The Bowerbird

Weekend print workshop

Over the weekend I took part in a Dry Point Etching workshop in Daylesford with Bridget Farmer. Bridget specialises in various forms of printmaking, but it was the Dry Point Etching I was most interested in learning. Myself and fellow local designer Fran Pidgeon headed to Bridgets fabulous studio armed with rubber gloves, aprons and itchy fingers ready to print!

Bridget has dedicated 2013 to 'The Year of the Finch' and has been drawing and creating prints specifically on this little bird. Above is one of her very cute dry point etchings of said Finch.

The etching workshop took place on Saturday and Sunday, and it was so lovely to have a creative weekend for completely personal enjoyment - no brief to work to, no commercial limitations, (no toddler around) just me, Fran, Bridget, some 1930's music, choc-chip cookies, cups of tea, and lots of chatting. Fabulous!

I love being in other peoples studios and workspaces, seeing how creative people work, what inspires them, are they neat, messy, organised etc. Most studio's house a lovely mix of random bits and pieces (I like to think of it as studio flotsam and jetsam) that have been found and gathered to serve as useful equipment or inspiration.

I decided to take some of 'my girls' (vintage teacups) to use as a basis for my etching prints. I started off roughly sketching the teacups, before engraving my illustration onto the plate. We were using acetate as a plate, which makes it a really easy substance to engrave and allowed us to work very quickly as no acid is necessary to eat into the more traditional copper plate.

We started off printing our etchings with single colour prints, before progressing to applying several colours to the plate. This is called 'a la poupee' (multiple colours applied directly to the plate) and Bridget has a tutorial about this technique on her website. Above you can see Fran's very intricate and detailed beautiful bird print (left) and my sketchy-style teacup print and inked acetate plate (right).

A big thanks to Bridget and Fran for a wonderful weekend!

New house bits and pieces

Five weeks ago we picked up the keys to our new house and began the upheaval of shifting all of our belongings into a new space. On the one hand it's exciting to be moving, but it's always an exhausting and overwhelming process. We were lucky with a sunny day for the move, and with our things piling up in the garage Mr J checked out the new pad, whilst Jolly cat was a bit bewildered with it all!

Slowly we have been unpacking, cleaning, dusting and trying to locate things buried in forgotten boxes. The empty new house we moved into is gradually turning into our new home. Books are finding their way onto shelves, clothes are in wardrobes, pots and pans are in cupboards, and I'm trying to find new 'safe' homes for teacups, coffee pots and all my ceramic bits and pieces - having them all out on display was fine before having a two year old running around!

My studio space is a lovely light filled room overlooking the garden, and I've got all my favourite pieces of reference material / inspiration images pinned on a big wall in front of me to gawp at. I'm trying to be organised, de-clutter and have a big clear out - but I'm such a hoarder that I struggle to let go of a lot of things! Consequently my studio is packed full of things I love - which makes it a great personal workspace for me :)

The kitchen is relatively new, so I'm doing my best to 'de-newify' it by getting all my favourite second-hand tins, retro cups and general vintage kitchenalia out to break up some of the plain white cupboards and laminated work surfaces. I'd like to put up some more shelving to display kitchen stuff I use on a regular basis......but I'll have to persuade Mr B to get his tool kit out for that!

Cute vintage children's memory game

How adorable is this children's memory game! I picked this up recently at the Daylesford Mill Markets, it was only a few dollars as the cardboard box housing the cards was a bit old and battered. The sweet little cards (measuring 5 x 5cm) are in great condition and I just love all the different pictures and illustrations. There are 54 pairs of cards in total, with the idea being to spread the cards out picture side down, gradually turning the cards over to reveral the pictures, and to try and remember where all the matching pairs are.

The game was manufacturerd by John Sands in Australia, 1966, and some of the pictures in the game are taken from 'House of Cards' by Charles Eames - which explains why I love the images so much.

Kyneton Daffodil Festival

Over the weekend we had the annual Daffodil Festival. Kyneton is just bursting at the seams with Daffodils at this time of year - they bloom in all the public parks, along pathways, and every garden shimmers with yellow. The Festival celebrates this yearly event and also welcomes the start of Spring - hurray!

The children's petting farm was a particular favourite event with chickens, ducks, sheep, goats, rabbits, turkeys and even a deer roaming around, happy to have a cuddle and a stroke. Very exciting for a two year old - and even for some adults!

Kyneton turned on a fabulous Spring day with beautiful warm sunshine, and it was great to get out and support the local schools and CFA with their fundraising - sausage sizzles and buying yummy home-baked cakes isn't too difficult to support! It's a really social event and lovely to catch up with people and see all the community getting involved.

