Fixie's Shelf

Hello and Welcome

Hello to those of you who have found my blog through Grass Roots Magazine, and to those of you who have found it through my book, The Grimstones: Hatched.  Welcome!  It's lovely to meet you.  Do leave a comment to say hello, and thanks to those of you who already have.  Click on my side bar to read a guide to this blog.  There are links to help you find out more about The Grimstones, my gothic marionette show which is now a book.  And there are links to help you find out more about living sustainably and self-sufficiently, which is my passion.

A new batch of chicks

We've received more chickens!  They came on a bus from QLD, though I'm optimistic I now know where to get them in Vic, which I hope to do next Spring.  This time I've got 15 little chicks, and am sharing them with two neighbours: Suni and Lis.  We'll get 5 chickens each, assuming none of them die.  And if a few do die, we'll share up the meat by weight.  Yes, these are for the table.  My last lot of chickens were SO DELICIOUS I'm committed to doing this for the long term.  I had these babies for a few days, and now they've gone to stay with Lis for a few weeks, until they are big enough for the garden, then they are coming back to my place to eat all the greens I've planted for them.

 

Bunny Girl

I made this using real fur from my angora rabbit.  Yes, I really spun it on the miniature spindle, knitted it with a pair of tiny skewers for knitting needles, and glued actual fur onto the rabbit.  It's a bit hard to see all the texture and detail from this photo, but it's very 3D... It's actually so fat I had to take it out of my journal.  I think I'll glue it to a piece of wood and hang it on the wall.

 

Enough Information

Another page in my journal about Enoughness, to help me remember to embrace these ideas.  I find it really weird, the idea of "Enough Information" because I am a serious information-pursuer.  I love research, learning about new things, hunting for inspiration.  But it is true that that too much information leads to can't-be-bothered.  With my online art course, there are about twenty videos - that's a LOT of information.  It's very tempted to watch them all at once, because I'm so hungry to know everything.  But happily I have a limit - I can't understand them without Paula to interpret for me.  And I have to wait until she's ready, do some kind of swap with her so it's worth her while.. and THEN I watch the video.  While watching, I take copious notes because I know she won't interpret the same video twice.  And then to make it all worth it, I set myself several exercises to practise the new stuff I've learnt.  There's another course offered at the same academy, and I'm dying to do that one too.  But I promise myself I'll wait, partly because Paula can't interpret two courses at once, and partly because this way I can go slow, understand everything fully, practise the new concepts, and then be ready for the next thing.  And when I do a quick check inside my head, I know there's enough artistic information in there right now.  I don't need more inspiration at the moment.  And yet I'm on auto-setting to go looking for it.  That's where Enough comes into the picture for me.

Enough Happiness

I want to make sure I remember (and learn to act on) all the Enoughness from my recent read.  Usually when I read a book that impresses me, I write up notes - a summary.  I've done that and posted it here on my blog.  But I also wanted it in my journal, because as I flip through it, it forms a daily reminder for me.  Today's page is about being content, striving to "modestly enjoy the day" rather than striving to live inside a peak high.  I'm pretty pleased with how I managed to arrange the text onto this page, and also with the girl I drew - more learning from my Petite Dolls course.

My own little lights

I've been making candles, inspired by Jo Schoof of A Little Light.  Here's my first batch:

I'm pretty pleased with how these turned out, though the stone cairns need a bit of work to be more realistic.  My favourite are the red avocadoes at the back.  I experimented with adding different amounts of dye to see what their effects would be.

I melted the wax in a little tin on our rocket stove, while Paula cooked dinner.  I try to do my candle making when we have the rocket stove going, so that I can use waste fuel rather than use gas.

Then I poured it into a plastic container to cool.  At least, I did until I inadvertently poured in a particularly hot batch of wax, which melted the container and resulted in wax all over the ground.  Bugger.  After that I use a ceramic bowl instead.  Once the wax had cooled to the point it was starting to form a skin, I poured it into the latex moulds, which were propped into a tray of walnuts to hold them up:

If you look carefully at the candles you'll see some of them have walnut-shaped indentations on them.  Once I wised up to this, I took the moulds out of the tray while the wax was still pliable and smoothed them a bit in my hands.  It would probably be better to use a tray of sand or something softer, but the walnuts were hanging around and I couldn't be bothered to set up anything better.

