Light and Shade.

Here in Melbourne we have a wonderful outlet called Reverse Art Truck. Local businesses donate their waste, such as cardboard, plastic, rubber, wood etc and individuals or groups can fill a bag of 'rubbish' for a set price. I have just been and filled a bag of foam offcuts for stamping, cardboard pieces for bookmaking, wooden rods for stiring dyes pots, wooden blocks for mounting stamps, heavy plastic sheets for monoprinting and many more goodies. Here is a sample of my haul.

This Looks Useful.

A Good Days Dyeing.

A Missing Increment.

Focus in a Garden Corner.

No More Sitting on This One!

Water Tanks for the Vegetable Garden.

Vegetable Garden Renovation

Sepia filter in Paint Shop Pro

Looking at the pencil sketch below got me thinking about possibly using part of the sketch in a piece of work, but making it into a sepia version with just a few accents of vegetation in coloured thread. Here in Melbourne a house that is 100 years old is considered to be quite old, and the sepia colour would emphasise this idea. I seem to recall that Paintshop Pro has a sepia filter.

Computer Pencil Sketch of the House.

One of the Large Pots.

A corner of the Tennis Court.

The Next Challenge.

My next challenge is to design and make 2 or 3 pieces capturing the essence of a garden that celebrates its centenary later this year. The house, designed by an eminent Australian architect, sits on a 2 acre block of land facing a small in ground swimming pool. The garden is mainly huge old trees with paths winding through the shrubs. There are very few flowers, the focal points are large urns and pots dotted around the garden, mostly empty. There is a beautiful grass tennis court and a very ornate cast iron bench facing it. Twelve artists have been invited to depict some aspect of the garden, the resulting art works will be featured in an exhibition in August, with the owner of the house having first choice of the pieces shown. I get the impression that the owner would prefer, and would be more likely to buy, works that are realistic rather than abstract. It's not a garden that shows immediate potential with its lack of colourful flowers. A challenge.

Pear prints using Gocco print-making screens. It might be worth making silk screens for these images, or perhaps printing the images onto prepared fabric with the computer, as the prints with the Gocco machine do not show the fine detail of the originals.

Computer Play with Pears.

Next I tried printing with half a cut pear.

I have recently been asked by a friend in his 80s to make a piece of art reflecting his surname Birnbauer. He has only one child, a son, who has 3 daughters, hense the family name will die with the death of this son. Birnbauer translates as Pear Farmer, so I have been collecting pictures of pears and taking photos of pears. Here are a couple of my efforts.

As you can see, I have not stopped posting my daily photos with the start of the New Year.
Having been away from the computer for over a month in 2008, I haven't yet posted the full 365 photos, so I will continue posting daily until I reach this number.
After that I will continue posting, but not necessarily daily and will include more of my art work.