Lovely patterned old tins

I seem to be adding old vintage and second-hand tins to the list of things I find myself collecting these days! I've picked up the above beauties over several months from various different places - second-hand shops, vintage markets, and the rather lovely blue willow patterned tin was given to me by a very sweet friend.

The blue willow tin and the yellow floral tin are old Australian 'Willow' brand designs, whilst the tin with the bird illustrations and the gorgeous floral tin tray are vintage designs made in England.

Vintage teapot & jug

Several months ago I bought this very sweet vintage teapot (I think I bought it when I visited Inglewood), which is made in England by Arthur Wood, with a pattern called 'Summertime'. I was really drawn to the stylised floral pattern, and the colour palette of the florals on the yellow glazed teapot - definitely not the usual old-fashioned florals found on English vintage ceramics.

Then a few weeks later in Daylesford I came across this large jug, and instantly recognised the pattern as being the same as the teapot. I thought it was a bit unusual that the jug was white, whilst the teapot had a yellow glaze - and on turning the jug over I learnt the jug was made in New Zealand, and wasn't part of the English Arthur Wood collection.

It's a bit of a mystery how the two pieces have the same pattern (maybe the pattern was licensed for the Australia-Pacific region?) but either way I like that the two pieces don't match perfectly, and they make a great addition to my random collection of vintage chinaware.

Kitchen sketches & illustrations

During the past few weeks I've been working on some sketches and illustrations, based on
things in the kitchen - pots and pans, utensils, food items and condiments etc. The majority
of the sketches have been created using an ink dip pen - I don't very often use a dip pen to
do my artwork, so it's been a fun excercise to practise with this medium and experiment
with drawing in a slightly different way.

As a left-handed person I've had to get special left-handed nibs to use, and I don't think I'm
holding the pen 'correctly', but I like the effect nontheless and I've gradually started to find
my way with how to acheive the quality of line I'm after. I've predominantly used a Speedball
C-3 nib for the outlines, and a much thinner C-6 nib for any fine detailed areas.

Several of the illustrations have been created quite loosly with ink and a paintbrush, or I've used a wash of ink to add in a few subtle shadow details. I've found the ink dip pen forces me to be quite simple with linear markings, but I like how the contrast between thick and thin lines is enough to create a sense of detail, perspective and shadow in a very minimal way.

Here we go again!

It was just over a year ago that we packed up our life in Melbourne, and did our own little Escape to the Country, moving north and settling in Kyneton. We've absolutely loved making the move out of the city, and have formed great friendships (with many other 'ex-pat' Melbournians) as well as enjoying fabulous local food, wineries, markets and lots of new vintage places to explore.

We've made our life in the country a little more permanent, as a few weeks ago we purchased a house here in Kyneton. And so I find myself again surrounded by boxes, packing up daily life and carefully wrapping treasured items for the short journey across town to our new home.

Many of the items I'm carefully wrapping up aren't worth anything - teacups and teapots found in the bric-a-brac section of the local op-shop, plates gathered at vintage markets and miscellaneous ceramics and kitchenalia from garage sales. However, I'd be devastated if I lost my collection of bits and pieces. If my TV / DVD / bike / kettle / toaster etc breaks - so what - I just get a new one. No big deal. Go to the shop...choose new item.....purchase....bring home. Easy.

However, my favourite teacup or plate might only be worth $5 - but I bought it because it was different, unusual, individual. I bought it because I loved the pattern, the shape, the colour, the old-fashioned feel and look of it. I bought it because it's not something you find everyday in every high street shop - but because I might never come across that same item ever again. Not so easy to replace.

It will be exciting unpacking and finding new homes for all of our belongings (many of which need a little dusting!) and I'll look forward to sharing some of our new house adventures here. Above is a sneak-peek of the house - we've gone for a cheeky 1970's number. Wish us luck for the move and fingers crossed my ceramic treasures survive the journey!

Little Golden Book - Animal Book

Cats cuddle. Cats purr. Nothing's as smooth as cats' fur.

Mice scuttle. Mice squeak. When the cat's about, Mice sneak.

Owls hoot and Owls blink. No one knows just what Owls think.

I'm always on the hunt for second-hand Little Golden Books, and I've collected some fabulous ones recently. One of my favourites is this My Little Golden Animal Book, which is full of very cute animal illustrations - farm animals, domestic animals, flying animals and swimming animals are all here.