In the photo below you can see my plastic container of hot wax, the largest stone mould and one of the avocado moulds filled with wax, not yet fully set, and a few avocadoes that I'd just turned out of their moulds.

I had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.  I'll be interested to see how long the candles last.  Jo's candles of a similar size are advertised as having 150 burning hours.  If that's true of mine, then I might finally have a way of meeting my family's candle needs.  I've been making tapers for a couple of years but haven't been able to keep up with the quantity we get through.  Maybe with this method...?

A Little Light

A few weeks ago when I was in Westgarth, I passed a new shop I hadn't seen before, A Little Light, its windows filled with beautiful handmade candles.  I went in and admired - I loved the rustic, handmade feel of them, the rich earthy colours, the pockmarked textures and the natural shapes.  

I asked the woman behind the counter if she made them herself, and when she said yes, I immediately started plying her with questions.  It turned out her name was Jo Schoof, and she was kind enough to take me out the back to show me her factory.  I was entranced - latex moulds, pots of hot wax bubbling on the stove, boxes of parrafin and pots of dye...  I was also impressed that she was a woman about my age, who had made a business from her art - clearly a successful enough business to run a factory shop in Westgarth.  Jo generously invited me back to play (and learn) one day when she was making.

That day happened last week, and I went armed with my Grimstone books as gifts.  Jo put me to work right away, preparing wicks and moulds, pouring wax, showing me the secrets to get that lovely bubbly texture rather than perfectly smooth wax.  She mixes all her colours herself, from basic red, blue and yellow dyes, and I think so much of her cleverness is in the judicious choice of colour.  While we worked, Jo give me tips, told me how she'd made the latex moulds, how wick needs to be primed and apparently burns better one way that the other and so on.

Here's me pouring pale blue wax into egg moulds.  If you want to know the process, watch this video of Jo Schoof in action.  (Watch Episode 7, segment 4: A Little Light.)  That pretty much sums up what I was doing on the day.

When I left, Jo sent me home with great chunks of waste wax - wax that has become too dirtied to fit the catalogued colours she sells.  So now I'm coating avocadoes and stones with latex to make my own moulds, and I'm unbelievably excited to think I might be able to make some Jo Schoof-inspired candles! Stay tuned - I'll post photos when my candles are complete.

 

Giving without spending

Last week turned out to be a week of gifts, and I'm happy to say I managed to do all of them without spending a cent.  I once asked my girlfriend, what can I give that doesn't cost any money nor take any time?  She stared me down and suggested that the whole point of giving a gift is that you give something of yourself - whether it's time or money.  So maybe there are times when you have an abundance of something and it's easy to give away the extras - that's great.  But the substantial gifts, the ones that make the receiver feel special and loved, are going to take some time, if they didn't cost money.  I'm trying to learn that, to take the time for the people in my life who I care about.  The point of this post is really to suggest ideas for gifts that don't involve buying, and all the consumer evils that go along with the spending of money.

Meet my niece, Ivy.  I invited her over for a birthday sewing session.  When she arrived, I asked her what she'd like to make.  My suggestions included a doll, a cat, a rabbit, a bird...  The bird inspired her so I drew a pattern on a piece of scrap paper.  I then let her go through my stash of good fabrics, though I stipulated there were a few I wouldn't be letting her use.  I needn't have worried - she immediately fingered a pink floral fabric that I am happy to part with.  While I cut out the bird, she went through my button jar, carefully choosing which buttons to use for eyes.  Her favourites were, surprise, the pink ones.  When I showed her the pink button eye on the pink birdy, and suggested they might be a bit tricky to see, she got it immediately, and opted for purple instead.  If she'd wanted pink, I swear I would have gone with it!  She sat on my knee as I stitched it up on the machine, and chattered to her about securing the thread by going backwards and forwards (she pressed the button on the machine for me), and showed her how to use a pin cushion and so on.  When at last birdy was finished, she was thrilled.  The whole venture took two hours of my time and made me feel really good.  It wasn't only Ivy who 'received' from this project.

