Travel, art and a touch of history.

I just spent a few days in Brisbane with family so a lovely break. Travelled by Spirit of Queensland in the sleeper which is very comfortable. Following is the view from my sleeper pre lowering into the sleep position by remote control handled by staff. The base folds into the back of the seat and forms the "bed" when lowered. A doona and pillows are supplied along with a travel bag of goodies. Meals are ordered and eaten on a tray which folds out from the side pocket which also holds a bottle of water. Avery smooth ride and a galley to visit for refreshments and relaxing with fellow passengers.

Had an enjoyable day visiting the Beenleigh Historical Village , a worthwhile effort if you enjoy going back in time and reviving old memories of how life was, school days, different modes of travel,
living arrangements and certainly houses now are huge compared to way back then. Fashion , cars, tools of the trade especially carpenters etc. would appreciate todays changes.

Old Church Beenleigh Historical Village.

 

Old Railway Station, Mt Cotton and Yatala.

This was  real skill to use one of these.

A bygone era.

Things of the past........

Couldn't resist stroking this. Could have used one when I produced my artist book.

Love the old pencil case.

Tools of school days.

Past fire brigade.

Typical kitchen/lounge/ dining room.

Note the Mortein pump sprayer.

This is really going way back in my memory.

Dairy memorabilia.

Milk urns and trolley.

Swimmers from 1920/1930 with dresses of the day.

The old tin tub and heater.

Usual bedroom furniture with art deco motif on the back panel. Beautifully crafted timber.

 

 

                                                    Kingston Butter Factory and Gallery.

 

Nice art deco motif design on carpet.

Morning Tea.

 

 

City Hall Visit.

 

The Foyer City Hall.

Wonderful restoration work completed recently and worth the free guided tour and history of the building.

The clock tower looking up from the old stables.

The original stable area and drain.

 

Art deco motif in the foyer.

Upstairs timber decoration .

One of two stained glass window depicting the history of Brisbane.

Again a lovely art deco motif

The Mayor's mirror.

Part of original cement pillar showing damage from incorrect materials used in construction.

 

I returned to take this photo of the meandering design which surrounds the one' in the foyer'.

 

 

 

An accidental discovery.

 

Plaques for Hoyts Entertainment Centre. The visitor information centre was in the mall but no live sin this beautiful building which we 'discovered' searching for bus timetables. Apparently it was being discussed about demolishing it until the public voted against, a great decision in my book!!

Following are the interiors including beautiful timber doors, the staircase, the ceiling and walls.

 

 

 

Magic and this is what visitors look for.

 

 

Fascination of a different kind.

 

The Opto at Redcliffe held me entranced as it turned on it's own axle with the two circles also moving in opposing directions at the same time. This is opposite the Bee Gee's Wall on the esplanade so it's just a walk across the road.

 

 

THE BEE GEES.

 

Statue of the boys.

Loved this statement.

Legal document for contract. 

One of the café tables.

Café table outside Yabbey Road

Traditional English fish and chips with IMAGINE in thebackground.

Bee Gee's walk at night.

This is a great idea in recognition of local lads who made it to the top and a visit at twilight presents you with two different moods. A video plays telling of their story and there are inlays on the path of their records. I can recommend a visit here.

 

 

 

 

 

City Cat River Cruise.

 

View from the aft section trying to catch a few of the bridges.

 

Only one of many historic and attractive buildings along the river.

 

Kangaroo Point.

 

Monument at Kangaroo Point.

 

 

Old church amid modern buildings.

Hamilton Terminal for cruise ships.

 

Newstead Historical House on the left.

Southbank Promenade.

 

Church across from City Hall.

Statue outside.

Interior of Shingle Inn , foyer of City Hall.

 

Tudor style décor.

Gondola at Mirage Marina.

Most unusual chairs at shopping centre Mirage Marina.

Very old till at shop on the spit.

Breaking waves on the Spit.

Gold Coast from the Spit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Interest

I have been absent for a few years busy with life in general as we all know it changes from time to time.
I have developed a new interest involving wood carving via a friend who creates lovely pryography and being a lover of cutting lino I felt this would satisfy the need to "carve" also providing me with a new challenge.
This was vying for first place interest against the adult colouring book craze which in the end I succumbed to and pleased I did as the desire to work with colour after so much black and white (mainly)in the printmaking has been very relaxing.
To choose the "same " colour but use in either pencil, watercolour, gouache, acrylic, graphite and anything non oil based material can achieve very nice effects. The vibrancy of one particular set of pencil I received from a dear friend for my last birthday really does compliment the whole picture. I wrestled with "using" another artists design but realised that especially with patterned images I could add to it by using colour as another dimension. The challenge to have the use of so many choices of materials and colour tones can take me weeks to decide as I view them as I would my own original pieces, live with them awhile before moving onto the next step.
The following are from book number 1, Christine Lovatts 'Inklings' which included mazes and puzzles so three times the fun . Love these shapes and designs and these are only a few.

A gentle blending of colours.

 

Feathers of a different kind.

Once I started  I found the pattern which wasn't always as obvious at first.

The orange effect cooled with green.
 

Pretty in blue hues.

 



 Book number 2,my favourite.



Glasgow Fine Arts, Charles Rennie Mackintosh

 



Art Deco Jewel. Some pages are mirrored images which gives the colourists the choice of opposing colours or matching as I have done.



 

 

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The simplicity of his design is very appealing.

 

Tiffany Lamps and Motif. This one I chose complimentary colours.

 

 

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Love this one.

 

Art Deco Illustration, Vogue front cover.

 

1920s Art Deco door.

Art Deco Motif.

