Another great group

I met another wonderful group of ladies in my Altered book workshop over the weekend. It never ceases to amaze me how they all learn the same techniques but their work ends up so individual.
The class was in a lovely venue organised by Marg Byrne
and her sister Kathy Thompson. The two of them worked tirelessly during the day keeping everything running smoothly. Kathy created a fabulous lunch for us all. Thanks again ladies.






Kathy



Marg
Visit Marg's blog to see more of her wonderful pages



Claire



Caro




Erica




Rita




Coralee




Pauline




Deb




Carolina

I'm sorry ladies I didn't get links to your blogs. If you have one and want to email me I can add them.

AWARDS

I've been the lucky recipient of two awards.



This one from Kate and Roxanne



This one also from Roxanne

Thanks ladies for your awards and kindness, it's much appreciated.
I nominate all of those lovely people who visit my blog and leave comments.

Great class

What a great group of ladies attended my Altered book workshop at the Artistic Journey Retreat, here in Melbourne. They were all so enthusiastic. It was the start of the four day retreat with other teachers being Jacky from Artistic Journey, Nina Bagley, Misty Mawn and Traci Bautista, what a fabulous line up of tutors and I was lucky enough to be among them.



Shirley came all the way from WA to attend, it's wonderful to see how far people will travel to help make it such a great event. Shirley was wonderful too, she bought one of my necklaces on vendor night. She also created some beautiful work. Shirley's colour combinations were divine.



Julia created some lovely work and really stretched herself as she's used to creating in more subdued colours. The style I teach though can still be adapted to paler or sepia colours.



Jacky created a mixed bag of work from darker colour to the brights, her work was lovely, some of her beautiful pages almost had a patchwork style.




Dot is used to working with lots of colour as her beautiful pages show. Her work definitely has her style stamped on it.
Even her darker pages had a lovely tapestry quality about them.



Rebecca came all the way from Canberra, along with a friend to help look after her nine month old son while she attended classes. That's a true friend. Rebecca's work was stunning, she used a beautiful Italian nature book and utilized some of the existing images beautifully.



Finally a group shot. It was the start of a fabulous four days. I'm sorry Rebecca and Shirley, I don't have your blog details, if you have blogs let me know and I'll link them.
More to follow.

Purple haze

This is a necklace I've just completed for Patsy, one of my students in the altered book workshops. I made the copper book with the pages being pieces of fabric from old Japanese kimonos. Patsy is a textile artist so this was very appropriate for her. Patsy provided all of the interesting jewellery components. The close up is of a beautiful piece that was originally a brooch from France.

We had to cancel our altered book workshop last night due to torrential rain. The storm was incredible it flooded the Hann Made Studio workshop with water pouring down the walls from the inside. We have had similar storms tonight. The weather is warm so it is very balmy inside and out, you can almost see the garden grow, so lush, it's sad to think that in two or three weeks, when we get the real heat, every thing will be tinder dry and a major fire hazard. Mother nature is very fickle or is this the result of global warming?

Altered Book Workshop

I have another Altered Book Workshop coming up on Sunday the 25th November. If anyone's interested please email me or give Hann Made Studio Mentone a call, their phone number's on their web site.



Remember this page? It was on my blog a few days ago, well, after 'squinting', this is what I came up with.



I used oil pastel to fill in the shapes and then scratched in the design with a piece of metal, through the layers, to take me back to the gesso background.



These little things are my hand painted tea bags. I drink the tea and then carefully take out the staple at the top of the tea bag, or just pull the tag and staple off. I then gently open the bag out at the seam,usually down the middle in most bags. I wash them under running water and then paint or stamp them. You can do this while they are still wet for a water colur effect or wait until they are dry for a sharper image. I then use them as pages in some of my jewellery 'book necklaces' or add them to pages in my journal. Visit Judy and see what she has done with them.

I'd like to thank everyone who takes the time to visit my blog and also to the people who leave comments, it means so much to me. I try to get back to those who's details I have, but I'm not always able to find contact details for some of the people who comment. To all of you a very big THANK YOU.

My Etsy should also be opening this weekend, so I hope you can drop by.

Altered book workshop students

What another fabulous group of students attended my altered book workshop over the weekend. This is Ruth, such a sweet lady, so enthusiastic and eager despite having a very bad back. Ruth's pages were lovely.



Jaz is one very talented young lady, her work is lovely, she worked in a children's book and incorporated some of the images in the book into her work with terrific results.



Lyn started out thinking she was not at all creative, I think she had a different opinion by the end of the class, her work was beautiful and she produced some wonderful pages.



Janice writes and hadn't done very much art before, I think she too surprised herself. She ended up with some lovely pages. Janice intends to add writing to her book at a later stage.



What can I say about Patsy, she's such a wonderful lady and artist in so many fields. Her work is divine, this was her second class with me. Patsy doesn't waste time, she had two books on the go so that she could alternate between them whilst they dried. Patsy's enthusiasm is so contageous, she's so very inspiring.



Anne only found out about the class on Thursday, so she wasn't sure what to expect. Her mother is very sick and I think the class helped her to unwind for a few hours. Anne's work was lovely, so much texture and layers. She sent me a lovely email tonight saying how much she'd enjoyed the class. It's lovely to get feed back. The class is so full on while it's happening I'm never sure if people are having a good time, there was lots of laughing so I suppose that's a good start.



This was Nicky's second class too, another very talented lady, her book is looking delightful. As you can see from the photo she has a lovely smile and lots of enthusiasm.

Gosh reading this post back it reads like a school report, sorry ladies, I hope you don't mind, but you were all so good, I couldn't keep it to myself. Happy book altering.

Altered book workshop

I'm teaching another altered Book workshop on Sunday again, so I've been busy getting together the student kits. I try to add different papers and images to them as some of the students return for a second time.
We had another great Thursday night altered book get together this week, they are a great group of ladies all doing their own thing with some terrific results.



This is a pin I've just completed. I decorated the rusty piece of metal sometime ago and wasn't sure how I would use it. I'm starting to make my own wire pins now so this was a good chance to experiment and use my rusty piece. I'm trying to get a collection of things together to set up my etsy store, I'm still trying to work out postage.

Altered book workshop students

What a very talented group of students attended my workshop. Some came not knowing what they were going to create. They had never heard of an altered book until now and wow did they take it on board. The work they all created was fabulous, they, like my previous class were so eager to learn. We covered the decorating of paper using paper towels, adding detergent to paint to create bubble paper and making stamps from foam meat trays. We used old phone books, painted tea bags, chocolate wrappers, paper serviettes, doilies, magazine images, as many things that could be recyled as possible. They all came up with some great pages, all individual and very colourful. I believe most of them are hoping to attend our Thursday night group so we should have some fun.

Altered book workshop

I'm teaching another altered book workshop this weekend, so I'm busily preparing kits for the class. I've also taken a few shots of my studio. I collect books like I collect most things, never in moderation. I love this little corner, I often sit with a coffee just to look something up and find two hours later I'm still there and have forgotten what I went to search for.
I have another section to the left where I have all my textiles, fibres and computer set up, I'll show photos on another day, when I've had a clean up.