My nephew, Olly, is into gardening, so for his birthday I saved up a bunch of the more fun gardening jobs, and invited him over to work with me.  We had a beautiful morning, I got plenty done, and I gave Olly a few of our pickings to take home.  Like the bird, the morning with Olly made me feel good.

My neighbour, Lis, had her birthday this week, and I remembered that I'd done a picture in my journal that looked rather like her, and even included a painting of my favourite Tshirt that Lis wears.  I really loved the Tshirt and had drawn it as a reminder that one day I should maybe make myself one like it.  I also loved the colours in that journal page, so decided to work up a new version of it to give Lis for her birthday.  It's much quicker to do a painting based on something you already know works well, because most of the agony (for me) is in trying to get the colours, textures and composition to come together.  I whipped up this pic for Lis in just a couple of hours, and included a space for her to declare her creative intentions for this year - a theme we've been chatting about lately.  When I dropped in to give it to her, she was up to her ears in house cleaning, to prepare for guests coming that afternoon.  I thought that sounded like a very un-special way to spend her birthday, made even less special by the fact that her hubby and kids managed to forget to make a fuss of her first thing in the morning, so I offered to help her whip the house into shape.  It didn't take long, but with a bit of help from the kids, within half an hour the house was looking great.  It didn't feel like a lot to give but Lis said she felt really fussed over.

Unfortunately I forgot to snap a pic of the other present I made, which was the biggest one of the week: a mixed media portrait for my cousin's wedding.  I used a bunch of photos I found on her facebook page to to work out faces, colours, bodies and styles for the drawings of her and her fiance.  Since my cousin is pregnant, I cut her dress out of a pretty patterned paper, including a big bulge for her belly.  But I didn't glue down the belly part of the dress - it unfolds like a little door, and when it's open, you can see the baby inside.  I liked the concept, but I'm not sure how well I pulled it off.  I ended up panicking because the whole thing just wasn't coming together.  Unlike the Lis portrait, which was based on a pre-existing page that I knew would work, I was flying blind with this, trying to come up with colours that I thought would appeal to my cousin and her partner, make them blend in a way that was appealing and yet somehow earthy and not too girly etc... I kept on going, glueing on rocks, found objects, and adding more and more texture with shellac, blots of paint etc.  And eventually it was sort of alright.  I wasn't entirely happy with it, but I showed it to a few people who assured me it was gorgeous.  Hmm.  Anyway, I was out of time then, so wrapped it up and left it on the gifts table at the wedding.  I've no idea what she and her now-hubby will make of it, but hopefully they'll appreciate that while I was making it, I was putting a lot of love and good wishes into the formation of their little family.

My final gift of the week wasn't photo-worthy at all.  I simply invited a friend around to lunch and cooked for her.  We had a gorgeous chat and got to enjoy each others' company.

What about you?  What gifts do you make?  Got any consumer-free ideas for presents?  Please do share here!

Ever get the feeling you've had enough?

Have you read Enough - Breaking free from the world of more by John Naish?  It was recommended to me by one of the readers of this blog - I can't find the comment now and so don't know who to thank - but I'm really glad it was referred to me.  I got it via an inter-link library loan and I haven't been able to put it down.  I feel I have much to learn from Naish, and so have gone through the book and written up notes about the gems he shared that felt most relevant to me.  I thought I'd share them here.  But there's so much more in the book, so if this inspires you, get ahold of a copy and read it for yourself.

In his book, Naish says that ‘enoughness is the tipping point, beyond which getting more of anything makes life worse rather than better.’  The premise of the book is to help us identify our personal tipping points, and learn to say, ‘Enough’ at the right time.

It’s harder than it sounds, because our brains evolved in the Pleistone-era, and are ‘programmed to fear scarcity and to consume everything we can.’  In order to find a ‘life beyond shopping, work, acquisition and status,’ the key is to balance our own personal sustainability.  That is, we need to ‘discriminate between new things that might enhance life, and those that – despite their glister – detract from the good stuff already in it.’

Enough Money and Enough Work

Getting richer no longer makes us happier.  In fact, many say wealthy westerners are certifiably miserable.  Saying ‘Enough’ doesn’t need to be about self-denial.  ‘If you budget for enough, it will hopefully be easier to work to earn just enough, to liberate life for the nourishing stuff beyond the narrow sphere of getting and spending.’

