Tracey Hewitt Designs

Drawing Faces

2012-01-29T08:52:00.000+10:00

Drawing faces has always kind of terrified me...

Made me break out in sweat, or hives, or something. Yet, I really want to be able to draw a face, and I do have this belief that it does you good to do something every day that scares you (just a little). So...I signed up for a class with Pam Carriker - an online one, called An Angels Anthology - focusing on using the art supplies and 'stuff' you have, to create a mixed media collage. There happens to be a face in this class, so I figured that a fun class, focusing on all sorts of other things, rather than THE FACE, might be a sneaky way to trick my mind into letting go of the anguish surrounding faces.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should include an image here of my first attempt....Argh...

But, with Pam's help and encouragement, I drew another and another, and in the end, got totally hooked on drawing faces, and even got a couple I thought were pretty good.

I may even be ready to tackle the face on my canvas sometime soon!

Pam has a bunch of tutorials on her website, Living Art at the Speed of Life, which make you just itch to grab that sketchbook or journal and get creative!

Have a great, creative, wonderful Sunday!

More Whispering

2012-01-25T13:05:00.000+10:00

This will be the second last Whisper I work on in the Chinese Whispers Collaboration...I'm feeling a little sad about that - I've come to enjoy the monthly challenge of interpreting a theme from the artwork of the previous collaborator.

These pages belong to Jen, and they are folded in such a nifty manner that I had a little trouble working out how to refold them and send them on! You can see some of the fold lines in each of the images...

As always, can't tell you too much about the the pages - just share these little clue squares with you, and tell you that they include acrylic paint, photo transfers, Xpandaprint, metallic wax, coloured pencil, graphite pencil and a few collaged paper elements. Oh, and a tiny bit of machine stitching on this one, too.

The Xpandaprint is fun stuff - quite like puff paint that was the rage years ago - paint on, heat, and it 'puffs' up - I get it from The Thread Studio - either black or white, and as you'd expect, I have both! The textured areas you can see in the photos are the result of stamping it on to the page, heating to 'puff' and then touching ever so lightly with metallic gilding wax. Delicious.

While I wasn't necessarily expecting it - I like the way the photo transfers have cracked and crumbled along the fold lines...Which is a good thing - not sure what I'd be doing now if I hated it!

My own book has evolved in an interesting manner - quite appropriately in keeping with the game that inspired the collaboration - Chinese Whispers. I started by 'whispering' my theme to someone...and it has gone around the circle, morphing into something quite different, yet with recognisable elements....I cannot wait to share it with you!

More from The Bower Bird Studio

2012-01-19T06:47:00.000+10:00

Gelatin printing. what can I say? I am besotted! This is one of the neatest techniques I've ever seen. Here, Peta has applied a layer of paint to the gelatin plate (much like a tray of solid jelly) and is applying some flat objects for the print.

I know you think this looks a bit like your high school biology presentation gone awry...but check out some of the results we got after laying down a few colours and objects:

Can you make out the frangapanni leaf and plastic doily? I have seen plastic doily's before...and wondered who on earth would want such a ghastly thing - now I know - ME!! (If you happen to have a stash of them - or even one - buried away from your old maiden aunt - I'd love to buy them from you!)

This is one of my favourites - a bird and cage cut-out from a scrap-booking supply place, leaves, some rubber underlay with a grid thingy and a meshy piece a bit like an onion bag....How delicious is the texture and 'feel' of this?

Another favourite - the background is a piece of tea dyed paper with a photo of Peta's printed on it (Thanks for this yummy piece of paper, Peta!) More mesh, that bird, some leaves, the plastic doily....Can't wait to use these papers in a piece of art!

My warmest thanks to Peta, Tamara, and Nanette, who welcomed me into their part of the world and shared so generously - not to mention that they inspired me greatly!

Now...what will I do with these papers?........

Adventures in Printmaking at The Bower Bird Studio

2012-01-18T16:56:00.002+10:00

I'd like you to meet Peta and Tamara, who happen to be two of the artists involved in the Whispers Collaboration with me. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to join them for a weekend of art making and sharing techniques and ideas in Peta's studio - delightfully named The Bower Bird Studio.

This story is a bit backwards...starting at the end, because while we were at the beginning, I was so busy oohing and aahing and being excited about things, that I didn't get photos of the serious stuff! We had been printing collagraph plates (which is what Peta is doing in the photo up there...) and decided to run our tarlaten (scrubbing) cloths through - just to see what would happen.

Yum. richly textured ink marks....

....With a little mulberry paper incorporated into the prints...

This little one is my collagraph....a plate is created by collaging textured papers, and other flat objects onto heavy card, onto which a lot of ink is rubbed, then rubbed off (a bit like playing golf, really....), until what remains is only deep in the textured areas. Squish the paper through the press, and here's the result - the most beautiful marks I've ever seen on a page - embossed a little from the pressure, lush and lovely.

Now, Peta's were lusher and lovelier...but of course, no photos of it....the photographer was busy drooling and slobbering!

Stay tuned soon for a look at our gelatin printing!

Special Post from Tracey's House

2012-01-11T14:03:00.000+10:00

We haven't been formally introduced, you and I. You may have caught a glimpse of me here on Tracey's blog occasionally. Today I'm here to make myself known to you - pleased to meet you, I'm The Hewitt Home. (Garfield the cat IS a piece of furniture...just in case you were wondering!)

Now Trace loves me, that's for sure...but, as in many relationships, I have some unmet needs. While she takes pretty good care of me, Trace is not so good at keeping my windows clean; the ironing basket in the corner of my laundry sometimes gets frighteningly out of control - and you should see how many weeds are in the garden beds sometimes! We recently had a long discussion about this situation, Trace and I; and I discovered that she feels pretty bad about her shortcomings in these areas, but at the same time, she does love her studio (and you and I both know she gets up to some fun stuff in there!). It's not looking too promising for my windows and blinds to gleam any-time soon. BUT....Trace loves that studio and her teaching so much, she reckons she'd love to offer people one on one studio teaching time in exchange for them spending the same amount of time making my windows sparkle or emptying that ironing basket or pulling those pesky weeds.

If you know Trace, you'll know she's pretty easy going, so she doesn't mind if someone wants to come for just one weekend, or once a week....so if the idea of creating something in her studio, with her to guide you with technique, sounds appealing to you - make her an offer! (you can email her: charvel [at] bluemaxx [dot] com [dot] au). I look forward to meeting some of you very soon!

(PS I'm sending a special Thank You to Mick Cornish of Campfire Coaching for helping plant this idea in Trace's mind....I owe you Mick!)

Glimpse Some Glass Studio Action

2011-12-13T11:46:00.000+10:00

I'd like for you to meet Carmel - my Mum. (Who is awesome, by the way).

Not long ago, I spent a night with her and Dad, and really enjoyed a demo of her blowing glass beads.

She's been doing this for a while, but her studio set up is a recent addition to her home (thanks to the very generous man who taught her this incredible art in the first place!)

Mandrel in her left hand, glass rod in her right, heating the rod until it's molten (is that the right lingo, Mum?)

Then she twirls and twists the mandrel and the glass kind of melts onto it. I seem to recall that in this shot, she's adding a really fine piece of different coloured glass.

(As a complete aside...do you like her 'half sucked life saver' ring?)

A quick squeeze with a paddle-looking tool, into the kiln to cook, and a bead is born. It's destiny is to be included in a piece of one-off jewellery, which could include any number of innovative beads and materials (possibly even a coloured Osso Bucco bone!)

These fine threads of glass are ones she's 'pulled' herself, waiting to be incorporated into some wondrous piece of deliciousness.

It's fascinating watching another artist bring a piece to life - especially in a medium you know nothing about... I love the translucent colours and glossy finish of glass.

Mum learned to create these glass works in her sixties...it's never too late to learn something new, to follow your passion. After almost a lifetime of caring for others, it's especially wonderful to see her doing something for her own delight.

I hope you have an activity in your days that brings you delight too.

More From Bush Christmas

2011-11-25T17:00:00.001+10:00

Bush Christmas finished yesterday. Here's a few more images to share with you - in case you weren't able to visit yourself (maybe because you live in Timbuktu, or Machu Picchu or Mataranka!)

It was a treat to meet the lovely Stacey of Koolaman Designs - she and her sister create lovely silver jewellery pieces and hand stamp treasured words into them - names of those precious to you, dates that are important, quotes to inspire...

Beautiful pieces, beautifully presented.

That's Stacey in the black dress, chatting with another of the Bush Christmas exhibitors.

And Stacey has a lovely Mum, who kindly offered to take my picture - to prove that I did actually get there! (I'm so sad I can't recall her name! We had a lovely chat, and she really is the nicest lady - raised a couple of very clever daughters, too!)

Thanks go to Liz, Jenny and all their Bush Christmas helpers. Every year they do a stellar job of promoting rural and remote Australian artists and artisans, and the exhibition never fails to impress!

Bush Christmas Report - Part 1

2011-11-20T15:05:00.001+10:00

Once again, Bush Christmas has put together a fabulous collection of works from "rural and remote artisans" in Toowoomba. I stopped in for the opening and was impressed (as always) with the innovative and beautiful work from so many talented souls.

Like Libby Woodhams, who was busily helping people choose from her range of Tropical Merino scarves. I may have left the building with a beautiful Libby scarf in my possession...not saying I did - I just may have! Sadly, it seems I have a photo of Libby, but not her great scarves (that's her in the black and white skirt above).

Every year the range of hand made gourmet goodies seems to expand. Those fortunate enough to be in attendance at the opening get to sample these delicious morsels...and end up taking home jars and packages they perhaps may not have intended to purchase (not saying I did...)

These fabulous Bloody Beautiful BoYangs are...well...bloody beautiful! For the uninitiated, a BoYang is an elasticised cuff that goes over your work boots, around the ankle, to keep out unwanted prickles, dust and seeds. The label on the back says:

Warning!

Sized to fit girls who can move a mountain with a shovel.

Regrettably, there is no contact info on the label; I would have loved to share that with you.

See what I mean about the food?......Rocky Road, fudges, rum balls, Christmas Cakes, jams, chutneys, pastes, sauces, dressings...yum.

On the lawn outside there's a menagerie of creatures! How clever are these sheep, pigs and chooks? There was even a Border Collie 'blocking up' the mob of the sheep.

So much to see...I think it will take more than one post.

Stay tuned...I'll soon be back with more eye candy from Bush Christmas, which will run for another week in Toowoomba - if you're around the ridges, do yourself a favour and call in.

Now THIS is a Parcel!

2011-11-10T15:15:00.000+10:00

Wouldn't you love to open your mailbox and find this inside?

I love being part of this collaboration, and this is just one of the reasons why. Once a month, a parcel arrives. Not your everyday, brown wrapped or post package parcel; but one like this - full of colour and life and energy and fun.

This is without a doubt the brightest and busiest package so far...isn't it fabulous?

The book inside belongs to Kristen, and has since been sent off to it's next contributor, but before I sent it, I thought it would be great to share it with you. It seemed selfish to enjoy this mail art so much, and keep it all to myself.

It made my heart happy. It inspires me to make all my mail a little more interesting and fun (I bet the people who work for Australia Post love it when they get to see a parcel like this!). Imagine the delight we could create in the world by simply turning some of our mundane chores (like mail...) into fun? Let's work on that....

Sari Silk + Silk Ribbon + Soluble Film = Snazzy Scarf

2011-11-06T10:43:00.000+10:00

Don't you love it when you have a random idea in the shower one day, and when you try it out, it actually works?

Recently I discovered how to use my Bernina Free Motion Couching Foot properly (a total revelation!) This foot gives you the ability to stitch down a heavy thread or yarn, in any direction you please. I got to wondering... would it work to lay fibres onto the soluble as always, but instead of stitching a grid, free machine embroider a yarn over the top to hold it together?

Yep, it works.

This particular one has a base of Silk Sari Ribbon - which is basically the scraps from the Sari factory, as I understand it - with a hand dyed silk ribbon/tape from the lovely Gill at Fibreworks applied to the top.

The raw edges and little lacy gaps may not be every one's cup of tea - but I'm loving this!

It's destined for Bush Christmas...if I can bring myself to part with it.

*The Sari Ribbon comes from Dale at The Thread Studio - my 'go to' supplier for many, many wonderful things - and their service is second to none... I like to share my good things with you - when I write about something here, it's because I love it and think maybe you will too. The Thread Studio is definitely a place I love!

The Next Whisper

2011-10-26T16:37:00.000+10:00

When the day comes that I can share the complete artworks for the Chinese Whispers Collaboration with you, I think I'll be like a dog in a forest...I won't know which tree to start on!

These are pages for Lindesay - the only brave male in our very female dominated group. It is becoming quite difficult to settle on what the themes might be now (or at least, I'm finding it so).

In this page, there is some Shiva oil stick, applied over masking tape, as well as through a stencil. Some collage elements and scanned copies of some of my drawing (you can see a glimpse on the left. And Walnut Ink. Have I told you before how much I love Walnut Ink? It's great stuff...the brown coloured area down the height of the snippet here is the result of Walnut Ink applied to torn paper. A little painted onto any paper will age it beautifully, leaving lovely puddles of deeper colour and settling into any creases and differences in the texture of the paper. Deliciousness.

An old map image, painted tissue over the top, and some carefully selected words form the most part of the back side of the page.

I'm getting some lovely pages back for my own book, which I'm looking forward to binding together when everyone has had their turn at interpreting my theme. The theme is 'twisting' just a tiny bit, as I imagine every one's book pages are as we continue to 'whisper' to one another.

Another 'page' waits in the studio...this time for Kristin. I'll share a secret snippet with you when I'm done.

Purely for recreation - or, this isn't going to change the world, but it's fun!

