Children's Workshops

What a great day we all had today with 2 different groups of children colouring fabric and creating print blocks.
Fabric was dyed beautiful colours and calico bags transformed with pastel rubbings and over painted with fabric paint.

Print blocks from soft cut, compressed sponge rubber and polystyrene were created, with some being printed on paper today. 

It was a mere 37 degrees C today with a north wind blowing, so naturally the fabric dried very quickly and I certainly didn't need a jumper!

Teaching in the Desert

Today I flew up to Roxby Downs in South Australia. It is a copper ( and uranium ) mining town not far from Lake Eyre,  surrounded by red desert. Having driven up this way a couple of time previously it was fabulous to fly in this time, to see the lines of the dunes and dry water courses from the air.

I am up here to run a series of workshops for both adults and children.  We will be dyeing cotton and silk as well as creating print blocks to over print the fabric.  So all is set up ready to go in the morning.

Fokker 50 to Olympic Dam

Baggage Collection

Paris, the last of the European books. Book 12

So, at last I have done the Paris book. It is a carousel book as we saw many carousels ( merry go round) in Paris. This book is made from the brochures of the L"Orangerie and La Louvre and a Paris map; of course.
It includes  page for Giverny and Versailles as we had a day in each of these places.
I loved Paris, and of course I couldnt include or capture everything in this little book. Even though I did this at home I used only the materials I took with me with one exception - a gold marker that I have used to frame the Versailles page - it really needed gold .. so over the top!

Book 11 Germany - at last!

Finally, I have completed the German book. It is a house book- very simple construction and I have drawn a different type of house on each side, the houses in germany were lovely and we had such a lovely time in these houses it was fitting to make a house book.

Since arriving home I have barely had time to sit down, busily returning to the manic pace of life, catching up with friends and family,back to work.... Ugh!! let me go back onto holidays.
Well I still have 2 books to go after this, I am so glad I did the others along the way as I would never had been able to get them done now. It was really worth the time I spent to capture the moment.

Book 10 Croatia

Due to being busy travelling I have taken my time getting around to finishing the Croatian book, got it half done then visited friends in Germany and then I was too busy chatting!

Back of book ( or cover) 

So the Croatia book is not really a book, more like a pamphlet. It has floating islands and pop up spits of land- Dubrovnik and Split. All on the back of a pamphlet page, that has been collaged with blues of the sea from other pamphlet and magazine pages, with a wash of watercolour pastels.

So as I leave Europe tomorrow to begin the journey home ( via Dubai) I won't get time to finish the remaining books until I get home- I have started the Germany book. So hopefully in a week or so I will be able to upload them.

What an adventure- 3 months travelling, what a lot of creative ideas I have collected. So much to do when I get home, can't wait to get on with it!

Book 9 Rome

Roma, such a big place, so much to take in. Rome needed a book of it's own as I found the size and amount of history almost overwhelming- fascinating none the less.
 Thus, for a 5 day visit Rome gets a biggish book all of its own.
This book has a number of signatures - of varying sizes and is stitched- a sort of Coptic but not quite Coptic stitch. I have used a number of pages from a brochure, several tickets and a map or 2 for this book. Gesso again was useful for covering up the stuff I didn't want and creating a surface for drawing and painting on.

I would love to hear from anyone who is following my trip via the books I have been making. Please comment and let me know what you think. 

Book 8 Florence

We spent a week in Florence, we spent time exploring Florence itself, did a cooking class and then did a few excursions out of Florence. Book 8's design is based on a a folded map I bought in Pisa - it is square with all sides folded in. Each edge has a different excursion on it.