Iris

This was inspired by an iris in my garden. I just love the colour combination in the flower. I had a page with a bit of pink and some torn hand towel with the confetti waste stencilled on it. Just t he right start for the iris colours.

Peacock Feathers

I’m not really one for pastels, but I started off with a spread I had cleaned off a brayer on, and then some strips of torn paper towel, also used to finish up the remains of some paint, The colours lent themselves to using some paler or fainter colours.

Once again, it took some time to work out how to finish the spread.  I came up with the peacock feathers, and I guess they aren’t too bad for my first attempts. I just wish I could find a white correction or gel pen with an even flow, that would go scratchy on a textured surface. Traci did recommend one but I haven’t found it in Australia. Any suggestions from Aussies would be very welcome.

Playing with photos

A few years ago I took this photo of the moon through clouds.

In this one I put it behind a photograph I took of forest that bushfire had been through. I desaturated the coloured photo to make it black and white.

            

In another I added some other digital trickery. I have forgotten where the brushes came from. I have referenced then in an earlier post.

          

Technorati Tags: Digital art

More Art Journaling

 

 

 

 

This page started with some unsuccessful printing using a felt table mat. I liked the blotchy green effect though, and over printed it with a foam printing block traced from another table mat.  Then I added the orange stamp made from a matt board shape. Then it sat for weeks because I couldn’t figure out what to do next. I resisted text because my text is underwhelming, to say the least, Finally, I decided to try to draw a pomegranite, one of my favourite shapes, and then the flowers. I googled for images to copy as I totally lack confidence in my drawing. I used both cheap water colour paints and the fabulous Derwent Inktense pencils in the colouring.

 

A very similar process used here.

Another of my favourite shapes. The printing on this started as navy and red. I hated it! Out came my new best friend, gesso! The lime sparked it up a bit. I really like using the water colours and the Intense pencils as  the background really shows through, and here it adds texture to the poppies.

Maybe one day, if I have anything worth saying, I will add text to these, but for the moment, I am happy to leave them as is.

Traci’s Online class

I recently joined a Traci Bautista online class on Art Journaling. I really enjoyed the lessons, though I was always behind because of various family things. I combined what I learned in her classes with some of the printing techniques from Ro Bruhn’s workshops and here are a couple of pieces I came up with.

            

 

I am discovering my style at last. It appears to be a combo of grunge and fairly stylised flora, but who knows where it will end up. I have more stuff in an actual journal which I will gradually add.

Back on Board

I haven’t blogged for around two years. Life got in the way and, when I wanted to be creative, I felt I needed to spend more time doing, and less time reading and writing on the web. Having found my muse, got my studio up and running again, and attended a few workshops, I feel I have something to contribute again.

The first thing I would like to share are the pics of my beautiful repurposed coat made in the workshop held by Ro Bruhn and Patsy Worledge. I highly recommend this workshop.  Ro and Patsy  take two students at a time, help with the design elements, and Patsy does all the sewing on her industrial overlocker.How good is that! Not only that, but I have a one-off garment I would happily spend a considerable amount of money on, if I found it in a boutique.

My fellow student, Maha, also made a beautiful coat totally different from mine. So if you would like to get an idea of the types of things you could make, check out the page on Ro's blog and then, if you live in Melb., do yourself a favour and contact Ro re organising a class. No I don’t get a commission, I’m just a very happy customer!

KK necklace

Lucy has  received and opened the necklace I made as her Kris Kringle present, so I can now show everyone else. The beads were made from Primo polymer clay. I think it is called Blue Pearl. I was surprised that the colour wasn’t even throughout each bead. I’m not sure if it’s meant to happen or if I somehow messed up but I actually like the effect.

I haven’t got my muse back as far as paper or digital art is concerned, but I am really enjoying the jewelry side of things.

Back on Air

I haven’t posted for  a  couple of months for a variety of reasons. Lost muse, lost internet connection, computer crashes etc. But I think had I anything really creative going on, I would have worked quicker to get all the problems fixed.

Anyway, a visit to Lisa’s fantastic boutique style shop in Upwey, Voski Von Muller, inspired  me so much with the funky clothes and accessories, that I came home full of ideas.

I started off by making some fused plastic and making a little pouch for my phone, plus another purse.

I then started another project which I won’t talk about yet because it involves my Kris Kringle gift for my Arty Oz partner. I also tried the “fried marble” technique which was incredibly easy and has stunning results-see below.

Then last Saturday, I attended a class with Ro Bruhn, and made a rather funky necklace. Ro has a lovely house with a great classroom, she’s a terrific teacher, and her  husband Steve fed us very, very well. If you get a chance to do a class with her, I can thoroughly recommend it.

