Whilst we were away recently, I noticed a number of beautiful artistic birds - here they are in all their loveliness...
This one was just sitting in a random tree in Olinda in the Dandenongs
At the bottom of a garden in Melbourne. This bird is BIG!
Whilst we were away recently, I noticed a number of beautiful artistic birds - here they are in all their loveliness...
This one was just sitting in a random tree in Olinda in the Dandenongs
At the bottom of a garden in Melbourne. This bird is BIG!
We recently spent the week away - on the road in Victoria. We visited friends in Inverloch; travelled through The Dandenong Ranges and on to Healesville; and then back to Melbourne for an event and another stay with friends.
A fabulous time was had, and it was great opportunity to see country we hadn't seen before; and to re-visit some beautiful places.
A real highlight was visiting Tara Warra Museum of Art, and the exhibition Breathing Helps by Rose Nolan.
The location was stunning and the exhibition breathtaking. Plus it was a brilliant blue sky day.
The work by Rose Nolan was immense in scale, and showed so many hours of work. I also loved how she worked with words throughout.
I think I might have finished printing my silences for the Book of Silences! This is an exciting moment as the many pages, printed back and front and on left and right sides, sit around the studio space drying and waiting.
If all goes as planned, I have printed title pages, 16 silences, an acknowledgements page and a colophon. I have a low level hum of minor anxiety/concern/worry that when I go to fold the pages and put the book together that I may have calculated incorrectly or planned wrongly and things don't matchup, line up or go in the right sequence.
I will however cross that bridge when I come to it. For now there is a real sense of satisfaction at having made it this far.
Here are some of the printings...
A wee break for a bit, then I shall return to prepare the covers, and fold the pages and the end papers and the covers.
Then I will pierce the stitching holes for them all; then I will stitch them all; then I will trim them all.
All being well, and with no detours to printing again in the meantime!
For some reason, I have a thing about fabric serviettes. I sew them from recycled fabrics - old bags, old sheets and the like and I just love having them around. Oftentimes they act as finger wipers say when I'm having morning or afternoon tea - they are rarely big enough to sit in your lap and catch lots of sauce. When made from scraps, they are also oftentimes odd and mismatched sizes.
So I trimmed the old linen sheets, mitred their corners and hemmed them.
Then I went with my wing needle and a hemstitching stitch on the machine and stitched these lovely daisy-like edges. And I now have five more mixed size serviettes to take back to the cottage!
I was also gifted some lovely hand embroidered ones from a friend, which we have in Scotland. In a funny turn of events, she asked how they were going; I said we used them every day over there and washed them frequently and they were still going strong. And then.
A couple of them got caught in a huge wind and a blow as they dried on the washing line at the cottage and the overlocking got shredded.
I brought them back and after having my overlocker serviced, I edged them back together. I had to apologise to her - because I remain somewhat intimidated by my overlocker, I never change the thread. I overlock anything and everything with grey thread. So this pair will stand out a bit, but they can return to use and that is fine thing!
On Thursday we happily hosted a group of 6 artists/printmakers from Brisbane for an introduction to Letterpress printmaking. They were a great bunch of women, co-ordinated by Sandra Pearce of Art From The Urban Wilderness - a community art centre in Brisbane, and together we managed to learn heaps, laugh a lot, print some great things, eat a delicious lunch, share birthday cake and experiment! It was a full day and full of joy as well.
Here are same happy snaps of the day.
Talking about letters that could go either way, and how to work out what is the bottom of the letter and what is the top - here you can see the N is upside down and would print differently to the O - making the line line of print look wobbly.
Barry joined us after lunch and was a mighty help!