Sunday arvo in the shed

I got to spend a bit of time in the studio yesterday and was able to get the borders on this baby quilt that I've whipped up for a friend of my son who has recently had a baby, Callan said I don't need much of an excuse to whip up a baby quilt, are we that predictable.




This piece surfaced the other day, so I thought I'd put it up on my design wall and wait for inspiration.
This was a piece I did when Nic Bridges and I had one of our very rare (these days) play days last year, where we were painting fabric, it didn't start out to be the basis of a landscape but I think that is what it's lending itself to or the more I look at this photo it could be the sun rising over a misty lake.



Don't these squash look fab, guess what we had for dinner the other night, they were yum.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

I got the nod that it's OK to put a photo of my quilt up here, so here it is.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
size 32" x 33" (82x83cms)
selected for the "In Full Bloom IV" exhibition to he shown at the International Quilt Market and Festival in Houston Oct 27 - Nov 4 2007.

It was originally made, November last year, for an exhibition at a winery in Mittagong (NSW) for a tourist promotion, Days of Wine and Roses.
It is based on the roses in my front garden.
I have used a combination of commercial and hand dyed fabrics with each piece of fabric individually detailed and the centre heavily detailed with thread drawing.

eye of the beholder

I know, people think I'm weird.

The other day in Printmaking class when we were cleaning up at the end of the day one of the ladies sprayed cleaner onto the ink on the glass table and it started to bubble and break up, I yelled "wait, let me get my camera"
trying to explain to the teacher what possibilities I could see were almost impossible.

but isn't it gorgeous......

Finished Sculpture pieces

Yesterday I finished off my 3 little sculptures, they were supposed to be able to fit into a 6" x 6"parameter but I think we all pushed the size a little.

This one in now finished and inspired by Alexander Calder, the dead umbrella was such a great find when we went scrounging in the school car park.



The next 2 pieces were an assortment of wood scraps plus bits that I have kept, there's even a piece of Lego hiding in one of them, the bower bird in me surfaces again.

Short n Sweet - exciting news

more exciting news ---- drum roll, my quilt "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" has been accepted into the "In Full Bloom IV" exhibition to be hung at Houston USA and then travel till August 2008.
For those that don't know, Houston is like the Mecca for quilters and is verrrryyyy exciting.

exciting news.....

I have some exciting news to share with you all, some of you would have heard through other sources and it has taken me a while to absorb the news enough to be able to put it out to the world here, I'm not good at blowing my own trumpet.

drum roll........I won the Down Under Quilts 2008 Calendar comp, the theme was "My Secret Garden", and my quilt "Late Bloomer' will be on the front cover of the 2008 Calender, so I definitely can't show you a photo until the Calendar is launched in a few months time, but I'll definitely proudly show it when I can.

follow up to last post

Nola left a message and wanted to know more about my painting.

It is approx a 7" x 4" canvas using acrylics. We were inside, late afternoon with no view for inspiration so it is from my imagination and Nic was just showing me the basics and where to start, so I started with the basic grey hills, colour to be altered as I went and then I put the blue sky in but the blue was too watery and a couple of drips ran down through the grey and as it dried it took on a life of it's own and started to look like snow, so I went with the feel and put in more snow and left it all fairly light in application as I was getting used to the feel/thickness of the paint though I did apply the green in the foreground a little thicker. - Nola, is that what you needed to know???????

I don't have any photo of yesterdays work at art school as we moved onto drawing skeletal forearms in the morning, that was fun - NOT, I can post some photos of the skeletons but not my drawings no no no no and in the afternoon I was finishing off a piece in colour and design that is to be windows into 24 hours of your day, hopefully I'll show that next week.

Bit's and Pieces

Have been lying a bit low the past few days as all in our house have this bad virus that's going around and coughing ourselves silly, though I managed to do a bit of hand work and finished off a few bags, the middle one and one on the right have the shoulder straps made with the Japanese braiding that I showed you recently..



This is my first painting, have the opportunity to be part of a painting day in a few weeks and we haven't started painting classes yet at Art school, so spent a couple of hours at Nic's and she talked me through the basics, so what do you think?



I took this photo more just to document some stuff, Mackenzie is starting to be hassled by some local kids, so I'm assuming that the egging has to do with that.

School update

It's a bit rough when your husband gives you a hard time cause you haven't updated your blog in a few days.......
As you know my husband Tim is always away "on tour" and he keeps up to date with what's going on at home by reading my blog.

