Beautiful Brown Paper

I love brown paper! I keep playing and exploring and I love it even more. It still amazes me that this beautiful brown paper was once our waste that has been recycled. Such a wonderful circle!

I even managed to pause long enough in my painting to take a couple of photos while one layer of paint was mingling and merging. My main concern was trying to keep the paint on my hands from getting on my new camera. At least I didn't attempt this during the dying process :) Whoever said 'watching paint dry was boring' cannot have had an artist's soul.

The photos in the slide show are from my painting efforts this week. As I do most of the different processes outside, I needed to do a lot of juggling in between the wind and rain to complete the painting. I am not complaining about the rain though - such a joy to see it finally here again. Just that I need to learn new skills of how to paint in short sessions.

Some of these papers are already cut and bound into books. I love the finished items, but I do so love the whole sheets before I cut into them. It's a whole Recycled Brown Paper love affair from start to finish really :) I love my work.

Painting in Autumn Leaves

It was such a beautiful day today that I decided to paint more papers as rain is predicted - but with our drought who knows. Such fun - my painting table & drying hammock are under an Ash tree that is this week rapidly loosing its leaves. They were all around - under foot, landing on my paintings and on me. I took the hint and all my papers today have an Autumn leaf feeling.

I love the richness of the colours - it is all dying and loose washes so that the paints mingle and merge.

Love the shadow of the tree, and of course another leaf fell while I was taking the photo.

Some of the papers drying on the hammock. I finished 7 pieces in all today. Wish I'd taken a photo of the finished pieces - they were covered with leaves. Just gorgeous!

Angels in my Artroom

My art room is often blessed by visits from Angels. Above is beautiful Angel Alex (aged 6), my granddaughter who loves to help. When she sleeps over, she loves to sneak into the Artroom very early in the morning to surprise me. In the photo above she is holding some new little journals that I made last week and she chose the beads and little ornaments and then threaded them onto the spines.


And here are both my angel granddaughters Alex & Hayley (Aged 8) painting watercolours of our Park. They later presented me with a gift of their paintings :)

These funny little things are actually the toggles that I make for my journals. Here they are in their raw state (before being baked), and were made by other visiting angels - dear friends of ours and their children. I don't know how we entertained visitors before my artroom. It is so much fun when people arrive - young and old, we all seem to end up in the artroom creating. It's so much fun to play together.

And here they are in their next stage being undercoated by Angel Alex.

And in their final drying after being undercoated, painted and sealed. I love the stands I made to hold them on their sticks. They look like gums when they're empty. Cause a lot of conversation!

Autumn Sunrise Shadows

Don't you just love shadows! Nature's fleeting works of art! The other morning I was working in my lounge room when I noticed these beautiful images that appeared when the sun rose. I looked up from stitching journals and there it was - beautiful, constantly changing shadow art. Now I'm not usually sitting in this spot before sunrise - but thanks to my snoring husband I began work at around 3am that morning - stoked the fire and was watching an old movie for company. The images kept changing and lasted only about 15 minutes before they disappeared entirely. A wonderful show that has been going on for the 11 years that we've lived here without my noticing. So glad I've finally caught on!

WATERCOLOUR NOTES

My new range of Watercolour Notes. Previously I was painting each watercolour to create the notebook. Recently I have tried scanning my watercolours onto the watercolour paper (Saunders 300gsm) and then binding into notebooks.

I was surprised to learn that my artist friends at the Market hadn't realised that I was creating originals for each book :) The Prints are a great success and mean that I can create the notebooks at a lower price and I am able to keep some stock on the table. Although they're still selling very quickly so I'll have to keep up my stitching.

I also have to ensure that I keep very accurate notes of the print numbers too because as well as signing each notebook I now also which Print Number it is too. Such Fun watching the numbers grow!

I'm so looking forward to my painting break in May at Port Fairy. Hopefully I will be able to produce some new works of the Pt. Fairy region. Such a beautiful place.

The Substation - First Artists Market

How exciting - yesterday I attended the very first Artists Market at the newly refurbished Substation in Newport, Victoria. What a wonderful day!

The beautiful Foyer Windows

And I was very fortunate to be able to attend as I almost missed it. Don't know where my head was but sent my application on Monday thinking that the market was to start at the end of April. Not So.... And hence I was so fortunate to receive a call from the lovely 'Tess' who rang me on Friday to tell me that my application was approved and would I be ready for tomorrow :) Mmmm! Seems the market is to be held on the First Saturday of each Month - not the third as was scheduled in my brain. So I'm feeling very grateful.

