Lunch with a dear friend

My good friend Melanie Dilday has been visiting Perth and we caught up for lunch at the Jane Brook Winery. Mel used to live in Denmark but has relocated to Mullumbimby NSW.


Mel and I are tutors at the forthcoming Contemporary Craft Retreat in Canberra October 14th – 16th. The weekend is going to be a lot of fun with 20 workshop options from Polymer Clay, Metal Clay, Paverpol and Mixed Media. The venue is really comfortable and all meals are included.

Sunset

Another beautiful sunset at Two Rocks the other evening.

Photopolymer Plates or Etching Plates?

Today, I spent all day in the studio playing with photopolymer plates. Recently I have been etching plates to use with my silver metal clay, but it’s a bit hit and miss with getting the PCB Paper to stick to the plate and not capture all of the image. It’s a lot of stuffing around with a hot iron and getting the toner from the laser printer to transfer to the plate.
I have photopolymer plates that are approximately A4 in size so they have to be cut down to the appropriate size. This is a job in itself. Tin snips give a ragged line and buckle the metal backing. A hack saw takes a lot of effort so I opted for a jigsaw with a metal blade.
The design is printed on to a transparency, which is place onto the photopolymer plate and exposed to UV light. The light hardens the exposed photopolymer and the areas that are not exposed (the black areas) are washed away leaving a deep impression.
A sheet of silver metal clay can then be pressed into the design and made into a piece of jewellery.
     This is the photopolymer plate with my design of redback spiders, two crows on a branch and a celtic design.

Metal Clay Workshop

Saturday’s workshop produced some interesting pieces from an enthusiastic group.
    
    

I look forward to seeing my student’s jewellery finished and being worn.

Intro - Metal Clay Workshop

A group of friends booked a day’s class with me today. They had not worked with metal clay before, but were very enthusiastic.
   
   
Some of the work produced.

Bush Fire, Muchea, Chittering - Concert in Charnwood Park, Two Rocks

According to Channel Nine News,  12km front bush fire raged in Muchea sending thick black smoke towards the coast on Saturday evening. I attended a concert by former Australian Crawl’s James Reyne in the park at Two Rocks. The sky was full of smoke and gave some interesting photos at sunset.
   
These photos were taken from my balcony showing the bushfire smoke.
  

Sunset

I just love the sunsets here at Two Rocks and i can’t help but take photos of the amazing spectacle.
This was the sky on Sunday evening. I sat on the balcony and watched the sun go down and thought how fortunate I am to live in a beautiful part of WA.

Polymer Patterns

I had a lovely group of ladies today in my Polymer Patterns class. It was mixture of people with some clay experience and some with none. Most of the ladies came from Perth but one had come all the way from Esperence.
Here are some of the photos taken in the class.
    

        

Judy’s Pendant

Judy’s pendant is out of the kiln, and is looking good!
   

Students work in this week’s classes

I‘ve had some really good work produced by students this week. Some of the students hadn’t touch metal clay before. Here are some photos of their work.
    

Diane from Kalamunda                                   Judy from Melbourne

    

Tegan from Rockingham

    

This is Judy working on her pendant. She brought along a piece of coral that had fantastic texture. She wanted to use the texture in a silver pendant. I showed her how to try the texture in polymer clay first and then reproduce it in silver clay. This pendant is in the kiln and I’ll put up a photo of the finished pendant later.

Margaret River

I took my guests down the South West to Margaret River. We  had an apartment right in the centre of town and visited the restaurants, wineries and beaches.
     

Visiting Wineries

      
A friendly Kookaburra                                               
    
Surf Break                                                             River Mouth

Australia Day Celebrations 26th Jan 2011

What a great day. I had visitors from Sydney and the UK staying with me at Two Rocks. We had a reunion as all of us went to the same high school in Cornwall. We set up our flags, bunting and banners around the house and garden, put on our temporary tattoos (which actually were difficult to remove) and then we set off to walk to out local community hall for the Australian Breakfast.
    
The volunteers did a fantastic job of serving up bacon, sausage, egg, beans, tomato, toast and orange juice to many people who live in Yanchep and Two Rocks. While we were having our breakfast a couple of people came and sat opposite and we started chatting. We told the lady that we went to school together in Cornwall. She asked which school and when we told her she nearly fell off her chair. She went to the same school: Camborne Grammar School for girls. What a coincidence!