artistic journey journal pages

This morning was the first time I’ve actually felt REALLY excited about the Artistic Journey Retreat.  I woke up early (nothing unusual there…) and had butterflies in my stomach.  I felt like an excited school girl!  Oh wow. Its happening so soon.

The following photos are a couple of the pages I’ve made for a journal swap.

There’s more to come….

letting go

There have been some pretty spectacular paintings in the sky of late. Mother Nature has been busy. It’s autumn here and the colours of the setting sun reflect perfectly the autumnal leaves of the surrounding grape vines and deciduous trees as they gradually shed their clothes for winter (surely they should be rugging up???).

“so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene.

It’s been doing that all week:

making beauty,

and throwing it away,

and making more.“

I’ve only posted the last stanza but if you click on it, it will take you to Misty’s post and the full poem by Tony Hoagland. I loved that thought, of Nature producing something of such beauty and throwing it away. And the lesson of letting go of material things is one that I have been listening to for a good while now - perhaps it’s time to try to act upon it a bit more regularly.

sunset on may 3rd at Mornington

photos in no particular order

It’s a hard lesson for some of us though. How do you successfully break the emotional tie that lies with possessions? How do you trust that without those “things”, the memories will still stay strong and that you won’t be struck down from above for donating “great auntie joan’s” favourite handkerchief collection?

I am ready to let go of many things and am aware that each little action is a small step towards a much liberated self and have made many of those little steps already. When I think it’s time again, I find myself just shifting things around, physically and within my thoughts, and that’s really exhausting.

I had another gentle prod of a reminder again last night. We flicked channels to find Yoda telling Anakin to let go of the material things, to not get tied to the emotional side of things as they will just lead to the dark side….. well we all know what happened there don’t we?!! As an aside, I really think Yoda is one of my favourite Buddists!

Happy sunsets to you all, only 10 more till I meet Misty and Nina and I can’t tell you how excited I am!!!

xo

ps check the new shop blog i’ve been working on.

what next?

I’m working on a combination of mixed media techniques in the hopes that I may develop a unique something that I can teach. My goal with my art is to become a Misty, or a Nina or a lovely Katie. Well not them exactly, I know that I need to be a ME - but I want to teach my own techniques and not just here but here and here and here too! The idea of being involved in such an amazing community of teaching artists is what I dream of - constantly….. it drives me to keep learning and pushing and extending myself as an artist.

So here’s where I’m at this morning. I’ve dreamt up the next stage but i thought I’d post a picture of what’s in front of me right now.

Its a background derived from a combination of techniques that I have learnt from others along the way and I think that the uniqueness comes from the actual combination. I love the way the gates are being swallowed by the wall. As I said, not finished, nowhere near finished, but a project that I am proud of and can’t wait to see unfolded as a final piece.

Happy discovering….

xoxo

its an obsession

oh I’m well and truly addicted!

it’s a combination of things. the smells, the colour, the “australian-ness”, the naturalness of the process - its hard to describe!

April wool

colours resulting from E. maculata (Spotted Gum) and E. lehmannii (Bushy Yate) (seperate dye baths) - slightly dried leaf and twig material

no added mordants

I think I’m in trouble if hubby sees this one though….

I figured that as I wasn’t using any toxic, stinky mordants it would be okay to brew in the kitchen. What you can’t see in this image is the back door, which was wide open just in case and what you can’t smell is the beautifully fresh scent that wafted through the house doing what a spray can of “fake” smell can’t even hope to acheive!

I would like to acknowledge India Flint at this point. Prior to this batch of dyes, I had been literally “chucking” my wools into the boiling pot of eucalyptus leaves and letting them boil away for ages with no thought to what might be happening to the condition of the wool. I recently purchased India’s new book “Eco Colour” and have already read it cover to cover a number of times.

my apologies for the terrible photo….

I took a more scientific approach to this batch of dyeing - boiling the material for no more than an hour (beneficial with eucalyptus specifically), removing the leaves and twigs before adding my wool and then reducing the heat to “steaming” but not allowing the water to move while the extracted dye made it’s magic! The finished product doesn’t seem as vibrant as previous batches however I have no doubt that this is more likely to be due to the difference in leaf matter rather than anything else. I am also really looking forward to using a concentrated version of the dye to colour some bundles of cotton fabric….

