Barefoot Wanderings

Art Journey Retreat

As an early birthday present from my family, on Thursday morning I will fly to Perth for the Artistic Journey Art Retreat. A first for me to attend an Art Retreat, and a first, that I know of for an Art Retreat to be held like this in Australia. How lucky are we, I'm proud to support such an event! It is also my first time to Western Australia, it is the only state/territory in Aus I haven't been to and that's about to change!! So many exciting things!!
The tutors are Nina Bagley, Lesley Riley and Michael de Meng from the US and Dale Rollerson from Aus, all very talented people.....not an easy decision choosing which workshops to take! I know I will have a  great experience and learn a lot, but I know the time spent at the retreat will be extra special because I am going with my dear friend Megan. She is a kindred spirit with a beautiful soul and a big heart.

I have been busy since Christmas trying to complete the challenges. Altering (most) of a deck of Playing Cards (entering 5 in a challenge with the rest to swap with other attendees), A Paper Doll Challenge (making a doll from a bag of goodies supplied), A Hall of Fame Challenge (decorating a photo "True Colors" style with a guessing comp at the retreat - this I only did today!) and a Design a T-shirt for next years retreat (well, I can't really take too much credit for this as Megan did most of the work!). I know that I don't have to participate in all of these things but I believe that that is half the fun of attending the retreat......there are great prizes!!! and also because Jo & Jacky have done a tremendous amount of work putting this together and it only seems fair to participate.

GPP Crusade 5

KISS AND TELL - Evidence of Every Day
Below are my Journal pages for the 5th crusade over at Michelle Ward's Green Pepper Press Street Team.

This page was a little rushed as I never seem to have enough time lately!
The background is Golden Anthraquinone Blue, at the moment I seem to be using this colour and Jenkins Green a fair bit.
The words in the background are what surrounds me everyday, thoughts, feelings, actions, etc..
The hearts represent the love that surrounds me, that which I feel for others and from others.
The photos are of My Family - this consumes most of my day!, My Earl Grey cup/s of Tea, my computer (regularly checking emails, Blogs, and working on my own Blog) and what is lovingly called my Golden Tower (around the cubes are my gels/mediums/grounds, the draws hold my Fluid Acrylics and I am starting to 'collect' the Heavy Body colours but these live elsewhere!). The envelope has drippings from my current Vanilla scented candle.

I actually created most of these red pages above before this challenge, just for a bit of fun, and then when I saw Michelle's pages I just had to add my kisses to these pages. I didn't really think it thru and did my kisses on a tissue, a bit meesy to stick these down (especially since it was a soft 3ply tissue!) but I'm just putting it down as learning in the name of FUN!

Beginings and Endings...

...the most recent theme (no.11) in the Altered Book Round Robin.
I created these pages in Alyshia's book.
I found this theme challenging. At first all I could think of was birth and death, a pregnant woman & a cemetary and it took a while to move on because these images just didn't inspire a page. I then thought of cycles, particularly the Circle Of Life, but again nothing came from the hand to the page. I then started to think of journeys and chaos...this was the result!

Rock Star Moment No. 3

My beautiful 5yr old had a grand Rock Star Moment on friday. He was presented with a Merit award after only his second full week at school.

HOW COOL IS THAT!!!

Each week one child in the class will receive a Merit Award that they then get presented with at an assembley held every fortnight. I know that eventually every child will receive an award but I can't help but be bursting with pride, and to be one of the first two in his class just makes me that little bit extra proud.

Unfortunately I was not at the assembly, if I'd have known about his award I would have taken time off work, but one of the other mothers who was there said that all the children recieving their awards stood on the stage beautifully and looked very pleased with themselves.

What made this even more special to me was when he was telling me about the children who had recently had birthdays and received cards, he asked if his award was more special than the birthday cards!! Oh, priceless moments to treasure!

Love 1 ...... Love Many

     Hand dyed paper collage & Acrylic.

Spring.....

...Theme no.8 in our ABRR.  I created this spread in Alyshias book.

In the garss section on the right hand side, I cut out a shadow box/niche leaving a thin frame, cutting out half of the page above. I used these cut out pages to create the frame around the bird in the top left hand corner,that way when the book was shut it would still close evenly..well as even as an altered book can close! I enjoyed playing on the word 'Spring' in this layout.

   

Theme No. 9 was Fantasy
I have already posted a photo of this in a previous post titled Fantasy.

Book Club

Mona Vale Beach, Sydney

I have sometimes wondered whether I should join a Book Club as I LOVE to talk about a book after I have finished reading it, but the feedback I have received from some that have gone does not encourage me to join one. So, for now, these posts will be my book club....

