself complete a project. You may not have noticed, but I have been starting a lot of ‘art’ but unless it can be finished in one sitting, I’m not finishing. This works great for dinky little sketches and watercolours, but my ‘thing’ is textiles, embroidery… unless I’m working small I can’t finish anything in one day. (and I want to work bigger than postcard sized).

Now this is becoming a real pain in the arse, because I have a bigger project on my mind, one that will require dyeing fabric special, one which will require the purchase of materials, one which needs way more development before I have a concept I can use.

I’m sick of fucking around. I NEED to work on something meaty. However, I’m like a possum in the headlights, frozen at the enormity of failure roaring towards me. I need to get my little legs pumping or my idea will be squashed good and proper.

So (and here is the positive bit), I’m going to have a daily ‘to do’ list for this piece. To Do lists are my daily saviour at work and perhaps they can work for this art stuff too. The trick is not to put too much stuff on the list, and recreate it daily, or even twice a day.

TO DO TODAY
Tape all the pages together for the enlarged design
Scour some fabric ready for dyeing.
Start working on detailed design elements

Continue reading →

I’m doing a photo screen printing workshop tommorow at the Latrobe Regional Gallery. I’m not entirely sure what sort of images are suitable, so I’ve been playing around with some photos to get some major contrast happening:

This image has been maniplated in photoshop. It is from part of a photo I took of a coal dredger.

This is my favourite one and I’m a bit inspired to adapt it for a quilt.

I also did a series of three Kaleidoscope manipulations of an etching I did before Christmas:

I have prepared 3 Kaleidoscope from one of the etchings I did recently. They look quite good together and I hope they are suitable to use for Photo screen printing.

Pretty cool huh?

I have also been knitting the JUMPER!!! I am knitting it in the round, and currently have about 10cm of the body completed. This includes the substantial hem which took me many nights to knit up… but it’s very neat, so it was worth it.

I have almost finished the first ball of yarn and need to spin more before I can continue. Perhaps I should have waited ’til I’d spun all the wool, but I couldn’t wait to start knitting.

I am revisiting my first year of Uni when Carol and I were too poor to get our hair cut at a hairdresser, so Carol bought a pair of hair cutting scissors and we cut each others hair. We weren’t too bad at it either as I remember someone else asking me to cut their hair too (Her name was Eva, she had really long hair and wanted the back to be V shaped!!!).

Today we bought some clippers and I gave Riscy a No.2 crew cut. It actually looks pretty good even with the slightly dodgy work around the ears. I’ll get better. He seems happy. I’ve known Riscy for nearly 9 years and this is the first time I’ve seen him with REALLY short hair. Continue reading →

Layer 1: Charcoal Forest. Paper template half ripped off

I killed the pod quilt. I overdosed it with a thick layer of icky green acrylic paint. It seemed like a good idea at the time….

I learnt something good though. Watercolour would be great for getting added depth to an image but is not good as the main attraction in a larger quilt.

So I moped around for a few days. Knitted my second sock, photos later. Then tonight after our obligitory trip in the NEW CAR (that’s a link to Riscy’s blog with a post of some of our weekend adventures), I dragged myself off the couch and into my work room.

Over six months ago I was experimenting with reverse applique and getting reasonable results… then of course abandoned that line of thought to zoom off in another direction. The thought returned recently though. I like the effect with the grotty notepaper template still attached (grotty, because the only thing I could find to draw with a thick enough line was charcoal). An effect to store away for future reference I think 🙂

Today is the first day since returning from my Christmas break that I have felt good about being at work. I hate feeling sluggish and unmotivated, so it was starting to get a little bit depressing. It probably helps having decent people to delegate work to, I now have a graduate and an intern working with me and they are showing a good level of enthusiasm and intelligence which is a welcome relief.

Someone told me there is some sort of quilt thing on in Melbourne this weekend, apparently advertised in the Herald Sun. Anyone know what it’s about? I’m really out of the loop as I haven’t subscribed to any quilt mags for ages and I certainly don’t read the Herald Sun LOL. Continue reading →

I like the ‘water’ stitching. The fish started out as a scrible that looked sorta fish shaped, so I gave him a big eye, better fins and painted him up.

Riscy and I are car shopping today. His 1988 Honda Civic has finally died. Its about three years since the head gasket blew for the second time. He nursed that Honda for all these years, saving his pennies in anticipation of the day she would ‘go no longer’. That day arrived just before Christmas when the crack in the radiator got so big he could no longer rely on the putty and a prayer fix (seriously, PUTTY!!)

The good thing about the slow death of said Honda is that Riscy has enough moola to just go and buy a new car. We have a debt aversion. Now I have test driving fatigue though so luckily we are narrowing our options down.

On other news:

The knitting isn’t as dense as I would like but I only have one set of DPNs and they are 3.75mm. Ideally I should be using 3-3.25mm needles for this yarn.

The yarn is the stuff I spun over Christmas. Mostly good, but it has patches of low twist. I’m a little baffled. I’ll probably discard those bits if they look crappy knitted up. Continue reading →

A quiltlet. Ink and watercolour and STITCHING 7.5cm x 12.5cm. Yeah Baybeee!

The Resolution: Get back to the stuff that floats my boat… the stitch, quilting, embroidery, fabric and colour.

The sewing machine is out on the table, the workroom is reasonably clean (There is floor space at least). I just started stiching a shape getting back into the groove of my wonderful sewing machine who I neglected for too too long. Then I blobed a few lines of left over watercolour from the piece below across the stiching and it sort of appealed.

I didn’t want to sew through wet stuff so I started on a clean patch of my scrap quiltlet, meandering lines, alternating bobbin and top threads on top.