We need to get out of the grip of the big corporations, who use their marketing power to trick our Pleistone-era brains into thinking we need what they’re selling.  Naish makes the analogy: ‘if you were physically forced by powerful gangs to spend all your time and energy in the pursuit of things you didn’t need, didn’t want, and ultimately didn’t enjoy, you’d feel sorely misused.’

Although money can buy us convenience, in the form of machines that will do our work for us, rather than using that liberated time for the good stuff, we tend to react to convenience by working harder.  Think of how vaccuum cleaners have led to wall-to-wall carpets, rather than women who are freed from housework.

Naish suggests that rather than pursuing ever-more success in our careers, we say ‘Enough,’ when our job consumes an appropriate portion of our time and energy, and provides us with enough money for our basic needs.  For many of us, this means scaling back in the work department, looking for the ‘demotion’ rather than ‘promotion’.

In times past, religious rules have required us to take a day off from work every week.  These days, our commitments increasingly infringe on our opportunity for personal time.  Naish suggests taking a personal sabbath as part of the key to maintaining inner sustainability.  I can vouch for this myself, having noticed the amazing rejuvenating effect of a weekly ‘pyjama day’.

Enough Information

In the Stone Age, we were motivated to get out of our caves to meet new people, try new things, and make new discoveries, by the thrill-seeking circuits that have evolved in our brains.  Afterall, those who lacked the desire for new information and encounters probably stayed in their caves and died out.  These days we have ‘the increasingly seductive lure of virtual reality, which provides short-cuts that enable our brains to experience exciting biological cues [via the internet], such as attractive and willing mates, that [we] have been built to go out to find in the real world.  Our thrill-seeking circuits no longer have to leave the sofa to get their kicks.’  This explains why I find it so hard to get off the internet, even when I know I’ve had enough.

Although we tend to believe that more information is always a good thing, these days we are so innundated with choices and options that we tend to get overwhelmed and find it difficult to make decisions.  We need to stop wasting our time pondering small options that hardly make a difference to the thing we are buying, place we are going, or service we are acquiring, and simply get on with it.  In other words, we should go on a ‘data diet’.

We also need to break the tie that keeps us closely connected to our mobile phones, inboxes and newsfeeds.  One study shows that ‘your concentration gets depleted by constantly feeling compelled to stop and check your inbox.  This continual state of background distraction means we lose productivity.’  ‘It takes about four minutes to recover from an electronic interruption and regain your train of thought.’  The message for us: only check your email a few times a day.  Turn off your phone unless you need to use it, or turn off the sound and simply check for messages at appropriate times during the day.  Although it’s considered a mortal sin in our culture, we actually don’t need to be contactable and reachable by others all day every day.  Make a habit of finding some unconnected time away from your devices.

Enough Food

We are programmed to eat as much as possible when we see appetising food, to prepare for times of scarcity.  These days we are surronded by images of food, which switches on our appetite, but there is no longer a natural off-switch.  The key, Naish believes, is to eat strictly at set meal times and avoid snacking.  Try not to think unneccesarily about food, and don’t pay attention to the food images around you.

Strangely… Enough Happiness

It may seem odd to say ‘enough happiness’, but in truth, we can’t be happy all the time.  ‘Happiness is an evolutionary adaptation that exists to make us engage in certain behaviours at certain times when they might optimise our chances of surviving and reproducing.’  Likewise, our negative emotions have also evolved to helpfully propel us into action to improve our circumstances when needed.  In fact, the quest for happiness may be doomed, since a ‘study in the Journal of Neuroscience says that mammal brains appear to be built with fewer mechanisms for feeling pleasure than for suffering pangs of desire.’  Studies show that from the age of twenty-five, our basic level of life-satisfaction is set, and tends to remain fixed, regardless of the good and bad things that happen to us.

‘Above a certain level of life-satisfaction, it gets much harder to push your morale any higher.’  Think of a pyramid, where the bottom, widest, layer represents our most basic needs: air, food, drink, shelter, sleep etc.  Attaining these and moving to the next level, which represents safety and stability, will give us a pretty big burst of happiness.  But for each level that we climb, through love and belonging, to achievement and mastery, and finally into the pointy topmost realm of personal growth, the increase in happiness gets smaller and smaller.  Once we have it all, where do we go from there?  Humans, rather than being satisfied when perched at the top of the pyramid, as many of us Westerners are these days, tend to find increasingly trivial things to hunger after, in the hope that they will give our happiness a boost.  Chances are, though, that the boost will be small and fleeting.