So Tim, this is what I've done at school recently.

Over the past couple of weeks in Colour & Design class we have been working with Analogous colours and had to paint strips of paper ranging between 2 colours, so I went from yellows through greens to blues.
Then we had to cut them up and see what we could come up with, the first 3 are what I achieved with my bits and the last one shows that I couldn't waste any little bit...






Yesterday I finally achieved a result with our male model that I'm happy with, we haven't done heads and hands and feet as yet but I decided to have a go and I quiet happy with my result, I can look at the drawing and actually tell who it is.

Found Objects

Yesterday in Sculpture class we had to go out and scrounge in the car park and surrounds so we could make a piece out of "found objects"
I was lucky enough to find an umbrella skeleton and having just recently bought 2 books on Alexander Calder (the bloke who created Mobiles and large outdoor sculptures) you can see where my ideas came from once I found the umbrella.

I'm the queen of found objects and have sooo much stuff here at home that I can take in to work with next week.
When I was a kid and go to the tip with dad, we'd take one load and come home with another, and you should have seen the treasures that I found when I helped my sister clean out the garage recently when she moved mum.

Homework Hat

Remember when I was away in Bendigo at the retreat and I bought Callan a Fez well here he is with his "homework hat" on - doesn't he look studious!!!!!!



Have just come back from the accountants and this was the fence where I parked my car, couldn't resist and had to take some photos, it almost looks like the wood grain has been painted on.
I love these sort of photos for quilting inspirations.

Piano parts

All you cleaver people out there - well done.
Here are some more photos I took of the piano, can't wait to see what is to be created from them, it's amazing what you find in the sculpture class room.

Sculpture class

Yesterday in Sculpture class I finished my head, most people did realistic heads, but not me, we worked from the base up, building it up with coils of clay, so I had no idea what it would look like, half way through I thought it was looking like a Toby Jug but the teacher wouldn't let me put a handle on it and leave it open so I plodded on.
It started to take on a cartoon like look so I decided to run with that and everyone thinks it now unfortunately looks like the character out of Wallace and Grommet, we then had to try and make a small solid replica.
If nothing else it'll scare away the cats from the frog pond.





Can anyone guess what this is?



Here's' another shot, any guesses?

A successful day

Today I've had one of those days that we long for but don't often get, only dream of.

I started the day reading my mail then got stuck into doing some homework, tomorrow in printmaking we start on lino printing and need to have a black and white drawing ready to transfer to the lino block to start the long process of cutting.
I'd narrowed my photos down to 3 and decided that this one of a plant on my back verandah would be the easiest for me to draw in a black and white drawing, I almost felt guilty taking the time to leisurely draw and colour in.
So here's my drawing and also the photo for you to compare, I've always loved taking photos of everything and anything but just starting to appreciate and utilise this valuable resource.




Mid morning it was off to the chiropractor to straighten out a few kinks in my neck from the several long sessions spent at the machine last week finishing my quilt in time for it's competition deadline.
It is a lovely sunny day today not to hot and the drive home was enjoyable, the escarpment and the paddocks look green and lush from the recent rain, even the cows had a smile on their faces.

Back home I was able to finish off my drawing and painted the background so now it's ready for tomorrow safely in my folder.
I'm teaching tonight and on Friday and it's always a last minute rush to write up or photocopy notes but they're all done and I still have 2 hours before I need to leave the house - it's amazing what a reprieve from deadlines or a day without stress can do.
The only thing that I didn't get to but still may have time to is bring my books up to date for school, when I told my boys this morning that I had to spend the day doing homework and getting my books up to date , they roared with laughter......
Better go and hang out the load of washing that I put in the machine hours ago, but first - I think I need another cup of tea.......cheers

Up coming class

For those living in Sydney and the South Coast of NSW I thought you may be interested in my Beginners Medallion Quilt starting shortly at Pretty Parcels in Berry, it's once a month for 6 months.
This quilt is achievable to beginners but you need to know the basics of rotary cutting, but it is very easy, we also look at colour and use a variety of lights in the backgrounds.
You start with the centre block and each month put another round around it.
I'll show you the tricks to work out how to look at any quilt and break it down to see the blocks and then the units in the blocks to simplify them and be able to work it out yourself.

Saturdays - May 19th, June 16th, July 21st, August 18th, Sept 15th & Oct 13th

time 10 - 3

cost $30 per class

phone Cheryl (02) 44642418 for bookings, or any questions, drop me a line.



Hope to see some of you there