2011-10-15T13:03:00.000+10:00

A while ago, I succumbed to technology, and acquired an iPhone. Shorty thereafter, I was introduced to iPhone apps. I remain unconvinced that the world is an infinitely better place for such things, BUT...they can be a lot of fun!

My favourite is the 100 Cameras in 1 app. with 100 different filters that you can apply to your images - on top of one another, if you see fit.

This first one was a not too exciting pic of our baby at the local show. I love the feel of this image now. I'm pretty dang fond of the guy in the hat, too, for that matter.

The original of this photo was shot out the car window while stuck in traffic in Brisbane. Again, a very ordinary original photo, yet the effect after a play with it is pretty cool.

Another out-the-car window shot...this one between Barkley Homestead and Cape Crawford, Northern Territory. I have a bit of a thing for snapping random images out of a moving car - my photo files have loads of them - most not very good, but great reminders of a trip or place.

This is kind of surreal...but then this whole episode was quite weird.

The cow you see here has just been chased from my back door - under the verandah - quite literally bashing her head into the double glass doors; bowing the frame with her weight. How she came to choose my back door for a unscheduled visit on a Thursday afternoon remains a mystery. But I am so very thankful that she didn't break through the door and into the house! Keelan wondered what we would write on the insurance claim form if she had in fact broken the doors and run riot inside (which was looking very likely for a minute there!). There's been a lot of laughter around here about this - not to mention a fair bit of head shaking, wondering just what she had in mind! Definitely surreal. And this filter gives the photo a suitable strange feel to share with you just how bizarre with whole experience was!

Zentangle Inspired Cards

2011-10-10T11:24:00.000+10:00

Recently, I was introduced to "Zentangles"...and my incessant doodling was legitimised! I have a confession.

I doodle.

A lot.

Our office diary (supposedly a serious business tool for recording important notes and messages) is more often an account of how long Telstra may have kept me on hold. Alan will take a quick look, and have a rough idea of how much time I might have spent on the phone on any given day. I doodle while I listen - on the phone, in meetings (which can become embarrassing when the people either side of you show more interest in your doodle than the meeting), and especially in workshop/lecture type situations. It helps me concentrate. Is that bizarre?

Zentangles were created by Maria and Nick as a kind of meditative process. There are some guidelines for creating a zentangle...which I learned, then chose to follow my nose and more or less do my own thing.

These cards are the result. I'm doodling away in front of the TV in the evening, creating some of these to send off to Bush Christmas in November.

In the drawing class I attended a few months ago, our lovely tutor Deb Gilmartin encouraged us to go nuts Zentangling, she believes it's a great way to free up your 'right brain'. The Zentangle site lists the benefits and uses to include: Entertainment, Relaxation, Education, Motivational Training, Artistic Development, Collectible, Gifts and Therapy.

All that with nothing more than a nice piece of paper or card and a fine tip black pigma pen!

It Must Be Spring!

2011-09-21T12:21:00.001+10:00

There are new beginnings popping up all over the place...this is Marley, our baby's baby. Marley could quite probably have a blog of his very own. He's quite rambunctious, loves to eat, adores snuggles and swimming and long walks (sounds like an application for Farmer Wants A Wife). And I know it's spring, because his lovely furry coat is FULL of clover burr.

Minnie and Maverick have had another addition to the family...their four little girls had their first family outing to the lawn and the big wide world yesterday. Baby animals are one of springs delicious gifts.

The Port Wine Magnolia is flowering - this could be the best scent in the whole world! I know it's spring when that aroma drifts on the afternoon breeze...

And don't they say something about it being springtime and a young mans fancy turns to romance...or some such thing? A spring engagement announcement seems the perfect expression for that!

Congratulations Fin and Caitlyn!

It's All About The Sunsets

2011-09-04T17:20:00.000+10:00

Today I'm feeling a little bit 'blah'...as the inspiring Brene Brown says ... "My Dig Deep Button is Broken".

I set out to find some great photos and write a killer post that you would all love, and in doing so, feel better.

Instead I keep gravitating to these photos of sunsets, which aren't delivering me too much in the way of inspiration for a pithy post.

So, no pith today. Just me saying that I know I'm not the only one with a dysfunctional "Dig Deep Button" today, and maybe we should all give ourselves permission to stop, watch the sunset and give ourselves a minute of whatever it might be that we need, to give that button a chance to reset itself.

What resets your Dig Deep Button? I'd love to know...

The Latest Scarf

2011-08-30T15:09:00.001+10:00

How good is your imagination? Can you imagine this scarf wrapped around a living human beings neck, rather than around the not-at-all-humanoid form of the citronella oil burner? Mabel, the dress form, has been called to perform a higher purpose, which has been fine - right up until I wanted to share the latest scarf creation with you, and had no model. (I'm kind of frightened of that hold the camera up in front of yourself and click style of portraiture...basically the camera is too close, and at that range there are too many wrinkles and saggy bits. I care for you way too much to subject you to such an ordeal!)

I'm a bit excited about this scarf...

Finally, some of that lace that's been languishing in the lace box for who knows how many years, is finding a home. I discovered a great paint - on dye from The Lace Cottage, which has given colours that worked really well with this vintage look ... Added to dyed silk tissue, and a somewhat random assortment of yarns and silks - It turned out pretty much as I'd hoped.

All that's missing is a model...I enjoy 'my girls'* company so much that when I have them here to visit, I don't think of suggesting we stop chatting (and laughing and drinking wine or eating choc chip cookies) to do a photo shoot; so I'm left with the outdoor furniture to do the holding up of the latest creation.

I guess I could always ask Garfield to help me out... the colours would flatter his complexion, I'm sure!

*FYI - 'my girls' are in fact my handsome princes significant others...I'm blessed to have them in our home often, and after many years of being the lone female in the herd, it's a treat to share these baffling males with some equally baffled- by- them women.

Never Smile at a Crocodile....

2011-08-20T10:13:00.000+10:00

How's this for an idyllic looking waterhole?....It's part of one of the watercourses in Kakadu National Park.... On a very warm Top End day, the water is inviting - but not inviting enough to outdo the information on the sign there...Estuarine Crocodiles swim here, and they don't play well with others....actually, that's not exactly what the sign says, but highly motivated as I was NOT to become a ravenous reptiles lunch, I took little persuasion to stay out of the water and away from the edge. It did, however, require some persuasion to walk along the path to the waterfall that wended it's way through this Monsoon Forest:

It was dense, watery and heavily timbered...Pandanus trees and grasses under the canopy, quite beautiful, if I could only get the croc attack scene from Crocodile Dundee out of my mind. I kept thinking to myself "You should do something every day that scares you..."

I think I had enough scare that day to see me through a couple of months...

Let's just say I was pretty edgy. The fifty or so other brave souls who we encountered at various points on the path should have reassured me that if a croc was hungry, he already had plenty of dining opportunities. And the signs did only say to stay out of the water ... and that the area is checked and any unwanted visitors taken away .... Still.....

In the end, we reached the waterfall, having picked our way over rocks and through a bit of a gorge and it was indeed beautiful and worth being scared out of my skin.

Obviously...these swimmers were much braver than I.... the sign by this plunge pool warned that Freshwater Crocodiles may be present, and essentially they'd leave you alone, if you left them alone...no problems - I'm leaving them totally alone!

Later, at the Yellow Water Billabong, we got got a good close up look at the objects of my anxiousness from our big, safe, sturdy boat....

How sinister are these dudes? And why do I think they are all males?

The bird life on the Billabong is astonishing....do you suppose this girl's warning the neighbours that a rough skinned reptile is headed their way?

What an extraordinary experience... And I haven't yet mentioned the Aboriginal Rock Art.... the 360 degree views of the park from the top of Ubirr.... the heart attack we almost had getting to the top of Ubirr...or the thousands of kilometres we drove and unusual places and individuals we encountered to get there!!

Campfire Coaching

2011-08-01T13:31:00.001+10:00

Here's an image from a few years ago...our hay shed burning.

Looking at this picture takes me right back there. The emotion I felt standing there is bubbling inside me as I write....(perhaps because my husband made an attempt to go in there and rescue a tractor; in spite of our firstborn trying valiantly to discourage him, yet ended up following him in there anyway...leaving me watching, dumbfounded, terrified and angry that if the whole thing blew up, I wouldn't even have bodies to bury...yep, that'll be why this image makes me a bit titchy!)

But that's not really what I wanted to tell you about... I thought of this particular image because I've recently been to a Campfire Coaching session with Mick Cornish. Mick very generously ventured up this way to offer his wisdom to our flood affected community. And he's got plenty of wisdom.

In some ways, the "Campfire" seemed as big as this shed fire. Mick is a coach - business, personal, life...you name it, he'll have something to offer. Now, I have to admit that had he not made this generous offer to our community, I doubt I would ever have sought him out. But I discovered so many things - had so many 'ah-ha!' moments - that I'm really, deeply pleased to have had the opportunity. Mick explored beliefs, communication, choices, procrastination...just to name a few. And I love his motto - "it's not what happens to us that determines our destiny, it's the decisions we make about ourselves in those moments when life happens". After a couple of days with Mick, I realise what a mighty weight of truth this statement carries.

I'm trying to figure out what decisions we made about ourselves when this shed fire happened... I may need more time on that...but I do remember thinking (once my precious family was safe and out of harms way) it was a terrible pity we didn't even have any marshmallows!

2011-07-15T17:19:00.000+10:00

Last week, I spent a wonderful five days at the McGregor Winter School, in Toowoomba, attending a drawing workshop with the very talented artist and teacher, Deb Gilmartin. By the end of the week, I was able to render this eye...which was thrilling! My precious prince Keelan was convinced that I had traced it...took some persuading to convince him that I had, in fact done it freehand! And that is testament to Deb's great teaching skills. I haven't drawn in years, and while the high school art class drawings I did all those years ago were passable, I have lately felt the lack of satisfactory skill and technique in the sketching arena.

A week with Deb and I think that's cured. She taught a dozen of us a number of 'tools' to use to get our drawings down in a manner with which we were happy. The class was titled: Learning to Draw and See as an Artist, and Deb used a lot of theory from Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, and Drawing with your Artist's Brain by Carl Purcell to help us get our right brains in gear...we drew blind contours - studying our subject, drawing without actually looking at our page; and we copied a sketch - upside down! Deb taught us to see angles and measure relative distances and to 'see'...which is more revolutionary than it sounds! The greatest revelation of the week was that what we 'know' we see, or 'think' we see isn't always what is really in front of us. The simple act of concentrating on an object for long enough to draw it's details gives you a whole new understanding of that object.

Do you suppose that could be true for husbands, too? If only I could keep him still long enough to draw him....

Whispering Time Again!

2011-07-02T16:40:00.001+10:00

Do you have any idea how badly I want to show you the entire page in Peta's book?

This round of our Chinese Whispers Collaboration belongs to our fearless leader Peta Lloyd, who created the cleverest pages. This has been so much fun! I can't divulge the theme...but what you can know is that included in this is a silk paper pocket (complete with treasures), handmade paper, a microscope slide, skeleton leaves, paint, stamps and embossing...among other things!

The studio looked like something had exploded in there by the time this was finished. It's possible that every container had been opened and the contents spread far and wide in the hunt for the perfect 'bits' to grace these pages.

Each time I post these snippets, I wonder if it's remotely interesting to any of you...or really only significant to those of us in the collaboration. Yet, the challenge of each month attempting to decipher the latest theme with nothing more than a few visual clues is quite consuming and I'm enjoying the stretch and learning that's accompanying the process. This however means that there's a little less time for producing other work that I can share in it's fullness with you.

The important thing I want to suggest to you is to consider being part of a collaborative process...you will bend, stretch, get a headache and grow! It's a wonderful, fun thing and a wonderful way to get to know people in a way that we don't always get an opportunity to.

Consider yourself encouraged to give a collaboration a go!

Farm Day Fun

2011-06-22T14:21:00.002+10:00

Last year, we registered for Farm Day, and were a little disappointed when we didn't get a city family come to visit us...but this year was a different story.

Say hello to the Stirling Family! Shea, Terri, Aaron and Danyon, who are watching the weaners being yarded. We had a bit of a mishap, and somehow they all escaped into the paddock, when they should have simply been walking from the wire yard to the cattle yards...embarrassing for the cattlemen here, but gave them an opportunity to show off their thundering galloping weaner chasing skills!

The Stirling's drove all night Friday night to arrive in time for breakfast on Saturday, after which we did our best to give them a crash course in life on the land. We had a little relax down at the billabong though.... a bit of a steep rocky slope to get there, but we all agreed it was worth it - out of the wind down there, and in the sun...perfect spot, really!

Our vast assortment of canines joined us, Maverick and Minnie loving Shae's attentions...

Fin showed us all his form at rock hopping (which, I have to say, wasn't bad!)

After clambering back up the bank, we walked past the weaners... and back to the daily grind of life on the farm. Actually, we went and ate lunch...

But, there's always work to be done...A busted pipe gave Aaron an opportunity to watch an experienced pipe fixer at work (he did a great job with that crow bar, by the way!) The boys had noticed this pipeline had a leak - while it's leaking all over the ground, it's not making it's way to the trough the cattle take water from, so busted water pipes need fixing quick smart.

I was so busy watching, I missed taking a photo of Aaron branding a calf - sorry Aaron! Everyone will just have to take our word for it! We had three truckloads of cows arrive on Saturday night - so after hardly any sleep on Friday night, Shae and Aaron went along with our guys to unload them in the dark (and very, very cold) night. Sunday, all those Cows needed cross branding, so the Stirling's got a full education in cattle yards, crushes, branding and the noise that goes with it.

We even found a cotton bush on the side of the road to use as a cotton growing teaching aid!

