Scatterdays Y

I have joined a group of my friends that have been playing Scatterdays for a while now, someone chooses a letter and 3 categories that you have to find throughout the week then on the Saturday show your photos on your blog, so this week on joining we have the letter Y and the categories are, something green, school days and an animal.

Something green was easy as my yard is very lush and green with a green shed (studio) and a green house - is there a pattern here?

We also had some xmas left overs so here is some green "Yule Tide" crackers

School Days was easy, I just went into my school case and pulled out a few Yellows things

Now animals was a bit of a challenge as Michelle said last week not many of us would have a Yak around, I was initially going to go with "Yowie" cause they DO exist and seeing as I don't have one around Mackenzie went over to the shops and was going to buy a chocolate one - but they've been discontinued......how rude but he bought chocolate anyway as isn't that the answer to any problem! so I set to thinking, AH HA rang local pet shop and he had 2 tanks full of YABBIES yahhhh

by the time I got there he'd put 2 in a separate tank for me to photograph

then he even scooped one up for a closer shot, what a nice guy, probably thought I was a bit strange but

now my challenge is to work out how to put all the photos into little boxes like everyone else does

exhibited

blogger has been playing up this morning and wouldn't accept multiple photos so I'm just going with one and it's worked, not sure what's going on but will try more photos later as I have a lot of unrelated photos that I've taken over the past few weeks that I haven't had time to post, so over the next few days I'll post them all.

Leading up to Christmas I had my first foray into exhibiting a different medium, my sculptured piece looked stunning (if I do say so myself) in the entrance to the Project Gallery in Wollongong in their "White Christmas" exhibition, the opening night party generated a few sore heads I believe

christmas goodies

here are a few of the goodies I got for christmas

I got a drill from my husband Tim, and yes I did want this it wasn't one of those presents that husbands really buy for themselves, this is a small one just the right size for me and will live inside with my art stuff, he also gave me my own saw

Can anyone guess what this is?

did anyone guess? yes it's a pencil roll that my friend Nic made for me for my pencils


and my SIL gave me this great book

so, I think they cover a few basics, what do you think?

Merry Christmas

well the trifle has been made - SO IT MUST BE XMAS

our dog Zelda (who thinks she's a chihuahua) had to be in the centre of all the unwrapping this morning and slowly got consumed by the wrappings

the barbie is being cranked up as I type for the fish and the ham is being carved, so looking forward to an afternoon of FOOD mmmmmmmm cheers

Merry Christmas everyone, keep safe

early xmas present

My family constantly give me a hard time cause the only shoes I wear these days are "Crocs" and it's not a case of what shoes do I wear but what colour Crocs do I wear - SO - when I walk past a shop that I only ever drive past and never get to look in, I went in for a look and as fate would have it, these shoes were there just waiting for me, matched my new shirt that I had on, my size and marked down to half price cause they were the last lonely pair just waiting for the right person - and I think they found her.......
- it was meant to be,
so Tim if you're reading this thank you, cause I think you just bought me my xmas present.

Oh by the way, it says on the box they are "Agatha Ruiz De La Prada" does that mean I've got REAL shoes???????

Side Note!
Just showed Mackenzie and he said "at least they're not Crocs"...........groan

Kirsten's birhtday

last Sunday I went up to Sydney for my friend Kirsten's birthday, it was a significant one but I only had a few days notice so I whipped her up a braided necklace, had intended to take a photo of her wearing it, but I forgot.

we had many little birthday cakes

and here's uncle Tony hiding under the trampoline with the littlies

Blue Attic

Here are some photos of my niece Tani's shop, she is having a sale, so if you're in Melbourne pop in or if not have a look at her site http://www.blueattic.com.au
I tried to put the sale flyer up but blogger didn't like it's format so here are the details

Blue Attic
10-50% off Selected items
323 Lygon St East Brunswick Melb

tell her Janine sent you..........


the shop is chockers with work from local artists and Tani is a wizz at making that special outfit for you

here's Tani looking at some of my scarves and bags with 2 of my small art quilts on the wall behind her.

here's the quiet corner where you can sit and enjoy a coffee while taking in all of the goodies in the shop.


the necklaces that I'd posted last week on the blog have just arrived there ready for some lucky person for xmas.

Floyd

this is "Floyd" the brown goat (in front), that I've adopted and sponsor.

On a serious note, please please go to http://adoptagoat.blogspot.com/ and read about the struggle that the smaller farmers are having with the drought and if you are thinking of making a donation in lieu of a xmas pressie, please think of a goat, as the heard is slowly being culled.