Then, for the past couple of days, I have been working on a way of incorporating my fried marbles into a necklace. It took a while for me to figure out the wire wrapping but  it was worth the effort. Unfortunately the photo doesn’t really show the crystalline effect of the marbles.

Yesterday I attended the Walk against Warming in Melbourne. I was tempted not to go because I had slept very poorly, but I believe the issue is the most important one confronting our poor planet, and think that the politicians need to see how many of us are concerned and watching them. It was comforting to be in the company of 40,000 others (accordng to the Age), young and old, who feel the same way I do- that we would love to be wrong, but if we are wrong, not nearly as much will be lost, as will be if the sceptics are wrong.

Sceptics used to deny climate change, however they have really lost that battle. Now their argument has slid to denying that humans beings are responsible for that change – an excuse to do  nothing or virtually nothing-(very reminiscent of the tobacco companies and their apologist scientists).  Imagine the fate of future generations if they are wrong- innundated Pacific Islands, far greater famine in Africa, severe droughts in Australia and massive loss of food production, plus the possibility of more catastrophic bush fires in many countries. I believe we are running out of time to act. We need a Fair, Ambitious and Binding treaty now.

Technorati Tags: Ro Bruhn,fried marbles,necklace,walk against warming,climate change

Moon Magic

I am loving the Three Muses Wednesday Challenge as it provides the stimulus to start new or complete old pieces. This one started as an altered book spread in a Joy Bathie  class. As is my form in classes, I didn’t complete it. So the background is painted and stamped and then I have digitally added the foreground image, moon and a bit more texture.

Moon Magic

Image Googled.I used two DW brushes, one from the Papermoon set and the other from the Special Effects set. The stamp is from the Making Memories foam set, Floral Dingbats.

Technorati Tags: altered book,digital collage

Two for one

Last week I sent Ben a birthday card, only to realise that he would arrive home before the card reached him. I had to think quickly of a card to make, as I wouldn’t have time to buy one. I decided the Three Muses Wednesday Challenge (http://thethreemuseschallenge.blogspot.com/ ) might be the starting point so I made a card with him as Charlie Chaplin.

Being short of time this week I decided to use that image and the original for my entry in the challenge. I wanted to play with ordering layers. I still have a lot to learn, but here is my effort for this week.

A Crowd of Charlies!

A freebie

Here's a collage sheet I made using some of my stash of postcards etc.

Technorati Tags: freebies,ephemera

Wings on things

Here's my entry in the Three Muses' Wednesday Challenge

The Scream Revisited

I guess it only very loosely fits the description as I think I was supposed to put wings on something that doesn't necessarily have wings. Still, the bird's wing is "on" the "screamer"...

After last weeks cheery entry I wanted to try something a little gothic. When thinking of wings, I immediately came up Alfred Hitchcock's film, "The Birds". It was then just a matter of finding a way to portray the horror.

The skyline and birds are brushes from JMC Designs- Skyline. The sky is from one of my own photos, and the "screamer" is my rendition of Munch's character.

It is deliberately greyscale to suit the mood.

Technorati Tags: digital collage,Wednesday challenge

Never enough!

I have mentioned my friends, Claire and Kirk, before and how I love the sunsets viewed from their property in north eastern Victoria. I visited them again recently and didn't bother to take my camera from the car as I thought I had enough sunset shots from their place. How wrong I was.

Kirk and I were talking, when I looked out the window and flew out of my seat shouting, "oh my god!" The sky outside was the most amazing streaks of pink and gold. Of course I couldn't immediately find the camera in the bottom of a suitcase in the car, and by the time I did, the best of it had gone. Here's some of what I did manage to capture -

 

I don't actually know if these are the best shots, 'cos i still haven't got full colour. Long sigh......

Anyway my new laptop should arrive on Wednesday and then I just have to figure out how to connect it to the internet via a wireless network.

On the way home from their place the following day, I saw a rainbow such as I have never seen before. It wasn't so much in the sky, as entirely in front of a row of hills, so that the hills themselves were painted different colours. Of course I couldn't find anywhere to pull over so I couldn't capture it. However,it has inspired me to try some digital imaging to try to recapture something of what I saw. This will be one of my first projects when my new computer arrives.

Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project

Did you know about this? Until yesterday I didn't. Aussie mathematicians Christine and Margaret Wertheim, who run the Institute of Figuring, in New York (I think), have started this project. Apparently hyperbolic crochet is the best way to represent the growth of a coral reef. So to raise awareness of how coral reefs are endangered and to celebate women's handcrafts, they have run workshops and invited people to add their own little bit of reef to the original project. 

