Being Creative

Most of the Art I make is done digitally but I also love making `mixed media' art and playing with collage, crayons and glue and a whole heap of other stuff. This is fun and really takes me back to being a kid again. Our Art Group always has a monthly Trading Card Swap and this year we have added an `altered book' Round Robin. To do this we all foraged around for an old book to `alter'. I found a book about dreams at an Op Shop for a couple of dollars. We will all start in our own book and then pass it on and receive another, create a double page spread and pass it on again. My theme is `Voyage of Discovery'. Altering books is so much fun. You can keep some of the text to create a new story, add your own artwork, cut out, paste, draw............ the possibilities are endless. I don't have a dedicated space to do this so I drag it all out onto the dining room table and set to.


I need music for inspiration so my iPod is part of the action. Here it looks like I am listening to Herman's Hermits - `There's a Kind of Hush'

On this day I was also assembling my Trading Cards, I made them digitally but they then have to be cut and glued.

Then I had to clean it all up and put it away :( I can't wait now to start on the book that's coming my way in March. At the end of the year at our `break up' we will have the big reveal and be able to peruse all the books together.

We have a new Granddaughter

Welcome to the world Abbey Fay. We arrived at the hospital about an hour before she was born and in this photo she is about 1 hour old. As you can see she is beautiful and she already has an adoring fan club. Abbey Fay weighed in at 6lbs exactly and was born at 4.00 pm. exactly on February 10. We are so proud of her beautiful Mum who was sitting up having a cup of tea and eating toast when we came in to meet Abbey. Her Dad assisted with the delivery and he is over the moon. Now we are all looking forward to more cuddles :)

A tour of my Creative Space

I have been interested reading in my sister Patti's Blog (`Welcome to my Universe' see my sidebar,) about how she finally decided to move her creative space to a more central position. I pretty much do only Digital Art and about a year ago I decided that I no longer wanted to hide away in a stuffy little spare room. So we bought a nice new desk with lots of drawer space and set the whole shebang up in our second living area right in the middle of the house. This area also houses my library of 5 bookshelves all along one wall and a huge squashy couch with lots of cushions for reading. The Television is in another room not too far away so I can hear it and pop my head around the corner if I want to. What I love as a confirmed neatnik is the total lack of mess. You can see that my desk holds 2 monitors, a scanner and a printer. My Wacom tablet which I use all the time is on a slide out tray underneath the keyboard. The chair has no arms so it tucks away neatly. Above the desk is a print of one of my favourite Artworks by Matisse. (This is the one Picasso bought, he loved it too and having seen the original I can understand why.) Alan turns the computer on at around 5.30 am when he gets up, he has a cup of tea and checks his Email. From then on we just leave it on all day even if we go out. From the chair we have a view of our garden out of 3 windows in different directions and we also get the benefit of the breezes. So its all good and inspiring.

60 Years Ago Today

It is 60 years ago today since my parents were married on a wintry day in Sheffield England. Rationing was still in force so the wedding was very simple with my Father wearing his Australian Naval Uniform. This photo was taken with a Box Brownie Camera and was very small and in very bad condition when I started work on it. It was the only wedding photo they had. My Father died in 1988 and my mother is now in a care facility but I am thinking today about the love they had for each other. They brought up 5 children and there are now 11 grandchildren and 4 great grand children, all beautiful and talented kids. And yes as I am the oldest of all these descendents I am feeling my age today :)

Australians All Let us Rejoice

Today Alan was involved with the Light Horse Troop at the unveiling of the last of the murals in Memorial Lane in Gympie. The ceramic murals in this Memorial Laneway are unique in Australia and are all beautiful works of Art. They commemorate the services of all Australians in conflict, peacekeeping and the home front. This photo shows Alan standing in front of the mural which depicts WW1.

THe last mural which was unveiled today commemmorates the cost of war in human life.

Here it is after it was unveiled.

While we were waiting I spoke to a lady whose brother in law wrote the words above in his diary the day before he was killed at El Alamein in the Middle East. I was able to find a picture of a Corvette on one of the murals which was similar to the ship my father served in in WW2. It was a special and meaningful way to celebrate Australia Day. We are free today only because of the sacrifices made by so many.

Inspired by Shepard Fairey

This week's Frameworthy Challenge had us all inspired by the amazing portrait of Barack Obama by Shepard Fairey. You can see this and more of Fairey's work here http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&rlz=1I7ADBR&q=Shepard+Fairey&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title I decided to work with a sepia photo of my mother Doreen taken in 1942 when she was 15 years old. At that time she was living in Sheffield England which was the target of frequent bombing raids. I realised as I was working with this picture that my mother's entire teenage years were overshadowed by fear and war. It must have made an enormous impact on her life. You can't see it in the photo but she was wearing a brooch which was an image of a spitfire plane. I love Fairey's work and I enjoyed this challenge immensely.

Mid Summer

So here we are in that hot humid mid- summer time. We spend a lot of time indoors looking out at this time of year. Between mid morning and mid afternoon it is too hot to be out, even if we were to go to the beach. I read lots of books and do my digital art and Alan watches Cricket and tennis. Lewis the Cat lies on the sofa and sleeps all day :) He is not silly. We don't get a lot of work done in the garden although Alan goes out late and mows, or early to light our bonfire which burns all our garden waste like palm fronds which don't compost. We are finding all our herbs are happy in this weather and the chooks are still laying an egg a day as long as we keep the water up to them. I picked a capsicum last night for a pizza so they are doing OK but the rocket (aragula) has run to seed in the heat. We don't even try to grow lettuce. Yesterday Alan took a dozen eggs up to one of our neighbours and came back with an egg plant and some tomatoes. Then this morning another neighbour gave us a jar of pickled beetroot. Its all good :)