blood red

There's been some printing going on around here! This time I've made up a rich blood red ink and printed my banksia pod design with it. I quite like the way it came up against the warmth of the linen.

I use 2 types of Russian linen - a warmer colour called 'flax' and a slightly cooler one called 'oatmeal'.

pic 1: flax
pic 2: oatmeal
pic 3: oatmeal
pic 4: flax

The thing I LOVE about printing on 100% linen is the way these towels wear over time to a gorgeous softness with use in the kitchen. And linen is such a beautiful natural product. Remember this video I posted last year about how it's made?

Oh, and they're in the shop. Of course. Xmas pressies perhaps???

etching class with Bridget Farmer

some of the work I made at Bridget's studio

Fruiting Habit

The lovely Daylesford sky

After spending 2 days in Bridget Farmer's gorgeous print studio near Daylesford I feel very inspired and energised.
Bridget taught me the ins and outs of drypoint etching and I seriously think I've found a new printmaking addiction. Bridget's work alone is inspiring enough. Take a look at this gallery of some of her gorgeous bird etchings. Oooh la la! Aren't they just divine?

Bridget's originally from Northern Ireland but has lived in Australia for a few years now. Her current home is the gorgeous bushland near Daylesford which is where you'll also find her peaceful printmaking studio. And I can vouch that Bridget knows her birds! Her studio has several enormous windows looking onto the bush and while we chatted over lunch and cups of tea she regularly pointed out various little feathered beauties as they perched in tree branches nearby. I was impressed. My own bird naming knowledge doesn't extend much beyond knowing what galahs, lorikeets, cockatoos and the occasional magpie look like.

And the printmaking! What fun! Working in the etching medium allowed me to unleash my passion for linear forms, something that is quite hard to portray through relief printing, like woodblock or lino. So based on my botanical sketches I printed up a storm of various botanical inspired etchings and got to experiment with colour and shading under Bridget's support and guidance. I can't speak highly enough of the soft and gentle approach Bridget has towards teaching what she knows about etching. It was a really magical couple of days for me.

The good news is Bridget's running classes. So you too can learn about various kinds of etching processes in the peace and quiet of Bridget's lovely bushland studio.

embodiment + sense-making

I'm still working out the specifics of Instagram but have been playing there a bit this week for the first time @kyliebudge. Boy, there is just a world of non-stop beauty and inspiration in that app, no? I know I could easily lose a lifetime looking down into my phone screen perusing all that people post there. Wondrous!

Speaking of visuals and the role of them in sense-making for artists, there is a pretty cool new post on Pat Thomson's blog by Megan McPherson (@meganjmcpherson and @thomsonpat on twitter) that you might want to check out. In it Megan talks about the role of visuals and journals in sense-making for artists and it made me think of the way blogs and visual repositories like Flickr and Instagram do that for many of us. Go read and see what you think.

One of the topics the post touches on is embodiment. I've been thinking a LOT about this in terms of the big story I'm working on (a PhD about creative practice and the teaching of art and design in universities). Funnily enough this topic crossed my mind yesterday morning when I was home sick with a cold. I should have been writing, or at the very least analysing interview data but I was in that thick fog that colds bring on (still am really) where it's hard to make the brain work. So instead I did some printing. This decision was so automatic for me that it was only later I realised it has something to do with embodiment. While I still have to use my brain to think while printing it's different from how it's used when I'm writing. And I think it has something to do with how printmaking has become embodied for me through years of practice. By this I mean I can more or less just do it without thinking about it too much or over-analysing. And it feels good to do when the brain is tired. Even relaxing.

If you want to read more about embodiment in the context of art practice go read Erin O'Connor's work. If you're up for a big read here's a link to her thesis. Erin's PhD was an in situ ethnography about how it felt to become a glassblower - from novice right through to expert over about 3-4 years. She writes a lot about embodiment of practice and also language and culture in the context of glassblowing. Really fascinating stuff (ok, I might be nerding out here but I really do think that).

I'm really interested to know - do you feel like you embody some aspects of your art or design practice? In what ways have you noticed this?

shibori + indigo = love

Shibori class floor

work drying & oxidising

one of my test pieces

another test piece of mine

other students' text pieces

There's nothing quite like trying something new to give you a buzz. Jo Fowles taught a shibori indigo dye workshop over the weekend at the wonderful Harvest Workroom. I went along on Sunday and helped out. Which meant I got to see Jo in action and participate in some of the fun. In short, I got my hands dirty - blue dirty - as anyone who has worked with indigo will tell you they get even with gloves on! Originally from London Jo is now based in Sydney and creates the most dreamy geometric inspired textiles based on a combination of techniques. She says she is "process driven" and this shows in her passion to get people working and trying things out. You must, must, must check out some of Jo's work here.

In the workshop we used a whole range of wonderful tools and paraphernalia to twist, tie, clamp and stuff into our textile pieces before dyeing. We then dunked these into indigo dye vats and waited to see what would result. There was quite a bit of excitement happening as each person untied, unwrapped or unclamped their work. There were lots of surprises and part of the learning was about letting going of expectations about what we thought would result to play and experiment and let the process show us what was possible. The indigo cloth spectacular at the back of the Harvest Workroom by mid afternoon was really something to be seen.

I'm told via a reliable source that Jo will be back at Harvest Workroom in January for more textiles fun. You can find all the information about that here. I think yesterday may have ignited a little fire for me. If only I could get my hands into an indigo vat on a regular basis!

the honey makers

So this one had a hard birth. The design came quick enough but then I wasn't happy with it as just a single colour print. The bees were meant to be just the one (not the 5 here) and it (the bee) was going to be in black too originally. And that all changed as I started printing which meant the bees got added one by one in that bright punchy yellow. I do mostly like a monochrome palette but occasionally I can let myself add a splash of colour to lighten the energy in a print.

So 'the honey makers' is here in gorgeous 100% linen + ready for use.

Some thoughts on process this week....I've been spending time with quite a few creative folk of late due to the 'big story' I'm writing (a PhD - some background on my other world here) and it's been a glorious thing. I've had a number of similar conversations about process birthing ideas for future projects/work. That is, you start working on something and while you're in there with your creative juices flowing it generates ideas for all kinds of other work. It's like you have to be immersed in the creative process to help this other generative process happen. Well in printing over this weekend I felt that happen. My head has been gurgling with all kinds of ideas for future designs and illustrations. Mostly I think it's a result of trialing designs, manipulating them, problem solving on the hop and then eventually resolving the design issues. Something happens in my creative head space when all of that other stuff is working away. Does that happen to you?

ice blue

Sometimes you've got to go with the idea of 'less is more'. Even though the over-printing on the snow gum print was working out I decided that I wanted to have a single print of this design on linen as well. So I mixed up a nice ice blue this morning as an experiment. Then a printmaker on twitter, @meganjmcpherson, suggested that the coolness of the blue against the warmth of the linen worked because it does in nature. This was the image she used to make her case:

which kind of makes sense to me. So it's listed here in case it takes your fancy.

spring!

Spring blossoms and country air. It doesn't get much better that this. Pics are from the Castlemaine, Chewton, Kyneton area in Victoria.