 Check it out here

There are also a number of side projects.

On the main page  there is a link to the Sydney group who are exhibiting in August.

Collaborative projects with yarn are certainly taking off. Have you seen Dneese's guerilla knitting projects?  How cool is that!!!

Technorati Tags: hand crafts,collaborative projects,guerilla knitting

HATS

 

This is  my first entry in a Wednesday Challenge in The Three Muses. I was particularly attracted to this challenge because one of my favourite pics from my trip to Turkey was the photo I took in the hat shop.

I chose a new project with a transparent background. I then created a new layer, opened the hat photo, selected the part I wanted, cut it and pasted it to the new layer. Then I resized it to cover the entire background.

Next I created another layer and then opened the picture of my friend wearing one of the hats. I used the elliptical marquee to select what I wanted and then cut and pasted to the new layer. I resized it and moved it where I wanted it. Then I used the eraser tool to take away the edges and create a torn look to the image.

I then went into the layer styles and played around with blending until I found an opacity level I was  happy with. At this point I also selected the notepaper filter to  give the image the faded sepia look.

Now my dodgy computer decided to lose most of the colour, but I valiantly soldiered on! I merged the top layer down.

Creating another layer I used the eyedropper to select one of the hat colours (not being able to distinguish the actual colour!) and then chose the text tool and the warp/arch mode. I wrote the first word, and chose +50 bend   and -30 horizontal. I then resized and moved the text. I repeated this whole process (with -50 and +30) for the word on the other side. Last, but not least, I flattened all the layers to reduce the size of the file and saved it as a jpeg.

The title comes from the fact that my friend was beside herself with delight when we discovered this shop behind the Blue Mosque and tried on almost every hat in the shop before deciding on one to buy.

I am very curious to see how it actually turned out if ever the colour comes back on the screen/or when my new computer arrives!  In the meantime I think I am going to experiment with replacing colour and applying filters and see what happens of it. I might get some interesting art. Then again it may end up as rubbish. I guess which it is will be in the eye of the beholder!

Technorati Tags: digital art

A nightmare and a dream of a workshop.

Yesterday started very badly. I woke up around two thirty chanting this catchy little number, ''crack crack sore head, crack crack brain dead"! The immediate image in my head before I awoke, was looking for someone and finding a whole bunch of bloodied people hanging from the wall in a freezer room. This really freaked me out and  it is still visually very strong in my mind. It's been a long time since I had a nightmare, and I can usually track back my dreams to some sort of influence during the preceding day. I hate to think what inner depths  this came from!!

Anyway, things rapidly improved, as we, SisterArts, had our first day of workshops with Keith Lo Bue. The workshop focuses on techniques for using re-bar wire for jewellery and to embellish small sculptural pieces. We had 11 students apart from Kathy and me, and all of us got a lot from the class. Keith is a great teacher and I learned so much, even if, as an organiser I didn't have quite as much time to practice all the techniques.

   

 

The great thing about using this wire is that it is very cheap so one can really be adventurous without worrying about messing up. As I am not taking any regular classes or doing any regular committee work this term, I intend to spend lots of time playing with things I have learned today and in a number of workshops over the past year or so

Working on Workshop

The last week or so I have been trying to get together the supplies Kathy and I need for our Keith Lo Bue workshops. It's taken quite some time and many visits to various hardware stores, craft shops and jewellers' supplies. I sure it will be worth every mile, hour and cent.

Now it's time to get together the supplies needed to run the workshop, so no art or photography has even been attempted. However I have uploaded some more pics of our trip to Facebook.

Even if you aren't a member you can still view the pics on the following public links-

The magical Istanbul

Album 2

It looks like I will have to buy a new computer. I have been having trouble with the graphics crashing for a time, and no tech has managed to fix it, but now the picture frequently loses colour-leaving me with two shades of purple and yellow! Not ideal when my major use of the computer is art. I have put this off for so long because I'd rather spend the money elsewhere- travelling mainly! I am considering a Dell Studio 15 notebook which has had pretty good writeups. Any comments very, very welcome.

Next stop Jet lag Junction!

It seems like forever since I last posted. In the meantime I have been on the move in Turkey and Greece. I had intended to send the occasional post from O/S but getting access to the internet was not easy. It seems more and more hotels are providing hotspots rather than actual computers, so I am thinking that before I go away again, I will have to investigate an iphone or netbook or something of the kind. I'd like some opinion on this, if anyone has had experience of one or t'other or both.

