painting at tafe

I have started doing an evening art course at tafe  with Veronica O'Leary  teaching (this link shows two of Veronica's paintings if you scoll down).  I did a similar course with Veronica 2 years ago and it was great fun and Veronica is a wonderful teacher.  When i turned up to the class last week we were given a painting by Matisse to use in our first activity so you can imagine my excitement - it already matches my new blog banner!!!  i haven't got far with it yet but want to share some of my favourite Matisse images.

 

COLOUR COLOUR COLOUR........

op shop books

I have had a wonderful time scouting the local op shops while I've been on holidays and mostly scoring books. 
I always plan to cut them up and sometimes I do but i must confess i've become a bit of a book horder and I've got a feeling these new additions will not be made into anything in the near future.

Check out this wonderful old collection of encyclopedias.(sorry about the photo) Now i know they are a dime a dozen but these are a real treasure - 1934 - The Modern World Encyclopoaedia - 8 volumnes -
with some really fabulous line drawers scattered throughout.

They remind me of the projects we use to do in primary school - something I use to love doing.  Not much 'higher order thinking' (one of the buzz phrases in educational circles at the moment) but lots of fun and I suspect a fair bit of learning was accidentally happening....I can feel a project coming on!!! could be a great idea for a book without actually cutting them up.  some of you might remember when photocopiers first made their way to school libraries and some (kind) teacher use to photocopy pictures for our projects, they were shiney and the paper slippery  and when coloured with  textas glowed like some dead sea creature...weren't they great!!.

Another book I found today at the Salvos in Bega was a copy of Mother Gooses Nursery Rhymes.  some of them are a real laugh, mainly because of their political incorrectness. Thank god for mother goose, although I don't think youll find too many parents, now days, reading the following to their little darlings. ....tut, tut, tut.

some I had read before,although i don't remember the second stanza of Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater......

but others were new to me....

and....

and i dare anyone of you to explain that a Dick Redcap is actually a riddle

 ....and keep a straight face

Happy mother goosing till next time....there are plenty more!!!

snow???schmow

The snow was virtually non existent.  i don't know why but i expected to drive into a snow covered landscape of chalets and pine trees glistening with white awnings and snow covered branches.  i now know that i was being very naive - apparently snow very rarely settles on the ground in jindabyne let alone creates the snowland scenes of christmas cards that i was so anticipating.   anyway it was good to catch up with louie and have a look around jindabyne. 

It wasn't what i expected at all.  i hadn't thought about what a young town it is - both in terms of population and physical existence. and it does really show.  i stopped counting both the number of pubs and the number of ski clothing shops. the place must be so different in summer, i couldn't help but think those shops must close down.  i suppose it is a little bit like tathra but in reverse, we get an influx of tourists for the summer months but we only have one pub and zero clothing shops even then. 

but apart from the number of pubs and clothing shops  what really bothered me was the lack of anything else. i'm sure if i'd  had longer to explore i might have found an op shop, or a wool/textiles shop or a cute little gallery hiding ashamedly in a back street somewhere. but the few hours i had to entertain myself (while the boys were doing car stuff) i couldn't find anything.... except there was a fabulous book shop (and one shouldn't complain as long as there is a bookshop)

and i could of spent a fortune....especially since it had a great kids section full of wonderful picture books (for me of course)...however i did refrain and only bought two books - 

Taller When Prone  by Les Murray

and

Gravel by Peter Goldsworthy

We have a bookshop down home, and it a particularly good shop too, but contemporay poetry collections and short stories are not usually on the shelves for browsing. so it was wonderful just to pick these books up and  flick through. 

.....and to read anything by mr murray is a delight.... and this collection has a number of little descriptions that vividly highlight his lucid perceptions..... such as this one;

Croc

This police car with a checkered seam

of blue and white teeth along its side

lies in cover like a long-jawed

flat dog beside the traffic stream.

I have only read one of Goldsworthy's stories, Shooting the Dog, but if that is anything to go by i can't wait to read the rest......

but for now ........

 back home and still 10 days of holidays.....off to the studio....lucky, lucky me.

off to the snow

we only live 2 hours from the snow but i very rarely visit. but today we (bill and me) are going up to see louie who is working there for the winter. i am as excited as a kid at christmas.  i hope it's snowing!! at the moment it's raining here so that might  a bad sign.  maybe its a good sign.  i know nothing about snow. 
anyway off to rug up in long johns, scarf and beanie and head off to a white fairy land.

snap short film

thought to share this quirky short film snap but accidently posted it to BAO. Head over for a look.

teddy

It has been too long since i've said anything here that I am just putting fingers to keyboard so  it actually looks like the blog is not defunct. 

