while painting by the lake one day, this swan interrupted. at first I was thrilled to have him so close and took several pictures. he eventually waddled away only to be replaced by his far more persistent friend. after several minutes he didn’t seem to be moving on. in fact he was regarding me quite suspiciously. i suppose he thought I was holding out on him snackwise. it was quite disconcerting! eventually i couldn’t take it anymore and got up. my increased height did nothing to discourage him. to make matters worse everytime i reached for my stuff he hissed at me. even when I approached him with a more aggressive attitude he was unruffled. finally, thankfully, a couple and their young daughter wandered by and seeing my predicament produced cherrios with which they distracted the mean ole swan. whew!
Monthly Archives: February 2013
my week in drawing, tracing, coloring.
-
- self portrait in the studio.
-
- moved to a new accommodation. the bike ride is about 11 km through some bush. saw my first fairy wren today.
-
- fairy wren.
-
- “portrait” of janet during her demos a few weeks ago. she was wearing a white headband with black kanji printed on it, a black dress with white polka dots and a white apron with bluish grey stripes on it. adroable.
-
- mushrooms from the farmers market. made risotto with these puppies.
-
- the tree across from the bus stop (when i’m too lazy to bike). the green yellow color is amazing, i just wish i could record it better.
-
- clay covered fingers and my new pal. this guy is called the grapevine moth (outside the studio we have a railing covered with grapevines). these guys fly around during the day looking all lux.
-
- i’m currently staying with ceramic artist maryke henderson. she has an incredible garden which, aside from meat and grains, supplies her groceries. she’s bringing in the harvest with her pup celly.
-
- image collage of a black swan from above and minerals from the melbourne museum.
-
- i got to work with greg daly this week, doing lustre firing. he heats the kiln up and then does cycles of reduction and oxidation, pulling test rings as he goes. the unburnt gas gets combusted (by lighter) as it leaves the kiln, resulting in a pretty bananas rush of flame above the kiln. felt like a bit of a bad ass when i got to do my own cycling. now i just need to develope a base glaze, a pigment suspension, the correct amount of silver, etc, and do about a thousand tests and i can legit lustre fire.
sketchbook: weeks 3 and 4, canberra and melbourne.
-
- new addition: i got this neat little closer at a stationary store in melbourne. noelle brought me to fitzroy which is kind of the hipster-ville of melbs.
-
- i went to the park on city hill in hopes of spotting some kangaroo, didn’t have much luck with that but tried out using charcoal on this silver fabric to capture the bushy texture of the trees.
-
- used some silver ink with the ghost image of the trees on the page behind the fabric.
-
- crowd sourced some sketches form folks at the bar.
-
- these pages were side by side but went in different directions.
-
- haven’t actually seen this one in real life but was way into the “flocked” texture of the kangaroo paw flower.
-
- hours and hours of fun.
-
- i tried to paint at the lake, but ended up getting run off by the aggressive swans. will post the video of that soon.
-
- met this amazing artist in the loom room at ANU on the day i left canberra to go to melbourne. ilka white is based in melbourne and was only in canberra for the rest of the week. what a lovely chance meeting.
-
- hello house reunion (from my tokyo days) in melbourne. greg was wearing a florida shirt in noey and my honor.
-
- hello house pal-sourced memories of the night…..
-
- and more….
-
- …and more…specific content obscured so everyone can feel less silly…..
-
- who’s luke?
-
- melbourne has significantly different architecture then sydney or canberra. i’ve heard it referred to as the more european of australian cities. it was a beautiful town.
-
- more testing to figure out how to treat the silver fabric in my book. this might be the answer.
-
- spent a lot of time with this australian kitty.
-
- impressions taken in a graffiti covered ally way off flinders street.
-
- more leaves and feathers.
-
- installation idea/impression of karst formations that have pushed their way out of the landscape.
-
- first glimpsed these in the area aound janet deboos’ casa.
-
- some diagrams on the plane back to canberra. i have a few more weeks of making and some of these australian experiences are starting to trickle out.