Prints for Sale

Village linocut print on hand dyed cotton ( 12 inches square- 30 cms square) $18US inclusive of postage- 2 prints available SOLD

I had an order for one of my little dolls for a small cjild- I tried to make him as bright as possible but with the directive that the doll be purple. He looks at home in the village scene!

Thank you for all the positive comments  for my last post and also the suggestions. I am still dreaming!

Ravissant Lutradur!

Marion Barnett and my book Lovely Lutradur is now out in French with the title "Ravissant Lutradur". It came by courier today so a lovely surprise.  I am really pleased with the way Editions de Saxe have done the layout. This is now my second book out in French and there will be a third next year as well- and so my love affair with France continues!! I have only ever had one book published in English by a publisher ( Tifaifai Renaissance which is now out of print) apart from those I have self published like 72 Ways and 72 More Ways. Book proposals have been sent to the US in the past, by Australian editors but  it was said that  I wasn't well known enough in that market place, and that the content was too meager ( which is interesting given that a  good proportion of  the readers of this blog ar American or Canadian- though I have quite a lot of French , English and Dutch readers too)

Anyway I like that they were prepared to do bright for the cover- the orange sings!

I am thinking about doing another book- haven't quite decided what- seomone suggested the Travellers' Blanket would be a good one to do int he 72 ways format ( but self pubslihing in colour is too expensive). I am open to suggestions???

Dreaming

I am back after a week of being internet challenged - don't ask!!

Taught a dyeing workshop at Leopold yesterday- it's given me some enthusiasm to do some dyeing again- now all ihave to do is wait for fabric which has been on order for two weeks..... You can see some of the dyeing results on Joanne's blog. The workshop was organised byt the Geelong Sewing Centre.

The photo is of the entire Tracks Across the land quilt which is being shown at Ste Marie aux Mines this weekend- I can show it now. I intend to make some more waterways quilts. The top is entirley lutradur , machine and hand stitched- and is a reflection upon all the peoples that have traversed Australia , the importance of water ways for the land and the problems of salination which besets so much of fringe agriculutural land.

And I have spied a little house in France- which has set my heart dreaming- there are a number of co-incidences which my daughter says are signs ( about place and waterways and history and people). I will need to sell all of my quilts or my block of land- but I haven't dared dream like this for quite some time...It needs lots of work which can be done over time, but it's all the other factors which are calling me.

Ohh and there are still afew places in the on-line lino-cutting course which starts next week- email me if you want to join. The lessons take you through basic stroke making to designing your own more complex lino-cuts.

And whilst i was internet challenged my blog reached a few mile stones- 250,000th visitor (as I was unable to access I don't know when that exactly happened) and 170 countries- thank you all for visiting,leaving comments and being friends!

Small Waterways piece

I have been stitching and stitching colonial knots- to create the waterhole kind of effect on this smaller water ways piece which will be part of the Southern Lands exhibition I am taking to France next year for exhibition at Centre Europeeen du Patchwork. Looking at the photo it looks a bit sun flowery- but these water holes from an airplane windown really look otherwordly.

Don't forget there is still time to register for my on-line lino-cutting course which starts September 21st. Participants have produced some wonderful lino-cuts in the past- some of which I wished I had made!!

Off to Bright to teach tomorrow- it's a bit of a drive. Back on Sunday

Colours of Africa

I worked today on fulfilling some promises. Firstly ( but actually second picture) an A4 sized piece for an DUQ auction to fundraise for the National Breast cancer Association in Australia which will be held in early October. Fifteen artists were invited to submit pieces so here is hoping they will raise some funds.

The first piece is for my friend Laura's Colours of Africa project to fund raise, to build a safe school for poor children in South Africa. I intend to make another A4 piece to send to her, because once I got started ideas were brimming, and I found all the right bits of fabric. The leopard is a gocco print from an actual photograph I took of a leopard in Africa. It is a really worthwile project and promises to be a wonderful event for a textile weekend in Essen, Belgium next year.

Village Scene and Breakdown Printing

I am going a little stir crazy as it does not seem to have stopped raining for months now- yes we did have a couple of good days this week, but I did a lot of catch up washing as we have no dryer at our present house and there is no point buying one now seeing we pack everything away late November. I also can't do any dyeing as I do it outside, or much printing either as I also do that outside.