Work is getting crazier by the day and I am beginning to wonder if I made a mistake becoming a head teacher.  I did know what I was in for, and most of the time I do enjoy it but i am tired and overworked and getting frustrated....the holidays are not far away and I'll be able to regroup  and do some making. 

I have made very little lately and am looking forward to the next BAO project to spur me on. .....

I did knit a little teddy bear last night while I was watching, my only compulsory television since American Idol finished last week,  - Doc Martin and The Bill.

He was fun to make and is knitted in one piece with a fold at the top of the head and seams sewn down the side of the  body. You can find the pattern here.

Here he is with the fruit and veg and a scratchie that won $9 - ( Yes, I did resort to gambling as an alternative retirement plan!! and Yes, $9 is going to last for about 2 seconds,   so.......... i am going back to work on Monday )

Here he is on the window sill watching me wash up......lazy teddy!

Here he is with oldest son,Jack's  thermos, ready to head of to work.....plumber teddy!

 Here is a photo of teddy with a picture of Louis  (youngest son) who is off to the snow to work next week....cold teddy!!!

Here he is in my sifter.....baking teddy!

And finally here he is playing the guitar .........Teddy Santana!!!

I hope this counts as a blog post!! Really a lot of nonsense I know but.....

 it has stopped me worrying about work for a while ................but I better get off and do some for now.   

I am promising to post a book next week!!!

cao for now.  

I Love Fairy Tales

It's true, I do.  I know I'm not alone.  In fact it is probably a tad cheesy now days to be stuck in the 1980s and confessing to continually reliving a neo-Jungian/Freudian preoccupation with our mythical roots. But I don't care.  I love Fairy Tales. 

My most recent reliving of this passion was one of those '6 degrees of separation' type thingies

1) I  found a copy of the The Complete Illustrated Stories of Hans Christian Anderson (a facsimile of the 1889 translation), in Vinnies in Bega and with the wonderful illustrations by AW Bayes. Had a bit of a flick through and put it away promising to read from cover to cover (948 pages) when I had a spare moment. (please!!!)

about 2 weeks later........

2) I went to the ETA conference (for English teachers) in Sydney and did a workshop on Visual Literacy and one of the picture books studied was Anthony Brown's Into the Forest - a wonderful picture book that pastiches a number of fairy tales.

came home and ...........

3)Bought a copy of Into the Forest, promising to develop a Unit of Work for my Year 11 English class.

also........

3) Hunted out my old copy of JC Cooper's Fairy Tales Allegories of the Inner Life. (1st year psychology 101 - 1983 -  luckily for everyone I went down the English/Philosophy route and didn't continue with 2nd year psychology 101)


A couple of months went by and....

4 ) I found three (please remember three is a very symbolic number in Fairy Tales) kids board books at a jumble sale at Tathra Country Club  and thought they would make great altered books....plonked them in the studio (as you do)  and promised to get back to them

Another couple of months go by.....


5) Making a card for a friend who loves witches and searching for a picture found an old copy of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs .............

and finally ...........
click, click click..........(yes that was my mind)
click click click....

had an epiphany (I know you don't have to say it........)

6) Ran around like a mad woman.....(I know you don't have to say......)

 Every book in the house that had any link to Fairy Tales .....Hans Christian Anderson, JC Cooper, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Classic Fairy Tales, Into the Forest, Dictionary of Symbolism, etc. etc etc.....spread out on  the dinning table, sharing my bed, in the toilet, in the car, in the classroom, in the office, staffroom....

obsession.....

so much for marking, prepping, cleaning, cooking, conversing with family, patting dogs, weeding weeds.....

there are so many ....and so may new ones .....the Hans Christian Anderson book is an absolute GEM.

As is the JC Cooper Fairy Tales Allegories of the Inner Life.  I love trying to find meaning in everything, maybe that is why I love Fairy Tales so much - they are so symbolic, allegorical and archetypal.  There is one chapter in the book that deals with Time and the Sleeper and starts with a discussion of the ritual opening of  of a fairy tale - Once upon a time......the purpose they suggest is to '....take the narrative out of time and into a state in which events are no longer controlled by the normal, so that ordinary standards disappear, or lose their values....."

 ...yes please.

Anyway my obsession has settled down a little ......I did manage to cook a meal and clean off the dinning room table enough for us to eat at it ........but it has focused itself in an appropriation of Snow White...one of my all time favourites ..I love apples and I love sleeping ...and hopefully will be able to share some images and words with you soon but in the meantime it has been   ..... lovely to revisit old friends....make new connections ......and generally have a few moments of madness, and irresponsibility.

PS I still haven't read all of Hans Christian Anderson but i really enjoyed a story called The Aunt .

If you have a fairy tale you love please let know about it.

PSS please excuse my 'six degrees of separation'!!!!