whiskers

trees with whiskers, edinburgh gardens, fitzroy north, melbourne

Last Sunday I had a drawing date with a friend in the lovely Edinburgh Gardens. We had so much fun sitting there drawing in that gorgeous winter afternoon light. We worked until our hands grew frozen and then wandered up the road to a cafe for hot chocolate and other sweet treats. It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon. We've decided it might be a semi-regular thing and we'll invite anyone we know who would like to come along and draw.

I've been totally drawn into Design for Life. Is anybody else watching this amazing series? French product designer Philippe Starck takes a group of young UK design folk and puts them through a series of exercises in the hope of finding someone who will get to work with him in Paris for 6 months. Thankfully it's not as painful or cheesy as most reality shows of this kind. From a teaching point of view it's absolutely fascinating and everyone at work is talking about it. You can see episode one here. If you're quick eps two and three are here on iview. And there's a good description of the series here.

black and white

I don't know where these headless dresses are going, do you? I've been drawing these for the last few weeks and they keep multiplying.
And this is a close up of one panel out of a set of four purchased from Spacecraft in Gertrude St at their recent sale. Black, grey and white wild fennel screen printed on canvas. To go above our bed. Looks like that wall isn't going to be wallpapered after all. But am I complaining?

bookish notes

This book isn't a light read by any means, but it's truly compelling and confronting, and also beautifully written. I'm finally reading Chloe Hooper's much awarded book The Tall Man. The blurb from the Penguin site says this about the book:

"The Tall Man is the story of Palm Island, the tropical paradise where one morning Cameron Doomadgee swore at a policeman and forty minutes later lay dead in a watch-house cell.

It is the story of that policeman, the tall, enigmatic Christopher Hurley who chose to work in some of the toughest and wildest places in Australia, and of the struggle to bring him to trial.

Above all, it is a story in luminous detail of two worlds clashing - and a haunting moral puzzle that no reader will forget."

The Tall Man is confronting for me on many levels because I grew up in North Queensland culture and this is so well described in the book. Reading the first few pages was like a trip back in time on a personal level. And yet the story is a contemporary one - Cameron Doomadgee's death happened in 2004 - giving the reader even more food for thought. The setting is so familiar to me and brings back memories of mango trees, fresh coconuts, and burning sugar cane fields. And yet all of these things and more are so unfamiliar to the average Australian southerner who has possibly never been north of Brisbane. The north and the south are two distinctly different worlds. I'm halfway through the book and can't put it down.

Another bookish thing I have to share is my discovery of The Book Depository who will ship free to 30 countries in the world including Australia! I say no more. I have Isabelle Allende's new novel The Island Beneath the Sea as well as a few other book goodies on their way to me right now.

wet

Things to do when you've got rainy weather on your hands:

1. Make a cushion cover. This one is screen printed and sewn by me. You can't tell in my hopeless photograph but it has a black cotton back to it which gives it a nicer balance than just the all-over natural cotton look.

2. Make a pear tart. With pastry from scratch (I think it's a first for me). We used a combo of the pastry recipe from here and the pear and fragipane tart filling from here. This would be one of my last meals/things to eat on earth if I had to choose. Tons of butter but as we all know that's why it tastes so good.

repeat

The resulting print: 3 colour repeat screen print on calico of my slightly deco influenced flower motif. Do I have table envy of what after using that lovely long one again at I&S? Try as I might I can't replicate this amazing set up at home.

Thanks again to the lovely women of Harvest Textiles - the workshop was fab. There was such a lovely buzz around the studio yesterday. Very inspiring!

a little bit deco

My design prep for a 3-colour repeat screen printing workshop with Harvest Textiles at I&S studios tomorrow. I think I'm going to use this motif I designed and put together using luscious black sumi ink. The repeat you can see in the background is what it looked like once I scanned it into Photoshop and played with the colour. I wanted to get an idea of how it might look in repeat before I committed to it big time on fabric. I'll be adding one more colour to the mix. Should be so much fun!

all things blossom-like

And this is what the block printed succulent blossom fabric was used for - pajama pants. And not even for me I might add.

Speaking of succulents, I was mezmerised by the light and shadow play on my living room wall a few mornings ago. Dried succulent flowers (a different kind to those in the pjs) were responsible for the lovely shadows. Don't you just love autumn light?