Art School round up

I've broken this up into 3 posts as I don't think the poor computer would have coped if I'd tried to load up all of the photos in one go.

This term we've moved onto a male model in our life drawing class, I know it's only been one class but I think I much prefer the female curves to draw, we'll see how tomorrow goes.




We have been starting our drawings with a sketch of the skeleton then adding the flesh and I like this style and thought I'd finally got the hang of it but after we had done these 2 drawings he started messing with our heads and got us the approach the body as a cube and draw all the planes, I think he looks more like something from a B grade Sci Fi show.

Come up and see my etchings.......

Over the past few weeks I have been working on my zinc plate, slowly painting out areas with bitumen and having many dips in the acid bath (the plate not me) till I had totally covered the whole plate.
This photo is a bay in NZ that I took last year while there on hols and thought it would be an interesting shot to try to replicate.




This is a proof of the original line drawing before I started the etching process.



This is the first print to see if it was going to work, it's really difficult to get your head around the fact that you slowly black out the whole image and work backwards blacking out the light areas first, I think it worked - don't you?.

Colour and Design class

The first photo is an exercise in using opposite colours, on the circle we were only able to use the background colour to darken the circle to give it depth and create the illusion of a sphere.



This exercise was a collage of photos of colour families that we took on campus then they were photocopied and cut into strips and woven through the originals.
I automatically stuck the photos down in a colour wash gradation so when the strips were woven in there was a variety of contrast.

Coming up for air

Did you all hear that noise ------ that was me coming back up for air.

Sorry I haven't posted for the past week but I was a touch busy, since coming back from the retreat I allowed myself a day or so to recover but then I had to get stuck into the quilting on my entry into the Down Under Quilts 2008 Calendar competition, the theme this year is "My Secret Garden".
The top had been made before I went away but on returning I realised I had only a week not 2 to quilt it and get it in the mail and in that week I had to work 1 day in the shop in Berry and had 2 days at art school so I had to pull out all the stops and go for it, as much as we complain about deadlines we for some reason also thrive on them.........hmmm.
I'm not able to show a photo as it hasn't been judged yet and can't have been shown anywhere but also the editor for the mag reads my blog, hi Erica, so I definitely can't even hint at it, but maybe later in the week I'll post a photo of the back to give you an idea of the quilting, (if I can) well that will be better than nothing - won't it?

We moved onto a male model at art school this week so hopefully I can do a round up of the weeks work at school tomorrow.


BEATEN BY THE CHOCOLATE CAKE

Mackenzie and I popped out for a bit of shopping last weekend and his reward for coming as my muscle to carry my purchases, (and also to get him out of the World of Warcraft for a break) is a huge slab of mud cake, it was a battle that he lost and I unfortunately had to have the last mouthful.




I'm a happy person this morning, Australia just won the world cup in cricket and the Swanies ran away with the game last night - cheer cheer the red and the white.....come on Erica sing with me

Some of my goodies

Here are a couple of the goodies that I bought while I was away.

We visited Rajmahal, a fabulous thread/needlecraft shop in Bendigo and the Sadi Threads and Shisha mirrors are just some of the goodies that I left there with.



I had decided not to do any classes at the retreat but was interested in a bag class as they were making some interesting braided handles so I was able to buy a kit after the class.
The braiding technique is called Kumihimo and done on the foam disc, as we had a 2 day drive back home to Wollongong from the retreat I had to keep my hands busy as I was not one of the drivers, I made the 2 thin purple braids for the bag handles and we had made a stop at a woolen mill and bought way to much wool so I decided to run with the technique and see what I could achieve with wools, I'm like a woman obsessed, can't stop making them, I have been crocheting bags and bit to go on bags so I can see this being very useful for making longer handles for the shoulder bags.

Party time

Saturday night was PARTY NIGHT at the retreat, these are a few photos.
This is myself, Lorraine and Cheryl with Nic at the back.



