Sandra Pearce workshop soon!

Tonight the Murrurundi Art Show opens 6pm at the RSL Hall so I hope all my local blog readers will be able make an appearance and enjoy seeing the fantastic efforts of our local creatives. Huge thanks to our generous sponsor Peter Norvill who stumps up the $2000 first prize. If you can't make it tonight the exhibition will also be open next weekend.

I entered 4 works - a miniature, a large painting in the Oil/Acrylic section and 2 garments in the Fibre/Textiles. Rodney also entered 4 works.

We have a fabulous workshop coming up on the weekend of May 17-18th. Sandra Pearce is an enormously talented Queensland printmaker who will be our tutor for 2 days of instruction in gelatin printmaking. The workshop samples will be done on paper but the techniques can also be done on fabric. You just need to use textile paint instead of inks. Heres some examples of Sandras exquisite monoprints done by the technique we'll be learning.

Visit Sandras website for more images....www.sandrapearce.com.au  ....though I don't think you'll need much more convincing how wonderful the work is. This workshop is incredibly cheap at $70 for the 2 days because the Arts Council is subsidising her visit. It is limited to 12 places so get in quickly by phoning Love Appleby at 0431 398833 to book your place and get the requirements lists.

Personally, I'm very excited! see you there....

more fabric designs

This is a fabric I designed this morning. I began with the photo below and digitally altered it in Photoshop. I wanted to make a monochrome image to print on cotton/canvas for making cushions or a cloth bag.

This is the original photo of Ashleigh that I used as the basis of the digital manipulation

Here is a picture of the textile I designed, at a half repeat

The finished textile at a half repeat (52x18"). I called it "Sweet Leah"

I positioned the image so that a metre of the fabric would make 3 42x42cm (17x17") cushions. I can't sell any of this fabric until I've bought some myself to physically sample that it has printed satisfactorily! But some time in the next few weeks I hope to show you the finished cushions and a tote bag. At present only 2 of my designs are available for purchase by the metre.

You can see more of my textile designs at   http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/la_perla  My Spoonflower shop is "la_perla"

Also if you go over to check out the Spoonflower website go to their homepage and have a look at their weekly fabric design competition. The current one is to design a reusable cloth shopping bag to celebrate "Earth Week". I entered a design I called "Earth Angel grocery bag". You might like to look at the entries at vote for your favourites. 








http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/la_perla

April already!

Murrurundi had a short but intensely hot and dry Summer. There was no rain for over 6 weeks between the beginning of December and the middle of January. Our fishpond dried up and we lost 99% of our goldfish which saddened me greatly. The towns dam storage was at dangerously low levels and we went onto level 5 water restrictions which meant you couldn't even wash your car - let alone water a garden or fill the fishpond! Fortunately, though it became very stressed, most of the garden survived. The water level in the town dam became so low that poisonous blue-green algae bloomed and the towns residents were warned the tap water was too dangerous to drink - potentially life threatening! So for 10 days the regional Council handed out thousands of litres of bottled water in a daily delivery round to everybodys houses.

Towards the end of January it finally rained and the weather changed quite abruptly.  Daily temperatures fell from averaging in the mid 30s to the mid 20s (celsius) and rain was falling at least every 10 days. The ground which had been parched yellow straw and dust was a carpet of luminous bright green within a week! the resilience of grass never fails to astound me.

Rodney and I have been doing some home "renovations". I put that in inverted commas because our definition of renovation is probably not the conventional one. Our philosophy is to update only what is absolutely necessary and to recycle, upcycle and make do with what we have available with the intention of minimising consumption of new materials. Of course its an easy philosophy for us to live within because our financial resources are negligible and our taste in decor leans naturally to the rustic and bohemian...

I have also been plodding away at my own creative enterprises. In January I discovered Spoonflower, the American company which prints textiles in small runs starting from only one metre. This inspired me to start working on an exhibition concept for later this year. I've designed some textile prints and made them up in my clothing designs. For the exhibition I want to show the continuum from the original art (working drawings, paintings, image boards, fragments, collages) to the patternmaking and the production of the finished garment.....

Heres pictures of the 2 dresses I've made so far.

Murrurundi art workshops

2 weeks ago we had the pleasure of hosting Australian artist Tricia Reust to teach a multi media workshop in Murrurundi. 12 students attended the 2 day class and enjoyed the tuition immensely. Not only is Tricia a greatly accomplished artist but she is also an excellent teacher.

I did 2 works...untitled, 90x90cm

And the second was an interpretation of my digital image "She Glows", 90x90cm

Murrurundi Arts Council is sponsoring another workshop on the weekend of May 17-18th with printmaker Sandra Pearce. See some of Sandras art at www.sandrapearce.com.au. Rodney and I will be doing this one too and we invite all others who would like to join to book now by contacting Love at 0431398833. The cost is a very modest $120 for the 2 days.

more Frida images

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Viva Frida

Entertaining myself with more digital manipulations this evening. Starting image was this photo of Frida Kahlo....

Original photo of Frida Kahlo I used as basis of manipulations

Below are the three versions I created, in order....

Frida with magenta birds

Frida with embroideries

Frida in mexican cape

Sunflower dayz

This Sunflower self seeded in our garden from seed we put out to feed the wild parrots. I had a feeling it wasn't a weed so Rodney and I carefully avoided pulling it out when it first appeared.

After slogging away for about 6 weeks in all the "spare" time I could muster around work I've finally accumulated enough clothing stock to make a trip worthwhile to Paddington Markets in Sydney. If we can get in as casual stallholders we plan to be there for the Australia Day weekend, January 25th. Will put up some pictures of my latest art to wear creations over the next few days.

On my Pinterest pages I've been following the progress of the developing hobby of "Zentangle" art. I made this illustration inspired by it

"Anna Zentangle"

I'll use this image to embellish some of my garments

Petal

"Petal" digital manipulation, January 2014

I am here....

Sooo BUSY!!!

Just posting this so you know I'm still alive and creating.

"I see the way you were'  digital manipulation by Pearl Red Moon, Jan 7, 2014

All you need is wings

Hooray! last day at work then I have a couple of weeks off.

As ever, I'm trying to juggle a zillion creative projects. Still trying to build up the Boho Banjo stock to make a trip to Paddington Markets in January.

I've started to make a lovely mosiac benchtop in the bathroom, about a third of it completed. Doing that sort of fiddly collage is heavenly fun to me.

In between work, sewing and mosiacing (and because there is so much repeat crap on TV at this time of year) I whipped a little digital manipulation last night.....

..."All you need is wings" (and perhaps a dozen hands...?)

Rodney has me committed to stitching an annex we are making which attaches to the side of our van as we're going up to Queensland to camp out at the Woodford Folk Festival....a busy weekend coming up