workshops

I have had a busy couple of weeks so haven't been posting much. I went to Sydney the weekend before last to teach a repeat of my armature and kozo workshop, I must have been busy, I hardly got my camera out at all, just managed these three pics, I did get a short video of the hand beating but have left that on the camera for the moment. We made shapes from cane then stretched gauze over preliminary to dipping in the vat, here is Sue clowning with her "hat".

And some of the beaters, it was very loud in that room for about half an hour!

I got to Sydney quite early on Friday and was met by Jill Elias who kindly showed me around several galleries in Waterloo, Paddington and Surry Hills (I think!). We saw a good range of works especially at the Danks Street Galleries, a complex with about five galleries.

After the workshop I caught up with my brother and family and stayed the night with him up north of Gosford, Techy and I caught the train back to Sydney the next afternoon and arrived just in time for me to go to the airport, I loved the train trip down to Sydney through forest and in some parts right on the waters edge.

My other brother picked me up at Melbourne Airport and we headed up to Echuca with my mother and sister for my father's cousin's funeral, it was good to catch up with that branch of the family just a pity it took a funeral to make it happen, we used to visit my second cousin quite regularily but haven't been for several years, must make the time!

The rest of the week passed in a blur then I was off to Bairnsdale for another workshop with the PAGE group (Paper Arts Gippsland East) This time I did get my camera out a few times so got quite a few photos. The workshop was organised by Margaret Mason a very experienced paper and book artist and she wanted me to do the armature workshop but she commented that the participants were'nt all papermakers so I should perhaps adapt the class accordingly. I decided that they might appreciate making a lantern like those in Helen Hiebert's book, Paper Illuminated, that took up the first day with quite a bit of time being taken up with cutting out the foamcore forms.

Some of the class with their forms ready to go, the cane has been cut, glued (or taped) and pinned to the foam forms.

Now the paper goes on, most decided to decorate their shapes.





The end of day one. I stayed with Margaret at Tambo Upper, had a nice look around the area when I got a bit lost on the way there and ended up about 10k past their place, the hills around are just beautiful, green and lush and the Tambo River is very pretty and has some stunning limestone cliffs. After the first day's class Margaret and I went down to Metung for a look and I just had to take these photos of an old tree stump on the edge of the lake.




I spent several hours on both Friday and Saturday nights looking through a small proportion of Margaret's extensive artist book collection, she has some wonderful pieces.

On day two we finished off the lightshades and made small candle shades by wrapping cane around a form and glueing tissue on, we made boat shapes and some random weave shapes which we draped paper over, either the Unrushi or tissue paper. The group got together at the end of the workshop for a group photo with their wares.


I decided to trial making a different shape using the same method as for the lampshades so I roughly drew a curved shape on the foamcore and cut eight copies, and two discs, one small and one large, I followed the rest of the instructions for the lightshade and here is what I ended up with along with my demonstration boat.

The last time Yabbers met was the Wednesday before I went to Sydney and we made the paper for our rainbow books. Beverly had beaten all the library board provided by members of yabbers and had dyed them in a range of colours. We started off with a yellow, blue and pink vat and they gradually changed to blue, pink and yellow as we added the different colours. I made three sets since a couple of our members were unable to attend and I was the quickest (maybe!). Here is a stack of three sets of sheets, ech of these sheets will be torn into three to form the pages of miniature books. We'll be doing some test bindings next month.


For those of you interested in book arts the University of the West of England has devised a canon of the artist book in the 21st Century which can be read and downloaded here.