3D Koru Sculpture

With it being winter it's a bit cold to be doing things outside at the moment. We have been fortunate though to have some nice sunny periods when I found it pleasant to sit on the porch steps and work on my koru sculpture I started some months ago.

 Now that I have the general shape, I'm shaping and rounding the edges..

 I plan on carving the sides, following the flowing shape.

 I'm sure the technique has a name but not sure what it's called.

 Some close up pics of my carving...

I'm really enjoying the carving/rounding process.

I find it very therapeutic..shame it's so dusty though or I'd do it inside!

..and hoping for another warm, sunny day soon when I can work on it again.

Print-making: Letter press Workshop

It's been a couple of weeks since I did this workshop at The Quarry Art Centre but haven't had the time to load photos as I've been busy filling in at work while our administrator's been away.

Learning about letter-press printing was really interesting and made me appreciate the work that went into book-making in the 15th century. I decided to print some wording on my screen-printed "tree" image and went with LIVE and GROW to keep it nice and easy. There was lots of "fancy" terms used to describe the method but I couldn't remember what they all were. I did google of letterpress printing to help me out with what the method/terms are though.

 I had taken about 7 or 8 prints from the tree image screen the previous week so knew I had a number of images to play around with (and get it right!)   Here's a few of my prints...

I didn't notice it at first but I wasn't
keen on the O being off-centred

I'm pretty pleased with my first attempts at letter-press printing and look forward to trying other things in the future now that I have an idea of what's involved. We are really fortunate to have The Te Kowhai Print Trust facilities available to use here in Whangarei!

Pottery leaves

Ricky, my asperger's boy and I did some pottery last 

week as his mum asked if we could make soap dishes. 

I showed Ricky how we could make words

and we experimented with cookie-cutters to

 make  bases for our soap dishes.

For some time now I've been planning on stopping

 in at the Reyburn Art Studio at The Town Basin. 

One of The Bach members is a ceramic artist 

and has invited me to join up with their pottery

 group. I finally called in after work on Thursday.

I'm planning on joining up in a few weeks time

and the good thing is, there's a kiln I can use.

I'll be able to fire the other things I've made

(tiles etc) and get help/advice from those who

have been doing ceramics for a long time.

Paper-making with Kauri leaves & making a drying frame

My neighbour has a juvenile kauri tree and periodically

passes over a fallen branch knowing I use the leaves 

for soap but this time I thought I'd experiment with 

using the leaves with some flax to make paper.

Farmers "make hay" when the sun shines.

I make paper!

It doesn't look a lot different but the smell was 

divine and the paper, a richer brown in colour.

What I'm interested in doing is making some

 books using the kauri paper and creating some 

different covers..felted, ceramic and encaustic 

wax (the latter I keep hoping to do at TLC 

campus some time but might just have

 to do my own exploring)

Next... a few images I found surfing the net.

 Love these tree/vine images on these books..

 Looks like this bowl is made with paper

pulp. Love the painted tree image.

This image has got me thinking about the

paper torso cast I'm wanting to make.

 I really like that it includes the head

and has the tree growing out of it.

With the winter and rain and slow-drying days

I decided to make some drying frames.

 I bought some real cheap plastic mesh/netting

from Arthur's Emporium and have in the past

been able to get thin bits of wood but they don't

have them anymore so went to Mitre 10.

The chap found me the best deal and even

cut the wood for me so all I needed to do

was nail it together once I got home.

 Ta-da...ready for the netting, which I stapled on.

 They're pretty rough 'n ready but I'm proud

of myself for putting them together and the two

 frames will hold a "batch" of drying paper.

 Drying outside while the sun was out...

..and inside, one stacked on the other, overnight

in the laundry using the dehumidifier. The

 paper was completely dry by the morning.

dry by th

Screen-printing Workshop

I've always wanted to screen print so was very much looking forward to this part of the workshop.

After explaining the basic screen printing techniques and what we were going to be doing Jasmine showed us how to apply the emulsifier to the screen which then needs to dry.

The images were printed on to acetate (at The Copy Shop) then place face down on the dried screen and exposed to an ultraviolet light source for a short period of time.

After that the screen get washed thoroughly and the areas of emulsion not exposed to the light dissolve and wash away leaving a negative stencil of the image.

..and TA DA..my first ever screen-print!

(The image is of the internet so not my own but I want to try again using my own image)

While waiting for screens to dry etc I used the photocopied

image as a transfer onto a block of wood for a woodcut.

A thin coat of gel medium is spread over  the wood surface and once dry the image is adhered face down with a thin coating too. Once that's completely dry (I used a hair-dryer to speed things up) with a damp finger gently rub the paper to lift it away leaving behind the transferred image. I hadn't used this technique in the previous week as I'd hand-drawn my image (leaves) on to the block so it was good to have some time to do an image transfer while waiting for screens to dry.

There was a few library books for us to read/look through. This looked like a good (easy-to-understand) book so took a photo so I could look into seeing if I can purchase a copy for myself.

We will be learning about letter setting next. I'm going to add some text to the screen printed tree image.

Art Journalling

I started back at the Art Journalling Workshop

Jane Cunningham runs at The Quarry Art Centre

on Monday's a few weeks ago but have found it's 

a bit much doing both that and the Printmaking 

workshop on Tuesday, especially if I've worked

 over the weekend at The Bach as well.

 The Prompt for the page above was MYSTERY

and Jane got us all ripping a page or two out of 

an old book (something I was taught NOT to do!)

and we discussed what the term Mystery (Life)

 meant for each one of us. For me it's like a mist

or a veil that makes seeing sometimes hard and 

a bit scary, but sometimes amazing, like an 

autumn morning when the mist is thick and 

though you know the roads there you can't see

 it and you've got to trust that it is.....

The pages I tore out of the book were about 

The Reformation and The Voyage of Discovery

which I thought was interesting given the nature

of life's journey and the events in mine of late.

The previous week's Prompt was Tree of Life

and very much tied in with Mystery for me

as nature and creation is a mysterious thing.

As always, I had a grand visual idea in my head 

but was disappointed by what came out of my

hands. I ended up resorting to using a credit

card to apply the background and my hands 

for the tree. My 'framing" of the page reminds

me of an avenue of trees and the way they 

embrace and encompass...Returning to work

on some text, I'm liking this page more for

what it represents, hence the words BELIEVE

and TRUST. I'm not sure if it's finished yet

but happy to wait upon more if that's to come. 

Art Journing: 10 hours