what are you doing dearie?

i could be doing any one [or more] of a number of things


# tidying up the carpark

#looking for my contact lens

#dancing with my imaginary friend

#trying to work out how many leaves i need to gather if i want to stitch a dress the size of my shadow

#planting tomatoes

#waiting for a butterfly to land on my nose


the author of the most amusing suggestion [you'll need to be a follower of this blog to participate] will receive a present.
you have until Monday August 1 to dream something up
and write it below

hot news...

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
- George Bernard Shaw

i talk to my students a lot about the importance of play
and 
i practice what i preach
so
when i heard news via my friend Trace that an extra class was being added to the TAFTA Blue Mountains extravaganza CONTEXTART
and that it was to be encaustic artist Trish Baldwin
i jumped in


and i've signed up
with some buddies
hired a house to stay in
[we needed somewhere for sewing circles at night]
and put a big red ring around that week in my calendar


if you're quick
you can too...but you'll have to find your own house.


some very serious playtime coming up next April




oh, and here are the details

Innovative developer of Encaustikits and Encausticamp, Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch from the USA began painting more than a dozen years ago - always abstractly and evolving into encaustics from acrylic over six years ago. Her love for the medium translates into her teaching, and students benefit from a passionate, engaging workshop experience filled with all the knowledge Patricia has acquired and developed thorugh her foraging in this rich and diverse medium. Patricia’s books, Encaustic Workshop and Encaustic Mixed Media, are available on book shelves everywhere and two DVD’s in the medium are on the market thanks to FW Publishing and Creative Catalyst Productions. When not completely immersed in this creativity, Patricia keeps herself busy raising four teenage sons, two cats and newly acquired husband and teenage daughter.

Encaustic Mixed Media: going Beyond Ordinary

4-day workshopCONTEXTART FORUM

From noon on Monday 16^th April to noon on Friday, 20^th April 2012

Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch

All kind of mediums can be enhanced through the endless versatility of beeswax and painting in encaustic. In this workshop artist, author and instructor Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch guides you through techniques with rust, distressed collage, wire and alternative foundation materials to expand your creativity - Beyond the Ordinary. If you are already experienced in the use of encaustic you will have so new worlds opened to you; and if you are a newcomer to beeswax you will be guided through the workshop processes with sensitivity so that you gain confidence in the potential of each technique, and combining them. Materials fee of $25 per person.

speaking of landskins

if you're quick and are in [or planning to be around] Pennsylvania in early September
you might just get into the 'landskin felt' class
that Leslie Marsh is organising in West Chester

i know it's hot now
but
it could get pretty cold in winter
and then
you'll be glad you've made yourself a landskin muffler
and that you will also know
how to make a landskin blankie...

another landskin blankie

a felted landskin blankie

is a fine thing to have stuffed into the suitcase

it doesn't weigh very much at all

provides useful padding for the wandering cauldron

and keeps the drafts away at night

i didn't take one on the last trip

[cos i didn't have any to spare - the last bunch had all found homes]

but

am hoping that there will be some cool nights

on my next trip across the Big Puddle

so made myself a new one

it has some recycled cloth in it

a fine layer of merino prefelt

stitching on both sides

and then it was rolled rather a lot

in a damp state

[no soap]

and

now

it smells like

Eucalyptus crenulata

quite

delicious

the driest state on the driest continent

it feels like an exceptionally cold winter here, in the driest state on the driest continent
if i travelled north a bit
to where this image was shot last year
it would be a lot warmer
and not just in terms of the colours...

thanks everyone for your kind thoughts in response to the previous post


also grateful for various kind mentions here and there
Cass Nevada
and a friendly book review from earlier in the year
a lovely image of workshop samples here

off topic, but for the dog-loving readers
Chiengora

for people who like to thoroughly investigate one plant
twelve colours from osage orange by Tali Weinberg

and now
having played with the time vampire for far too long
i'm off out to the studio
to make something warm and felted to wear
when i go  here

[yes, i DO have a big woolly coat, but it's very very heavy
so i don't fancy schlepping it all across America
via San Francisco and New Orleans
on my way to the eastern bit of Canada]

one year today

it's been one year

today

since Kip left us

to join the Dogs [and a few Cats]

above

we'll be taking a quiet moment.

found something

pootling about in the studio

i found some things that were forgotten

and 

out of curiosity

opened one of them

it had been forgotten since January

and the contents were quite exciting

i found a few favourite bolts and stones

and 

discovered a means of colouring alfoil yellow

although at first the cloth looked quite black

it turned out to be green

reputedly the hardest colour to dye using natural dyes

[the jar in the middle of the image is where all the pieces had been stuffed]

and then a little later on

The Precious came indoors, to report that she had found

this

an extraordinary fungus growing on a fallen piece of bluegum [Eucalyptus leucoxylon]

good news for students

i've noticed a few people complaining of dry skin

and sore hands

from immersion in dyepots 

and learning how to tie brutally tight bundles

so

i began a conversation with my favourite supplier

of lovely balms

to enquire whether they might supply us with some small samples

am delighted to say their response was more than generous

AESOP

will be sending tubes of their lovely

Resurrection Aromatique Hand Balm

to be used by students in class

as well as

other sample packets of their gorgeous products

for me to pass on

so now our already fragrant workrooms

will smell even nicer

and

we can soothe our hard-working hands

at the end of the day

be it ever so humble

there's no place like home

even without ruby slippers