Art retreat at Woodgate

This week I'm on an art retreat with 6 other ladies at Woodgate, on the coast near Childers, Queensland.

We've rented a large holiday house on the beach and are enjoying a week of working on our own projects as well as enjoying sharing our favourite books and ideas.

Of course, I've set up my temporary printmaking studio with Thumper (my etching press) and have been busy working on a few projects.  Photos below.

Its great to get away from the day-to-day and immerse myself in creativity, its a shame its so hard to do at home with the usual daily demands limiting my time.  A problem we all have!

The house at Woodgate, we stayed here in 2012

The girls working hard in the 'studio' in the garage,
with water views!

Monoprints on dressmakers paper patterns,
to be collaged into a book

Here I am working hard in the downstairs kitchen (my studio).
Yes the house is SO big it has 2 kitchens!

The view from my press, you can see the beach across the road

One of the turkey monoprints I've completed

My turkey plate with stencils, printing in progress

Pinterest - a really cool way to build inspiration

I've just discovered Pinterest.  I've known about it for a long time but tried to avoid it, as I felt it would just a another internet time-waster.

But after taking a second look, I've discovered the value of using Pinterest as an online visual diary.  I've always kept photos of things I like, other people's work, places I've been, arty-photos of plants etc. They are spread around my laptop in numerous folders.  But I have found I can store them on Pinterest, in the 'cloud', and I can access them anywhere in an orderly fashion.

I can store them into categories, known as 'pin boards'.  I can go to any website and directly pin photos to my boards.  I can upload photos from my computer too.

I can sort them into categories like technique, type, colour, shape, design, pattern etc.   I can share my boards or keep them private. I can copy anyone's pinned images to my pin boards, so other people's inspiration can be mine as well.

I'm heading off for a week's art retreat at Woodgate soon, so it will be ideal to use Pinterest to access my images for inspiration.

I've also added a PinIt button to my blog and website, so anyone can directly pin my photos to their own Pinterest boards.  

And because I never blog without some photos for you to look at, here's some of a recent book I made..... Enjoy!



Ginkgo Book - hard covers, sewing over ginkgo ribbon from Japan.
I love ginkgo leaves and fell in love instantly with the ribbon,
even though I didn't know what I wanted it for at the time.



Some of the pages.  Gelatin Plate Monoprints using 2 plants
and 2 colours.  Reptition and simple composition links the images.



I also used a plant from my garden as well as the ginkgo leaves.
Also I photocopied a drawing I made on top on some prints.
Added another dimension to the work, using repetition once again.