We had a great weekend...what I've told you about here is just a taste of the things the Stirling's got up to...they checked out mustering helicopters, fed horses and chooks, oversaw the fixing of a broken fence, had a guided tour of our properties and saw the centre pivot irrigator and dams and hay sheds and silage pits and tractors and equipment and....I don't really have any idea how they kept up and interested - they must have been so tired! But they didn't want to miss a thing.

Thanks to the great people at Farm Day for putting us together, and a special thanks to Terri, Aaron, Shae and Danyon for your enthusiasm, interest and tremendous effort to get here! It was a real pleasure to share our little part of the world with you all.

Link with Love

2011-06-14T16:13:00.000+10:00

Recently, I told you about my delighted discovery of Brene Brown (she who is responsible for me working on "Honouring the Ordinary"). Today, Brene linked to a blog which has made it it's business to address one of the Internets thorny problems - I think the direct quote from Kal Barteski of Link with Love explains it better than I ever could:

"Welcome to LINKwithlove.org.
It is our goal to inspire positive change in the way art, photography, design, words, music, film and ideas are shared on the Internet. We believe that intellectual property needs to be handled with love and respect. We believe in the goodness of people. We believe in the power of the Internet. We believe that Maya Angelou was absolutely right when she said "when you know better you do better."
We need your help. We need your support. Learn more. Spread the word. Post our badge on your sites to show that you LINK with love.
This is just the beginning.. "

As it happens, I have just today returned from the Textile Art Festival in Brisbane (from which I have much to share with you...), where I was once again reminded of the endless talent in the world, and sadly, also the ever present problem of artists hard work, so generously shared, being 'borrowed' and not credited - especially on the Internet. (Where I have written 'borrowed', you may be more accurate in substituting a stronger, less well intentioned sounding word!)

So, from today, my blog has a Link with Love button; because I believe that every artist should always be credited wherever their work is shown or shared - lovingly, respectfully and correctly...and if I ever overlook that here - please let me know.

And, do yourself a favour and check out Kal's blog - her work is beautiful!

Also, if I can tear myself away from the glorious bundles of goodies I have brought home from my trip - I'll share some photos and info here with you soon.

Soluble Film Scarf Making (Or, it's so cold my brain can't think of a more 'catchy' title for this post!)

2011-06-09T16:12:00.001+10:00

Last Saturday, a handful of lovely ladies (including Meredith, here) gathered at the CWA hall in Theodore and made scarves. Beautiful, colourful, snazzy, yummy scarves!

The scarf workshop is my favourite one to teach - everyone finishes at least one scarf in a day, they are always really excited with the results of their days work, and participants seem never to fail to have fun. What's not to love?!

I mean, how happy does Melinda look here? And that smile of hers made me extra happy, because she lost pretty much everything in the floods earlier this year. Her enjoyment heightened all our enjoyment.

Andrea showed everyone how to tie her "Andrea Knot", which is quite possibly the coolest way to tie a scarf that I have ever seen.

Thanks to all the gorgeous girls who shared their Saturday with me, and let me take their photos so I could share the day with everyone here. While I know you all enjoyed the day, I'm not sure that you will ever know how much I enjoy sharing these techniques with you all... your delight in the works you create is infectious and exhilarating!

Honouring the Ordinary - Part two

2011-06-01T11:44:00.001+10:00

Say 'Hi' to our black swans...well, they technically aren't ours - they have taken up residence in the dam not far from our house. They are graceful, serene and beautiful. Things I wish I were...but I'm not quite there yet! (In fact I'm not even anywhere close...)

Every time I drive past this pair, I slow down to a crawl and watch them slide across the water. Marvelling that such beauty chooses to live near our home. Until the two travelling with me crank up -

"Don't slow down...they're always here"

"Hurry up, we haven't got all day"

To which I reply something about taking a moment to enjoy the beauty in the world around us...honour the ordinary...you get the idea...

Then they gently remind me that the tractor is bogged to the axles, the chain has snapped in two, the paddock needs to be sprayed so the wheat can be planted, we need to get back to the shed to cobble the chain back together..... and the swans will truly be here tomorrow.

Tomorrow came and went, the swans are indeed still silkenly sliding on the dam, the tractor is no longer bogged, but the GPS is now broken and the 'expletive deleted' wheat is still in the bags and not yet in the ground!

It's easy to honour the swans - their grace is undeniable. But honouring the ordinariness of broken down and bogged machinery?....Not such a snap. And let me assure you - it IS ordinary! Happens all the time.

Then I discover this quote:

Without heat and pressure there would be no diamonds. It is the tough situations that provide opportunities to sparkle.

Today's mission is to attempt to find the way to turn the heat and pressure into sparkle...wish us luck!

(Wish I could attribute that quote to someone wise - if you happen to know who the sage soul was who first uttered these words - please let me know!)

Whisper for Sarah

2011-05-29T16:54:00.001+10:00

The time has come for the next whisper to be completed and sent on. This one will join it's brothers and sisters and make it's way home to Sarah Larsen (Sarah is the generous artist who visited Theodore and offered us the Art and Soul workshop earlier in the year).

We're now 3 artists removed from the original artist and their original theme, and I suspect, in the spirit of the childhood game "Chinese Whispers", that our collaboration is based on...we're getting a little off track - at leat I have a strong feeling I am!

Sarah's pages are an unusual shape - which you can't see here, because I can only show you a tiny hint...There's gesso, acrylic paint, tissue paper, stamped images, gold and black pen and charcoal used in this one. This rubber stamp of kids swinging in a tree is one of my favourites...and there are a lot of stamps in that stamp drawer in the studio! It reminds me of a late afternoon swing as the sun sinks low in the sky...I get a peaceful feeling just looking at it. That, however, is no clue as to the theme.

And I guess this isn't either.

This is the desk next to the piece as I finished up a minute ago. You can see a little bit of it in the bottom left hand corner. Does that help you?

I have to confess that I can't say what this theme is in a word or two - this one has more of a general feel about it. I hope I'm not too far off the mark... I'd love to hear your guesses as to the theme...

Honouring The Ordinary

2011-05-19T16:54:00.001+10:00

I recently stumbled across Brene Brown (the Internet holds endless wonders and discoveries, doesn't it?) whose research into the human condition is fascinating. A couple of videos of her TEDx talks are the worth the investment of your time (at least I felt they were worth the investment of mine!) The Power of Vulnerability and The Price of Invulnerability are thought provoking, heartwarming, and funny. She knows the 'stuff' we all do (and admits freely to doing it herself...makes her totally charming!) What I'm getting to here, is that she talks about the ways we can choose to live wholeheartedly, vulnerably... by, among other things, Practising Gratitude and Honouring the Ordinary. Which brings me to my point...Lately, I've been feeling a little less than enamoured with the ordinary (if I was totally honest with you - bored. Not bored as in nothing to do, bored as in uninspired, untouched and unimpressed). So, I set myself the task of looking at the ordinary with fresh eyes. A sunrise...very ordinary, in that there's one every day. But magical, and beautiful...I know I forget to notice that sometimes. Every day a new, fresh opportunity to appreciate things we take for granted.

My ordinary days include my family. With all the convivial chaos that that includes. And that makes me a lucky, lucky woman.

My ordinary environment looks like this...peaceful, quiet, yet solid and strong.

These guys visit my eucalyptus trees regularly. Some days, their chattering and partying can make it hard to think straight...but their enthusiasm is infectious.

One of my most favourite 'ordinary' things to do is write in my journal...a great place to practice gratitude. And one of the things I am grateful for is You. You honour me so greatly by giving up your time to stop by here and read my ruminations - Thank you!

Looking at your 'ordinary', and honouring it - recognising how special it really is - is something I thoroughly recommend....try it today.

The Whispers Collaboration Continues....

2011-05-03T10:31:00.000+10:00

A while back, we talked about the Whispers Collaboration. As I mentioned, I can't say too much - it's all top secret squirrel business! This page belongs to Shelly Fitzgibbons (you can find out a little bit about Shelly on the Artist Profile page of the Whispers blog), and I struggled for a while with the one clue on the clue book, and the page from the artist ahead of me...trying to figure out what her theme might be.

Once I settled on my decision, I needed an image - thanks to my young friend Nicki, who kindly agreed to pose for me; the piece was on it's way. What you see here is a small cropped segment from the larger piece...sorry I can't show you any more! It's harder than I ever imagined to keep this all hush-hush...and sniffing out the original artists theme may prove to become more and more challenging as the collaboration moves along, and we get further from the first artwork. But, I guess in the tradition of the game which was our inspiration - Chinese Whispers - it will be all the more entertaining if we get horribly off track!

With this ring...

2011-04-19T16:28:00.002+10:00

Things have been a little quiet here on the blog lately...there are a number of reasons for that, but the best one is because 'Pa' and I have been preparing for something big.

Something important.

Something wonderful.

And last weekend, it was time for us to dress up and enjoy that something...(pity I didn't take the sunglasses off from around my neck before the beautiful Cassie snapped our picture as we left the hotel!)...

Our firstborn married his princess...the beautiful Leah. I could say how beautiful she looked, but you can see that for yourself.

So could Fraser! His expression as she made her way to him made my heart happy. 'Cos his heart looked happy - know what I mean?

Wow...it's a pretty big deal to watch your child become a husband - a wonderful, heart warming, happy, beautiful, big deal.

We all loved every minute of it... My 'boys' and I...

And our middle princes princess... (I couldn't leave Caitlyn out - she's more or less family by now...)

But none more, I don't believe, than the Bride and Groom...

Thank you so much for letting me share our happy day with you here - You all feel like a special part of my family, and it seemed the right thing to do to share this special day with each of you.

Discovering Beauty on Rubbish Duty

2011-04-04T16:19:00.001+10:00

Here's what I found the other afternoon on the way to the rubbish bin (which lives at the extreme back corner of the backyard) ...astonishing fungus living on a tree trunk. The colours and matte, furry texture were beautiful. Subtle, earthy and somehow gentle. (Unlike myself, with my bin liner full of smelly rubbish, and a little grumbly about tedious chores interrupting precious studio time!)

Closer inspection revealed many clusters around the trunk. There'll be a naturalist or biologist who could tell you many useful and interesting things about this...that wouldn't be me though! What I can tell you is that it was beautiful - it caught the light and kind of shimmered and glowed - which these photos don't really capture well enough...

What I can tell you is that even when you have to stop doing what you love, to go and do what you must, you can be surprised and delighted by the things you find on the way.

Here's to delightful discoveries - may you have one today!

An Afternoon by the Billabong

2011-03-21T16:39:00.001+10:00

Have I ever told you that we have a Billabong behind our house? No? How remiss of me! Our Billabong is what we call an anabranch of the Dawson River. When the river level is relatively 'normal', this water course becomes a series of water holes, which progressively dry up the longer they are without a fresh flow. Some of the holes have never been dry in living memory. Throughout the past twelve months none of these holes have dried up! In fact, we haven't seen the bottom of this waterway for months.

There is a road across to a couple of thousand acres of land in the vicinity of these pictures - our Princes have been working hard with truck, tractor and skid steer loader for weeks, trying to reclaim the track, so as to be able to fix fences and get a crop in over there. So far, they're not really winning.

A couple of our canine companions came for a wander with me the other day - to check out the progress and inspect at close range what metres and metres of water have done down here... This mat of twigs and debris around the base of a few spindly trees was fascinating.

The Billabong has always been a peaceful place - there's a quiet calm down there - cool in the heat of the afternoon, a trickle of water, the buzz and him of insects. It's pretty soothing really.

Unless you take Darla along, which turns it into an hilarious adventure, as she bounces - like Tigger in Winnie the Poo - chasing birds in the long grass and racing along the top of the washed out bank, trying desperately to figure out just how she can get back down to Grandma...

I love the peacefulness of the Billabong, but I love laughing at the antics of our animals even more! Good medicine, any way you look at it!

Art and Soul Workshop

2011-03-11T15:18:00.000+10:00

Last weekend, artist Sarah Larsen, from Thangool, travelled to Theodore, having offered to run a free Art and Yoga day for residents of Theodore and surrounds, in the wake of the December/January floods. After a beautiful Yoga session (which I have no photos of - mostly because I was blissed out on the floor, relaxing, after enjoying much bending stretching and twisting...) it was down to Art business...Sarah began by showing us how to make marks with charcoal, and set us to work making as many different marks on our sheet of cartridge paper as we could in a short amount of time. Fun!

Our efforts were all unique - every one's marks very much their own. What Sarah did notice though, was that all these sheets bore marks that were twisted, tangled and somewhat reminiscent of flood debris...hmmm....interesting...

As the day progressed, Sarah demonstrated some techniques and encouraged us all to explore...

We worked on heavy brown paper with charcoal, white and black gesso, adding torn papers and some acrylic paint towards the end. I couldn't resist this image of the old aluminium teapot against the work on the brown paper...what a neat water container!

This is my young friend Andrea (whom you've met here before) at work on her piece. The most fascinating part of the day (for me, anyway...) was when Sarah 'interpreted' every one's works. We spent the day working very freely, feeling no pressure to make it look like anything or be anything - after all, this was just brown paper and charcoal...nothing precious, no expensive materials. We just followed a few directions, and before we knew it, papers were covered in marks, motifs, symbols and scribblings. To Sarah, these marks were clues, telling her stories about each of us. I can't speak for the others (I darted off the next morning to visit my Mum and go in search of something to wear to our firstborns wedding, so haven't had a chance to chat much with the other participants), but I, for one, found this to be a very cathartic experience. I became aware of a few things that had been bubbling under the surface for a while, and the act of creating something around them simply allowed me to let them go. I have long had a great belief in the healing nature of the creative act, and this wonderful day once again assured me that there is tremendous power in the act of creation.

