Flora Bowley's class....

I am one of the many around the world (it seems) taking Flora Bowley's class "Bloom True"...


My progress?


I'm stuck, and waiting for inspiration to strike me...


This is where I am at at the moment...


Canvas 1:

Canvas 2:

Painting at last

Well- I'm making  a start of it anyway...


It's bloody hot here, and my studio is not air conditioned so it wasn't a great choice to start painting today.


But- out I went to the back yard, knitter's thumb strapped, supervised by the ever vigilant Larry, and I started anyway....


Here's my boy, keeping an eye on me as always...


NOT...

It's been at least 4 years since I last started a painting, so I must admit I was a bit tense...   The blank canvas is a scary thing.


But- I solved that problem by starting on a pretty big canvas I picked up from the local church op shop for the bargain price of $2.  Gotta love church op shops!  You can see the original painting of a rose in a vivid magenta colour....  I only thought to take a photo of it after I had already started playing around on it....

I then started the layering process, and here's some sections that appealed to me as they appeared:

I only had an hour or so to spend on it, and the painting will evolve over time, but it's a start... So the end of the session saw the canvas looking like this....

 I sure had a great time, even though it was 37 degrees Celcius!






And Larry???

The excitement was just too much for him.....

I feel a new altered book coming on...

I am so excited.  Went to the local church Spring Fair, and discovered an absolute gem of a book just screaming to be turned into an altered book.  It is a whopping 1745 pages long, has colour illustrations and is in great condition.


The best thing is that it has a screwed down spine, so removing pages from the book to make room for the work within and still have the covers stay flat is going to be a dream.  Pictures below show it in its natural state...

I am about to start on it, and I will post photos as I go.  Look out for posts on Websters altered book, if you are interested....

Handmade Journal

Here's a journal I made from scratch.  It uses a slightly heavier weight cover, and then hand printed paper, stamped and decorated is layered inside.   The whole lot is sewn together and then the spine is decorated with scraps of material and interesting buttons are sewn on to the ribbons and spine.  I have about 50 pages in this journal, and use it to write in quotes I come across, recipe snippets, ideas I want to record.  As such the journal is very organic and constantly changes its look as it is added to.  I have uploaded some photos of the journal and the contents, but when I get organised (and learn how to do it!) I will create and upload a slideshow...

Altered Book Work

Here’s a few scans of my paintings and mixed media work- I paint them into an altered book, which ends up being an art book full of different ideas and themes- this is one of my favourite things to do as it is very portable.  Ro Bruhn started me off on this project when I did a workshop at her studio in Melbourne, and I am always adding and changing the pages as I find and add-in interesting papers or draw something onto the pages.  Have a look at her blog if you want to look at other altered books...   http://robruhn.blogspot.com/