Believing in peace...

On 25 April, Australians mark ANZAC Day - the day that our first soldiers landed at Gallipoli, Turkey in the First World War, marking our entrance to the conflict. It was a disaster and like so many of those WWI campaigns, it lasted and lasted and very little was gained.

It is a sombre day - the Dawn service in Maleny at 4.28am, marches in towns and cities across the country and time often spent in the studio pondering war and peace.

This year I had no real plan, but wanted to sit there and ponder peace.

I played with a self-inking stamp I had bought a while ago, and just over-stamped on light cotton muslin.

And then I tried it on a postcard-sized piece of paper.

And liked the pattern they created together.

And then I got out some watercolour pencils and drew poppies, onto stems I had de-bossed.

And the three of them sat together.

But they sparked me into making some postcards, using gouache this time instead of watercolour pencils. Before dotting my poppies.

And after.

It has been a while since I have given myself permission to just sit and think about something for no real purpose; and to pull a bit o f this and a bit of that together and see what happens.

And for anybody wondering how the scraps of fabric came together - here is the finished product, a great little bag with lots of raw and selvedge edges.