These are some of the girls from the longarm group, no I don't have a longarm machine but I'm in the group cause I couldn't bare to miss out on the frivolity of the list.



and what do you do after a party, but put on your jammies, all pile on the bed and watch the telly, unfortunately there wasn't enough room on the bed for Lorraine, and anyway somebody had to take the photo.......



and did anybody else see the flasher in the carpark on the way back to our rooms - Nic spotted him

OK - whos's responsable for this

We are back safely from our road trip, very exhausted but mentally refreshed and ready to get back to work, I have a quilt that I have to get stuck into quilting with an end of the month deadline but I've decided to sloth around today and maybe tomorrow depending on how I am in the morning.
The first photo is how the car looked when the others left Wollongong before their 2 day road trip to Bendigo for the retreat where I met up with them, the second photo is how it looked on the last night of our 2 day trip back - I'm responsible for a large quantity of the wool that we bought in a frenzy at the woolen mill in Wangaratta but I'm not the one responsible for purchasing the crank handle machine, though I'm sure Cheryl tried to convince her husband that it wasn't hers.
The only bizzarr thing I bought was a Fez for my oldest son (doesn't every boy need one of these) and Lorraine really really needed the xmas tree holder that she found at a garage sale along the way......
The last photo is of Lorraine and I in the back of the car trying to keep all of our purchases at bay with our heads.





More photos and stories will follow over the following days.

What happens at the retreat doesn't necessarily stay at the retreat as it just might by accident crop up on my blog.............

Ziggy the Zygo Cactus

This a Ziggy the Zygo Cactus, my piece for the Christmas Cactus Challenge on the Quiltart list.
It was a race against time to get it finished and work out how to upload it to the appropriate site but I think I did it.
It is 18" x 21" the centre piece is wool and silk tops with Angelina fibres stitched to death and embellished with mother of pearl buttons on commercial and Lisa Waltons wonderful hand dyed and painted fabrics in the borders and I experimented some more with my thread drawing and I'm very happy with my results, though a little secret, the binding is only held down with tape at the back so I could photograph it to upload it, it will be sewn down at the retreat.



I'm off in the morning very early hitting the road with my husband Tim and the rest of The Leaping Loonies, driving to Melbourne (about 12 hours drive) to spend a few days with them in the theatre doing their show then on Friday I'll jump on a train and head about 2 hours into the country to Bendigo and meet up with the other Wollongong gals for 3 days at the Southern Cross Quilters (Internet group) annual retreat, then we'll take a leisurely 2 days to drive home back to reality AND THE KIDS.

So I'll chat with you all again in a week and tell you about my adventures on the road with the Loonies.

Drawing round up

Here's my weekly round up of my drawings from yesterdays class, the first 3 were relatively quick drawings, around 15 mins.
The 4th one was also a quick study, but for reference to do a bigger one in more detail which is no 5, I finally feel as thought I'm getting the hang of it.
Next term we change to a male model, a whole new challenge with dangley bits to draw.......hmmmm

Happy happy joy joy

WOW what a day I've had, got to sleep in for starters, (that's 2 days in a row) did a few loads of washing then got stuck into putting the quilt top together that I'm working on.
Can't tell you much about this quilt or show any photos as it's for Down Under Quilts Calendar challenge and Erica the editor (hi Erica) reads my blog - so I can't give anything away.......but I've got the top together so I'll look at it for a few days and baste it later in the week then I can get stuck into quilting it to death.
But my happy dance news is, I had entered 3 miniatures (10cm x 10cm) into the Thirroul Seaside & Art Festival and sold 2 of them, I had posted the photos recently when I had a play day and entered the ones that I made, so here are the 2 that sold, the top one "Seascape" is made with silk paper scraps and thread drawing and "Contours 2" is thread drawing on raw silk - what a way to finish of the day with that news.......

SEASCAPE


CONTOURS # 2