The book is dated 1963 and features little rhyming dities to accompany each animal, with the very sweet illustrations drawn by Moritz Kennel.

Portraits....landscapes....life drawing....and more.....

Little Mr J turned two last week, and I received a surprise birthday card featuring a portrait of him that my dad had painted. The watercolour portrait is only small being on a birthday card, but it captures him (and his best friend, the Jolly cat) perfectly.

I've never really painted portraits, so I'm always in awe of people who can do this as I think it has to be one of the hardest things to paint.

My dad has been updating his blog with recent paintings from his home in Ireland, work from a few years ago whilst living in Southern France and prior to that England, as well as sketches and paintings from his sketchbook. The two paintings below are recent oils depicting moody skies and iridescent landscapes in Ireland.

The scene below is a watercolour landscape of Ireland, and lastly a painting of Norfolk taken from his sketchbook.

Recently my dad has also started some still life classes, painting nudes. You can see more of his figure studies here and here.

I have recently had the opportunity to paint the female figure for only the third time since leaving art-college, more years ago than I prefer to remember. Painting the human figure presents unique challanges very differnt to landscape or still life. It is, I believe, all in the drawing, getting the balance, form and proportions right. There are no straight lines, no definite angles or corners to take measurments from, coordination of eye and hand are paramount.

And lastly here is a video featuring some of his current work. Enjoy!

Post holiday blues

I've been suffering a little bit with post holiday blues, after a beautiful week spent in Queensland. It was fabulous to get away for a few days for a change of scene, and to escape the chilly winter days here in Kyneton.

Mr J had a great time hanging out at the beach, making sand-castles and running into the surf for a paddle. As a child I loved going to the beach for summer holidays, and growing up in England nearly all of my childhood beach trips were in the UK or Scotland (if anyone watches the British TV series 'Doc Martin', this is filmed at Port Isaac in Cornwall - one of the beautiful beaches where I used to go on holiday) It didn't matter about the weather, it was all about being outside all day, discovering and exploring new places, playing on the beach, collecting shells and poking in rock pools - and yes it did involve swimming in the very cold waters surrounding our small island!

It was wonderfully refreshing for us to have a break from work, and to be without computers, emails, train timetables and house chores for a week. Back to reality now with frosty mornings and still un-read emails in the in-box!

Of course I made it a priority to check out a few local op-shops and second-hand places, and my Queensland holiday was complete when I found this rather gorgeous vintage English teacup and saucer featuring an art deco style pattern in tones of greens.

Vintage children's chalk-board & lettering set

Several months ago, I bought this rather cute vintage children's chalk-board and lettering set. The reason I bought it is that it is exactly the same one I had as a child, and it bought back all-sorts of memories when I saw it!

It's a rather nifty little set - the top of the case is a chalkboard that also doubles as a magnetic board, and on opening the case you find two trays of magnetic lower & uppercase letters and numbers, chalk, a chalk-board rubber and a set of descriptive cards. All housed in its own carry case with handle. Tres chic!

The assorted descriptive cards fit onto the chalkboard, and you can either trace around them with the chalk, or pop the magnetic letters into the blank spaces. You can also just put the letters directly onto the magnetised board and create your own words and sentences - or you can simply draw on the chalkboard with chalk.

It all seems very simple and naive compared to the sophisticated toys and video games available on ipads and iphones for children these days, but I think it's much more inventive and imaginative....although sadly it's not as light, and it doesn't fit in a handbag!

Charley Harper

The fabulous graphic-style illustrations of Charley Harper

I'm a big fan of the work of American illustrator Charley Harper, and some time ago I received this fabulous book Charley Harper an Illustrated Life, compiled by Todd Oldham, to add to my book collection.

Charley Harper was a prolific American artist - born in the 1920's he started producing commercial work in the 1950's, and continued to produce commercial art, illustrations, posters, book illustrations, mosaics and silk screens throught his life. With an instantly recognisable style, he was renowned for his highly stylised wildlife interpretations and modernist style.

I love Charley Harper's very graphic and simplified style, with flat (almost computer-like) shapes and use of geometric patterning to convery texture and depth - instead of any shading. He also has a fabulous quirky take on his subject matter - just look at his representation of the Australian Koala and the back scratching baboons.

I'm totally in awe of his pared-back style, and find it amazing that his illustrations were hand-painted and not created on a computer! His simplified and stylised artwork translates perfectly to silkscreen prints, particularly his bird series which culminated in his 'Birds & Words' book in 1974.

Above is a very tiny snippet of the very fabulous artworks in the book. You can find more information about Charley Harper and his work here