Such a wonderful community of people - both those that have spent many years on the project to transform this beautiful old building into an Arts Centre but also the local residents who were very encouraging and supportive on the day to see the Market happening. Thank you to all those lovely people that I met that made it such a special day. There was such an energy in the building. And here is a link their website. It's well worth a visit. www.thesubstation.org.au/index

Photos. Mmmmmmm! Well again - not sure what was happening with my head - I thought I took lots of photos - appears when I get home that the total was 10. Mmmmm .. and can you feel of the market, the people and the whole building. Well no... not exactly. Seems they reflect my fascination with the incredible windows, bricks, ceiling, reflections, lighting on the windows and some great metal thing on the upper level that the sunlight hit in the afternoon. And well it looked really beautiful and I have no idea what it did but I have a photo :) Have included some above for you... but then that's all I have really. You'll have to trust me that there were a lot of people there, even the Mayor came to officially open the day - she was lovely - mmmm no photo of course. And the volunteer organisers - they're real too and made us all feel so welcome but sadly - again no photos. Mmmmmmm! Perhaps next month. That FIRST Saturday in May :)

That amazing metal thing that caught the afternoon sunlight.

And a close up - so you can really see it. I like it!

The musician playing in the foyer - he was great and the music drifted up to our level. Really added to the atmosphere of the day.

My table when I first set up. Not a great photo but hey - it's not another window :)

Beautiful Red Leather

Yesterday I also had the privilege of creating an A4 size journal from beautiful red leather. I lined it with Bamboo and edge stitched in Gold. Gold binding thread too. Wow, it was just gorgeous. The front page was personalised as it was an order from a family for their mother, so I won't show inside but it turned out so beautifully. I don't know if you can get a feel of the true size (I've included a pen for comparison) but it was large and felt just beautiful. I love making A4 journals. My new A3 printer allows me to do this so I've only just begun but they're wonderful.

What a difference a day makes

Mmmmm! My Blogging L Plates are showing. I started this post at the bottom and everything gets stacked on top so that my last writings are my first to show. Mmmm! Is this normal? Best look this up. In the meantime - if you wouldn't mind reading backwards... well from bottom to top I guess. Mmmmmmmmm! I'll work it out :)

One of the garden statues that I made last year. I just love how the sunrise caught the front of her.
The location for Tai Chi this morning and our Breakfast Tea to finish. Can you see sleeping Tasha. Think we must have worn her out. The dogs just don't know what to make of people moving so slowly...must look really funny. They keep running around us, between us and then stopping and staring.
The two ponds. Even though there are three, I haven't been able to get a great photo of all of them together yet - the top one always seems so far away. But you can see how it's progressing. And the Lillies are starting to come to the top too.
This morning the ladies came to my home for our early morning Tai Chi sessions. Although this week it's almost 7.30am before the sun is up enough for us to see. We usually meet at 7am - I like this better as our sessions usually go for 1.5 hours or so and the day then begins later and later. Daylight savings finishes next week so looking forward to bright early mornings again. As the work on the front garden area is almost complete we were able to do our Tai Chi in front of the waterfall for the first time. So peaceful and the sound of the water flowing was ideal.

And then this morning, we were treated to brilliant sunshine painting long shadows. Ever changing mornings - Autumn is magical.
Yesterday morning we were enveloped in thick beautiful fog. I just love how it visually changes everything we take for granted. Like a wonderful canvas but the boundaries are not the edges but rather the depth. Like a curtain behind each view that we take in.

In the beginning... there was a seed

Well... Here I go! Rather tentatively into the world of blogging but finally taking my first steps.

As I work so much on my own, and so enjoy the sharing of creativity with other beautiful creators, I felt it was time that I stepped up to share, not just to enjoy reading the works of others.

So we'll see where this takes me. Bookseed began as an idea that maybe others too may enjoy the beauty of handcrafted books and my other creations. And so it grows. And I have been surprised and delighted to see that not only do others enjoy my work, but that I have received so much from people in return. Not just the honour that they like my work enough to wish to buy for themselves, or even more special, that they wish to buy and to present as gifts to friends, but that they too wish to share their stories, and convey their support of artists and items that are created with love.

People are so beautiful - we just need the opportunity to show it. And I'm so grateful that I can be a witness and recipient of that beauty.