I have been doing a lot of hand stitching- but progress is slow so very little to show for what takes up a fair bit of time. The other day whilst crusing blogs I saw mention of using water colour pencils and breakdown printing. I think I simply read about it on Gloria Hansen's blogpost about the wet studio at Festival of Quilts at Birmingham- but immediately a little light went on. When we were in New Zealand earlier this year I bought some Derwent Inktense pencils and fabric medium to play around with on fabric whilst we were travelling around. Then I remembered I had bought some water colour crayons ages ago- not sure why, I think they may have beckoned to me, although I also remember going through a coloured stage in my journal a couple of years ago. So I thought if I can do a rubbing with transfer crayons then I must be able to use the same process to transfer with water colour crayons.

I found an old silk screen I had in the shed ( which isn't terribly useful for breakdown printing as it has holes in the bottom- I need to buy some new mesh)I put my village linocut underneath the screen mesh and rubbed it with a black water colour crayon. I then coloured in the bits that weren't black with the other crayons. I have to say the space where I printed was far from ideal- there were bumps in the surface ( which you can see on the resulting print) and I only had a tiny amount of Extender print base ( the emulsion that printing ink pigments are suspended in). I was really blown away by the resulting colour and neatness of the print- and even the greyed second print has a certain amount of charm- I couldn't do any more prints because I ran out of the extender base (will have to buy some more now that Kraftkolour is up and running again). The greying of the print could have been avoided by using fresh extender base with each pass of the squeegy ( and I seem to have lost my larger squeegy- so much of my stuff is all over the place because I have no set base to work)

Anyway i can see myself doing more of these!- and needing some more water colour crayons.

Arabian Nights Village

For Sale ( measures approx 30 cm square ) $75 US inclusive of postage

The first image is of a print I have made on evolon. I rubbed fabric transfer crayons on paper over my village linocut and then painted the paper with transfer paint. The resulting print was quite soft- that is the image wasn't clearly distinguishable though there was a pleasant patina of the orange coming through. I then decided to stitch it after all ( I wasn't going to as I thought the print not distinct enough). I firstly stitched around the village components in orange but this wasn't contrasty enough so I ended up stitching around with the 12 weight rayon Ihave been trialling for Aurifil Threads. I then decided to darken the background elements- it looks very arabian now with those colours!

I am teaching transfer dyeing and printing at Sew Bright Quilting in Bright north eastern Victoria on Saturday Septemeber the 12th in case anyone in that area is interested.

If you are interested in an on-line lino-cutting course- just email me- the next course commences on September 21. If you are worried that your english is not good enough don't worry ( plus I can speak dutch, some french, some german and some italian)- I put a lot of images in my lessons so people can clearly see what is required

Last Lino-cutting On-Line Course for the Year

Thank you for the very supportive comments regarding my previous post- yes it is partly angst, and the fine balance of creating and getting your work out there. I just get enticed by glossy magazines and forget that their main game is to sell magazines and disseminate information.

The images are part of a page from a book entitled "Historic Textile Fabrics" by Richard Glazier published by B.T.Batsford, London sometime during the first World War.This particular textile was said to be a Persian Silk Brocade from the XVII Century- isn't it marvellous?? The next image is my attempt to make a linocut of a protion of the textile and it is taking quite a lot of cutting- I think I need to get better tools- perhaps once i move to France!

It is less than three months before we move- so I am having to do quite a bit of planning as to how to pack things away and what I will need to take with me- granted I cannot take much with me as I also have to take the My PLace quilts which take up a whole suitcase.

As I looked at dates and as I do have a wait list for my next on-line linocutting course I decided I needed to start the next course on 21 September 2009 so that participants have time to finish exercises whilst I still have regular internet access. I expect that will be disrupted until we settle down in February of 2010- there is a lot of running around to do!

The course consists of three fortnightly lessons delivered as a pdf document which entails a number of exercises- building from relatively simple marks, learning to know your tools, to more complex designs and interpreting photos and drawings and coloured printing in the last lesson. I set up a Yahoo group so you can share photos and so we can also discuss and troubleshoot- there is always different things that come up. I have also set up a blog to which participants will have continuing access- which will be a resource of linocutting in its variations- looking at different artists and different applications. The cost is a one off fee of $30US. If you are interested just email me. Payment can be made via Paypal if in Australia via bank deposit or cheque.