mutal appreciation, society

A little while back Dudley met Dora, (& Dick, professionally known as Dick & Dora). It's been a lovely cyber friendship... one Dudley is so lucky to have found. Somewhere along the track we decided to 'swap' our wares.
Dudley painted a 'Henry' but was so thrilled to receive a D&D 'Hide & Seek' acrylic brooch and some gorgeous ribbon... why not read about their adventures, they have a few.

take shelter (from the rain), a workshop...

Oh, so what happened? just the full-time job and life. BUT meanwhile there's forward planning (or freaking out!) at the stall that Dudley has booked at the zine fair next month. What to do? Enlist in slave labor, make it fun, talk about fame and possible income - oh er um ... I mean the journey, creative exploration, the personal satisfaction...
so here they are: the kids hard at work on their zines, chosen topic areas: 'Elvie's Day' and 'A collection of WWII drawings. '
The lamp pic (bottom right) is from Obsessive Consumption a zine created by Kate who 'consumes, documents and makes'. She draws her purchases - a great idea and well worth checking out.
What is a zine? Zines are small circulation, non-commercial publications that are printed by their creators on a topic of their choice. They come in all shapes and sizes from personal zine, artzines, zines about music and politics, fanzines. Zines are straight from the writer to the reader: raw, uncut and handmade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zine

p.s the softie was created my miss redhead on friday from the 'Softies' book - which she had sought out from the library. Dudley was busy 'facilitating' the zines so hasn't finished his yet. A pity we still don't have power in half the new room...

grey days, indeed

Hello! welcome back! oh... that's right it's me that was missing. Man! what happened? I dunno. It rained, then rained some more then just as i considered wearing the all-day socks 3 days in a row without washing it rained again. One morining, 8.30am I took these pictures as we approached the harbour bridge. (Who does that on the E68?) Anyway, thanks for dropping by. Hey - then after something like 12 days of straight rain - I decided to invest in winter pyjamas (for the ANZAC day long weekend). How cool is Peter Alexanders' new wide leg pj pant range? Warning: you may not want to get changed.
ok -so more to follow - stay tuned...

Fly away

Well i really must go to bed now, and i promise to take tomorrow off. I'm going exploring! woo hoo. I just had to share my 'red birds!' these guys have been gradually on their way for a few weeks and last night i finished the brooches and took the shots this morning. I do like a matching set!
They are at Dudley's place at Esty and Made-it. Night night.

print ready

Day 3. Can't believe I slept in! ...Then we briefly left the building for a family breakfast in Manly, nice. Then back to it - the Japanese theme continued in search of an image for the cover of my zine. Some time ago I came across the idea of cutting up those thin foam sheets to make a printing plate.
Here's one I prepared earlier (yesterday) ... in the (bottom left pic) I'm using a flat bamboo 'thing' which i purchased from an art supply shop one day - when a Japanese student i had with me, mimed what they are used for. Perfect to get the ink onto the paper evenly.
Something i really needed and didn't even know about - isn't that the motivation for most browsing??
(after treating myself to a holiday hair do - the fuzzy hair above was pre-do)..
I came back to the mac for this...

Sew like mama...

Day 2 of the holiday - was always going to be the 'skirt project!' Recently I came across 'Sew what skirts' which is a fabulous book built from the premise that you make up your own pattern based on your measurements. Fantastic eh! Nothing to trace or photocopy. There are 16 different styles which basically incorporate A'line, tiered, wrap around and a layered version. I started with Miss Redheads, figuring that would be a good practise run... On both skirts I put the zip at the back in case i needed to adjust the side seams. Which was a good thought because Miss 10 year old wanted a high waist and I had to adjust my the whole shape at the let's try it on stage... And I don't know what happened with mine - but the initial pattern I drafted would've been perfect for me and my siamese twin...
I had lunch in between the 2 skirts to summon up 'zipper power strength' 'cos having only made 2 skirts before i was freaking out, and had visions of it ruining the whole line of the skirt. Luckily I came across this helpful blog, she has the same book.. and voila - I could breathe again.

