Workshops taken and giving

Last year when I was in the US I took a class with Karen Hanmer at the San Francisco Center of the Book. The class was making a pyramid book made up of triangles. When I returned Val, who organises workshops for Papermakers of Victoria asked if I would run the class for PoV. That is happening Sunday Week 21 April out at Bundoora Stables, PoV's studio space.

Karen mentioned in her notes that the method could be used for other shapes like hexagons and squares so I have made up a model using hexagons, the first problem was getting an even hexagon. I tried using a compass to draw a circle then mark off the circle into six. This should have worked but didn't because my pencil slipped in the compass. Next trial I folded a strip of card in half and cut off a triangle at 60 degrees to the fold, I then used the cut side to measure the second side and cut another triangle at 60 degrees to the fold. I then unfolded and used this as a template to cut my sheets. I had already printed some etchings of bees onto some handmade paper so these became the backing for the hexagons.

Bee Hive 2013
Acetate etching on handmade paper 

The Hexagon

That leads into another workshop taken this year with Liz Powell. It was called Eco Friendly Etching and we used zinc plates and copper sulphate. I was quite pleased with my second plate that was a delicate line drawing but not that impressed with the first. I printed a few versions of both plates and made up a small book as suggested by Liz. She was a great teacher very patient. The book was formed with a concertina spine and windows in pages that were folded in half and glued to the concertinas.

some new leather bound books

My postcard for the Yabbers postcard exchange from our session of plant and metal dyeing

My contribution to the Contemporary Art Society Brooch show, all pieces around 5 x 10 cm

Pameran Poskad

Firstly just a little plug for the book class I'm starting next Saturday. I'll be teaching a four week class from 10.30 am - 1 pm Saturdays May 1 -22. It is at St Stephen's Community Living Centre, 28 Freeman Street, Ringwood East. You can see more and book at their website

http://www.ssclc.websyte.com.au/

The pictures you see here were sent to me Alison in Singapore, they are of my works (among 3000) in the exhibition Pameran Poskad which is on in Singapore until 1 May.

Alcove and postcards

I spent last Wednesday on duty at the Alcove Art Shop and it gave me a chance to take some photos of my works there and to put together some samples of my latest books, photo albums with my favorite Apollo Bay image on them. The photos of the framed works didn't work brilliantly because of all the reflected light.


The Photo albums plus a closeup of the binding, the shells came from Dromana Beach and what luck they came with ready made holes.


I am sending some postcards to Singapore for exhibition in PameranPoskad 2010.

City One and Two cast handmade paper, acrylic and watercolour paint with verdigris wax.

City Three cast handmade paper, iron paint and rust. City Four cast handmade paper, shellac and graphite and acrylic paint.

Text cast handmade paper and mixed media Her heart cast handmade paper


Apollo Bay Minis One and Two Pulp painting and digital print

Craypots Postcard digital print on handmade paper. Cormorants Postcard digital print on handmade paper.

postcard and flu

I have been laid low with the flu for the last week so have felt OK about spending hours on the computer playing lots of games of lexulous and eucre. I did update my webpage for 2009, it's only half way through the year, maybe I should have made allowance for 2010 while I was at it. It probably needs a complete overhaul but I'm not sure I've got that much energy. Yesterday I felt like death warmed up so just sat around watching videos but the day before I finished off a couple of books and made my postcard for the Yabbers exchange. The theme this time was 'Icons' and there had to be some sort of construction. I have done a few things with icons in the past so already had images on my computer and I had the moulds for the decorative framing that I'd carved in plaster. It was just a matter of casting four copies of the frame then joining them together with some strips of calico and painting them. I used black gesso for the base then rubbed over some metallic oilstick and gold acrylic. I then painted everything with shellac and rubbed again with the gold since the shellac dissolved the oilstick. Now to test the mail and see if it gets to its destination.



The books I made were concertinas for the exhibition at Artisan Books called Between the Lines. I haven't decided yet which one to submit, the first one has the text watermarked between the strings and both pieces of paper had the text watermarked, they don't quite match up but the text is still visible, I am pleased that the text is quite subtle, says something about reading between the lines!


For the second book in the series I lightly coloured some pulp so that there would be a slight contrast, making the text less of a watermark, more a stencil.

The cream paper in the two books is cotton sheeting beaten in Papermakers of Victoria's lab Valley beater for three hours, the blue is archival mount board processed in an old non automatic washing machine and with a blender dyed with cartesol dyes.