One thing leads to another

Here in Australia, we are the only country in the world to have a public holiday for a horse race, the Melbourne cup, I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. The race is on Tuesday and like many others I've taken the Monday off too, that gives me four wonderful days to do art.
My studio still hasn't recovered from my exhibition so I decided to have a bit of a clean up, well as is usually the case I got side tracked. I decided to remove the paper that was on the top of one of my benches, the paper where all the surplus paints, stamps etc ends up. Now it's common knowledge that I have a drawer fetish, I have quite a few unpainted sets from Ikea, so, I decided they needed a face lift, what should be sitting right in front of me, you guessed it, the paper from my bench top. Never one to waste anything, this now graces the fronts of my drawers. I was quite pleased with the results. I haven't got any further with cleaning my studio, but what the heck, tomorrows another day.




Just thought I'd mention too that I've added this brooch to my Etsy store. It has the word 'tranquil' and it's meaning from a very old dictionary, this is covered with mica. I'll be teaching this class at the Artistic Journey retreat next year in Sydney. I'll also be teaching one locally in the new year.

I'm also teaching my decorated paper and journal class from home on the 29th November. If anyone's interested please email me. I'll have more details on my blog over the weekend.

Red influences

I was outside taking photos of these earrings ready to post them on my Etsy store and what did I spy, this beautiful king parrot sitting in the native frangipani tree above me. I couldn't resist taking this photo, the parrot is getting quite cheeky coming down almost within touching distance sometimes. We have a bird feeder with wild bird seed mix and if it's not filled on a regular basis, they soon let us know. We usually get the red and blue rosellas, but the king parrot is the larger of the two and not as common in this area.
I couldn't help but notice how well his colouring matched my earrings, maybe he saw the resemblance too.







I've also added this necklace to my Etsy. The carved smiling Buddha is a special piece I found in a shop sometime ago, it's been waiting for the right combination of elements to show it off. It goes so well with the temple casting and the porcelain Asian beads, as well as the carved beads.




I've also been creating backgrounds for my collages, using scraps of my decorated and stamped papers, I cut them into small pieces and arrange them in a patchwork pattern, gluing them at random as I go. I give them a light paint wash after to blend them all together.

This and that

I'm slowly getting things added to my Etsy store. It's a slow process, taking photos and trying to display your items to their best advantage. At top is a necklace that has a very old mother of pearl button as the main feature, I've hand wired it so that it can move freely.
The earrings were made last night from some lovely glass hearts I found in the back of a little gift shop/cafe, Patsy discovered last week. My hubby and I went there for lunch during the week, needless do say I didn't get much eating done, but lots of bead sorting.






I have a very old wheelbarrow, on our back deck, that I painted purple. I 'planted' all these old rusty pieces, including a bike chain into it then added lots of succulents, due to our water shortage. I'm not sure if it's the rust, or lack of water, but they've grown a treat, almost hiding the rusty 'sculptures'.






I'm thinking of teaching some workshops from home either later this year or early next and this is the room where the classes will be held. We often sit and have breakfast or a cuppa in the glass nook as it protects us from the elements in summer and winter. I'll be posting the class details when dates have been set. The first one will probably be a brooch making class in late November.

My other Studio

This is my other studio, where I spend the daylight hours during the week working as a graphic designer. It's not much tidier than my home studio at the moment as I'm working on a very large project, but as everything is computer generated, there's not the usual paint mess and jewellery jumble of home. I was given free reign when I designed the room, much to the horror of the other staff, who said they couldn't possibly work in such a colourful environment, now they all wish it was theirs. I'm very lucky as I have it all to myself, except on occasions when I have to call in outside help. Hope to have more art to show later.

Planning for the next one

The party's over, but we're planning our next exhibition together. This one was very successful and we're planning another one for next year. The photo of Patsy and me outside the gallery was taken in front of this magnificent banner that Patsy put together for the occasion, textiles being one of Patsy's passions. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to visit.



This was one of my paintings in the show. It measures 600mm by 1200mm, quite a large one. Wherever I go of late I've been seeing Chinese lanterns so I decided to incorporate them into a painting. I really enjoyed painting this. I used acrylic paint and lots of layers, building up the colours and adding collage materials, finally I painted in the lanterns.



These are photos of my finished 'Persian nights' necklace made with my fabric beads. I ended up displaying my jewellery on canvases that I painted to suit the individual piece. I was quite pleased with the result. Unfortunately I didn't sell this piece so it may end up in my Etsy store or at one of the galleries.




Back to the Keith Lo Bue workshop. I went junking with Jen and Chris on the Wednesday afternoon and this was my find at The Mill market, a place with lots of individual stalls and great finds. When I showed it to Keith he told me quite a few of his hand made tools came from the insides of an old typewriter, so I'm looking forward to taking it apart, one day.