Stamp-eed

So Day One of my holiday, dashed out with my cub scout (who was doing his good deed) and got some supplies of the edible kind... then...made myself some rubber stamps (actually from the erasers you get at $2 shops etc, using lino cutting tools). Then played around making some mini cards with matching envelopes and gift tags..
The japanese theme is kinda to go with my 'found in Japan' inspired zine I'm working on.
But maybe i'll take some better shots and list a couple at Etsy and Made it..?
A make-it-yourself stamp project is a must for those who love instant gratification... hhmm.

Be prepared

So another few days gone by, difficult to know what to say - haven't really been anywhere or discovered anything. But do I talk a lot about just what I make + create and is that ok? For the moment it will have to be..!
I did have a fun little play cutting some stamps - but more on that perhaps tomorrow.
A few more tidy-ups are going on here .. today i found this book 'lying around' and I was taken by this picture above sketched last year sometime by Master Redhead (then age 9.) He has actually just started cubs a couple of weeks ago... anyway, I couldn't help myself...
I scanned it in, did some curves and levels in photoshop, added a couple of filters, popped on a few black lines and ended up with this version... if you click on it you can see some lovely textured bits... which almost have a printmaking quality. I sort of wanted to add something to his hand or the foreground, but am not sure yet what that might be...
I have one week holiday ... be prepared.

Old and new

So here we are, the new room! People have asked about sofas - but as I see it - the space is a family room/family home office! Miss Redhead is pretty excited to have a desk next to mama, (she's just sitting at mine here - she doesn't get the imac, no), and Master R knows he can visit. (We are planning on perhaps 2 custom made benches along that wall, not as wide as the tables that are there). Last week as we were preparing for the switcheroo of our interior space it also coincided with council clean up. So from the pavement we dragged in the dining table (just visible here) and an olive green vinyl swivel chair - that Miss R is sitting on. THEN...
Have you ever woken up feeling lucky in an op-shop kinda way? Like you can feel the force... so yesterday I did (feel the force) and the chest of drawers was mine for $50! But how excellent is its' possibility - all Dudley's stuff nicely cared for and stored safely, stock take at a glance.
So thrilled was I. No time to play this weekend as all that reorganising (plus the kids rooms - always satisfying when you sneak away with bags full of rubbish...) really takes it toll.

Grab a blanket...

...Magazine that is.. arrrrw.
i discovered this enjoyable item recently - a pdf magazine.. It is initially difficult to stop yourself from wanting to print the whole entire thing immediately.. but then nice to call up (pretend you are setting in front of your monitor working or paying bills.. oh - so anyway this months theme was music and how you react. They welcome contributions - and I was thrilled they had included my tofu playing guitar head....
plus heaps of useful/inspirational/cool stuff - including an interview with the artist behind 'Keane's' album art.
No need to troll the newsagents...

The sketch club

Sorry - you've had nothing to read here for a few days (painted THAT new room last weekend) then had a couple of days of feeling very lack lustre. Then what should i blog about? oh yeah so the kids and I had one of our evening sessions tonight... It's something I developed to replace them reading out loud to me (I still do the odd accent i do mean odd, but usually cockney) anyway this is what we do...

1) the 3 of us bring a sketch book and sharp pencil
2) we draw one thing - tonights was a 'piece of clothing' i did the legs above, the jacket outline, below
3) pass it on - draw another piece of clothing - Miss R did the muscle shirt
4) pass it on - add the missing limbs/face Master R did the excellent arms + shoes + head
5) pass it on - finish the scene/setting

I was very impressed with Master R's embellishment of the jacket below - I didn't realise how much he appreciates fashion - he also added the head, Miss R set 'the scene'.
I like the fact that we end up with something unexpected that we all contributed to and they are unique to that moment in time.