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

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.