Speak No Evil

I've been playing around with new ideas in my visual diary. While part of my just loves this work, part of me is not sure that I like it! I definately enjoyed the exploration. I wanted my finished work to be more like graffiti (short of actually being graffiti) and I wanted it to express something, inline with the true essence of graffiti.I met my objectives and I love the way the grey avacado dyed paper imitates a concrete surface. I like the incorporated bits of my 'heart nest' lino cut, street maps and random paper...I am just not bonding with the finished work. I'll keep working on the idea until it all falls into place for me.

Crazy Frog is finished!! I am so pleased that I actually finished this and I am really pleased with the end result. It's become a bit of a joke around here that when something happens that shouldn't we just blame the frog.... Mr Nobody will have to take ownership again as the frog is off to his own pond tonight.

I'm not a morning person...but I could be tempted to become one if the sunrise on the hill and moody sky looked like this every day!

Best wishes from me and the frog.

My first hand bound book!

Front and back covers of my book. I plan on using this as a visual diary. I taught myself from tutorials on You Tube. You've gotta love You Tube!
I did 6 signatures, 4 A4 pages folded in half so that's 48 pages A2 in size. I was originally planning 4 signatures but as I discovered book making is addictive!

The back spine, a wee bit quirky because I ended up improvising but that's ok!

At the risk of sounding incredibly vain...I have to say I am feeling very pleased with myself today! Isn't it great when you create something that you even manage to 'wow' yourself with? lol. Ok, so I do sound a little vain now. Serioulsy though, I am incredibly chuffed at the way this book turned out. It has it's little quirks of course but for a first attempt I am, as I mentioned, feeling pretty good.

The painting below became the cover for my book. It was done on paper around the start of 2008. It's painted with acrylic, indian ink and coffee. The assignment I was doing at the time was about life drawing and the environment. You had to combine the two so that the person became part of the environment...so really what you are looking at is a nude on the beach!

Play time!

Click the image to see everything larger.

It's been a busy week here. I did work experience at a local art place which was really cool. It was pretty laid back and I'm going to go back and help hang exhibition in October all going well! I've also made my first book with covers made some thick sheets of handmade paper, no fancy binding (still to learn that) but it's really cool to see an actual book that I made and I know I will be doing some more. I will post pics as soon as I've finished embellishing the cover!
I just figured out what the 'make a collage' button does in Picassa. It's not rocket science but it looks really cool! In brief the collage shows different background papers that I have been playing around with. Indian ink and water, wet ink and salt, wet paper, paint and salt, wax drippings (my son did some too.) You can see the mountains I painted on the placemats.
They're not masterpiece's but it was great to break through some of my self-imposed pressure when it comes to painting! I did actually enjoy it so there should be more to come!
Last but not least... a beautifully rusted muffin tin! I am going to have to do some rust dying I think!

I received an award from Nancy at Openings Connecting which is much appreciated. I will post it in my next post and make my tags. Thanks Nancy!

Text AB and textured paper.

I've been working on a Text themed AB...the only brief was to have fun and use text. I can cope with that! It's funny how, when your mind is tuned into certain things (in my case...birds!) how you find things in unexpected places . Things that you would not have seen had your brain not being in that zone. I was looking at the books pages and wondering if there were any that I could use as part of my spread... as luck would have it...the word Sparrow was sitting right there on the page waiting for me to see it. Sparrow was actually the name of a character in the book. Lucky me.
Typography page from old encyclopedia, sparrow from children's book, op shop found thread, feather, red and gold paint, beads, handmade paper with text flecked through it. I made the paper from the pages of an old, falling-apart book.

I've been paper making again as I mentioned and the AB uses some paper I made the other day and the photo below shows some of the paper I made today. The sheet below was made up from 2 thin sheets with string laid in between the 2 layers. Once I had pressed the layers together firmly I pulled the string up creating the rips. I love the torn apart look and I've made a mental note to do this again with 2 different types of paper. I want to try either different colours and one with images or leaves embedded in it so that when the top sheet is torn away it reveals the other. There's a lot of new discoveries to be made I am sure! Tomorrow I am doing some work experience and will be assisting with a paper making workshop...should be fun!

In case you were wondering about the pears...yes I did paint...but I didn't like my pears so I covered them up and decided to paint mountains instead. Back to what I know! I got quite annoyed with the pears and I don't like the space I find myself in when things don't go according to plan. Thankfully I did realise that although I didn't like the pears I was actually enjoying the act of painting. I ended up with 3 small works, done very quickly and without any dramas! I will post pics when the light is good for photographing them. I am going to take some time to paint in my visual diary and that way if I don't like it...I can throw it away or rip it up for collage!