We had to have a clean up (I think all our hands looked pretty much like Meredith's...) before we settled in with a Yoga session to finish. It was a wonderful day, full of laughter, sharing, learning, exploring and perhaps the occasional tear. Our most heartfelt thanks to Sarah who really gave up two days to give us this one day. Also to the generous (anonymous) lady in Sydney and the Theodore District Health Council, who together funded the materials, and incidental costs so that Sarah could deliver the day as she hoped for it- with no cost or preparatory stress to participants. As a community, we continue to be humbled and overwhelmed by the generosity of others - many of them strangers - as we go about reclaiming our town, lives and livelihoods in the wake of the floods. There is a box of left over materials from the day, and we plan to get together and continue to explore creatively. Who knows, perhaps the world will come to know some new artists as a result of all this?

The Next Collaboration

2011-02-24T15:39:00.000+10:00

The studio has seen a frenzy of paint, paper, packing tape transfers and walnut ink as I've been working on the pages for the Whispers Collaboration.

The reason that today's photo really shows you nothing much is important! This collaboration - with many of the artists from our last collaboration, plus a few more - is based on the game we all played as kids - Chinese Whispers. Instead of whispering the words to the artist beside us, we are whispering a theme, a visual interpretation of our intention, which only the artist alongside us gets to see, interpret, and then send their work to the the next artist. So, I can't in fact show you my page here...it is top secret! Instead, I'm sharing with you what's been left on the studio bench after I took the book pages away.

Just to tease.

Any guesses as to what my theme might be? I'm struggling with not being able to share this yet...not in my nature at all. And I wrote a kick-butt statement about it this morning!

As there are twelve of us, and we each have every book for a month, it will be such a long time before I can tell you much about it at all. Which will frustrate me, because I love to show you what I've been working away on. Creating can be a solitary pursuit, and I have come to look forward to sharing the fruits of that solitude with you here. I guess I'll just have to create more of the things I can share, to ease my angst!

There are some awesome artists in this collaboration...check out the Whispers Blog to learn a little more about them!

Coptic Book Binding

2011-02-10T10:18:00.001+10:00

A few days ago I had one of the best days in a long time...

One of the artists from our recent book collaboration, Ollie Bath, was the tutor for a Coptic Book Binding workshop, organised by Biloela Area Visual Artists - affectionately known as BAVA in these parts.

Ollie demonstrated how to cover the grey board to create the book covers...

and how to fold a delicious assortment of papers into 'folios' and 'signatures', mark, poke holes and - miraculously - hand stitch all the board and paper together to create a beautiful book.

Ollie, Judy & Liz surveying our days work...

Eight of us created these beautiful books with an assortment of handmade papers, scrap booking and specialty papers, tissue and mulberry papers, even sketch block papers torn out of the block and with the little holes from the spiral binding left on the edge (which, I have to tell you, is too cool for words when you flick through the book!)

Holding one of these in your hands imparts a kind of quiet contentment that is truly rare...It's hard to explain just what it is about these books, it's an intangible feeling. The weight of the book in your hand; the array of textures and colours...they have a special beauty I am clearly struggling to define!

I pick my new baby up at least three times a day...just to hold it and look at it. Soon I will decide what use to put it to - I think it is destined to be an art journal, but till then, I'll enjoy fondling it at every opportunity!

Thanks to Ollie and BAVA for a truly enjoyable day!

Believe...

2011-02-02T14:21:00.001+10:00

Believe Resin filled ring. 2cm x 4cm

Towards the end of 2010, I had some big plans for 2011. Then Mother Nature let me know in no uncertain terms that she had other ideas!

I have a New Year ritual that includes giving over a couple of long hours over a couple of days to cogitate, plan, dream and commit to my hopes and goals for the coming year. One way and another, those days near the New Year when I would have engaged in this delightful process were spent very differently!

Throughout the worst of the flooding, and subsequently, as we tackle the clean up and reclaim our livelihood and land, I became aware that I was often telling myself the equivalent of "Believe"...my self talk was, of course, more wordy and extensive than that one word, but there was a slow realisation that this one word was the essence of all the things I was telling myself.

So, my word for 2011 has become Believe. This resin filled sterling silver plated ring will be my constant reminder. The first piece to be created in my studio for 2011, and the first piece in a very long time I have created with the very specific intention of keeping for myself. The background is from a scan of an artwork I did last year. There is a little gold flake in there, along with my word, printed onto very aged paper.

Believe has some sisters, too.. Free, Together, Hope, Secret and Gentle.

These pieces were created without too much deep consideration of their 'words' - I pretty much picked up the words that seemed right for each of the artworks...yet, as I look at them together on the screen like that, there seems to be a story telling itself, and I like how I feel about that. These sweet babies will make their way into my Etsy store in the next little while (in fact Secrets has already been listed), but I wanted to share them with you, here, first....A sneak preview before the rest of the world gets a look, because you are very special to me, and your warm thoughts and encouragement have made my life so much richer and lovelier. Thank you. (Yes. YOU.)

Do you have a word for the year? I'd love to hear what it is....

PS. The lovely sterling plate bezels in these pieces came from Captured Moments Etsy shop, and Cindy is a delight to do business with!

Theodore, Queensland Christmas Floods - Fodder Drop in Action

2011-01-19T15:57:00.000+10:00

In an earlier post, I told you about some cattle we had stranded in the flood waters. I can now confidently report that they all survived, none were washed away, and we kept them fed through the particularly tricky period when there was nothing for them to chow down on like this:

A hay bale, slung by helicopter across the flood waters to their ever diminishing piece of ground. Yes, we had to get out of bed very early in the morning, to catch the chopper pilot before his day filled up with jobs - every one as important and critical as the next. There's a whole book that could be devoted to the wonderful work that teams of chopper pilots undertook throughout the area (and in fact, the whole state) in the course of this flooding. They evacuated people from their homes as it became unsafe to stay; they flew along power lines to disconnect power to pump motors that were going underwater, and to do what could be done to restore lost power; they delivered food and medical supplies to stranded and isolated families, they airlifted many precious pets to safety; and they fed those animals that simply could not be moved. These guys (I'm sure there are some girls among them, but our contact was all with guys...) became a link for many of us to the outside world - keeping us posted on what they could see from the air. To suggest they have become everyones heroes is not to understate a thing. Just ask our cows...Ask them how happy were they to see Jack headed their way, slinging breakfast underneath his bright yellow bird!

All the bales were strapped up, waiting for the hitch to the sling, we had more bales than straps though, so Jack had to land and drop off a set halfway through the operation.

Six bales went, one at a time. Each time, Jack hovers in close, one of our princes ducks in and attaches the hitch, and off he goes again.

Which is the moment that the ground crew launches into action to strap up the next bale.

Jack had dropped a guy over to the cattle before he started, to act as "Ground Crew" over there..so I don't have a shot of that to share with you. But, I can tell you that they were some real happy looking cows!

With the sun beginning to shine, Jacks first job for the day is complete...his sling delivered back to him, and he heads off to care for who knows how many other families and creatures in the course of the day. Thanks Jack. Thanks to every chopper pilot who tirelessly flew for weeks. You are all legends!

*A little PS....Many of you have commented here and contacted me offering all kinds of beautiful, wonderful, precious support and assistance - From the bottom of our hearts thank you. If you are keen to follow on with the progress of our little community, another of our local legends Fleur Anderson is caretaking the Theodore Rebuilds website, and updating the blog with the towns progress. We are, as a community, devastated by the loss of life and violent damage in the Toowoomba and Lockyer Vally area. We thought we had it tough here, until we were reminded that we are in fact, remarkably blessed. We all have our lives. We have homes - admittedly some need a lot of fixing, but they still stand. We hold those communities in our hearts as we begin to rebuild our own.

Theodore, Queensland Christmas Floods - This Town Will Bounce Back

2011-01-06T17:30:00.000+10:00

Maybe we should say - this town will splash back! However you choose to word it, Theodore is a community that won't stay down for long. Amazing things have been accomplished by this community over the years. Theodore has the only cooperatively owned Hotel in the Southern Hemisphere - owned and run by community shareholders, and putting a percentage of it's profits back into the community each year since 1949.

Our retirement village was built from funds raised by locals, augmented by State Government Funding. It has been managed by a local committee since it's establishment. A year or two ago, the State Government wanted to assume control over the village, presumably because of the funds they had contributed. The Theodore community set to and raised more money, paid the Government back it's contribution and retain control over the retirement village and welfare of own older generation.

A few years back, the Royal Flying Doctor Service (who, incidentally, are awesome) announced a requirement for the airstrip to be automatically lit for night landings, or they would be unable to service Theodore out of daylight hours. Guess what? Theodore got mobile, raised the $60,000 or so dollars, and lit the runway.

Are you picking up a theme here?

This is an awesome community.

We are lucky to have arguably the best rural general practice in Australia...this is how it looked last week. I believe there was a metre and a half of water through the surgery. Heartbreaking for our Doctor, Bruce Chater and his family, who have made Theodore their home for the past 30 odd years...Yet, almost every home in town was similarly affected...heartbreaking for everyone.

But...this is the sort of thing that happens in Theodore...our Post Office also sells fruit and vegetables. The owners were evacuated, along with the rest of the town, but contacted a local farmer who was able to access the shop by boat, and asked for him to get the fruit and vegies out, and distribute them to the police who remained to protect the town, and anyone else they could get them to. (The Post Office is a little higher than the other businesses in town, and luckily had no water in it - only under it).

I could tell you many, many stories of the generosity, thoughtfulness and general wonderfulness (I suspect that wonderfulness is not actually a word...but I actually don't care - it should be!) of the members of this community. As I write, there are many individuals working away: in meetings with authorities to sort out how to get our residents safely back in their homes; networking to co-ordinate temporary accommodation for those same residents while they get their homes clean and habitable again; researching all manner of information and possibilities to assist with rebuilding; and twittering, blogging and facebooking like mad to spread the word about the Theodore Recovery Appeal and the website, Theodore Rebuilds, which has information about the task ahead and stories and photos to give the world a first hand account - not only of how Theodore has been devastated, but also just how resilient this community is planning to be.

I'm not big on asking for help (in fact, if you ask those who know me well, you might find it's a pretty rare event), but, if you have a few dollars to spare, a donation to the Theodore Recovery Appeal would be something I (and the rest of our fabulous little community) would deeply appreciate. The fund will be overseen by a committee nominated by the community and distributed as fairly as possible (and voluntarily - so no administration fees!) quite likely through a voucher system, which can be used for purchases in Theodore's businesses...a twofold benefit - once for the recipient of the voucher, and again for the local business.

Yep, Theodore will be back. You can bet on it!

*Special thanks to my friend Diana for allowing me to share her photos with you here in this post...she and her husband (the local farmer I mentioned earlier) lost their entire cotton crop in these floods - after being hit very, very hard by flooding earlier in the year - two crops lost in succession...a blow that most farmers around here have sustained. Yet, they are busy caring for other families and doing all they can to get things back to normal as quickly as possible...This place is brimming with wonderful people!

Theodore, Queensland Christmas Floods - A Purely Personal Perspective

2011-01-03T10:25:00.001+10:00

Settle in...maybe grab a coffee...this might take a minute...

See that water up there? Almost looks pretty doesn't it? Trouble is, we normally can't see water there - at all. Usually, this is a very deep, mostly dry waterway, which runs a few meters of water after heavy rain. Right now, it's over 13 metres deep. Usually, we see trees, rocks, and the other side (which is where the trees are up to their necks in water). Usually, this waterway is around 50 metres across. Right now, it's possibly 7km to the nearest terra firma. This floodwater has just totally devastated our beautiful little town of Theodore. The entire population was evacuated by helicopter last week - even the dogs and cats. The whole town went under water. We're a bit stunned. No flood has ever reached anything like these heights...in our brighter moments, we feel awed to be witnessing history. Then, there are our other moments...

like the moment we realised my sister and her family were being airlifted here - to escape the rising floodwater from their home an hour downstream, having watched their entire cotton farm slowly drown (this happened before it became obvious that our whole town was in the same predicament)...and the moment we became aware of just how much water was coming downstream at us, and we had 300 head of cattle on an island that would very likely be washed away...and the moment we heard that someone downstream had 1,100 head of cattle washed away (that made our 300 head seem insignificant!)...and more moments than I can recount that continue to drive home the enormity of all this.

Yet, we consider ourselves very, very lucky. While we have concerns for some cattle, and miles of fencing and roads washed away; our home is out of the floodwater, our power supply (to our eternal thankfulness) has been constant. While we lost our telephone service to our home, we still have mobile signal...

Sort of! Here's "Pa" accessing signal outside our car shed...Our options to pick up phone service are the attic window, and out here...guess which technique I employ? While it becomes a little frustrating, it helps keeps us in touch with the outside world, with all the beautiful souls checking on us (Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to each and every one...)

And, we have a plentiful supply of insect repellent! The sandflies are beyond description...

And...while all this horror unfolds around us, my baby is safe and sound and home with us. He surprised us by arriving home early - in time for Christmas...in fact in time to get here! A day later and he'd have been stuck hours from here, for heaven knows how long.

We are, indeed very, very fortunate. Sadly, most of our community hasn't been so lucky. Over the next few days I hope to share some more images and stories with you.

A trust fund has been set up to collect donations towards the rebuilding of Theodore. Details can be viewed at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Theodore-Recovery-Appeal/172433992794714#!/pages/Theodore-Recovery-Appeal/172433992794714

Not Your Average Driveway...

2010-12-19T13:29:00.000+10:00

It's wet in these parts...real wet. See the road behind the Toyota, the road that disappears into the water? That's the road into our home - our "front drive". We took this pic a couple of weeks ago. If that vehicle were parked in the same place today, it would be under metres of water. Yep, it's wet. "Dig out your floaties and life jacket" wet. "Grow webbed toes" wet. "Go stark raving mad" wet!

And rainy...

And our road to home looks like this. Fortunately, we have another road - one that looks just like this one - that we can get out of here on. In fact that's really fortunate, because we haven't been able to drive out our 'front' drive for months...and if it keeps raining like this, I suspect we won't be travelling down that road anytime before Easter. Seriously!