Instead, Naish quotes Imlac, who declares that ‘people should spend their time modestly enjoying the day, rather than worrying if they’re on the path to perfection.’  We need to focus on contentment with our lot, and appreciation for the time of abundance in which we live.

Not Enough Gratitude

It seems that the true secret to learning to live with enough is to practise gratitude and thankfulness.  In fact, ‘psychological research reveals that the practice of gratitude…[and] thankfulness can enhance our satisfaction with life in ways that the next consumer product never will.’  Other studies show ‘that the higher your levels of gratitude, the lower your levels of materialism.’  One large-scale study ‘divided hundreds of people into three groups and asked them to keep daily diaries.  The first group noted only daily events, the second listed nasty experiences, and the third recorded things for which they were grateful.  Over time, the third group showed higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy.  They even felt motivated to exercise more often… The benefits were social as well as personal, because… the fact that they were on alert for peoples’ good acts made them much more willing to reciprocate the small generosities they spotted.’

As well as keeping a daily diary, we can be reminded to live in the present and let our hurriedness wash away through doing a three minute meditation three times a day.  Close your eyes, relax, and let your mind slow.  Naish also suggests sometimes doing a five-sense meditation.  Go for a walk and say to yourself, ‘I am seeing…’, ‘I am hearing…’ and work your way through all five senses.

Naish quotes Solzhemitsyn, who ‘suggests we cultivate a sense of unselfish spirituality, where we politely decline our unprecedented opportunity to use up all the plant’s resources at once.’

Remembering Enough

Because I really want to remember what I've read, and incorporate some of this into my own life, in the hope that I can truly learn to say 'enough' at the right time, I'm going to do the following things:

• Create some pages in my journal on the topics listed above.  I find that putting my resolutions in my journal is often enough of a reminder to help me see them through.
• I've been thinking for a while about having a written journal as well as an art journal.  On one hand it feels like overkill, but on the other I'm having trouble reconciling my rough scribblings with my desire to create beautiful pages in my art journal.  Maybe a little black book of Enough and Gratitude that I scribble in each night?  When I've had this in the past it's become a very soothing part of my night routine.
• Try out the three minute meditation and 5 sense meditations.  I haven't meditated for years.  I haven't had time.  Ha!  Actually I've been doing pilates/yoga most mornings and that takes its place.  Maybe I simply incorporate a meditation element into that?
• And I'm really going to think about the Enough Work bit.  That's the one I struggle with the most.  I already have more than enough work but I still keep accepting more...

What about you?  Are you inspired to say 'enough'?  Leave me a comment with your thoughts and resolutions!

PS If you liked this book review, you might also like to read my post about Affluenza.

It struck her as unfortunate...

I've worked my way through several lessons in Les Petites Dolls, the online art course I'm doing.  This page in my journal is my first attempt to put a doll onto a mixed media background, following the process taught by Suzi Blu.  I'm loving all the texture. I have learnt so many tips and techniques from the course that I'm finding myself lying awake at night trying to process it all, and merge that information with what I already know about art journaling, painting and drawing.  For this painting I was also very much inspired by Nicoletta Ceccoli - I love the way her illustrations have a sharp "edge" to them, and I wanted to incorporate that idea along with the prettiness of the doll and background.

Seed

I did this page in my journal following another tutorial in the book Art Saves.  The painting is based on an original by Stephanie Lee, so I can't really claim this as my own work, though I did add my own theme to it: seed collecting.  I'm trying to learn how to save and store seeds at the moment, a project which feels both daunting and slow, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually.  Anyway, back to the painting, Stephanie Lee does heaps of amazing art with plaster, and her original painting had amazing texture as a result of putting plaster onto wood as the base.  I don't have any plaster on hand, but I found a pot of texture paste in the bottom of my art box, and used that.  I love the textured result, and I really really love the colours.  I hope this somehow marinates itself and leads to an artwork that I CAN call mine.

