Journals and Melbourne

I'd like to thank everyone for their lovely comments on my blog over the last few weeks, I try to visit your blogs or send emails to thank you all, but I don't always get around to everyone. Please forgive me if I haven't contacted you and I do thank you very much, your comments are always appreciated. Thank you also to everyone who just drops in for a look, it makes blogging all worthwhile knowing there are people out there who take an interest in what you do.



Above are some components for my next necklace, I can't seem to get away from the sewing theme, I've even enclosed an old wooden cotton reel with cotton still on it, inside a very fine wire mesh tube. This piece may end up on my etsy when it's completed.







I've been busy during the week finishing off a journal for a lovely lady, Joanne for a very special birthday. The book is made from fabric and has some prints of my art, pieces of jewellery and lots of layers. Joanne has taken all of the different workshops I teach, she also opens up Hann Made for us on the third Thursday of the month so that we can all get together and
'do our own art thing'. Happy Birthday Joanne.






Today we took a trip into Melbourne for the Dali exhibition at the National Gallery, there was so much of Dali's work on display, it was amazing.



I love Melbourne's mix of old and new, this is the clock tower on our main city train station, and below is the station with our tallest skyscraper, the Eureka Tower, dwarfing it in the background.




This is the tower standing in it's own right amongst the 'new' side of town. We have some lovely old buildings and so many of the little lane ways are wall to wall with cafes and restaurants, with tables spilling out onto the street in a very cosmopolitan fashion. The atmosphere is wonderful as is the food and the coffee. It's still lovely to come home to our mountain retreat though at the end of the day.

Papers

I can't seem to get away from paper art at present. I've created a collage sheet of some of my canvas paintings and a collage sheet of close ups of some of my work. These are laser prints on good quality 160gsm paper. They can be used in journals, altered books, card making etc. They are now in my Etsy store.




These are some of my decorated papers I made over the weekend ready to assemble into more journals. I ended up with quite a stash by the time I'd finished. The brown sheet was on water colour paper, I've created a few pieces on heavier weight paper to disperse through the journals.




This is the paper all cut and stacked ready to have more decorations and fabric added before they are assembled.



I hope to have my disintegration project ready to show over the coming weekend.

Completed Journal

I finally completed one of my larger journals and it is now on my etsy. This one has sixty pages including fabric ones and is taller than my previous ones. There's lots of collage and original painted cut out pieces of my art. These journals are so time consuming, but I love working on them, it's hard to know when to stop.



This is the cover, the design is similar on the back but doesn't have stitching down the side.



A fabric page before the journal was assembled.



These two pages have small prints of my original canvases. I'm going to be adding some laser printed collage sheets of my paintings to my etsy shortly.




The remaining photos show pieces of my original art added to the pages. I haven't shown everything as there was were too many pages to fit in one post.












Finally these are the lovely people who attended my workshop last Saturday. They all went home with at least two fabulous canvases. Marthe even manage three. I forgot to take close up photos, sorry ladies.

More journals

I'm working on decorated papers and fabric pages for three new journals for my etsy store. I love making the journals, seeing them evolve. I find by working on a few at a time I can mix and match the pages.

I'm thinking of offering some of my paintings as prints on my etsy and also making laser prints using sections of my decorated papers, for use in art making.






This is a print of one of my canvases, reduced in size. It's printed on archival paper and stitched behind acetate. I enjoy the combination of fabric and paper.






I've also added another pack of decorated papers to my etsy