Maybe you remember earlier in the year, when we had a huge flood? Well, this flood has been almost as big as that was.

Wet weather has some interesting impacts on life around here... eventually it gets too wet to go mustering and the cattle yards become way too wet to work cattle in. Trucks really can't get in or out, and it becomes difficult to do too much at all,besides some maintenance in the shed. My 'boys' get antsy, bored, frustrated and start to look like this...

They come inside, looking for food to distract them - today , it was pikelets, I'm almost certain there'll be a request for scones tomorrow. Which might cause that troubled expression above to cross my face! I've read that in the deep winter in parts of the world that get lots of snow, people can get Cabin Fever. Now, we don't have a cabin, but everyone around here is beginning to get a little feverish...

On the upside...our backyard is sooo green! (By the way, can anyone tell me how to rescue that sad Gardenia in the foreground? All her leaves are turning yellow...and as a gardener, I make I great artist!)

My Nana used to tell people "Tracey doesn't even live on a street - she lives in the middle of a paddock!"

Well, Nana, it's starting to look a lot like I live in the middle of a puddle! And that long driveway of ours hasn't thrown up a cloud of dust in a long time...But...our cows are getting fat with all this green grass, our dams are full (overflowing, technically) our rainwater tanks likewise. My garden is becoming very leafy and lush, with lots of fresh, new growth. When it dries out, we'll have wonderful sub soil moisture to plant some crops on...there is much to be thankful for...But can I please get a leave pass from the kitchen?

The Joy of Collaboration

2010-12-07T16:48:00.000+10:00

In April 2009, Journeys was created. Destined to be the repository of a dozen artists interpretation of the theme, Journeys was my book for the Altered Book Collaboration

I began with a spread in honour of my then recently departed sister in law, (you can read about the creation of the book here) and took a deep breath and sent the book off on it's very own journey. The collaborators are from Biloela, Rockhampton, Yeppoon, Melbourne, Brisbane, and one travelled the world while involved in this experience! I believe Journeys was worked on in Texas USA at one point!

Journeys came back home to me in June...A priceless treasure, full of inspiration, dreams, fears, adventures and so much more. It fascinated me how so many of the contributions in some way echoed my original inspiration...the preciousness of family, the sorrow of loss, the confused sense of self that can be experienced at times of change...as well as the joy of finding a life partner and the thrill of discovering new places...I've lost track of the number of times I've picked it up and pored over it - every time I look, I discover some nuance or detail that is new to me.

So, it was with tremendous delight that I recently headed to Brisbane to meet up with my fellow collaborators! Until now, I had only met three of the other artists, and had grown to 'know' the others through their work as each month a new book would arrive to be added to and sent on. Meeting everyone (except Shelly, who was having Thanksgiving in Texas with her new fiance's family) was a wonderful, energising and inspiring experience. We all agreed that being involved in this collaboration had been such a great experience that we all wanted to 'do it again'. So, we headed to "Era" somewhere in South Brisbane...don't ask me where...I was a bit bushwhacked by then!...and proceeded to discuss our plan of attack...

Jen and Peta, with Kristen behind attempted to demonstrate how the next collaboration would move among us...

Nanette and Olley, with Helen in the background explored the nitty gritty...(incidentally, Helen was kind enough to give us a bed in Brisbane - what a treat it was to visit her home! And what a generous woman to open her home to a couple of birds she'd never met!)

Tamara and Kristen listen carefully to Peta (our intrepid co-ordinator). Jen listens carefully, while I'm engrossed in what's being said on the other side of the table.

Our next collaboration is as yet, unnamed, but will involve a twisted version of Chinese Whispers...lots of secret squirrel business, and I suspect plenty of attempts to throw one another off track! Each artist will choose a theme, create a page and send that to the next artist, without disclosing the theme...The next artist is to interpret what they think the theme is, create a page and send that on (minus the original, which will be sent back to the artist who created it)...and so on, we are intrigued to imagine how the last of a dozen works will relate to the first after being through twelve sets of hands and minds!

I headed to Brisbane full of anticipation (and a little bit of nervousness...) I came home feeling that I had met some new, wonderful friends. There were eleven of us, we spent most of the day together, in a seamless, effortless flow of conversation, ideas, and fabulous creative energy. In the course of the collaboration, there were times I was fearful I wasn't up to the task, yet the support and encouragement from this group of people I barely knew at the beginning moved me though, and I'm so grateful to each of them...

If you ever get the chance to be involved in a collaborative effort - I'd encourage you to grab it and go for it....you'll stretch, bend, discover you can do things you may not have believed you could, and I just bet you'll make some fantastic new friends in the process.

All In A Day's Work...

2010-11-23T18:12:00.000+10:00

Our Middle Prince is very attached to his dogs. This one's name is Demon. His middle name is Derek. We may have the only dogs in the district who have been given second names...But that's not really the point. The point is, Demon Derek went mustering with his Dad yesterday...

He joined some other dogs, and men on horseback to get the job done. Then he smelt a pig. Not your cute, pink, farmyard variety pig, but a big, stinky, ugly, mean, feral pig.

With tusks.

Big, sharp tusks.

I don't have a photo of this pig for you - there's a number of reasons for that. Firstly, I wasn't on the scene at the precise moment of combat. Secondly, you really don't want to see how everyone looked when the encounter was over. Trust me on this.

I arrived after receiving an agitated phone call from the middle prince (by the way...what did rugged, outback mustering men do before mobile phones???) "Come down here quick, a pig just ripped my arm open"...well, if I'm truly frank, there was some slightly more colourful language in there, but this is a family blog, so we'll leave that to your imaginations.

It transpired that Demon Derek - the naughty little fellow - decided he'd rather have a fight with the pig than muster the weaners, and possibly bit off more than he could chew...not difficult since he really has no teeth to speak of. My poor kid flew in to save his dog; his dog let go of the pig; the pig swung around and with his mean, ugly, disease infested tusk ripped open my precious baby's arm!

Eleven stitches, a tetanus booster and a course of antibiotics later, Demon Derek's Dad was home from the medical centre. He threw down a couple of painkillers - and went back to work. As you do.

"Dad, I'm real sorry...I promise I won't go chasing pigs when I'm supposed to be mustering weaners ever again"

Yeah. Right...

**The photos for today's post were taken by the Middle Prince's Princess..thanks my sweet girl!**

2010-11-16T18:31:00.001+10:00

Something I really enjoy is to pore over photographs of the spaces where others live and work...especially artist's studios.

I've recently been enjoying the latest edition of Studio's, published by the Cloth Paper Scissors magazine team. It inspired me to have a bit of a clean up and sort out a few problem areas in my own studio, and I thought that if I enjoy checking these things out...then maybe you would too.

So, welcome to a quick guided tour of my creating space...now with all the drawers labelled so I can lay my hand on everything at warp speed!

On my painting/collage desk pens, scissors and satay sticks occupy a funky mug all the way from West Yellowstone, Montana. I love the moose and the colours... Brushes live in a rectangular glass vase, with smaller ones in another bottle, adorned with some glass beads put together by my Mum. There's a gorgeous little deck of cards given to me by my special friend, Ralda...the one on top just now says: "Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished"

I just realised that this corner has a Ralda gift in it too! The mug holding my pliers has a bit of a girlfriend theme - I was broken hearted when it developed a crack and no longer held my morning tea...but eased my angst by realising it could be put to use here. The green page with the eyes is my most recent art journal page...I think there may be something revealing about my current state of mind here - if only I could work out just what it is!

This room is something of a haven from the clatter and confusion of daily life around here...filled with treasured books, journals, art work of my own, and - of more pleasure to me - many others. My Dad built the trolley you can see by the big window, a pew style seat and blanket box which serve as a spot to sit and contemplate, and the white shelf/hanging rack beside the sewing machine. My Mum decoupaged the old music case on top of the bookshelf - I'm just realising that it deserves a photo of it's own...you really can't see here how beautiful it is! There are photo frames from good friends, tiny ceramic drawers given to be by my husband's sister before she died...the more I look, the more special and wonderful things I find.

I'd love for this space to have a name...but haven't yet come up with one...have you got any suggestions?

2010-11-11T12:27:00.000+10:00

Allow me to introduce Albert.

Bert to his mates.

Bert came to live with us last week. He is, apparently, our baby's new dog. The curious thing about this circumstance is that our baby is still in Canada - and will be for another couple of months. It would seem the wonders of modern technology know no bounds - one can procure a new dog from the other side of the world...even have it delivered to your parents...all with the click of a Facebook button! In case you're wondering, Bert is short for Albert, is short for Alberta, which is the Canadian Province our baby has been living and working in since March.

Happily for Bert...he is a sweetie. His dad is a German Shorthaired Pointer, his mum a working Kelpie cattle dog. The hope is that the cattle dog part will enable him to be a little bit useful working cattle...time will tell.

We took a little time out the other day and took him to the river for a swim...he thought I had placed my towel on the sand for him to dry off on...and proceeded to slide down the sand, somehow leaving the towel in place. It totally mystifyied me. As did his arrival!

But I'm glad he's here....it gives me something to hug and talk to while I wait (not terribly patiently) for his master to come home...

Bert, meet your new owner...I know, it won't be right till you can sniff him...but he's a nice looking guy, isn't he? And his Mum misses him....lots. Not to mention she needs photos of him that aren't over a year old!

Fresh Eyes Get Busy In My Button Box

2010-11-05T18:47:00.000+10:00

I was lucky to have my young friend Andrea visit the other day. Andrea shared her scarf knot with us all earlier in the year, and she is a clever little chicken, as is evidenced by this drop dead gorgeous necklace she made during her visit! We were chatting away in the studio, she spied my button box (in reality there are button boxes...) and wondered if she might string some of them up in to a necklace? Of course! So she set to work, with wire, buttons and beads... and look what she created! It was such a treat to watch her sift through the piles of buttons that have been sitting idle in those boxes for years (and when I say years - I mean generations!) and bring to life something as special and unique as this - something I would never have created with them in a million years!

There were buttons from dresses my Nana made 40, maybe 50 years ago, charms I've had in that box for well over 20 years...

And an earring I believe belonged to my Aunty Myrtle - long since having lost it's back, and a few 'stones' from the setting. All cast off's and bits and pieces that have been saved for "something someday"...but I've never done a thing with them. I'm thrilled that this beauty is out in the world now, and no longer shut away in a box!

One of my favourite things in the world is to watch someone else create - it's such a fascinating process, and each of us approach a pile of materials in a way that is totally unique to ourselves. We can learn such a lot, and have our thinking expanded considerably when we watch someone else's synapses firing.

Thanks, Andrea...I enjoyed watching your necklace take shape more than you know!

New Gallery Page - All The Art In One Place

2010-10-30T13:09:00.000+10:00

Meet Garfield - or 'Garfie' to those of us who know and love him. He works really hard. See?

It's rumoured that he can heal a broken heart, and our middle Prince's special girl has suggested to Garfie that he run workshops on how to be the perfect man. (I did point out that for all Garfie's ability to make a girl feel like the only woman on earth he cares for - he does have trouble taking out the garbage).

While Garfie has been working flat out for his fellow man, I've spent the morning creating a gallery page here on my happy little blog. Lots of images of my artwork all in one place. There are a couple of links to the stories behind pieces and step by step lessons, so the background of the pieces is easy to find.

You can access the Gallery page in the "Gallery" tab across the top of the page here. Hope you like it! I'm also contemplating adding some more pages over the next little while - so if you have any suggestions for special pages you'd enjoy to look at here, shout out in the comments and I'll see what we can do.

Thursday's Country Life - Happiness Is...

2010-10-28T10:01:00.000+10:00

Here's "Pa" (He isn't actually any one's Pa...but our son's beautiful ladies call him Pa, and it's kind of sticking.) I married him a long time ago. In fact, we're still married. Which I guess is why I answered the call to leave my studio and take a 4 wheeler motorbike miles from home for the purposes of one of the boys doing a quick lap to check for any stray cattle. While we waited, he sat under the tree, with his cows penned up in the square, and had a 'deep and meaningful' with Spud, while Dozer stayed close by. I know...who names these poor dogs? Not me! it's possible that "Pa" is as happy right here in this photo as he ever is anywhere. Faithful hound? Check. Trusty Steed? Check. Cows? Check. Wife close at hand? Check. Son's working alongside? Check. Yep. Happy as a clam. There's not much else this precious soul needs in the world (except perhaps an old western movie and ice cream).

Spud is probably pretty happy too...Can't say what he went chasing to collect that cobweb and bit of fluffy nonsense on his nose, but he's just had a big old ear scratch and yarn with the boss, so all is right in his world.

The 'girls' are pretty happy too - more lush green feed than they've seen for years, and they're about to have an adventure! In a minute, they'll leave their paddock and have a walk through a couple more to get to the yards for a swim...well, maybe jumping into a plunge dip designed to kill the ticks isn't quite the poolside adventure they dream of, but it's a change of scenery. And I'm certain that being tick free makes them very happy! I know I'm always really excited to be tick free...In fact, when you're having a bad day, things seem much better when you stop and say to yourself "I'm so thankful I don't have ticks".

Try it sometime soon!

Avoiding Drudgery with Photoshop Elements

2010-10-23T15:45:00.001+10:00

Because I should be doing a hundred things I'd rather not do today...I've been playing in Photoshop Elements (does anyone else out there practice work avoidance like this? Or am I truly an undisciplined, unmotivated sloth? - On second thoughts, don't answer that, I think I already know!)

I discovered some free Photoshop elements actions from Ree Drummond over on The Pioneer Woman Blog - I've been a reader of PW's for some time now...Ree is married to a cattle rancher in Oklahoma, and our lives share some parallels...endless laundry, mud and manure stained men and children and lots of food - difference is, she's a great cook, and seems to enjoy it! Plus, she cracks me up...

