Day 2 Sydney Royal Easter Show

Just got home from my second day of three, demonstrating silk painting at the Royal Easter Show.

I met an absolutely huge number of adults and kids today who tried their hand at silk painting. We played with cold wax, seaweed outliner, French dyes and painted starfish, moons, fish, cats and shapes of all sizes :D

There were even a couple of 2 and 3 year olds who had a try, with their Mums helping them.

Everyone loved it! It was such a fantastic thing for me to be part of, to share my love of silk and silk painting with so many people ...

If you came by my booth today - THANK YOU for making it such a super duper fantastic day!

The photos I took will be online by the end of the week, over at http://how-to-paint-on-silk.com

One more day to go, which is also the last day of the Show ... until next year :-)

Ciao for now
Teena

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Silk Painting Workhop with Cold Wax

Had a fabulous day on Saturday for my latest How To Paint On Silk With Cold Wax Workshop!

The students were fabulous, we all enjoyed ourselves and laughed a LOT :-)



You can see more videos from this workshop on my How To Paint on Silk website:

http://how-to-paint-on-silk.com/recent-workshops/2009-september-26-cold-wax

On the same website you'll see I'm also starting my Kids' Cartooning & Drawing Fun Classes this week - woohoo! Can;'t wait!

Teena

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I love my new textile Moo cards

My new Moo Cards

Ohhhhhhh I can't help it, I love Moo cards!

My latest ones are based on photos of my handpainted silk designs, and they're bright and cheerful and perfect to use as business cards, swing tags, little bookmarks (with a hole punched and ribbon added) ...

Aren't they cute??? Ok Ok I know I'm biased :-)

Teena

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Using wallpaper paste in silk painting

I've stayed away from gutta for so many years with my free-form creating painting styles, but more and more I'm thinking of - indeed dreaming of - designs which need OUTLINES.

I vaguely remembered reading somewhere about wallpaper paste as a way to make an anti-fuse - a product to paint onto silk then allow it to dry before painting with dyes. The idea is that the dried silk will become like paper so the design could in fact be freehand and the dyes wouldn't flow or spread on the silk.

So - I went out and bought some wallpaper paste, mixed it up, and then did something bizarre. I put small amounts of the gluggy substance into a white icecube tray and added drops of dye to each one. I then tried to paint with this gloopy substance and found it was not easy - in fact it was a pain in the butt haha. I persevered. I got splotchy colours, and the painting looked awful, but I didn't give in.

When the silk was dry, I outlined the painting in black texta pen [of the permanent persuasion] and it started to take on the semblance of something almost acceptable :-) Well, in the eyes of its mother - me.

Photos will be uploaded shortly - a story-board of fascinating proportions - stay tuned!

Teena


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Textile exhibition in the Hunter Valley

Lovedale CraftFest
October 20-21, 2007
north of Sydney, Australia
in the Hunter Valley wine region!

Click image for larger view

Over the weekend I had a delightful little adventure!

On Friday I drove about two and a half hours north of Sydney [and slightly inland] to the Hunter Valley.

My friend Lynne Taylor was part of an exhibition at Ogishi Gallery and the opening night was on Friday.

I arrived in the afternoon and helped Lynne [well, I watched while she worked :)] set up her wonderful hand made textiles in a small room of the gallery, which she shared with Mark Jones, whose gorgeous handmade soft leather bags complemented Lynne's fabulous clothing perfectly. Here they are setting up their gallery space:

Above: Lynne displaying her beautiful coats, vests, scarves and shawls.

Above: Mark setting up his shelving ready for the leather bags.

Did you know that quite often the artist has to bring shelving, wardrobe racks, display boxes and cases as the Gallery would not normally have these available for the many types of artwork to be displayed? So yes, it is a lot of work to pack the car, drive sometimes hundreds of miles, set up your 'shop' and then display your artwork as best you can with lighting etc provided. It's a labour of love, with a view to wooing visitors into falling in love with your artwork - which sometimes pay off :-)

The Exhibition Opening was a huge success, and the exhibition continued over the weekend. I wish all the artists the best of luck and hope they had much success!

I did take more photos, but none of them were sharp enough to add to the blog :-( click any of these pics to ZOOOOOM in, then click the BACK button to return to the blog.

On my drive back to Sydney the next day, I came across this sign with TORONTO and SYDNEY on it, which tickled my fancy - I have a friend who lives in Toronto, Canada and I'm sure Karen will be highly amused by this :-)


Have a faaaabulous week everyone, keep up the painting, arty crafty life, make your heart sing with joy!

Cheers
Teena


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I'm a member of Surface Design Organization

I'm very excited! This week I have joined the Surface Design Organization USA on http://www.surfacedesign.org - something I've been meaning to do for ages!

Their next Conference is in April 2008, and I might just start planning a trip to the USA for their 2009 Conference, as I'll be in France in June 2007 with a group of silk artists.

Breaking New Ground
April 5-9, 2008
Symposium, Tour & Workshops
Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA near Philadelphia

For more info visit the SDA website
http://www.surfacedesign.org/conference.asp

I'm soooo excited to see my name on their list of members already :-)

I'm off to look at some of the members' websites - what fun!!

I've just been going over some articles on AustralianSilkworm.com and it was fun reading about some of the great textile designers I've come across over the past few years.

Ohhhhhh I do so love the internet! :-)

This is a photo of my workspace one day, all my paints and brushes ready to go:


With the sun shining through the window, I remember this day :-) and the joy I always feel when painting on silk ...

Ciao for now
Teena!


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