Callan's formal

here's Callan about to go off to his year 12 formal in his "no expenses spared" suit - his fathers shiny Op Shop suit,
his look is just a little different to a few posts ago, isn't it, no green hair

more necklaces

after another trip this week to the bead shop for findings, here are the last 2 necklaces finished that I've had in the production line.

this is the rest of the felt beads that I made on the weekend

I found this great silver tubular bead with a loop on it so of course I had to put some dangelies on it

necklaces

over the past few weeks I've been making braided cords on my Kumihimo disk and today I've added some beads and finished off the necklaces

and here is one of my felted bead necklaces finished

my son

Was just going through my photo library and found these 2 of my son Callan when he went to Korea with school the year before last.
It was his mission to try every bizarre (to him) fermented Korean soft drink he could find.

I think he's in love...........

felted beads

I've had a very productive day, made a batch of felted beads, hopefully they'll be dry for me to string tomorrow.

Now back to finishing off a couple of crocheted bags.

a stolen moment

I've just had a play with my embellishing machine, I am having withdrawals from sewing/creating with all of the build up to assessment at school over the last month.
My lounge and dining rooms have art supplies, drawings and sculptures and all of the stuff that go with it everywhere and I've been trying to make some sense of it all before I start on anything but with the embellishing machine sitting in the middle of the all of the kaos on the table, I couldn't control the urge any longer.
So I've had a play with some wool tops and Angelina, so now I'm happy and can face trying to find some nooks and crannies to hide everything in.

This will be turned into a "cup cuff" maybe later today, though I have to go out to vote soon and then have a meeting to go to so it may not be till tomorrow.

good question?

who hasn't ridden their bikes lately???????

yesterday

Yesterday a few of us from art school got together for a post mortem of the year and we all shared a collective sigh of relief after assessment.
A nice bunch of ladies to share lunch with and to have shared the years journey, thanks ladies.
That's me in the middle in orange, to my left is Nic, Helena, Maureen and to my right Anne, Carol and Kerry.

I had seared south coast prawns on a bed of rocket with avocado, and tomato and balsamic relish mmmmmmm followed by this yummy desert........
it had 3 layers of an almond meringue layered with berries mmmmmmmmm - Nic wanted to share a piece but not this one - I WANTED IT ALLLLL TO MYSELF so she reluctantly got her own piece.

Last night Mackenzie (15) my youngest had his first grading in Kung Fu and has now advanced to Yellow belt, and in a couple of weeks time he will complete the grading by competing in his first sparing tournament.
It has given him buckets of confidence and is ready now if he gets hassled again

assessment day

Today is the first day of my school holidays....... yesterday was assessment day and a little stressful, I had to pin up mounted pieces from Printmaking and a dozen drawings, each from Life drawing and General drawing plus all of my Sculpture pieces in the centre of the room, I had my son Callan there to help me do the carrying and pining and I couldn't have done it without him.
I had a good response from the teachers/judging panel and they said my Sculpture was my strongest subject which was great as it validated my decision to go on and do 2nd year sculpture next year before I finish off all of the other 1st year subjects that weren't done this year.

unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the whole display before we started taking it down and some of the drawings were already off the wall on the right before I remembered to get the camera out,as we were in a panic to get it all down ready for the next person, that's my fellow student Helena having a peek waiting for her turn

here's' my sculpture pieces in the middle of the room

last drawings for the year

Here are the last of my drawings for the year




In our last general drawing class we all had to bring in a silly hat and we all took turns at being the model, none of mine were worth sharing but this one of me, wearing my "Fez" was done by Peter Pickford, one of the guys in the class.

Sculpture

Here is my last sculpture piece ready for assessment, we have been chiseling and filing away for weeks and I'm really happy with the end result.
To give you an idea of the size, we poured a block of plaster into an A4 photo copy paper box and went from there.

Faux felt class

I've had a busy couple of weeks, leading up to assessment at art school on next Wednesday but more on that in a later post as I've a few pieces still to share with you.
Yesterday I taught a group of ladies at The Quilters Garden, it was the 1st day of the "Ziggy the Zygo Cactus" wall hanging, where they spent the day creating a piece of faux felt.

don't the pieces look fabulous

These will be attached to a curved pieced background that will be made in a few weeks in the 2nd class and they will also explore the beginnings of free motion quilting.

felt beads

my days seem to just whizz by and I don't always squeeze everything in though on the weekend I found 5 mins (well it was a little longer) to have a go at making felt beads, last night I threaded them onto a piece of purple nylon tubular thread and they look pretty special - if I do say so myself....what do you think?

week roundup

another busy week at school with a painting day at the Tullumbah Inn starting off the week but will post about that later.
Here are a couple of drawings, the first one is in charcoal, which I haven't used very much before and graphite pencil and the second one is a medium that I'm enjoying the more I use it, it's using Sanguine pencil with white and black charcoal pencils on coloured paper.


Yesterday I finished off my 3 colour screen print, this looks fab and the fact that it's also one of my photos was exciting, the first 2 colours were printed using paper stencils and the magenta was a photo stencil.

this is just one of my proofs but I think it's great also, it's a shame it only on crappy paper.
I have kept all of the proof sheets from all of my prints through out the year and these'll be used for xmas wrapping.