I used her Lovely and Soft action, followed by her Vintage action to pretty up the scenery from around our workshop shed...

I'm not sure how much 'serious' use I will have for these tricks...but it's been fun to spend a little while playing... and I love to share my fun - and my earth shatteringly wonderful discoveries - with you!

Ice Resin Adventures

2010-10-21T12:35:00.000+10:00

Finally, the bezel is complete, the collage cut and placed, and, the most exciting part - the resin is poured! It's a little hard for you to see in these photos, but the Ice Resin used here domes up beautifully, dries crystal clear and is generally just fun, neat stuff! This little tower piece was done as class work from the Of Towers and Turrets workshop, I talked about a month or so ago.

There were a few other bezels hanging around the studio...pendant forms and ring forms, so I figured I'd set up a few pieces to pour while I was mixing the resin and had a batch on the go. I discovered - much to my delight - that Ice Resin is really quite easy to work with, and gives a fabulous finish. I also discovered that it is very effective as the permanent final resting place for wayward bugs! I'll be a little more careful about removing the lamp from over the pieces (a very effective way to eliminate the tiny air bubbles that rise up as it sets) before the evening influx of winged creatures that seems inevitable in this neck of the woods! Not to mention, be a little quicker to carefully place the upturned plastic container to protect the resin filled pieces from said insects, dust and the inquisitive fingers of grown men who seem unable to resist touching!

An accidental discovery was that the resin renders the paper from old books quite translucent, so where I added the word 'searching' it seems more part of the piece than it would have if I'd coated it with some gel medium before pouring the resin, which is what was done with the collage papers, so as not to let the ink run and get all muddied up and sad. What a happy discovery!

I think my favourite is "Searching" with that eye peering out at you, which is in fact a detail of work in one of the Altered Book Collaboration books, titled "While You Were Sleeping". Which is your favourite?

Of Steeds and Sandflies

2010-10-12T14:15:00.000+10:00

We've really been enjoying a wet spring here. There is a downside, however, as evidenced by the horses gathered together next to the smoke fire...

Sandflies.

Hate 'em.

Horses hate 'em even more!

Thanks to wonderful spring rain, the Dawson river has been running well, which sadly means that as the water level falls, the sandflies hatch and drive everything within cooee of the river totally nuts. Me, the men who share my days, our dogs, cattle and most of all, these noble and wonderful creatures are driven to distraction by the little suckers. And believe me, they suck...your blood right out! They are tiny, tiny insects who undoubtedly have a fascinating life cycle what with laying their eggs - which can lay dormant for years - in the muddy river bed which are hatched to life by the rolling and friction of the running water.

They get in your ears and up your nose and bite! But, they seem to be deterred by smoke, which is where the smoke fire comes in...the horses come to the yard right behind our garden and congregate where they know some loving soul will build them a fire they can huddle in to get some respite from the tiny, nasty, black beasts.

Of course, they do have their own in built mechanisms for swishing annoying bugs, but the tail swish on it's own is just not sufficient to make life tolerable at the height of sandfly activity!

So, while they enjoy the relief the smoke fire offers, standing around it in a huddled mob day... after day... after day... after day, becomes somewhat tedious for our equine friends...so they start to chew on the trees. See all those little scrape lines in the trunk? Teeth marks. Lots of them.

I'm pretty sure this beautiful girl is trying to tell me something...What are those soulful eyes trying to say?

I bet it's something like "I'm going crazy...you wanna come?"

Honey, I'm right there with you!

Collage Sheets with Your Own Artwork Using Photoshop

2010-10-10T13:32:00.000+10:00

It's possible you won't recognize the painted background I showed you a few weeks ago as being the background to this collage - I almost feel sad that I covered it up. But, that was the next step towards making my tower pendant, so cover it up I did! Now, I have to share with you that I'm really not happy with the face...But, faces are something I have gone out of my way to avoid for years, and I've decided that I can do it...I just need to get instruction and practice.

And practice...and practice...

And one day I'll paint a face I'm really happy with...maybe not this week, but some day!

However, I posted this image not to share with you my insecurities about my face rendering abilities, but to give you a quick 'how to' on creating a collage sheet...Now this was fun!

Firstly, scan your original artwork and save the file in your desired folder. Then crop some 'sweet spots' as Sharon Tomlinson calls them, being super careful to save the crop as a different file name and reverting the image to the original after each crop (I had to scan my image twice...because I didn't quite follow that step!)

I cropped lots

and lots

of very sweet spots...

I wanted plenty of options

to work with

and these...

aren't all my sweet spots!

But, I'm thinking by now...

You get the idea!

The fun really starts when you crank up Photoshop (I used Photoshop Elements 7).

Open all your cropped images, and your original if you like, in your project bin at the bottom of the screen. Click on File in the top left hand corner, click New, then Blank File. Activate the Move Tool in the tool bar on the left of the screen at the top. Now, click on a cropped image, drag and drop it onto the screen, resize it to your hearts content, click on the green tick when you're happy with the size and shape and move on to the next one. you can fill your whole page with different sized crops. Save your collage sheet as a JPEG file, and you're good to go nuts and print it up! I found the print quality was better if I closed out of photoshop and printed from Windows Photo Gallery - but experiment and see what gives you the best results.

This might be old news to some of you more technically literate among us, but it was a revelation to me! I hope it's a revelation to someone else out there too!

Time to head back to the studio and play with some resin! Stay tuned for a completed tower pendant in the very near future.

Fun with Fabric Paint

2010-10-06T16:35:00.000+10:00

A little while ago (I've been intending to post about this for ages) I had a great day with Gail Van Itallie and some of the BAVA members at Gail's place in Biloela, playing with the Genesis Creations range of fabric paints. We scrunched, and sprinkled salt, folded, wrapped and generally manipulated fabric in all sorts of ways and created some pretty awesome looking painted fabrics.

Kym grabbed my camera and snapped me posing with this bit of fabric I was very excited about... what do you think I should use it for? I'm having trouble deciding!

Kym (left) and Gail cuddled up beside the shaving foam...Yes, we marbled fabric using shaving foam as a medium to 'float' the paint...works a treat (and smelled kind of good too...) It's possible that there may have been quite a lot of laughing and mucking around going on in Gail's house that day...But what cracked me up most of all was the 'craft paper'...

It began the morning as what we all recognized as a roll of toilet paper. Gail held it up, as if it were a science exhibit, and said "This is toilet paper".

Then, she laid it on it's side, squished down hard and fast with her hand and said "Now it's craft paper!"

I learned so many things that day! And, I ordered a bunch of paints, which are still in their package on a shelf in my studio...One day very soon, they will be liberated from their nesting place and used in the manner which they were intended. I'll let you know how that goes...

1000 Journal Project

2010-10-03T15:19:00.001+10:00

Today's photo is part of the Altered Book Page I did for Peta as part of our Altered Book Collaboration. I loved being involved in the collaboration - really enjoying the journalling nature of it all.

My parents recently loaned me a DVD they thought I might enjoy called 1000 Journals. They were right! I found it quite fascinating. Some of you may have heard or read about this project - a gentleman, going by the name of 'Someguy', created 1,000 blank journals and set about sending them out into the world, with their individual number recorded inside along with the website details to visit and 'report' on the journals location and progress. The idea is for the journals to be worked in by a variety of people and his wish is that at least some of them might find their way back to him when they are full. According to the documentary, he has had four returned and is working on getting them exhibited somewhere - no small undertaking considering there are 1,000 in the 'collection' and he has no notion of the whereabouts of the other 996!

First and foremost , it is a quite fascinating glimpse into human nature...the generosity of some, the selfishness of others, the ego and, sadly, even the cruelty that we humans can be capable of.

Some people drew, some painted, some pasted in bits of ephemera, others wrote...a fascinating range of styles, techniques, themes and ideas appear through out the story.

Here is what the website has to tell us about the Project:

About The 1000 Journals Project

The 1000 Journals Project is an ongoing collaborative experiment attempting to follow 1000 journals throughout their travels. The goal is to provide a method for interaction and shared creativity among friends and strangers.
How it Works:
Those who find the journals add something to them. A story, drawing, photograph, anything really. Then they pass the journal along, to a friend or stranger, and the adventure continues.
Unfortunately, you've got a better chance of winning the lottery, then of getting a hold of a journal. That's the problem when there are only 1000 of them. Now, you're best bet is to check out 1001 Journals where you can sign up for a journal, or launch your own traveling, location, or personal journals.

I enjoyed our collaboration so much, and a large part of that was that each month, I met a new collaborator on the pages of the book in my hands, and over time, came to know each artist better and better by seeing more of their work with each book. I wonder what it would be like to be involved in a collaboration where you might never see the finished product, or get to know any of your fellow contributors? I'm curious....curious enough? I haven't decided yet. What about you?

Raising the Towers...

2010-09-29T09:33:00.000+10:00

The Towers and Turrets are beginning to take shape. Or, at least a Tower has taken shape! This online class with Sharon Tomlinson and Deryn Mentock is a ton of fun, and I haven't had so much fun shopping for supplies in a long time! Check out my tools...

As well as all the pliers, cutters and stuff you see here, I am now the proud owner of a blow torch! Well, at least the little 'creme brulee' kind of torch.

The studio has seen much cutting, filing, hammering, drilling, soldering, riveting and the application of eyelets and tiny bolts and nuts to copper, brass and silver.

The first tower bezel is all ready and waiting for a piece of bright artwork to be slipped into the bottom and have resin poured into it. Exciting hey? Soldering that bezel was quite a task...made all the more interesting by the wrapt assistance of the men in my life. It's fascinating. They are surprisingly interested in this new direction, and I'm bemused by their excitement and interest in the fact that I've been shopping for tools that they can relate to. And are experts with. If you catch my drift... It would seem I didn't need to pay for a course - all I needed to do was ask them! But - don't tell them I said this - I've never seen anything as cute as this little darling come out of their workshop...

I think my favourite part is hammering the rivets out of a piece of wire - hand hammered rivets! Or, it might be wielding that cute little torch...or it could be drilling with the Dremmel tool...Oh hang on...my favourite part is when my wonderful men folk have left me with their sage and experienced advice and go back to their shed and leave me to play all by myself! (Love you to bits guys, but a girl needs to be in control of her own tools sometimes!)

He Man, Woman Hater Gate!

2010-09-23T12:07:00.000+10:00

Lately, we've been harvesting sorghum, which has required me to do a bit of driving around the place to help move tractors, fuel tanks, motorbikes and men. I've had to do battle with one of these wire gates too many times lately! After one especially frustrating attempt to close the cruel little sucker, I have re-named them.

He-Man,Woman-Hater-Gates.

(If you've never seen the movie Little Rascals, this name may not quite have the ring to it that I have in my own head - in this movie, a bunch of cute little children play at being very grown up, and the boys create a He Man, Woman Haters Club!)

Some people call them simply 'wire gates' - that doesn't go close to identifying the hideous nature of the beasts! Others refer to them as 'cockies gates' - presumably to reference the 'cow cockies' who build them, to keep cattle off their crops.

I personally think He-Man,Woman-Hater-Gate is the most accurate descriptive name possible! There are a lot of men around here - especially when it comes to working out in the paddock, and they cannot grasp the difficulty we girls, with our girl strength muscles and our feminine upper body strength have in maneuvering these nightmares of engineering on and off that skinny bit of pipe that holds them in place! These gates are constructed entirely of wire - barbed wire - attached to a steel post at the opening, which is stuck into a loop of wire close to the bottom of the strainer post it closes to, then pushed - and here is the part requiring the strength - until it's upright alongside the strainer post, then that skinny bit of pipe is sort of poked in behind the post and pushed around until the gate is tight, and hooked up on another loop of wire on the top wire of the gate. Once that pipe is in place, the whole thing is under quite a bit of tension, so that when you come back to open it again, you need to be very careful not to let it slip and slam into your lower ribcage. (Ask me how I know....)

I just re-read that, and I don't think it makes any sense...much like these wretched gates - but I can't fathom a clearer way to explain it! So, I apologize if all this post serves to do is bewilder you...my thinking was to share one more aspect of "Country Life" - albeit a totally frustrating one for me! In spite of the frustration, these are my rewards for struggling with the dastardly He-Man-Woman-Hater Gate...

Beautiful scenes of peace, quiet and abundance...so worth it...

The skin grows back on the knuckles, the bruises fade from the torso...but the beauty of this place lives in my soul.

Auction Action

2010-09-20T08:25:00.000+10:00

In my last post, I lamented having forgotten to take my camera to the Theodore Chamber of Commerce Colourful Communities Dinner. Well, Liz, one of the purchasers of my artwork on the night, had hers, and kindly sent me these photos to share with you. (Thanks so much Liz!). Bit of a pity I closed my eyes at the crucial moment though!

Here are the gentlemen in action... Murray- the auctioneer, Doug - the 'spotter', and on the stage behind them, Keith, who was the winning bidder on my artwork (and also happens to be married to Liz).

Keith is holding up a Wallabies* jersey, signed by this years Wallabies side, one of whom is young man named Robert Simmons who hails from Theodore and has had his first run on game with the team this year. Thanks to each and every one of the gents pictured here, the Chamber raised a lovely amount of money to put toward their tireless efforts to support the development of a vital and exciting community. I am so very lucky to live in such a wonderful place, surrounded by some of the greatest people on earth!

*For those of you unfamiliar with the Wallabies...they are the Australian Rugby Union Team, and Robert is a youthful 21 years old!

Self Awareness for Saturday

2010-09-18T10:07:00.000+10:00

Seekers Of A Lost Truth 50cm x 60cm

As an artist who has invested some time learning about art marketing from Alyson B Stanfield, I should have been prepared. I should have known to be prepared. But I so was not prepared! Perhaps it was because I was so preoccupied with creating the table centres for the Theodore Chamber of Commerce dinner, perhaps it was the thousand other things that have been going on and needing my consideration and attention or perhaps I'm just plain flaky...Whatever the reason, halfway through dinner, the auctioneer for the evening came to me and asked me what the piece I had donated for the auction was about.

