Retreat to textiles.

June 02, 2015 in Textiles, Other Artwork, Natural Dyes

I enjoy painting but every so often I do feel the lure and pull of textiles and I simply have to do something with them! This may include a bit of sewing or knitting and crochet or something more adventurous like my recent exploration of Natural dyes. I have been experimenting and trying to cover a fuller pallete of colours, I also have come up with an idea to use some of the beautifully coloured yarns that have resulted, and try a new technique.

Natural dyeing

Further experiments with some different dye- stuffs and mordants.

Tumeric powder- Bright yellow.
Ivy leaves- pale greens, dark greens with copper or iron added.
Marigold flowers- Yellows, orange, pale green.
Ballart native cherry- Amazing bright greens. (my photos don't quiet capture the colour)
Thai black rice- mauve, grey with iron added
Eucalyptus- Orange, russet, brighter orange with Alum added, browns with iron added.
Wattles- Knife leafed wattle,Cootamundra wattle and Silver wattle- a range of pale yellowish greens to pale greens, Khaki greens with iron or copper added.

Three types of wattle, Ballart native cherry, Ivy leaves

Wattle, mordants added.

Marigold flowers, Thai black rice, Eucalyptus

I feel like I have covered a range of greens, yellow, oranges and browns but have yet to achieve a good range of red, purples, mauves through to blue. I have been doing some reading about how some of the commonly used plant materials for dyes produce fugitive colours, that means they fade readily. Only time and experience will tell. More experimenting and some research neccessary!

Stay tuned as I still have to have a play with Henna, Cochineal, Beetroot and Indigo, hopefully then I'll have a rainbow of yarns.

Rug Making

My Mum recently took part in a workshop on rug making and she showed me some of the basics so I thought I'd have a go and use my natural dyed yarns for the project. This style of rug making is called 'Hooky' but I believe it is known by many names. It is a very traditional rug making technique and can be made with yarns or with strips of rag. It is made by drawing up loops through a base cloth, in this case hessian and it creates a loop pile surface to the rug. There are dedicated tools for this, the hooks have a short shank and are quite thick. I did not have one of those so a crochet hook has served the purpose reasonably well.

I decided to start small, around doormat sized and go with a really basic design, in fact once I started I simplified it even more.( eliminating the crosses you can see marked on the hessian)

I will post some more progress photos as it grows.

First block complete.

Close up.

A Country Practice.

May 16, 2015 in Teaching

Recently I was welcomed again by the Harden Murrumurrah Arts Council to teach a day workshop. There group meets in the old courthouse building with its official looking exterior and cedar doors and paneling throughout, I often wonder what stories of times past it could tell.

It is wonderful to find that small rural centres have active and thriving Arts councils. They provide opportunities for people in their communities to learn wide ranging skills and brings them together to create Artistic practice and adds to the cultural history of rural areas.

It was lovely to be invited back for a second time by the Harden Murrumburra Arts council to share a day of watercolour painting and meet some very warm welcoming people.

We spent the morning learning some basic watercolour painting techniques and the afternoon applying and experimenting with what they had learned.

School Holiday Fun and Research

May 11, 2015 in Research, Inspiration

I am blessed in my little boy for many reasons, but at school holiday time one reason comes in very handy.

“Mummy I love nature. It’s just so full of beautiful stuff!
”

— O. Gillard 2015

It is becoming our tradition every school Holidays to get out into our local bushlands and gardens. He loves it, we are both getting excercise and I can work as well.

This holidays we climbed Mt Majura and took the forest walk on Black Mountain. We were going to do some further exploring at the National Botanic Gardens but they were closed the day we went due to extremely windy conditions. Much to our disappointment; my son really wanted to visit the new desert garden.

Mt Majura Nature Reserve

Mt Majura is right behind where we live so we visit there quite often. I plan to climb it every school holiday break this year so I can take note of the seasonal changes and know what is in flower when. I like the idea of painting the flowers and plants that are close to where I live. It is easy to be seduced by the rarity and diversity of the Australian flora when visiting the collection of plants at the National Botanic gardens, and I do get a chance to explore those plants when I paint with the Freinds of the Botanic Gardens group but I really want to concentrate on those specimens close to home first.

On this visit there was not a great deal in flower, it is starting to cool off heading towards winter.

Heading off.

Canberra city through the trees, Black Mountain and Telstra Tower visible. Autumn colours just starting to come through.

Allocasuarine verticillata, Drooping She-Oak

Allocasuarine verticillata, Drooping She-Oak- close up of the seed pod.

A ringlet of peeled bark.

Short kip in the tree before we head for home.

Black Mountain

I have lived in canberra for 20 years since coming here as a University student. I have visited the tower on black mountain but had never explored the surrounding bush. So when we visited the National Botanic gardens to find it closed we decided to explore Black Mountain which is right next door to the gardens.

We followed the forest walk trail which takes about an hour to walk and takes you right around the top half of the mountain. It is a rugged little landscape, that floats quietly above the bustle of Canberra city.