I really threw myself into it this year, after going overseas last year I came home inspired and determined to put myself out there and began painting again. Before the end of 2016 I had painted three paintings for a Christmas Exhibition at Red Poles, another two paintings for the annual Surf Art Exhibition in Pt Noarlunga and registered myself to take part in the Adelaide Fringe  and the South Australian Living Artists (SALA)  Festival for 2017. (two solo exhibitions, an open studio/workshops and a group exhibition) Life; once again became crazy, busy and every minute between working in an art supplies store, teaching art classes and looking after grand kids and running a household was spent in the studio ... minus a few winery visits, a few social events here & there and oh, manged to fit in a girls weekend in Melbourne too ( only just)
The SALA event at the Barn "Off the Block" was absolutely exhausting but well worth doing and so much fun. Thank you to all those that popped by to chat, to look and buy some work and to those that took part in learning  & experimenting with making collagraphs. It was really nice to meet and see you all, I appreciate all your comments, feed back and company...thank you xxxx

What a beautiful day it was in the hills today, since I've been back in Adelaide life has been crazy, busy and pretty amazing. Currently I am excited about starting a number of art classes which will be held in this beautiful old barn http://www.thebarnwebsite.com Today we held a Come & Try for "Dabbles" a n Arty class especially for children ( about 2.5 -4 years)  to do with a parent, grandparent or carer. What a fun way to spend the morning creating beautiful parrots. 

Okay so this time last year while I was back in Adelaide I did a workshop at Bittondi with Sarah Amos, she's a Melbourne born artist but lives and works in the United States. I was so inspired as I have always loved the 'somewhat unpredictable' marks and textures of the collagraph. I say 'somewhat' because of course it does take practice and experience to create the desired effects but it's a medium where you can really experiment and more often than not you will have 'happy accidents'
Sarah works on life size prints and she combines painting with overprinting of intaglio collagraphs and the final prints are large, bold and abstract. Her press is huge and her studio , amazing.
As for me, I am in a total opposite situation. Renting a townhouse with white floor tiles, working in a small dining room and printing on a press which is situated in the garage which does need to house my car as well. It just means I have to move things around and pack everything away at the end of the day. Not ideal but it's only now that I have found the time to work on trying out this technique. It's fine and this way it's not as expensive when those 'accidents' aren't so happy. As usual I'm never just working on one thing and while mucking around with inks and various blocks I also have a deadline to meet as I'm taking part in an international printmaking exchange and exhibition-Bears and Blooms. The Exhibition will be held at Red Poles opening on October 18th and the theme is' Postcards from the edge of extinction, documenting rare, endangered or extinct flora or fauna species.  Proceeds of the exhibition will be donated to Free the Beers Fund www.freethebears.org.au


Sea Turtle - Edition 10

The last couple of months have been really busy. I have enjoyed painting a new series of little canvases, they're only 10 x 10 cms in size but they still took ages to paint. That's the thing with little works, sometimes they take just as much time to create as the large pieces because they're so fiddly to do, they just use less materials.  These are just a few but I'm fairly happy with the designs, I need to make a few changes & I have so many more ideas.  Now  I'm thinking I might make them into linocuts as well. ... who knows,  I do like the brightness of the paints and I haven't painted since moving here to Brisbane. I sold the Glass House Mountains & the Kookaburra, I'd like to be able to do enough to provide some touristy galleries around Queensland. All in all it was a lot of work to prepare for the stall and as this was a school fair it probably wasn't the most ideal place for sales of my work but I knew that. I was hoping to drum up some interest for some art classes and basically a bit of exposure into a new community and I did get to meet some lovely and interesting people. 

So last weekend on Sunday was the fair &  Tuesday I decide it's not too late for me to still try and get an entry in for the Adelaide Fringe Poster Competition by Friday.  Okay so I am pushing my luck & I'm up against a whole mob of young talented designers but the theme is " Experience Something New " and I've decided to go with " Why not Wear a bird as a Wig " It's nonsense but that's what they want. I think I'm good at nonsense. If I don't make it well other than the fact that I miss out on a much needed $2,000 and an amazing amount of exposure for my work I now have a whole new series of work I'm inspired to do for an exhibition for The Fringe.