 

Discipline

A quick rough page in my journal.  I glued in one of the girls I scribbled as part of my practise for my art course.  It's been a time of tight discipline lately.  I wrote an entire novel, the third book in The Grimstone series, in one week, just before Easter!  I had to work fast, so that the book will be ready for release in December - just in time for Christmas.  In order to pull off this feat I needed serious discipline, not only to do the writing, but to manage my back so that it didn't seize up with all the computer time.  That meant yoga and pilates practise twice a day, being a good girl and taking actual computer breaks for the first time in my life (I can never pull myself away - can't bear to break up my focus).  It also meant that the week before my writing retreat, I had to make sure my garden and work was all caught up and ready to go on without me for the week, which meant another week of discipline before I even started the writing!  Now I'm home, and the discipline aint over yet.  I've got my first author talk, which includes a cameo appearance by Martha Grimstone, this Thursday.  Martha's appearance needs considerable puppetry practise from me, and the author talk needs work, so I have a fair bit to do to get ready for that.  Next week?  Maybe!

Earth Child At Midnight

I did this page in my journal following a tutorial in the book Art Saves, which has been real fodder for my pages lately.  I created the girl as a part of my online art course, where I learnt to shade her face with coloured pencils.  I used an easter egg wrapper for the eyes, to really make them pop.  While I was working, this page looked really naff, and I just didn't think it was going to work.  At the very end, I blotted cream paint over it, and suddenly it came together.  Go figure.  I'm very pleased with it now.

 

Creative Fire!

This is the page I did in my journal after Jenine left.  It was such a treat to have her stay with me for a few days.  I was feeling much improved since our book launch at the Arts Centre, but still a bit flat on the creative front.  Jenine's visit transformed all that.  She generously let me flip through her art journal - after getting the impression she'd just done a few doodles in it, I was stunned to see page after page of rough, (and some very refined!) raw expression, each one so unique in style, so many ideas I wanted to try out in my own journal... wow!  I renewed my conviction that I can use my journal quickly and roughly, that every page doesn't have to be a work of art.  And Jenine and I sat up late into the night, journaling together and chatting.  Bliss.  After she left, I was so fired up with inspiration, I whipped out two sewing projects (the bags collaged onto this page) and went into a journaling frenzy.  

I was also very inspired by a book from the library, Art Saves, with beautiful artworks and tutorials to show me how to do them.  That's fueled a lot of my journaling frenzy lately.  The portrait on this page, of Jenine, was inspired in style by both Suzi Blu and Kelly Rae Roberts (featured in Art Saves).  They are both fabulous, amazing artists and I'm really grateful for their inspiration.  And grateful to Jenine too, for setting fire to this newest round of creativity.  I feel like ME again.  Yes!!!

Altered Book Journal

I made this journal as a gift for my dear friend Jenine.  Here's how I made it:

• I started with an old book that I got from the op shop, and I added paint to the cover so that the beautiful embossing was highlighted.  
• Then I added some embellishments to the front.  
• I cut the internal book out of the cover, and made some new innards.  I just used recycled office paper.  I took seven sheets, folded them in half together to make a signature, made several signatures, and sewed them all together. 
• I took the sewn signatures to a print shop and asked them to cut them to the same size as the book pages I had removed.  
• Then I glued a strip of fabric down the spine of my signatures, to give it extra strength.  The fabric was a bit too wide for the spine, and so I glued the extra width onto the inside of the cover, so that the new innards were attached.  
• I glued some ribbon ties to the inside of the cover, and also a ribbon to be used as a bookmark.  
• I glued two of the outtermost pages at the start and finish of the book to the cover too, for additional strength.  
• And finally, to add a sweet touch, I took a couple of pages from the original book and glued them to the inside of the cover, over the top of the two glued down pages.

When I was in the op shop, buying the book, I actually planned to make two, so I could keep one for myself.  But I told the woman in the op shop what I was planning to do with the books.  This was good because it meant she fetched me a box of old books with lovely embossed covers from out the back.  The downside was that the other book that had a gorgeous embossed cover, she refused to sell to me.  "It's too good for you to cut up!"

