Workshop Wednesday

The workshop on 27 Nov: Plaster Book  is now FULL.
I will be rerunning this workshop in December along with a couple of encaustic workshops.
Details will be up soon

I still have places in my Playing with Egg workshop.
This is a really fun and very versatile medium.
In fact one of my favourites.
Have alook above at Workshop Wednesdays
and let me know if you are interested.

Egg resist under indigo

Stenciled egg moon

Stencil over ink

x te

Workshop Wednesdays

Beginning in November Wednesday will be workshop day in the studio. 

I have created a page see above where details of what is happening when is listed.

Please be aware that numbers are limited at 6 per workshop.

So if you are in the area and want to see how I play

now is your chance.

x te

Natural Dyeing 

Starch paste

Eggs

Plaster Book

Eggs

This is why I have my own chickens. At least the boys get a happy life for a few months before the quickly get dispatched for the table. And the hens well as long as you have a breed bred for egg laying through their whole life and not just for the 1 season , they can stay until they die of old age.

A link to the horror of the whole article, http://www.makeitpossible.com/guides/egg-labels.php

Studio + Eggy Distractions

Things are really starting to come together now
Dan has hung the bee frames in the window
as you can see I still have one to finish
and tables are now up

Pictures are going up on the shelf
But we wont put the picture hooks on the top rail till the end
3 more boxes of art waiting to be opened

The clothes rack is up
and Mabel is dressed
The wall behind Mabel will also be hung with paintings

The cabinet is full

My work area is looking a little better
but I do keep getting distracted

By things like this
Inspired by a blogspost from the
awesome Susan Bowers

I had a little play with some egg
and some ink

I do like the results

I did some other eggy playing which I hope to show you tomorrow

x te

Quiet times at Chez Shed

Not a lot has been happening down here

in the deep south of

Western Australia

We did go out wood collecting

last weekend

should be cozy for the rest of the winter now

and the weekend before that

I was up in Perth

I attended a very interesting

Egg Tempera workshop

with

Glen Stewart

and this I produced

when I got home

I put it out in my studio

yesterday

and after hearing much

kerfuffling out there last night

today I found a few extra marks

teeth marks!!!

courtesy of Ratus ratus

Not the collaboration I had in mind

but still interesting.

Up to Perth again on Sunday

will be there for a whole week this time

Dan is doing a 4 day course and

I shall be amusing myself

Eggy Blues

Indigo and soy milk on a Cotton TShirt

Printing on the back drop

So this will be in the next diary book

Egg print on cloth

dipped in the indigo dyebath

Egg Prints on paper, then indigo dipped

indigo mixed into soymilk and printed

destined for the indigo pot

teabags egg and indigo print

egg painted

Lightweight watercolour paper

prepainted in white milk paint

and charcoal

egg and burnt sienna printed

indigo dipped

as above only prepainted with brown milk paint

burnt sienna and egg print

indigo dipped

print patially scraped off

burnt sienna egg prints

over wax

indigo and soy paint

I am having a lot of fun

playing in the studio

these are a series of ideas

for little books I am planning

and samples for the workshops I teach

x te

Tea Bag Explorations

It would seem that everyone these days is playing with tea bags and why not?

In our current climate of recycling they are easy and so versatile.

Now I don't drink tea but luckily my partner does

though only 2 cups a day!!!!

Which is hardly enough

So I thought that I would show you

what I have learnt so far about this humble material.

Tea Bag dyed with eucalyptus leaves in a clamp

consisting of 2 coffee tin lids and 2 fold back clamps(bulldog)

 in an iron rich pot

About 10 dyed at once

This is quite a subtle result

Tea Bag dyed as above except I brushed the leaves

with beaten egg white

Tea Bag dyed as above except I brushed the leaves

with beaten egg yol with a little water added

Then the other day I decided I would like to try for much more clarity in the prints

So here I placed baking/silicon paper between the lids and the teabags

and there were only 3 bags in the bundle

I also placed a small piece of open weave cotton cloth with one of the tea bags

This made no discernable marks on the tea bag print but still dyed very nicely

I once again used egg yolk

A tea bag

note I am not using cinerea this time

the silcon paper dyed beautifully as well

perhaps I will try waxed paper next time

for using in encaustic works

as the silicon paper dyed so well

I wondered how well water colour paper

would work to seperate the tea bags

and generate small prints in their own right

I pulled these apart while still wet

Here you can see that the egg stuck to the paper and tore it

I rubbed the paper off the tea bag

but didn't remove it entirely

as I was concerned about damaging the tea bag

And they all look great on the other side

the second lot in the same bundle

I left to dry

well i left it for a while then got impatient

and ironed it dry

This seems to have set the egg

and I had no trouble pulling

this lot apart

And here is the other side.

So there you have it

Naturally dyed tea bags

I look forward to hearing about your own ideas

on how to explore this are even more

For those of you who love the way these look

 but really don't wish to make your own I have

some of my tea bags for sale in my Etsy shop

More to come when my partner drinks more tea.

x te

More Tea Bags

I have dyed some more tea bags

And I am even more impressed with this lot

This time I brushed the leaves

with egg white

before clamping them

This has given me much greater colour in the centres

And these have all been washed

and ironed!!!

Can't wait to try egg yolk

to see what difference it makes

x te

Finally Eggs on Etsy

I have just finished uploading 6 of the Egg Brooches onto my Etsy Shop and here they are.

All different all lovely

They have a soft gentle sheen because of the beeswax coating.

18 of them have gone Melb to go into my Cube.

The rest will be available at the markets. Civic Homespun in Launceston this Saturday. The Barn in Rosny Park near Hobart on Saturday the 10th of April.

And the Makers Market at the Convent in Abbotsford in Melbourne on Sunday the 18th of April.

And yesterday I went down to Hobart to visit some people and maybe just maybe these babies will be in a store down there very very soon. Oh I do hope so coz they are so lovely.