This trip to Turkey was with the same tour group (Turkish Magic) and several of the people from my first tour in 2007. As Margaret, one of the first timers, said to me, it was like meeting up with family again. We did have to explain to our guide, Metin, that we do have a range of first names in Australia , even if on this tour we had four Margarets (though one has never been know as this) two Denises, two Helens and two Johns!

I have had a massive dose of jet lag since I got home. Seems getting upgraded on the final leg from Dubai, and having my first ever real sleep on a plane, was to be paid for by days and days of not being able to get to sleep before 3am at the earliest.

Still it was all worth it. I left Turkey loving it even more and feeling more than a little sad that I would probably be there again. Then I decided that this is too final and maybe someday I will have to make Istanbul a stopover on the way to somewhere else. It really is a magical city, and the Turkish people are regarded by all I have met, who have visited Turkey, as the warmest, most hospitable people in the world.

I will be posting albums of photos on my Facebook Page page so I'll only put a few here.

On our first day we went looking for, and found a former medresse which had been turned into craft studios. It was still there, but the small restaurant was gone and was replaced by a much posher affair in the hotel next door. The outdoor area was gorgeous.

My travelling companion Denise is carefully cut out of the first photo as she likes her privacy and doesn't believe we need to reveal our lives on the net. So you won't see her in any of the pics. Shame really.

A small part of the hat display in a store in a shopping lane behind the Blue Mosque.

The contrasts are quite amazing-modern hotels and shopping lanes, minutes from derelict Ottoman buildings,

and the obelisk in the Hippodrome (with the Blue Mosque partially visible in the background.

And then there's the Spice Bazaar!

On another note entirely, I am very pleased to announce that SisterArts' Keith Lo Bue workshops will go ahead on July 25th and 26th

Technorati Tags: SisterArts,Keith Lo Bue

Technorati Tags: travel,Turkey,Istanbul

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Keith Lo Bue workshops in Melbourne

Kathy and I are very pleased to announce that Keith Lo Bue has agreed to teach a couple of workshops for us on July 25 and 26.

WORKING WITH WIRE - SAT 25 JULY 2009
GETTING ATTACHED - SUN 26 JULY 2009

Details will be in the files on our Yahoo Group SisterArts shortly.  If you're interested, and not a member already, click on the sidebanner icon to join.

Technorati Tags: classes,workshops,Keith Lo Bue,found object jewellry,working with wire

A slip, a trip and a blip.

Over the past couple of weeks life has been interesting, to say the least. My friend Denise, with whom I am going to Turkey and Greece in less than two weeks time, managed to break bones in her foot. She is on crutches and we have been keeping fingers and toes (unbroken!) crossed that she will be healed enough to do the trip. It is looking pretty positive now as she will probably be at the stage of wearing one of those most graceful blow up boots. A plus for having such an injury is that we will be well looked after by the airlines involved. A downer is that if she is still on crutches, much of the climbing at historical sites will be beyond her.

I am a little worried about dealing with the whole luggage thing though, as with tendonitis in my shoulder, I am not really capable of dealing with her luggage as well as mine, on the tour itself. I also know that, no matter how kind they are, fellow travellers can get pretty sick of helping someone at every stop.

Apart from helping Denise get set up, I have been up country again, visiting a friend near Wangaratta, and then spending a few days with Mum, taking her to Deniliquin and then having Mothers' Day together.

The sunsets from Claire's verandah never cease to grab me. I have taken so many photos of them over the years, in all seasons, and I couldn't resist this time.

 

Look how it transforms a cream wall

 

And what is is drying on the verandah?

and

 

and

Claire and Kirk have always had a fabulous vegetable garden and have been virtually self sufficient with their veggies until now. But the drought has caught up with them, the dams are virtually dry, and the veggie patch will be pretty small this year.

 

 

By cheer bad management ( I just zoned out) on the way to Claire's, I ended up having to cut across country from Healesville to the Melba Highway just near the Kinglake turnoff. How fortuitous that turned out to be.

The route takes you through the country side where much of the Black Saturday fire activity took place. What struck me was the juxtaposition of the bright green regrowth and  the brilliant autumn colours of the exotic trees not damaged by the fires  over the blacks and greys of the fire damage. I found it incredibly beautiful.

I nearly always have the camera at the ready these days but couldn't find many places to stop, so I planned to come back the same way hoping to find more opportunities to stop on the other side of the road. Unfortunatley at the crucial points where I had especially wanted to take photos I had a whacking great bus bearing down on me at breakneck speed, and I couldn't go slowly enough to find appropriate parking spots.

So I never did get that juxtaposition I found so appealing.  A shame, as at the moment, photography is almost all I am doing artistically as I don't need to get out or clean up any gear. I expect this will be the way of it until I get back from our trip.