sketchbook recap

: view from king’s park. canberra has a big lake in the middle of it and it’s lined by sweet little parks on most sides.

: i can’t stop collecting feathers. they are everywhere and if i picked them all up i could easily fill a pillow in a week.

: so many parks, so many nice canberra vistas.

: playing with color and form.

: paying tribute to this funny bird the crested pigeon. they are so nervous i can never get a good picture so i used a birding book for reference.

: more items i couldn’t help but hold onto. xuan zhou (visiting artist from china who is at ANU for the year) found these feathers for me.

: flowering gum nuts from rangeview.

: janet educated me about gum and eucalyptus trees. these are nuts from the peppermint gum. she crushed some up and even though i can’t “smell” i could definitely feel the minty-ness.

: found in a park. in the envelope it’s not as spectacular as it was glistening in the fierce australia sun.

: shared with me from janet’s own collection of natural objects. the perfect way to start off this sweet little envelope book i found my first day in sydney.

: janet was a wealth of information for a nerd like me. she showed me her favorite floweres, banksias, which are too huge and amazing to press ( had been ignorantly admiring them since my first day in sydney), this was her second favorite grevillea. i’m convinced!

: spent a couple days out at janet deboos’ home rangeview. she lives in an incredibly picturesque spot surrounded by verdure and animals galore. these are all from right outside the front door where she puts out seed for the feathered masses.

: drawing of magnesium from my impulse purchase of the week, a photographic deck of the elements.

: crowd sourced some sketches form folks at the bar.

: these pages were side by side but went in different directions.

: 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.

: and more….

: 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…..

: 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.

: i tried to paint at the lake, but ended up getting run off by the aggressive swans. will post the video of that soon.

: hours and hours of fun.

: haven’t actually seen this one in real life but was way into the “flocked” texture of the kangaroo paw flower.

: …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.

: impressions taken in a graffiti covered ally way off flinders street.

: 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.

: fairy wren.

: moved to a new accommodation. the bike ride is about 11 km through some bush. saw my first fairy wren today.

: self portrait in the studio.

: 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.

: first glimpsed these in the area aound janet deboos’ casa.

: installation idea/impression of karst formations that have pushed their way out of the landscape.

: more leaves and feathers.

: “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.

: 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.

: 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.