Another tip, if the book is to be used as a collaged, painted journal, make the innards somewhat thinner than the original book.  Once the book is filled with collaged items and paint, it will bulge outwards.  With this approach, the finished book should sit nice and flat.

Things are looking up!

Good things are happening in my world.  The best is that since my book launch at the very glorious Spiegeltent at Victorian Arts Centre, I feel better.  I posted a while ago about my summer, feeling like I've just needed to have a good long lie down.  I think our book launch was very healing - it was wonderful to do a show of The Grimstones that meant so much to me.  Paula and I enjoyed the whole gig, the preparation, and even the pack up.  It was immensely satisfying to see my book launched into the world, and to feel good about the show again.

And immediately afterwards, I started noticing things had shifted.  I had all the triggers that would normally put me into a black mood, with the need to lie down for a few days, and it just didn't happen.  I sighed, shrugged, and got on with things.  I found myself doing all the old things I used to do with Jesse, and that I was back to my old self.  And best of all, after feeling a bit flat, creatively, for a while, now I'm on fire with inspiration!

I'll post more about that next time.. but part of my inspiration is this: I found an artist whose work I really admire: Suzi Blu.  I discovered from her website that she does gorgeous faces, fantastic texture, great colour combinations, and picture after picture that I just fell in love with.  I was just thinking I had so much to learn from her, and was all set to try to analyse why I like her work so much, when I realised that she teaches online classes!  See the lovely picture I above?  That's one of Suzi Blu's dolls, and she teaches how to paint this and other adorable dolls in her course: Les Petite Dolls.  She promises to teach EVERYTHING, even for complete beginners.  I thought her workshop price was very cheap, and for that I'll get to join her online school: Les Petites Academy, and I'll be admitted to her online Petite Dolls classroom.  This means that until the end of the year, in that "classroom", I'll be able to interact with other students who are also studying Les Petite Dolls, I'll be able to submit my work and get feedback from Suzi Blu, and I'll be able to see everyone else's work.  I feel really excited by this opportunity to be part of a community of artists, instead of going solo.  I'll also be able to download Suzi's videos and watch her make the pieces of art real time, so I can learn her techniques.  And finally, I think the course also includes fortnightly "assignments".  No obligation for me to submit them, but if I do, Suzi will critique them.

No doubt I'll be posting some of my assignments here too, so stay tuned.

Art Journal Bag

I've been in a sewing frenzy this weekend, making this bag for my art journal.  It's a whole kit-in-a-bag, with pockets for pencils, pens, paints, and collage materials.  I'm so rapt to have this.  I used the Ich Liebe Dich patch Jesse embroidered for my birthday, and a bird that was on a T-shirt he had when he was a baby.  The other fabrics are from my stash, long time favourites.

I have wanted to make a journal bag for ages, but have been stuck on how the ultimate bag should be.  It should be small and light for travel.  But it also needs to be big enough and sturdy enough for my bigger journals and my larger sets of supplies.  My friend Jenine had the answer: make two.  I don't know why that didn't occur to me before.  I'll make the travel one when I need it, before I embark on a big trip.  For now though, this is perfect.

Drawing faces

I was inspired by Drawing Lab to practise drawing faces.  I didn't follow a particular exercise in the book.  I just went with several portraits from my imagination, all based on a single pose.  I noticed what small changes in posture and facial expression did to the energy of the portrait.  The above drawing was my favourite.  I used it as the basis for a page in my journal.  I did this page in my journal a while ago, before I did the Fixie's Summer Holiday story.  It's one of my favourite pages - I think I'm in love with the colours.

My birthday!

It's my birthday, and I feel so totally and utterly spoilt.  Paula made me this exquisite mosaic for my garden.  I'm stunned.  I simply adore the colours, the composition, the words - and how, o how, did she managed to get that elegant loop of the L?  It's made of broken crockery and has the added sweetness that I remember those lovely plates, bowls and cups, and it's gorgeous to see them immortalised in such a beautiful piece of work.  Thank you, Paula.

Not to be outdone, Jesse embroidered me this gorgeous calico patch.  We've been studying German together, and "Ich liebe dich" is heard often around our house.  I'm going to turn it into a patch on a bag.  I think the design is beautiful.  It's his writing, he drew the heart, he stitched it all.  I love it!  My bag is going to be soooooo cool!