Last night I finished reading another great book (this one actually took me a week to read as life is getting hectic). My friend Megan & I have discovered that we currently have similar taste in the books we are reading. When she read my post Some Good Books she informed me that she was currently reading the Thirteenth Tale! Anyway, she leant me Salvation Creek: An Unexpected Life by Susan Duncan. This book was hard to put down, not becasue it was so gripping you just had to find out what was next. Reading it was more like you were in a conversation with the author, there on the deck, glass in hand, light and casual, listening, content to be apart of it and not wanting to go home. I did laugh, and I did blink away a bit of moisture from my eyes. There were a couple of things that really stayed with me.

1/ One of the characters is washing a lettuce and doing one leaf at a time quite tenderly. The character had learned "..that if you do a job, do it as though it is the most important job in the world....The satisfaction is immense. And there is no boredom because you are thinking about the task, and giving it your best." The other character asks "If you demean your work, you demean yourself?" and she responds "Like that. But broader."

2/ You know at the start that the main character (the author) looses her husband and brother within three days of each other, and that later she has her own battle for survival. Being faced with other people's death does not have the same impact as nearly having to face your own. Realising that we are not immortal. It has been one of those times that the same theme is presenting itself to me over again as there have been other things that I have been told or read recently that come back to this same theme. What I want to know is that without having to face death and battle for survival, how can I achieve living in each moment, not worrying about the future or past, to embrace the fact that life is a gift and that each day and each moment should be lived and not to worry. To breathe. To cherish what's important and make the most with what I've got. These are things I know but it is easy to let these thoughts slip as my life goes on........

Prior to the above book I read Conviction by Richard North Patterson. I enjoyed the read but realise that I am moving away from those types of storylines (crime/lawyers/politics). I have read all his other previous books, and what I really like about his books, is that the main character may feature in more than one book, or a minor character in one book becomes the main character in another. Weaving in and out, filling in more about the characters life or what happens after you finish a previous book! I have his latest book, Exile, beside my bed waiting to start but I'm not sure when I will as there are others I think I'll read first.

More Altered Book Pages

The 5th topic in our ABRR was simply 'A'.
I created these pages in Megans book.

The A is made from pages in the book that have been cut and folded. I then covered it in torn pages of A lists from indexes, dictionaries, maps, directories etc.... painted it in gold and Adorned it with things begining with A. The pages behind are collaged with images all begining with A!!!

       

Topic No. 6 was Gold.

I created these pages in my book....and they are the pages I am least happy with.
During the time that I had to do these pages I was not feeling very creative, and quite lacking in confidence & inspiration...in a real slump.
I was really at a loss as to what to do...and then the Spandau Ballet song came to mind. I don't mind admitting that I was a BIG fan of theirs back in the eighties, I owned every record, knew the words to all their songs AND even went to their 'TRUE' concert in 1984. (and yes, I also liked Duran Duran even though that was not the norm - it should have been either or not both!!!)

Finished Art work

I startred this piece of work before Christmas and only just finished it last night.
I created this piece on heavy Watercolour paper, heaped on gesso and used tools and other elements to make patterns & texture in the wet gesso. After the gesso was dry I then did various washes of colours and used Golden Garnet gel and Faber Castel pastels & pencils. Again there is lots of texture on this piece.
I'm not sure that the photograph captures it properly but the most important thing is, is that I am happy with it! I really like the gritty, earthy feel to it.

It feels really good to finish a piece (as I have a few canvas' at various stages) but at the moment between working on the Altered book round robin and creating things for the Artistic Journey Art Retreat at the begining of March there isn't much time for anything else.

More Pages from the Altered Book Round Robin

Our Third theme/topic was Image Transfer. These are the pages I created in my book.

This is a four page spread. I cut two pages in the middle down to about 1cm at the spine so I could tape in the patterned translucent paper.

The image transfer techniques I used are a Cold Laminate Transfer, Photocopying, Rubber Stamping and a Rub-on.

            

Our fourth topic was White.
These are the pages I created in Alyshia's book.
Again I have done a four page spread.

This first page is two pages woven together. One of the pages has been covered with crumpled tissue paper and the other page has been covered with lace....so there's plenty of texture. There is ribbon arond the inner edge (to hid where the weaving ends) and there is a square silver studs in each corner. The white cockatoo feather is one I found.

The page opposite has also been covered with crumpled tissue paper. I cut a window out slightly larger than the black & white image (of flowers) I printed onto transparency.

The Transparency was sewn into the window frame with silver thread, through small holes I punched in the window frame & corresponding holes in the transparency.
The silver plaque underneath has the words 'the joy of discovery...'

Turning the page....

The other side of the transparency page was gessoed with a course brush to leave lovely streaks and then painted white. (This was obviously done before the window was cut).

The silver plaque underneath has the word 'sweetness'

The page opposite is made up of equal squares of different types of white/off-white paper, lace, mesh etc..