How is it possible that I was siting there, stammering, opening and closing my mouth like a landed fish, with nothing sensible - let alone articulate and intelligent - to say?! Why hadn't I been prepared for this? Why hadn't I even given a passing thought to the fact I would need to be prepared for this? Good questions indeed - and no answers.

Thanks to the help of my good friend Kathy (who I have a lot more to tell you about very soon...) I managed to cobble a few thoughts together to help this poor fellow give the crowd a bit of a spiel about the piece before he started to call for bids - which to my immense relief came quickly and to a much bigger number than I'd ever imagined! I learned a couple of valuable things last night. Be prepared! I was a Brownie, Girl Guide and Ranger Guide in my youth...How is it I didn't have that down already?! It's next to impossible to articulate anything about something as deeply personal as a piece of artwork if you haven't given yourself the gift of a few moments to anticipate the kind of questions you'll be asked and how you might answer them - my head was so full of table centres, bankers, accountants, sons and loved ones that this piece of artwork had no place of it's own there all week.

The thing I found myself reflecting most deeply on though, was how very uncomfortable I felt with a few quite direct questions about "What does it mean?" Initially, my response was that while I may have something in mind as I created the piece, what was important to me was for each individual to experience their own response to it - that I hoped the viewer would interpret the piece in their own way - find their own unique meaning within it. I felt almost irritated that I was being interrogated and forced to 'explain' it in great detail. I later realised that the poor man was probably feeling a bit out of his depth, his auctioneering experience in the past heavily weighted to property, cattle and items with which he felt he had a greater understanding and knowledge of. He was just trying to get some information to help him do the job well (which, I must say, he did!). I thought a lot about my feelings of discomfort and difficulty expressing the meaning of the piece - then it struck me. If I could put it into words, I'd write it, not paint it! It's a feeling, it's broad and deep and powerful and in my heart I know exactly what it means, but I struggle to put words around it. I'd love to hear in the comments if you have these kinds of struggles...

Next time I donate a piece of work for auction, I'll take the time to provide a carefully worded, well prepared artist statement, just as I would for an exhibition. I will be prepared. And, I'll have a better idea of how to respond to "But what does it mean?" I'll also remember to take my camera, so I can share a photo of the lovely family the piece is going to live with!

Life's Promises

2010-09-02T15:50:00.001+10:00

Life's Promises 6 canvases 4" x 4" x1.5"

mixed media and acrylic on canvas

A very special person in my life just turned 21. She also happens to be even more special to our middle prince, so that gives you a clue who I painted these for!

My fondest wish is that she likes them half as much as I enjoyed creating them for her. 'Cos I really loved creating them...

I should offer a nod of thanks to our firstborn, who helped figure out the terribly complex mathematical geometry that left each diamond meeting up nicely with it's neighbour. (I know...it's not that hard! But some days my mind is full of too much turquoise and walnut ink to think straight!)

These just make my heart happy...I hope they make yours happy too.

Of Towers and Turrets

2010-08-30T17:13:00.000+10:00

How cool are these?

Deryn Mentock and Sharon Tomlinson are running an online class called Of Towers and Turrets, this photo comes from Deryn's Blog Something Sublime and I am very excited to tell you that I signed up and have been busy gathering supplies and painting backgrounds and collaging towers all weekend! So much more fun than pulling weeds and ironing! I keep hoping no one is heading this way to visit - it's getting to be a long time since I flexed my domestic goddess muscle! But I think it will be cooler to paint and resin a goddess than attempt to be one, anyway!

This class promises to offer a smorgasbord of techniques from collage to painting faces (which I am terrified of...but determined to master...) and from applying cold connections onto metals to setting artwork in resin in free form bezels. It sounds like so much fun! If you'd like to join the class, click on over to the class page. Things are already in full swing, but the class stays open till the end of December, so there's loads of time.

I thought I'd share with you my backgrounds, which are the first part of class. I've already picked up a few neat tricks...

If I go quiet here for a while, you may need to send a search party...they'll most likely find me under a pile of papers, metals and resin, sticky, smeary and blissed out!

Step by Step Scarf Lesson 2

2010-08-20T11:00:00.002+10:00

Yesterday, we stitched lots of ribbon onto some soluble film as the first step in creating a scarf. Today, thanks to my young friend Andrea, you get to see me cutting out lots, and lots, and lots of circles from silk fabric (It's possible I was about to topple off my chair from tediousness!)

But, how cute are they?! So, in the spirit of this being a 'lesson' and all...find yourself a couple of lovely fabrics, whose colours sing with your stitched down grid of yarns, and go ahead and cut out a bunch of circles. These are 3 different sizes and the templates I used were the bottoms of : a powdered stock jar, a tiny tea cup and a teeny tiny paint squirt bottle. Please don't ask me how many...I'd have to go dig out the scarf and count them...and numbers just don't make me happy! Trust your own sense of what looks good and what makes you happy...I'm all about making you happy.

Time for a little more stitching. This is my free machine embroidery foot on Bertha, my very old, and very trusty Bernina (poor Bennie - my trusty new Bernina had to go to the doctor for a check up; she's been feeling a bit scratchy lately.) You can use your machines free machining foot - sometimes called a darning foot and the Janome's call it a pogo foot. OR, you could use your ordinary straight sewing foot, and do a bit of straight stitching, throwing in some reverse and a few U turns. Till you get something that looks like this:

What you're aiming for here, is to stitch this darling little circle onto at least two different strands of the yarn underneath. also layer smaller circles over bigger ones and stitch them all in place, quite randomly across the whole scarf.

Time for the fun part! Get thee to the laundry tub, fill it up with cold water (that's what Romeo likes) and send your scarf for a swim!

The Romeo will dissolve, firstly by going kind of cloudy and gluggy (at which point you may feel dismay and panic - but don't! It's all OK!) The best thing is to pop the scarf into the water and nip outside to hang out your washing or fed the cat, or even better, make yourself a cuppa. My point is that you need to leave it to soak and soften and fully dissolve for a while. When you return, your scarf will look limp, saggy and sad. This is good. Empty the water out and run some fresh cold water over your glorious creation to remove any final traces of soluble.

Next - dry your scarf. I opted for a trip to the clothesline and the sunshine (wasn't it a beautiful day?) but, you can drape the darling over the back of a chair inside, or wherever it is you hang damp stuff to dry and drive your family nuts...

The finished product! There are a few straggly ends there that need to be trimmed off, and we're good to go. Have fun creating one of your very own!

Step by Step Soluble Scarf Lesson 1

2010-08-19T11:40:00.000+10:00

I have been promising...well, it's time to make good on the promise! Get settled in for part one of your very own soluble scarf lesson!

Begin by procuring some soluble film. There are a number of soluble films on the market, and if you're into research and discovery, you could test all of them to see which ones you like best, or, you can take my word for it that for this particular style of scarf, Romeo is best! I tell you this because it's reasonably heavy (in soluble film terms), tolerates a reasonable amount of humidity in the air and moisture on your hands without turning all gooey, sticky and generally disgusting while you're working on it. It can also handle quite a lot of heavy stitching without tearing - that's not such an issue with this particular scarf, but makes it a very versatile film.

The Romeo is the clear plastic looking stuff in the photo above, it is joined by some hand dyed silk ribbon/yarn, which will be the 'guts' of the piece, and some silk yardage, which will serve as the snazzy details.

Begin by cutting the romeo into a long, narrow rectangle (pretty much a scarf shape...who would have imagined?!) an inch or two bigger around than you want the finished scarf. If you need to create a bigger piece - just whiz it together with your sewing machine, one piece on top of the other.

This little foot is an optional extra. You can achieve the same result by carefully running the yarn under your normal machine foot, but if you have one of these - this one is on a Bernina - your life will be complete!

Now - get sewing! Feed your ribbon/yarn (sorry, I can't decide just what to call it...) through the little opening in your foot and start stitching rows of ribbon down the length of your Romeo.

Keep sewing...These are stitched lining up the edge of the foot with the next row of yarn - no more than a half inch gap between the rows.

OK, now it's time to change direction. The trick with soluble films is to create a net or grid effect, so that when the film is washed out, all your yarns and stitches will be well connected to one another. You'll see up in the top left hand of the photo that instead of cutting the yarn and starting again, I've just swung it around and left a loop - saves yarn and saves time - and I'm all about saving time! We'll just snip through those little suckers later on.

Here is the piece, all stitched up, it's 'guts' in place...ready for part two, which will involve that delicious looking silk from the first photo.

You'll notice that as it hangs around Audrey's neck, I've left some more spaces between those short runs across the scarf. You can go this way, or you can stick with the even, close together spacings right along...whatever blows your frock up really!

If you're hunting for Romeo (or, like me, live a long way from anywhere you can walk in and buy some), I can share with you that I get mine from Dale Rollerson at the Thread Studio. Dale looks after her customers wonderfully well, and has all kinds of treasures that I can't live without!

Lesson 2 coming up soon!

Bye Bye Babies...

2010-08-06T10:45:00.000+10:00

It's time to say goodbye...Minnie's babies are all heading out into the world, to discover their new families and homes. This photo does me in...how cute are they? So soft and snuggly and small and delightful and bright and fun...

Awww...

"No, it wasn't us who chewed your favourite shoes and demolished your new plant; and we would never leave unmentionable deposits beside your back door"...

Trust me when I tell you that as cute as they are, as adorable and fluffy and sweet as they look - I'm not going to be heartbroken when the last one leaves on it's journey to a new home in a couple of days. Puppies can be a joy - but man, they can be a force of destruction unlike any other (except maybe three year old boys - but those days are in my past, and that's where I'm content to leave them!)

They are cute though, don't you reckon?

Announcing...The Andrea Knot!

2010-08-02T15:58:00.000+10:00

Say hello to Andrea...Isn't she gorgeous?

The reason I'm introducing her to you (besides the fact that she's young, fresh, delightful, and you need to know her) is that she has created a remarkably snazzy scarf knot; and knowing that sometime in the near future you will know how to make your own unique scarf, I thought it would be great to share this nifty knot with you to use with your new scarves. You will know this in the near future, because if I ever remember to pick up my camera as I'm beginning to build a scarf, instead of as I'm almost finished it; I'm going to post a step by step scarf making post.

Andrea and I - among others - enjoyed a Girls Night In at Rhubarb last week, and I thought it was a great opportunity to snap her in her scarf so I could show you. Only problem was, I didn't take step by step photos (there's a pattern emerging here, isn't there?)

So, here's a closer look, and I'm going to attempt to explain it to you. If the following has you tied in knots, half strangled, and not looking this swish, let me know in the comments, and I'll get a step by step photo shoot going on my trusty studio companion Audrey. (Audrey is a dress form whose name is subject to change without notice!)

So...using a long, rectangular scarf, fold it in two, so the short ends meet. pop it over the back of your neck. Now, there should be a loop on one side, and two ends on the other. Take the end that is sitting underneath the two ends and slip it through the loop. Next comes bit that makes it all cool....Your loop will have a side more to the front and a side closer to your chest. Get hold of the piece that is sitting against your chest and gently lift it to the front of the side that's at the front - you'll make a figure of eight with the loop side, slip your hand through the new loop on your figure of eight and pop the remaining end through that loop. Gently pull it into position and tighten it to where you need it to sit, and you're done!

Andrea tells me she discovered this when she had put her scarf on in the traditional slip the two ends through the loop and head off way, and had one end slip out in the course of her day, and kind of tucked it in without looking and discovered it was totally cool - it looks almost like a plait, and I can report that when tied like this, your scarf won't move or slip (at least, none of mine do!)

Andrea has generously shared this knotty technique with me to share with all of you - all I ask is that it hereafter be referred to as The Andrea Knot. It happens that Andrea's surname is French...but I think French Knot is already taken!

A New, Fresh Look

2010-07-29T13:25:00.001+10:00

I'm pretty excited today! For a little while now, I've been communicating with Rachelle Sartini Garner from Owl and Bear on Etsy, and she has been toiling away, coming up with a fresh, new look for my marketing materials...How do you like my new Blog header; and what about this neat logo she's designed? I especially love this - I sent Rachelle some images of my work, and she picked up this pattern from the machine embroidery I had done on one of the surfaces.

The blog header, and my Etsy graphics all feature this detail of Cherish, which is, as you may know from my earlier posts on it, the piece of work of which I am most proud so far. Rachelle didn't know this when she chose it, but it seems like the perfect piece to be using.

So, it's just a quick post for today - to encourage you to have a dig around on the Etsy site - there are some wonderful artists lurking there, just waiting to make your dreams come true - whatever they may be! I truly cannot say enough lovely things about Rachelle - I was possibly not the easiest to please - I kept asking to tweak this, and change that, but she remained ever bright and eager to please - and please she did!!

I now have some work ahead of me getting my Etsy shop stocked up again and 'hanging' all my new graphics...sure beats getting stuff ready for the accountant at tax time, which is what I have been doing!

Blackall - A Cultural Community

2010-07-22T11:15:00.001+10:00

As promised, here's a peek at the Blackall Cultural Association's Centre, where I recently taught a couple of workshops. This terrific building is a great venue; with a good sized workshop space, a number of smaller rooms that are put to very good use as, among other things, a library, a dedicated patchwork and sewers space - even a lounge room and enormous kitchen. Also, there is accommodation for a number of visitors. I was lucky enough to get the double room with my own bathroom...very comfortable and cosy. The building was once a hostel for students who had to live in town to attend school. It's been taken over by the Cultural Association - a very busy and dynamic group, from what I could tell! While I was in town, they had a circus workshop and performance travel though, and the day after I left a Youth Orchestra arrived. There's plenty happening in Blackall - including these fabulous sculptures...