(note if any one is reading this - an edition for hands on textile people that would serve as a workbook would be great….. my beautiful “coffee table” book will soon be covered in splotches and stains if I’m not careful!) This book is a wealth of information that is so beautifully and artistically compiled. I love it and am going to get hours and hours and hours of enjoyment from it. Thank you India!

wood smoke, wet wool, mad family, trees and puppydogs tails

you know, sometimes it’s just easier to post the photos….

 

 

A new addiction - just what I need! Beautiful eucalyptus dye baths, filling the chilled autumn air with the seductive scent of woodsmoke and eucalyptus oil. And the colours…. my goodness, the colours. Such variety in one single dyebath. This is Australia folks!

 

Half of one day’s dyeing - there’s been three more since…. more than enough to finish the scarf below.

Bad lighting and therefore a shaky image does nothing to the amazing colours of the wools. It really is so luscious! Toffee and cream, sage and chocolate, rusty warm fuzzy wools combined magically with two sticks to form a piece of wearable art fit for a queen…. who will that queen be I wonder?

Music to dye for…..

 

William Ricketts at Seawinds on the Mornington Peninsula.

Tilly is doing okay since we lost our beautiful Dave the Golden Retriever 8 weeks ago. She’s stepped up and is now enjoying her role as Princess of the family (she always was, just hasn’t got another 4 legged friend to remind of the fact anymore… )

Three photos below are the beginnings of tree bark inspiration for a textile piece entitled “matern-i-tree”

 

And a captured moment of madness at the Red Hill Cool Climate dinner way back in early March.

Revellers from left to right, me, Julia, Stu, Gary and Marty….

 

xoxo much love

[A Knight's Tale] Jocelyn & William

nothing to say other than my heart goes out to the Ledger family and Heath’s close friends who will be suffering beyond belief.

a christmas version

 Ohm nama shivaya

xo

 

its been a while…

I am embarressed to admit that I forgot my login and password it’s been so long since I last posted a msg…!!!

I just wanted to post a picture that I worked on this morning.  It’s only small in real life (where I’ve been hanging of late!),  it’s on a page of my workhorse journal which in this guise is a trusty moleskine notebook.  Christine Cox, of Volcano Arts recommends a workhorse journal for my “type” of person - one who hoards and can’t decide on that “perfect” book/diary/journal/notepad/calender.  I was going to bind my own, but that process was taking too long in itself (what paper? what cover? what size? - you get the picture) so for now, I resorted to a Moleskine!  If Leonardo was happy then why not me??  And so far it’s been great.  I can jump from page to page with the use of my post-it tag thingies, each colour tells me exactly what’s on what page, and today I’ve been storming ahead, doing a bit of interior decorating!!! The muse was firing!

I got all inspired by this really exciting website  and by a lovely piece by one of my favourites, Gustav Klimt. 

I’m loving my journal so thank you Christine!  I’m only 2 weeks in and already it looks like the dogs breakfast - just the way I like it!

Be good

xo

 

life’s a charm

Oh these seem to have taken such a long time to finish.  I am at the pointy end (actually, the pointy end was a week or two ago) of a fat book and charm swap with the artistic journey group girls (i’m hoping they’ll forgive me for being late???)

So, theme was “gypsy journey”

These are pretty self explanatory - squished bottle tops, holes drilled with my rotary tool, wrapped copper wire and beads.  I find it so much easier to wrap wire with my fingers rather than pliers - anyone else? and now my fingers are quite tender!!

the second lot of charms are little books! 

the photos below didn’t work out quite as well as planned….  i thought it might be fun to photograph them sandwiched between real books on my revolving bookshelf.

 

 i was aiming for a “journal” kind of thing as I would want to be documenting my gypsy journey, if I was a gypsy and/or had a journey to be going on….

 handmade felt, embroidery thread, Canson Mi Teintes paper, button and silver wire and jump rings.

 

fat book pages to follow….

 

 

 

four and twenty raven ATC’s

 hand embroidered with a variety of embroidery threads on hand dyed muslin and aida cloth

following a promise made to myself for any Soul Food inspired projects, i used only products which i have in my stash.