They also made me some stakes for my garden:

And to top it all off, as if that wasn't enough birthday goodness already, there was a surprise at the end of it.  They had worked up a song for me!  Jesse has learnt to play Cowboy Take Me Away on the guitar (I love that song, because I can relate so to the lines "I want to touch the earth.. I want to break it in my hands... I want to grow something wild and unruly.")  Paula played the drums, and they sat up together to do the most incredible performance.  Jesse kept his head up so I could lipread the words, and they both sang to me with so much love and adoration.  I was gobsmacked.  It sounded like a whole band.  (Well... I think so, anyway!  I'm not exactly the world's best judge - ha!)  I bawled right through it actually, and I'm not a big one for crying.  What sweeties...

And then... my next door neighbour, Suni, gave me this gorgeous pincushion she'd stitched herself.  I have such a thing for bird cages, and this is so perfectly gothic and a feast for the eyes.  She used real felt, and I think the colours are magnificent.  I can tie it around my wrist when I'm handsewing, or tie it around my sewing machine when I'm working at that.  Yay!

It's been a birthday full of handmade presents.. my very favourite kind!

Fixie's Summer Holiday

I've been working on a back-to-school type essay, a visual version of what I did this summer.  I actually started this the same week all the kids in our street went back to school, and the summer holidays were officially over.

I'd been watching The Gradual Demise of Phillipa Finch.  Have you seen it?  It's fabulous.  At first glance it looks like a simple kids' cartoon, but once I watched the first episode, I realised it's definitely for adults.  I love the aesthetic, the simple visual presentation.  And I love the dry, sardonic tone of the narration.  Each episode is unbelievably short - runs for only a minute - but there's always a little message or spot of emotional development that happens.

I was inspired to create my own story of my summer, but in a series of images rather than animations.  When I showed it to Paula and told her what Phillipa Finch had inspired in me, she said, "Oooh, there's a touch of Mandy Ord in there too."  And she's right.  I read Sensitive Creatures last year and its influences have definitely marinated.  I've never really read comics, but I loved Sensitive Creatures and found myself really getting into the comic style.  I also like Mandy Ord's dry observations.  Mandy Ord is another Melbourne based artist, and I was lucky enough to meet her last year when I went to the launch of Sensitive Creatures.

Anyway, back to the essay of my summer holidays.  My rough, pencil draft went fine, except there were a few illustrations I just didn't know how to express.  Then I started inking it with my fountain pen.  So far so good.  Until I turned the page in my journal and discovered that, HORROR, the ink had gone right through the paper and entirely ruined the other side, and the associated illustration.  This obstacle was far too much for me, and not only did I abandon my essay, but I abandoned my journal entirely.  For weeks.  Which left me rather lonely, since my journal counts as one of my closest friends.  Bugger.  However, the other night, I tentatively opened my journal, and I must have been in a more resilient mood, because suddenly it didn't seem so bad.  I set to work rescuing it on fresh paper, which I'll simply glue over the top of ruined pages.

So...

Dear Teacher,

Here is the essay of my summer.  Sorry it's late.  I hope you'll still accept it, and even give me a nice big red tick at the end.  

Thank you.  

Asphyxia.

PS Click on the images to enlarge them so you can read the text.

PPS If you still can't read the text when you click on the images, you can download this as a pdf.

 

Leunig, cleavers and blind contour birds...

Here's a recent page from my art journal.  The top half is a newspaper clipping given to me by a neighbour - it's a Leunig cartoon about how to approach a turkey, published at Christmas.  It's very sweet - one approaches the turkey and becomes friends.  The cleaver exits the picture.  The bottom half is the paper that my cleaver was wrapped in.  When we went cleaver shopping, we went to an Asian kitchen shop in Victoria St, Richmond.  There were several lightweight cleavers on display, and Paula and I fingered them dubiously.  Eventually Paula asked the woman at the counter if she had anything heavier.  She produced a substantial cast iron cleaver, saying with a very strong accent, "Good for killing chicken and duck."  Ah ha.  We knew we were looking at the right cleaver.  I thought the paper was particularly fetching.

The bird was one of my blind contour drawings which I particularly liked.  As you can see, it's yet another page in my journal about my journey to become a chicken-killer.