Studio Work ABOUT my art & others

  strips of scrap matboard collaged all over prior to cutting up. No plan, no preconceived idea - using up scrap ephemera and gelli print fragments. The revitalisation of the project here. 53 pieces cut ready to pull the little design together - each one assessed on its own. Title of the project :  FROM HERE TO THERE.

  Cant wait to see what happens with these.  I took my indoor plant - Fatsima Japonica - and planted it outside next to the creek.  She is very happy there, doubling up each year, and this is the first year i noticed these berries.  They were harvested and wrapped up in the eco dye cloth - surprises in the unbundling - maybe tomorrow !. Fatsima Japonica last Spring

I began here 3 days ago. Day 3 and the third pass. I am losing exactly where i am at as i am now mixing it up.  Some of the first lot of cloth i have kept as is, others i have taken from the onion pot into the avocado pot and then, some of that lot back into the gum leaves and many of all these cloths, including some dry ones have gone into a copper pot. A few pieces are also already stitched works mainly monocolour and/or white on white.  I am using a repurposed urn and interchanging the buckets to heat them up.  It is fast becoming a dirty pot but i am liking a lot of the effects and colours that are coming up. 

I grabbed an armful of WHITE cloths, scraps and a blanket, soaked 3 separate buckets, 1 with onion skins, one with avocado pits and skins and a third with gum leaves from the forest.  I decided to commandeer my studio coffee urn (i will get a kettle!) and started heating up a brew.  (above:  a table runner - onion skins) Planning now to keep going with more white cloths but also to see /experiment with citric acid (as a bleacher) and copper sulphate to adjust colours ... fun!  loving the woven cloth and how the different textiles pick up the colour. that cloth to the right of the woven piece is a lovely rich colour. more lovely rich colour- waiting to see how it dries this was an overdye but nothing seemed to have happened so it will go into another pot today this piece started out well but its got a bit blotchy from the onion skins - will look at another process to adjust this one loving the beige colour in the blanket and the rich oranges (onion skin) although i di...

COLLAGE   It usually begins with collecting.   A collage creates a new whole by bringing together disparate elements. Familiar connections is disrupted and spaces to play are created from existing materials and remnants collected.   That wrapping paper you kept, cards, a painting by a relative or friend, newspaper headlines, fragments from daily life, magazine arms, legs, lips.   Then, from a new perspective a new life, a special appreciation beyond its own inherent meaning contributes to the overall message of a new work. Viewers search for meaning in the arrangement, and at the same time, their attention is drawn to the technicalities. Collage gives form to the diverse worlds of everyday life in often peculiar fragments emblematic of the chaos of realities and connection, for structure where meaning is individually invented and discovered. Here a few words from Geoff Dobson on my collage exhibition, a few years back. I am currently running a #giveaway of a small fr...

When i began this piece I didnt know what the story was. It evolved overtime and with each decision made, it became. As many of you know I am in the studio every day and it is at night, when I go up to the house, I do slow stitching.  This piece was set aside many times over many months, where each stage brought with it a 'what now?' or a 'what if'. Slowly it became 'Under a Big Sky'.   This is how it went.  I began by creating little squares from my shibori scraps, brought in white and eco printed cotton, silk and linen, ironing the little squares around a template i created. One evening, from the box of 'little squares', i began to lay them out in what was a pleasing arrangment to me.  Sewed the squares together into a single cloth and then i tacked it to a calico cloth backing, extending the borders. After it being set aside for many months, i came to the orange stitching idea - a stacking stitch created within a circle. This image shows the stitched ...

  Swiss Miss (Implosure) 40″x34″; collage on a print of a collage on rag paper; 2015 published  KOLAJ February 2018 On a trip to Switzerland to visit my lovely daughter and future son-in-law in 2013 I was creating collages in between sight seeing.  The final piece above started with this original that came together from Swiss magazines in my collage journal.  Stage1. Stage2. - once i was home again i scanned the original collage and added the red background, smoothed around the image and heightened the contrast in areas.  The image (above) was printed on 40x34" rag paper and I went to work on it - adding more collage elements, stencilling and pastel accents. The final piece, framed in a lovely hardwood, was exhibited in Tasmania in 2017.  See a short (silent) video here  exploring the details. 

