demos and workshops

Well it has been a month since I last posted, where has the time gone? I only had a week away but I've edited a newsletter for IAPMA and a Bulletin for Women's Art Register so have spent a fair bit of time at the computer and I've been planning a few workshops for throughout the year, must update my website once all is finalised. The first one is an oriental binding workshop for the Calligraphy Society of Victoria on Valentine's day then I'm going up to Sydney for a repeat of my armature workshop for the weekend of 13/14 March and the following weekend it's down to Bairnsdale for another armature workshop but since the participants aren't papermakers I've decided to adjust the class and include a couple of light shades I learned from Helen Hiebert.

My copy of Handpapermaking arrived last week and I enjoyed reading the article about Roberto Manino, it reminded me that I'd promised to demonstrate painting with graphite and shellac at the next Papermakers of Victoria meeting (not that Roberto uses graphite and shellac he just uses straight graphite). I'm also considering entering a work in Pameran poskad a postcard show in Singapore. So into the beater with some cotton paper and out with the A6 mould and deckle, I may as well combine the two projects. I made a range of textured sheets some by pouring pulp onto strips of torn blanket and string and others by pressing damp sheets onto a range of objects and into some carved plaster. The untreated pieces in the top photo were done with glow in the dark toys and letters, gutter guard and a latex cast of a tree trunk.

Some of the pieces I coated with gesso but you can see that the top two which had no gesso hold the graphite much better because of the absorbency of the paper. This technique was taught to me by Carol Downey who learned it from Dolph Smith. I need to polish these up a bit and will give the bottom two another coat of graphite and shellac. All I do to get the mix is to mix powdered graphite into made up shellac, I don't know of any formula so I just guess the amounts but it doen't seem to be critical.

The other thing I did last week was to help my daughter hang the work for her first exhibition, here is a picture of Katy and Ash her friend on hanging day. The exhibition is called Somes Lingua (body language in Spanish) and is on at the Fox Hotel in Wellington St Collingwood until 5 February, you can see more of their work on madeit.com.

I am thinking of participating in One World One Heart but haven't decided definitely, not sure I have the time.