paper madness

There's been a bit of madness going on here today. I got so excited about it being my first studio day in my new work routine for 08 that I gave my self a headache by about 11am and had to go and have a cuppa with friend to calm down! Funny huh? I'll have to do things in a more measured, sensible fashion or I'll never last the day out :)

The other madness I have to share is a big beautiful book about chiyogami I treated myself to buying just before I left Japan (in 2005). The photo above is of the cover and the ones below are some inside shots. Basically every page (and this is a big book!) has a different chiyogami pattern on it and then some tiny little story in Japanese about the pattern's origin and symbolism and then some cute little manga type figures. I LOVE this book.

new in the shop

I'm quite excited about a new line of prints I've developed for my shop. I've shown a few here recently but there will be more. The one above is now up in the shop and looking pretty bright against my other work. It's been great working on these new prints. I love working with a range of media and adore the pattern of chiyogami so much that I just had to find a way to work it in. And so I have!

All the new prints will have a very strong sense of what's known in Japan as wabi sabi. I love the idea of transient beauty and beauty found in the ordinary. Wallflowers was all about this: the crumbling clay wall of an old Kyoto house and the weeds growing up against it.

I'm also immersed in colour experimentation at the moment and finding it fascinating. I'm trying to push myself to go beyond using the colours that I'm comfortable with. It could get a wee bit crazy......

hot days and pots of tea

Our last visitor until later this month left today and I now have a little time to work. It's been great to play but I've drunk so much wine, champagne, many margaritas and pots and pots of Japanese tea over conversation in the last couple of weeks that it feels very much like time to go quiet and solo for a while. The next few days will be super hot again (41+ degrees or 106 F!!!) so I'm looking forward to being at home and trying to stay cool indoors. I still haven't taken photos of the new studio space. This might be possible now that we don't have a guest sleeping in it :) The little piece above is following on with my chiyogami design theme. I'm fiddling with some of these designs to help me plan out some new woodblock prints. The tea theme seems never ending. Maybe it says something about what I've been preoccupied with lately.

new work

I've been working with some more mixed media designs today. I still haven't settled on the background colours but here are two from the pile I've made. If you have any feedback or preferences in terms of colour I'd love to hear it. I've also put a few more up on my flickr page.

angie lewin

I've just discovered the lino cuts of a British artist called Angie Lewin. I was lucky enough to get a set of her reproduction cards which feature 2 of her prints: Dandelions and Blue Meadow. The one you can see above is called Clifftop IV and was sold out at Bircham Gallery recently along with a whole lot of her other prints.

If you'd like to see more click over and look at the gallery page of her website. I love the colours she uses in her prints. They have a retro feel to them but the lines and shapes are modern, all in all a wonderful balance. She has limited editions of her original prints available too. Oh and she also has some of her prints made into textiles like the lovely one below:

summer

The succulent in one of my big pots is flowering again. I love the gentle orange colour of these flowers.
How can things that survive in such dry conditions produce such loveliness?

Puss still isn't home (see previous blog) but I'm trying to be a bit buddhist about it and accept that we can never really possess an animal and that their time with us is sometimes very fleeting. You know, the non-attachment stuff....but I swear it's harder to do than to say.

I've got to share some beauty from the Grampians National Park. We went there for my birthday just before we moved. This area is just stunning. The wildflowers were out because it was early summer. Check out that Kangaroo Tail (the plant with the tall, black stem). If you want to get a better look at the view and a sense of how high up we were click on the image to zoom in closer. It's pretty amazing.

crappy things and good

This is a bit of sad blog. Our 3 year old cat, Sumi, has been missing for 3 days now and it's making me unbearably weepy and very anxious. She's a cute little grey blossom of a thing. We've just moved house and while she seemed ok for the first 2 weeks, something has spooked her and set her off. I'm hoping that she'll turn up at any moment but the days of looking for her are long and hard.

On a happier note, we are online again at home (yay!) after the move. It's been really challenging to maintain my etsy shop during the transition but somehow I've managed. The best thing about the move has been setting up the studio (photos to come). That's been very exciting. The studio has three long windows so there's plenty of light. It's at the front of the house facing the street so I can watch people walk by. In a matter of days I'll be using it more often and then the real fun will start!