Places are starting to fill for this upcoming workshop  in Turners Beach Tasmania - thank you - all consumables and materials are provided such as bookboard, drawing papers (200gsm), matboard & foam core (recycled) for lightweight covers, glue, thread, etc  and i have been having fun creating handmade papers for use in covers and/or wraparounds for signatures or collage to embellish your books with. DETAILS of the workshop HERE . message me if you have any questions

  W O R K S H O P   1  Sunday 14 September 10-4pm small groups preferred  held in the artist's studio, Turners Beach Tasmania  In the workshop you create two books - an A4 size accordion sketchbook with pockets & hard covers - bonus paper weaving embellishment PLUS  a scrap landscape sketchbook with lightweight hard covers BOOKBOARD ACCORDION FOLD SKETCHBOOK   This A4 sketchbook containing 62 pages is created using bookboard for the pages in accordion/concertina format that creates valleys to take 6 signatures and    we create 3 pockets as part of the structure, PLUS, from the scrap cuttings you create a paper weaving element on the cover.       video of the book here      second book - SCRAP LANDSCAPE SKETCHBOOK This highly practical size sketchbook is created from the cut off's from creating book one (above).    This book contains 22 pages in a long landscape format and is covered using ...

 i am getting ready to do more chemigrams as soon as the rain (and winter) clears. Spring maybe, summer definitely.   So what is a chemigram? Here is a technical rundown - in short:  A chemigram is a camera-less photographic image.  You apply darkroom chemicals directly onto photo paper resulting in a unique, abstract image.  This technique is a mix of photography, drawing, printmaking.  Artistic experimentation, i think, is key. Mark making experiments yield a diversity of possibilities. This is undertaken by applying resists, allowing light to affect the paper (exposure), and placing the paper into developer and fixer solutions.  The image relies on direct interaction with the darkroom chemicals on the photographic paper. Outcomes are affected by the different resists, chemical interactions and exposure times resulting in unique and often abstract images.  have a look at the book of experiments i created whilst exploring chemigram technqiu...

Two prompts crop up in my practice, every day.  PLAY and WHAT IF?  As part of a series i am currently thinking through i focussed on a a vintage vase  - this one.          >>>> It started with a simple drawing  then explored on a gel plate. It went off in other directions .... 'play' Going back to the geli plate I went to 'what if' AND play. Looking again at 'what if' and the next one. LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK .... any questions ?  thanks for being here. (gina)

  I had  the idea  to post my mum's recipes here on the blog - a record that is not lost of recipes i  wrote down in my 20s when i learned to cook each dish. A record to pass on to friends and family.  My sister and i took turns, under mum's guidance, to learn and cook each weekend. Dad always said 'not enough salt'.      You can  find them ALL here  - a list of individual dishes linked to the full recipe for each.  A single place to find them all .  The list will be regularly updated - keep an eye out and do let me know if you try any and what you think. and always, when cooking, there is a bag of goodies for #snowcone.

I have a set of mum's tarot cards which i dont use but i like the creativity of the imagery and what they may mean. It's not a full set and they are newer than the ones i remember from my childhood which i think came from my Granny in Hungary. I wish i had those ! This set mum gave to me many many years ago - i think she thought I might play with the gift of reading but my left brain always took over. In recent times during de-stashing whirlwinds I found them and this week decided to do something with them. I created a A book of tarot cards that turned out nicely. I have the images below of a few steps in the making. and this link will take you to our you tube channel showing this book in its final form with the box. Do let me know what you think. Materials : tarot cards  a long sheet of heavy weight paper/card - i used 26 inches long and the height is exactly the same as the height of a tarot card bookbinders glue, bone folder book board  fancy papers to cover boards ma...