I cropped it all to suit and there was a bit of the watercolour from before at the bottom of the ‘frame’ Then I got my nib and started marking the surface, the first lines were really thick, but I found that the stich created a barrier and I could get some interesting lines. I got better at controling the line, I used water colour with the nib, I watered down the ink and got smudgy lines. I waited til the piece was mainly dried then added more stitching.

So much learning in half an hour, just me, my machine and a tiny little scrap of fabric.

I did a warm up piece shown below. I’m thinking I’ll do more of these as loosners and keep the good ones to make into a booklet that I can browse through. Sort of like Tom Judd, but perhaps only 20 of my best pages for the year or something so I’m not under pressure to produce decent stuff everyday.

No Artifice. Ink, watercolour and pastel on paper. 16.5cm x 12cm

Continue reading →

I treated myself this year. I bought Angels in Stone from Dijanne Cevaal. Dijanne is a well known textile artist in Australia and I’m very pleased that we have been able to connect through our blogs 🙂

So here are a few pictures (check out the link to Angels in Stone above, it takes you to Dijanne’s post about the work).

Angels in Stone by Dijanne Cevaal. I bought this as a treat for myself this Christmas.

Yesterday Riscy and I cleaned the front half of the house and today we will tidy our bedroom. I don’t want to spend my precious days off at Christmas feeling crap because the house is untidy and feeling worse because I’m procrastinating about putting the washing away.

I picked up my knitting again after taking a nearly 2 month break to concentrate on making art. This was going to be a very open, lacy scarf, but I’m thinking it is going to be too wide so I’m seriously considering turning it into a shrug, perhaps with purple cuffs!!

Continue reading →

This scan doesn’t accurately represent the metalic parts of this assembly, but I quite like the effect I get here anyway. I cut up and painted (then rubbed) the edges of foil BBQ trays.

I am taking a printmaking workshop this Saturday. I had planned to preprepare collograph plates and really USE my time at the press. But the enthusiasm waned and I didn’t start anything ’til tonight and I’m not happy with what I have done.

But I was playing around with some aluminium foil which is a beautiful and delicate material, then remembered that I had cut up a heap of BBQ trays to use the bottoms for inscribing and printing (which reminds me, I must find them so I can take them over to the workshop)

I had saved the crinkled edges of the trays and cut them roughly into squares. Tonight I discovered that I can unfurl the tightly curled edges and I really liked the patterns… so the above thing is a result of that play. I like play.

I am getting phyched about the big wall piece I want to do. I’m thinking that I will get the layout onto the paper then pin it to my dining room wall and work on it insitu. Riscy might have other ideas LOL, but he’s going to Tasmania for Christmas, so I can do what I want (mwhaaa mwhaaaaa haaa hhhaaa)

I am currently reading a transcript of an interview with Rosalie Gascoigne, recorded in 1998 the year before she died. The LRG owns one of her pieces which is made of old road signs. It is quite spectacular when lit as the material is retroreflective. (this means the work loses about 85% of its zing in reproduction, which is why I think it strange that it is featured on a huge banner hanging on the building!!)

Gascoigne, seemed to have led an isolated existance from the time she landed in Australia (from New Zeeland) living on the outskirts of Canberra and having difficulty making friends with the other women in her small community. Loneliness seems to have forced her to start creating. She came to prominance in her mid to late 50’s!!! You don’t have to be a child prodigy to be good. (thank goodness)
Continue reading →

Today we found out that our favourite restaurant, Rasa Satay, which closed about 3 years ago, has come back as Rasa Thai!!! Same owner, new chefs, and located in the next town over. We went there for dinner tonight, it is seriously BETTER than before… I’m in heaven.

I’m exchanging Christmas cards with Bertha. I thought I’d supply a sneak peek here 🙂

Back of the Christmas Card I made tonight

Hope she doesn’t mind contour drawings of feet and hands! LOL. Continue reading →

I’ll start out with my first modified contour drawing:

Maryellen (who left a comment yesterday) could you please email me by clicking the ‘Contact Me’ section on the right hand side of my blog, I couldn’t get your email address from your comment…. Thanks :o)

Now, to give your eyes a well deserved rest from the ugly drawing:

Tonight we (Reflex Raiders) were beaten at touch footy for the first time this season. It was a clash of the two top teams in B grade and a very fast moving game. We had no male subs and had to play 3 females all game so we (and especially the blokes) were stuffed by the end.

The other team used their girls really well and I think that is an area we can make improvements. I’m not good at asserting myself into the play, probably a result of never playing team sport as a kid – we were more into camping and bushwalking. But I did join in the ruck more this week so I think I’m improving there.
Continue reading →

First a thing of beauty:

A couple of big clumps of agapanthus in my garden are just about to burst into bloom. Look at all the stems!

Something that I often overlook is how beautiful the buds look just prior to poping. The purple and green are perfect together.

Agapanthus are native to South Africa and thrive in our climate. They are an environmental pest if planted near bush land. But I do love it so, they are clump forming with strappy leaves which stay green all winter, and summer brings those big star burst blooms.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

OK these aren’t actually meant to LOOK like hands, the exercise is meant to make you SEE what you are drawing rather than drawing a ‘hand’ which is stored as a sort of symbol in your head.

You draw the object by observing it minutely but not looking at your page as you draw. It is meant to switch off the left (logical) part of the brain and get you into a zone where you observe in great detail, the subject.

I’m not there yet. I find myself skipping over detail with fair regularity. I’ve got a few more exercises to go ’til I’m onto the Modified Contour Drawings. But so far I’m enjoying it… much better than the other drawing book I have which exhorts the drawing of many elipses!!
Continue reading →