Monday, January 24, 2011

Capricorn Fun day

The local group of Yanchep/Two Rocks artists got together to promote Art in the area at the Capricorn Fun Day. I set up my table with my wares at Capricorn House, Yanchep.

The Capricorn Village Joint Venture were promoting land sales in the area and had organised a fun day for families with free helicopter rides, free pizza and family entertainment.

There was a lot of interest in the Art Exhibition but not many sales. I had a few sales and quite a few people picked up a leaflet about my workshops and classes.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011

In the Garden

This morning I went to feed he fish and I found a beautiful pink lily blooming in the pond. I took some photos of the fish feeding around the lily.
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Gratitude

I sat on my veranda with a glass of chilled white wine watching yet another amazing sunset over the ocean at Two Rocks. Ruth my daughter was in the kitchen preparing out evening meal. I thought how lucky I am to be here now after all the stress of the last three years is behind me, I can focus on and show gratitude for all that I do have in my life.  This week I’ve had fun, laughter and work with my daughter. We have made silver jewellery together in the studio. I am pleased that I am able to employ her and help her promote her own jewellery business.
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Friday, January 21, 2011

Etching

Ruth & I have been having fun in the studio this week with more etchings. Before you actually get to do the etchings you have to work out the design. Ruth, who is very ‘cluey’ on the computer (and is now my very own personal assistant) has shown me how to do ‘stuff’ with Adobe Illustrator. I was struggling with Adobe Photoshop and cleaning up images of stray pixels. It was taking me ages, but now it’s really a lot quicker in Illustrator. You have to have ‘clean’ images with no stray pixels when you print the image onto the paper ready for etching. Any stray pixels will show up in the etching and then into the silver. With Illustrator, it’s easier to get fine lines into the etching and the fine lines look really good in the silver when they are patina oxidised.
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This is my image of a red back spider that I have made with Illustrator. This was then printed onto etching paper, transferred onto the copper, into the etching solution for a couple of hours. Then the silver clay is rolled into a sheet and the etched image pressed into the clay. The silver clay is cut out to shape, dried, sanded, fired in a kiln for 2hrs at 900 degrees centigrade, then polished and oxidised.
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This is the finished pendant.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Electro forming

I’ve been having another play with electro forming. As this was an experiment I tried a new idea out on a polymer bead that I wasn’t too fond off so it didn’t matter if it got ruined. I have used a Swarovski crystal amongst the copper. It turned out pretty well. I’ll play with this idea and see what develops.
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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Fishing Off Two Rocks

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Photo courtesy of Angie Beck
I had the opportunity to fishing from Two Rocks, setting out from the marina. I went in a 4 metre ‘tinnie’ which wasn’t the most comfortable boat. (Hard on the backside even though I’m well padded.) The day brought back many memories of the days I used to fish with my husband, when occasionally we had a day off from the farm work and go fishing from Two Rocks. Good times I had always thought. Today, I had to borrow my daughter’s rod as my fishing gear was taken along with our boat and probably passed on to my husband’s new girlfriend.
I had a big hook up near Map reef. Whatever it was took bait and hook and I’ll never know what fish that took it. I did come home with a few herring which Ruth gutted and cooked. It was good to get out on the water.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Etching Copper & Brass

My daughter, Ruth and I have been playing with my Dual Etch/Electro former this week. Ruth is starting her own online jewellery business with my help and I’ve been showing her the Etch Equipment. She has been using Ferric chloride as an etchant on brass and copper so we thought we would compare results with both methods.
The designs are printed on specially coated paper on a laser printer. The toner is transferred onto the copper or brass with a hot iron.
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Copper sulphate crystals are dissolved in a bath. The copper plate is immersed.
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After about 3 – 4 hours the etching is complete.
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The next step is to make the silver clay pendant.

In the garden

My grapes are ripe and I picked a kilo. I have been wondering about the variety of the vine while the grapes were ripening. It’s a Red Globe. The other vines didn’t yeild any grapes, perhaps next year.
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There has been another water lily come into bloom in the fish pond. This one’s pale yellow.
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The other flower to come into bloom is a sunflower. My friend Merryl gave me a few seeds and I’m wrapped with the flowers.
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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Amazing Sunsets

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Most evenings I try and watch the sun going down. I sit on my veranda, sometimes with a glass of wine and gaze at the sunsets. This is Monday 10th January.
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Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Morning Walk

Ruth & I walked to the bakery early this morning to buy bread. We went past the marina where there were lots of people launching boats off of their trailers. It’s the cray fishing season here and people with amateur licences can set baits in pots to entice crayfish. I used to have a boat here in Two Rocks and fish regularly, so I was envious of the boaties.
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                    Two Rocks Marina
As we walked along the pathway by the marina we saw two dolphins diving. One of them came very close to us. The dolphin was chasing a shoal of fish that we thought looked like mullet. We could see the shoal darting attempting to get clear. The dolphin caught one in it’s mouth, turned on it’s side and then swam off.  It was a memorable sight.

Sunday, January 02, 2011

Happy New Year

A very Happy New Year to all my friends and blog followers.

 

2010 collage

2010 collage