Some great news for me this week & Google London

This week I heard that my Bologna book (which you can see here and here) was chosen to be acquired in the Southern Cross University Acquisitive Artists’ Book Award. Tara O’Brien who chose the acquisitions  said that these books “achieved a high level of sophistication in the synergy between form and content”.

I am delighted about getting recognition for this book, because I put so much work into it. You can see the other acquisitions here.  Congratulations to Amanda Watson-Will, who is the only other winner that I know personally (through blogging). Amanda has written at more length about the exhibition and truly says that we were were in great company. It is a real honour to have our books chosen. It was Amanda’s first book. My first book was acquired by the Meadowbank College Association.

The drawing above was for the Virtual Paintout blog, where your image must come from Google Street View. I took the little yellow man for a walk around Pimlico where I spent a part of my misspent youth as a receptionist in a hotel there. I lived in an apartment next door to the hotel, in the building on the left. There was a back way out of our building in the street behind, and we sometimes could smuggle our boyfriends out that way if necessary.

Starting off a book swap

We’re starting off a book swap with one member from the previous postcard swap group, and some other artists from the Everydaymatters group. This link takes you to the Everydaymatters Superblog, where you can see posts from different artists from the Everydaymatters group.  Each of us is making our own book from a sheet of watercolour paper, from a pattern (and great step-by-step) on Nina’s blog. 

We are getting off to a slow start because we have had one member drop out, got a replacement, then another has dropped out.  We’re not due to send our book off for another 3 weeks, but TODAY is the day our books are supposed to be made by.  Well, mine is done now.

Once we’ve made our book, then we draw/paint on a double-page spread, then send it to the next person. When it comes back in about 6 months time, it should be full.

My cover boards are covered with textured wallpaper that has been gessoed & then swooshed with Matisse Inks and gesso.  I am pretty fed up with this long cold winter, even though it was 35 degrees last Friday. The colours of the cover seemed so cheerful and summery, that I have made my theme ’summer’. Then I have sort-of broken my own rules, because what I’ve painted is ‘tropical’ rather than ’summer’. Still, not everyone has access to the tropics.

I photographed these heliconia plants in the grounds of the hotel where I stay in Ubud in Bali.  I’ve painted them in watercolour, which is not really my medium, but lends itself so well to florals. I do love heliconia. This year for my birthday, I’m going to buy myself a stalk of heliconia and one of those long vases you need to put them in. Just gorgeous.

Not been blogging much lately. Had a sore hand, and also busy getting ready for the Matisse Open Day. See you there!

An iconic flag book…

This is my latest student sample flag book. I’ve had the images cut out for a long time but it’s been on the backburner due to my other deadlines. You might remember that I taught a photograph flag book late last year and used free postcards for the images. The original instructions came from the “Bonefolder” newsletter here.

In that article, there is a flag book using images of Elvis. It said to make the photographs recognisable in a flag book, one must use iconic images. I wanted to do one of my own. Got books from the library and had to make the choice between Audrey and James Dean. Audrey won. I printed the images onto cheap watercolour paper. The endpages are credit card paper made using Matisse Silver and Carbon Black. Instructions for credit card paper can be found on Kelsey’s blog in this post.The front cover has four square diamantes glued onto four consecutive dots. (Breakfast at Tiffany’s).

 

It’s not spag bol……

No, it’s not spag bol ! This is the page spread that illustrates Bologna as ‘la grassa’ – the fat – meaning it’s a great place to eat. This is a type of tagliatelle called ‘paglia e fieno’ from the Emilia-Romagna area. The cutaway at the top of the page is from a famous Bologna roofline.

The date-and-time page spread is the date and time of the strage di Bologna. The station clock is always left set at that time. I suppose you’ll think I’m weird that I’d do a book about this massacre so long after the time, and from the other side of the world. The family I lived with in Rome were communist intellectuals. They said I must go to Bologna, and I just adored it. The thing I remember though, in my first visit in 1975, everyone’s luggage was searched at the train station. Such a thing was unheard of, and it stuck in my mind. It took me thirty years to get back, and I loved it just as much.

This third page is to illustrate the massacre at the railway station and the collage is Italian words to do with murder and terrorism. It is sooo hard to find Italian magazines for collage in Sydney. Leichhardt, the Italian area, which is near where I live has not one op shop.

Kind Hearts and Coronets

Mellanie gave me this Kind Heart Award. I must say it was very kind of her. Now I need to pass it on to up-to-five people.

Kelsey must be top of my list for her generous sharing of tutorials on her blog. I learnt the credit card papers from her, and right this afternoon that has solved a problem for me of how to visually portray something in my artist’s book about Bologna that I’m in the middle of making. Kelsey was also very generous with her knowledge of inkjet transfers.

Carol is next, for her help with marbling, choosing a printer and a myriad other questions I ask.

Rah for his helpful information about the Tombow pens.

Lorraine for pointing me in the direction of a great bargain in Albrecht Durer pencils on Ebay Australia. Which in turn made me aware of watercolour pencils on ebay & I got another massive set at a bargain price.

OK – there are six! Kate for being so generous with her time, effort, and attention to detail in the new Watercolour Pencil CD. Also for being generous in answering question on the Everyday matters sketching list.

Luckily I saved this post. Save now! I wrote it in the course of the afternoon, because I had to look up links etc. At 8pm – boom – the power went off – totally unexpected after a sunny day. It was nearly dark, but not too dark for me to get down my long hall & get the candles on. The lights were out for over an hour, but I was happy. I recently upgraded my phone to one with an MP3 player. Then even more recently I got a pair of tiny speakers on ebay, so there I was, by candlelight, with Putumayo Presents: Nuevo Latino and a glass of Sunshine’s vodka.

Two groovy gays

I’ve finished another double-page spread of my sample circle concertina artist’s book that I’m going to be teaching at Artwise. If you remember, it’s about Newtown, where I live. There’s quite a gay scene here, though recently that community has been adversely affected by the closure of the Newtown Hotel under dramatic circumstances. So I wanted to put some gays in my book, and I preferred them to be of indeterminate gender and I hope I’ve been successful. I wasn’t sure about the ‘rules of earrings’ for gay people, but I had a look on Wikipedia and from what is said there, where the earring is worn no longer seems to have a lot of significance. The earrings are made from Matisse glitter 3D Kindyglitz that dries hard enough to be used inside a book. The shirts are collaged from some scrapbooking papers, and I’ve used watercolour pencils and a Rotring pen for the drawing. The drawing has deliberately been kept as simple as possible so as not to frighten the students in the class. But bear in mind that their books will be about their own subject and not about Newtown at all. I just need the sample to look achievable.