Art Nouveau Tile, page dedicated to my friend using my gift so became an exercise in colour alone.

Art Nouveau Motifs. So much can be achieved with colour in one image.

This book has all the relevant information re the images from jewellery, tile motifs, furniture, buildings, gates, cars, planes, flowers and magazine covers. This is a real bonus as can be Googled  for ideas. As a printmaker the shapes and designs are what appeals to me the most and in no way is it nearly finished. I have done 21 of 89 images including doubles.  Presently I am working with one image of 6 designs though two are the same so I intend to change its' style by approaching it using colours applied in the opposite to the other one and with the rest I'm doing tonal in cool to warm colours.

 

BIRTHDAY LUNCH.

Was celebrated with three friends at lovely hilltop hotel bistro looking over the ocean. This pyrographed gift along with a bottle of my favourite wine  and the set of colouring pencils and blending stumps certainly made it a memorable day.

Jacranda .

 

WOOD CARVING.

I am such a newbie at this but really enjoy the process and the friendly chaps and ladies  who all do some amazing works with timber.

 

Leichardt timber block, 23cm squared by 17cm high. This is to eventually sit my computer screen on as at present a large book on fishing and two smaller blocks of wood suffice so my aim was to make something useful. This is a nice yellow coloured timber , soft to carve without much pressure (yet).

 

First carving and of course an art deco design. I was trying to be  adventurous but not too intimidating

  with the design , hopefully allowing for ease of carving but gave myself a bit of a challenge re the sharpness of the petals and the narrowness of some areas, never mind all will be well and it's only for myself.

 

Second day carving and cutting deeper around the image pre deciding how deep I want it before sanding.

I had thought I could practise some patterns on the side from articles I am reading about on how to create them with the tools.

Stay tuned to find out if it's successful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making another book.

This one is for my sister who I have travelled with and I find it interesting how one person relates to another family member and how individual we all are. Our interests are similar in art too.
I stayed with the same format of landscape design I used with the Double Image book for my twin but not with the concertina folds. The cover is in one piece with the pages hand stitched down the centre spine, so it doesn't open and close as normal. I printed the covering papers and splurged out for some book cloth to cover the slipcover in a darker green.

 

 

The first page has a childhood family photo and title  with her initial's embossed and intertwined.

 

Embossed lettering.

 

On the inside cover of the slipcover I printed out a timeline of our travels in between two maps of cities we had visited. One page just to add interest was a list of movies and books we had read or seen and discussed in our letters. 

 

 

We have shared kayaking on an island weekend with family, hot air ballooning for birthdays, art exhibitions, our very first opera in Melbourne, climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge for another birthday celebration, cruised to New Zealand for her 70th birthday and also went whale watching at Hervey Bay stopping at local towns to explore museums.

 

To finish the slipcover I tried for the first time quilling as I needed something to close the opening as well.

 

 

I have enjoyed making these books and learning new skills so I have started to write my own story about the workshops, exhibitions and  my private collection so that is keeping me busy and it's great

to read old notes and I keep taking photos of photos especially if I no longer have an original of a particular exercise. As I write, and thank heaven for old notebooks and journals to rely on for information that  can be forgotten, my brain plays with ideas for it's cover and how I might build the book itself especially as I will be printing it myself which means single pages so need to create a nice way to join them to form the signature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Double Image, a book for my twin.

This year has developed into my year of bookmaking which has been nice to revisit those old skills.
Presented in a red slipcover with a marbled trim and for the very first time I tried my hand at quilling and found it to be very useful though delicate to perform.Sometimes one learns new skills along the way.

I have gifted this particular book to my twin sister who lives in Brisbane . The object was for a keepsake as well as my own satisfaction of making a gift to honour our relationship.
A very simple concept where I tried to explain only in a general way to any reader what being a twin means.
Being post war babies, twins in our growing years were not as common as today's birth rate and while some people would be curious about parts of that relationship I attempted to answer those queries with photos and some text.

The structure was adapted from a book I had previously admired at Libris Awards and kept it in mind for this project. Certainly it wasn't the same design or size as it morphed as part of me from the photos. The back was one piece with the pages, only a few, hand stitched down the middle instead of the usual practice of  opening a book from the left this opened from the middle out towards the left and right, a concertina style fold.
  The marbled end cover was in one piece naturally and the back was decorated with the matching marbled paper. To conceal the start and finish of the thread presented me with challenge to hide the ends as no knots were used. I used a very long thread and stitched one way and returned   therefore covering the middle line or spine. Each loose end was glued in place under the page very neatly. To decorate the actual stitching I twisted the thread part of the way down on each end before moving onto the next hole.

Title page with hand embossed image.

Slipcover.

Folds from the middle.

Spine with a twist.

Quilled decoration.

Book Circle.

In between projects another one presented itself which I hope will be handy. A good way to use up odds and ends of old prints, paste paper, marbled papers etc, strips torn from other book making efforts which are just not the right size for another book.

Palm size notebooks that are good for shopping lists I have recycled these materials and made slip covers , reusable to suit these books.
 

                                                      

 Book Circle.

 

Once I worked out the template it progressed smoothly.

I'm putting them aside and will donate to my grand daughter's Christmas Fair.

Introducing Other Interests.

Considering I am not that active here at present, I will be adding new posts on what I have been working on at a later date.

I thought I would broaden my site and introduce a couple of my other interests. My hubby is dabbling in orchids, I used to take care of them before but art took over, along with child-minding on a reasonably regular basis and of course participating in my love of swimming.
 Just to  start it off here are a couple of his newest purchases. Always a beautiful flower which gives pleasure for so long. It is nice to have more than one at a time in our living spaces.

 

I shall leave you to enjoy these,too.