Japanese Woodblock Printing

Last week I went to the Summer Art Experience run by the Artists Society of Canberra and for 5 days immersed myself in learning the Japanese way of creating woodblocks and printing them. It was a fantastic course and the two images here show my results. Marianne Courtenay was our tutor - her website is in the Links on this page. I have done courses in lino printing with her before and all have been excellent. The mountain view was done as a reduction woodblock print, whereas the leaves print was made with two woodblocks superimposed, one cut down to make the background and the other raised. As we were having a heatwave when making these prints and had the air conditioning on, it was quite challenging to keep the paper damp. We needed the humidity of Japan. I really liked using gouache as the paint medium rather than the oil based inks for lino which is much messier in cleanup. The Japanese method of registration was very interesting as we cut a Kento block to do this.

Tapestry Weaving

These are some of the tapestry weavings I have done as assignments in the correspondence course I have been studying for the last 3 years.... and will continue for at least another 3 years. It began as a Diploma of Arts (Tapestry) but has recently been changed to a Diploma of Tapestry. It is offered by SW TAFE, Warrnambool, a city in western Victoria. The course has been offered for over 20 years and several students from overseas are enrolled.

I am not an expert as there is much to learn technically and in designing. It is a very slow process and one where you spend a lot of time working alone.... can be quite meditative.

Click on the photos to find out more information on each one.

Botanic Gardens

This morning I went walking with friends in the Botanic Gardens. This is something we do every Friday morning. The National Botanic Gardens only have Australian native plants in them and I love to watch their developments over time and often photograph the flowers. Here are a few. The first is Eucalyptus Caesia, the next is Bulbine Bulbosa and the third is a straw flower (forgotten botanical name)

New Year 2009

Last night for New Year's Eve I went to a friend's place where she was hosting a Burmese Banquet in her garden to raise money for Burmese orphans on the Thai - Burma border. Burmese students cooked amazing dishes which we all enjoyed in a lovely setting on a balmy evening. We could see some fireworks in the sky from the lake in central Canberra which was quite close.

Today I've been working in the garden and in an hour's time will be going with a friend to see the movie "Australia" which has generally got poor reviews but I know many people who have enjoyed it.

Later: really enjoyed the movie but think it could have been cut - nearly 3 hours is too long. Fantastic scenery of the outback.