Jill took me for a tour of the towns art...impressive! Richard Moffat visited and as an artist in residence created this incredible eagle and nest from rusty, abandoned junk from peoples dumps. She sits metres in the air, surveying the river and quietly being just awesome...(Some of Richards work can also be found at The Priory at Bingie) Click on the photo for a better look at her body, which has been constructed from the blades off some kind of farm implement...very clever! (I'm secretly in love with this eagle, and want one for my own backyard! I'm not sure that any of the fellas around here were too enthusiastic when I suggested they give it a go though! Apparently they're more fond of chasing cows.)

Then there's this! A huge spinifex ball. All rusted wire wound just like the spinifex, sitting in the open a few hundred feet from the highway...as you can see, it looks magical in the evening light. I believe the original intention was for the ball to sit in the longer grass, but the local authority has cleared around it and put a road right up to it...which I can understand, I guess lots of travellers were hiking across the flat to get a better look - probably seemed sensible...but wouldn't it be cool sitting nestled in the grass?

There were other pieces of inspired art too...my favourite the horse, rider and beast sculpture. The body of the horse was created from pieces of driftwood collected from the Barcoo River. It is a very skillful piece of work...such a pity that I wasn't a very skillful photographer! I discovered too late that I had changed my camera settings and the photos were all horribly overexposed...We live and learn. It's just one more good reason for you to make the journey to Blackall - so you can see it for yourself!

Down the road from Blackall, you'll find Barcaldine (if you drive for about an hour...and don't do it early in the morning or late in the evening; the kangaroos are out on force at daylight and dusk. Didn't think you'd want photographic evidence of the way the combination of kangaroos and vehicles looks on the side of the road!).

These photos are taken at the Tree of Knowledge in the main street of Barcaldine. A significant site,for over a century, the tree died (under somewhat suspicious circumstances) and this structure has been built over and around the remains of the tree, recreating the feeling of being under it's canopy. It's quite clever, but I have to confess to feeling just a little uncomfortable underneath it - all those pieces of timber are free to swing, and you get a sensation that they could fall...I kept telling myself that as they built it they would have been very careful not to let that happen...but still...

I hope I've given just a little taste of the 'Outback'...it's funny, really, no one seems to really be sure where the famous Outback begins! There are doubtless residents of Blackall and district that would say the Outback is further out than that, but, for my money, you're getting pretty close. I have visited that area, and much further west than that, a number of times; and while it's a long way between towns, and maybe not the most picturesque landscape, there is a beauty about it that I haven't found equal to anywhere. The sunrises and sunsets are especially breathtaking - open sky as far as you can see, they're pretty special. I hope one day, you'll have a chance to experience it for yourself!

Teaching - A Wonderful Way To Learn...Blackall Style!

2010-07-15T08:36:00.001+10:00

Meet Jill. It's all her fault. She's the one who tracked me down and asked me to do a couple of workshops in Blackall. I have to wonder if it really is OK to get paid for having that much fun! She's also the one who patiently directed me to find her home in the drizzly rain (that took three separate phone conversations, at the end of which, I'm certain she was worried she'd employed a complete fruitcake!...I did struggle with the 'head west ' direction when there was no sun out though! We had a good laugh about it all later...) Jill looked after me SO well! I enjoyed wonderful food and hospitality throughout my stay. My 'flat' at the Cultural Association Centre (which I'll do a post on soon) was very comfortable, and everyone I encountered in this lovely town was remarkably welcoming. There is much to tell you about the trip, so there'll be more photos to follow, including the fabulous sculpture dotted around the town and the great Cultural Centre facility that this creative community puts to excellent use.

While this isn't a great photo, it gives you an idea of the size of the workshop area - this was once the dining room in the days the centre was a student hostel. The girls are busy exploring different mediums, making beads, silk paper, textile bases...we managed to make a lot of mess while they created some very cool little pieces!

Lisa is Jill's daughter. I seem to remember her suggesting she hadn't sewn much...I think I must be mis-remembering, because she powered on and produced a couple of gorgeous scarves on soluble films. The one she's working on here ended up very lacy and light - a perfect summer accessory! (Clever girl, this one.)

In fact, they were all clever girls! Above, Penny and Jenny show off their creations, along with Robyn and Yvonne below... I was fascinated that at the end of the workshop, their scarves - that had been started the afternoon before - all matched what they were wearing very well!

Jill had finished two scarves by 'modelling' time, and Lisa's lacy one is off drying on a railing while she has her picture taken.

My greatest hope is that these terrific ladies enjoyed the workshops as much as I enjoyed being there! As is always the case, when I head off to teach people something new, I learn such a lot myself...watching these girls pick up the techniques I was sharing with them, and taking off to use them in their own unique ways was fascinating to me - they instinctively did things that I have never thought to try - like including wool tops in the scarf, that we washed the soluble out of with boiling water! I have always avoided that on the assumption that the wool would felt...Yvonne's didn't, and it created a lovely warm, thicker scarf - perfect for those cold Blackall winters! Of course, we were very careful not to agitate it too much as we washed out the soluble.

Thank you to each of you for your warmth, hospitality, thoughtfulness and interest (including Veronica and Sandra, who weren't available for modelling shots on Sunday afternoon.)

Stay tuned over the next few days for more about beautiful Blackall on the Matilda Highway...home of the Black Stump (which Jill tells me isn't the same black stump, in the same location, that was in the back of the school yard when she was a child!)

Loving these leaves...

2010-07-05T12:55:00.000+10:00

A while ago, a photo of a piece of silk paper made an appearance here...at the time, I thought it would make a great cuff, all stitched out with leaf shapes. The stitching was started, and frankly, it looked pretty lame and disinteresting. So much so, that I tossed it in a corner, amongst a bundle of other lame and disinteresting stuff, to be forgotten for a while. (You might be surprised just how much stuff is in that bundle!)

It was rediscovered when I was thinking about creating some special sample pieces for the Exploring Soluble Films workshop in Blackall. It may have looked lame with only stitching, but what about adding machine stitched slips created on soluble film? Hmmm...better!

Many laves (count them!) were patiently stitched on Romeo soluble film. Romeo is a plastic like sheet - it reminds me a bit of the clear, heavy plastic that school librarians were always busy covering books with. Using a slightly different variegated thread in the needle to the bobbin, some subtle colour changes were fairly easy to create. Once the leaves were finished, the whole lot went into a tub of cold water, the plastic dissolved, leaving the thread in these neat leafy shapes, ready to be stitched down on to the base...in this case, the silk paper.

The addition of a handmade bead (foiled black fabric wrapped around a satay stick, secured, and with a little embossing powder added) and a machine wrapped silk loop...and a cuff is born! I'm still trying to decide whether it needs more leaves, some hand embroidery on the silk, or if it's fine the way it is. I change my mind every time I walk past it! So, what do you think?

It's time to go pack my many bags for my teaching (and road) trip... Stay tuned for an update towards the end of next week!

Thursday's Country Life...Making Silage

2010-07-01T09:01:00.001+10:00

They say a picture paints a thousands words...some of the words that this picture paints for me involve the detail that this man will not happily have his photo taken, so the fact that he's standing here, asking me to snap him in fornt of his forage sorghum crop tells me two things 1. He's pretty proud of his farming efforts and 2. He knew that in order to fit him and the crop in the one image, I'd have to be far enough away from him so as not to see his face! So, if you haven't worked it out...this is "Pa" with his awesome forage crop, which is in the process of being cut for silage...

A little hard to make out here, but there is a silage cutter (a little along the same lines as a harvester - it's the green thing, spitting out finely chopped forage out the top), and a truck. The silage cutter drives through the crop, chops it off close to the ground, sucks it into it's beastly innards and chops and smooshes the forage plant into little pieces, then spits that out the top, into the bin of the truck, which drives alongside. Here, they are beginning the paddock.

And this is the very last little bit of another paddock. When the truck is full, he whizzes off up the road to the silage pit, where he unloads his bounty...

...and the tractor takes over. Here, the pit is full, so it looks more like a mound! That groovy little tractor has some very heavy weights on it and a nifty hydraulic 'pusher' thingy to move the silage around and pack it down as tightly and evenly as possible. (I think I should contact the contractors and see if they'd like me to write their advertising copy for them - I'm so good with all the correct terminology!). When the pit is full as can be (anytime in the next three minutes after this photo was taken), an enormous heavy plastic sheet is laid over the whole she-bang and held down with loads of old tyres, then you leave it...wait for a while for it to ferment and get all manky...and then it's great cattle feed!

This is how it looks fresh out of the silage cutter...It occurs to me that a photo of it after fermenting and turning into wonder weaner feed would be good...but can I stand the smell? Let me know in the comments if you really need a follow up to this to see how things change (and glean a greater understanding of the word manky)!

I'm off on an exciting adventure next week to teach a couple of workshops in Blackall! There won't be much blog action until I return, but you can be sure that when I do, I'll have lots to show you! I'm really looking forward to heading off on a road trip alone -I don't get much alone time...I wouldn't want alone time all the time, but I love to soak up just a little every so often! I'm also looking forward to the fun of teaching something I love, and meeting more kindred spirits!

Puppies, Photos and Pretty things, or a not-so-typical day in the life of yours truly.

2010-06-27T16:52:00.001+10:00

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to join in a photography workshop right in my local town (no travelling for hours!) with a photographer by the name of Richard Posener. I urge you to check out his link - he takes fabulous portraits of people and their horses, among other things. He was an encyclopedia of photographic wisdom and we had a great day, and learned about apertures, shutters, ISOs and even a little photoshop. Lots of fun!

I thought I'd share with you a few of the images from the days exploring... first, a little shot of one of Minnie's babies - haven't they grown?! Now at the 'so cute it's going to be hard to part with them' stage, I know - from extensive experience - that they will quickly reach the 'cute, but if they destroy one more plant or chew through one more boot, I'm going to kill them' stage! I love this photo - even my firstborns chewed fingernails...I guess it's kind of tender,and the light is beautiful (at least to my eye, it is!)

Richard talked about depth of field, and the 'perfect circles' we could bring to our images...I really can't explain the science behind this - it is all to do with depth of field and focal length, but the circles are there! Very cool 'bokeh'!

When class was finished, we went to visit our local boutique, Rhubarb, which, I am tickled to tell you, has recently changed hands - having been purchased by one of the gorgeous young women who call my husband "Pa", and her partner (our middle prince!). How lucky is the little town of Theodore, to have an establishment of such charm, grace and good taste? Not to mention, wonderful photo opportunities! If only I had a raspberry pink wall to hang that clock on.....

Farm Day...what our city friends would have seen...

2010-06-20T09:04:00.001+10:00

A while ago, I promised you a report on Farm Day, a day in late May where city families visit country families to see first hand where their food and fibre comes from. I'm so very sad to have to tell you we in fact didn't have any guests for Farm Day! I guess we live a little too far off the beaten track and the organisers weren't able to find a family who could get to us in the allotted time of a single weekend. We were a little disappointed, but can understand the challenge!

But, I thought to myself...I could blog about what our visiting city family would have seen (and maybe more than one family will see it?!) on a visit to our humble operation.

For starters...Minnie, the Jack Russell, as if on cue, delivered her six pups the day before our visitors would have arrived (and she wasn't due until the next week!) I think she's wishing I had given her a moment to find clean sheets for a photo background for her new babies...but, in the interests of a full and accurate sharing of information, she rests on the old sleeping bag the babies were delivered on!

They would have witnessed our Fodder Solutions hydroponic feed growing unit - this baby turns barley seed into horse feed in six days! Morning and evening, a tray (or two or three, depending on how many of our equine friends are in feed at the time) is pulled out, cut up and fed out from one side of the machine, then the tray is washed (which is what our first born is busy attending to here), re-seeded and slid into the other side to spend just under a week under the lights and sprinklers.

They would have had the full 'smoko' experience! Complete with tea or coffee, scintillating conversation and home baked goodies! Though probably not sponge cake...This is what was left after I left the room for twenty two and a half seconds to get my camera!

They would have had a look at a big tractor, and a centre pivot irrigator that waters 100 hectares. This photo is somewhat deceptive. The tractor doesn't normally pull it along - here, it's being moved from one 'circle' to another. That's only happened twice in the last ten years. Normally, the irrigator is fixed in the centre, attached to the pipe delivering the water, and spins from there. All those tower wheels are turned around 45degrees from where they are in this photo, so it can walk in the right direction!

We would have taken them for a drive to check out how we pump and store water to keep cattle from perishing in the long, hot, dry summers! The windmills pump underground water up and into a tank, which feeds a trough, which has a float arrangement, so that it refills when the cattle have drunk from it. I am happy to report that the barren and desolate looking area in this photo now looks much greener and more inviting. That shot was taken just before Christmas, when we had begun to wonder if the world was about to shrivel up and dry out and blow away on a puff of wind!

Then it flooded.

They would have seen hundreds and hundreds of lovely cows!

Including my corrugated iron cow named Calamity, who stands in welcome in our front garden!

And, if they were really lucky...they'd have seen this cheeky smile - from our middle prince, in the horse stalls, which might be one of the places he is happiest in the whole world!

There were loads of other things they would have seen as well...kelpies at work with weaners, Horses, chooks with fresh eggs to collect, guinea fowl, flood damaged fences, a billabong, motorbikes, 4 wheelers, tractors putting out hay for weaner feed...and very likely some kangaroos, wallabies, galahs, cockatoos, lorikeets, brolgas and possibly even an emu if they were lucky!

And, they would have had some real 'fair dinkum' cattlemen to answer their every wondering about beef production. So, if you're out there, wishing you had been able to visit for Farm Day, and have a question burning a hole in your mind...chime into the comments and ask away!