Melbourne

Well I've made it to Melbourne once more. Sorry, but there will be no photos till I get home as my camera is incompatible with my computer and I don't have a converter yet.

Today I have been for wander down to Victoria St, I have been to the Asian Supermarket and gazed in wonder at all the products that i have no idea what you do with them and so many I would like to try but they just wouldnt make the flight home. But I did buy some new tea to try, Red Date Koji Berry and White tea and some soy milk powder for painting and some little bamboo whisks for making the soy paint. And I had the most delicious Vietnamese Tofu Bun for lunch.

Tomorrow I will visit my cube at Incub8r http://www.incube8r.com/home.aspx it will be the first time I have seen it with my stuff in it.

On the weekend I will be at the Invanhoe Market on Saturday and at The Makers Market at the Abbotsford Convent on Sunday. I have the new Encaustic (beeswax) pieces with me plus lots of the Smoke Fired Ceramics and the odd bit of Natuarally dyed cloth.

Encaustics

Just thought I would show you the encaustic pieces I did last week.

I really love this technique.

These are done on prepurchased boards which are composed of masonite with a clay coating.

I am working on preparing my own boards from offcuts of wood and customwood (which is not my favourite choice but it's free) and covering them in various home made paints.

some of these have the small ocean tumbled pieces of shell on them which I collected while on Bruny Island.

All of them have small pieces of hand painted cloth . This one with stitch and a Bruny pebble.

Some have rusty bottle tops. And most of them have had oil stick applied but I only use the sticks which are made with earth pigments. I am very pleased with the result, they smell fabulous and you know I love working with the blowtorch!

Bruny

My goodness has it really been that long since I posted? We had a great time on Bruny Island over Easter.

We camped at the neck which is the narrow strip that joins the 2 islands. This is the beach that Dan swam at twice a day and I collected shells with holes in them (so convenient for sewing on) and shell fragments that had been smoothed by the sea.

And this is a shot of the light house right down on the bottom of the south island. We managed to see most of the island in cluding the very nice new art gallery up at Dennes Point and we had a delicous lunch in their new cafe. Then on the way home we collected local produce, smoked salmon from BISH, oysters from Get Shucked, Cheese and bread from the Bruny Island Cheese company all washed down with a bottle of the local wine. I must say I do prefer my oysters cooked and they were delicious just popped onto the coals for a couple of minutes in their shells and then just a touch of lemon. Yum. I also found a huge currypunk fungus in the bush near where we were camped that someone had dumped so I am playing with it in the studio seeing what colours I can get and then I hope to make some paper.

Back home again and into the studio inspiration struck and I now have a lovely collection of encaustic pieces for sale, as well as a lovely purply knitted scarf and two new journals with hand stitched covers.

I hope to see lots of people tomorrow at the Barn Market in Rosny Park down near Hobart and then next weekend I will be in Melbourne hopefully at Ivanhoe and most definitely at the Makers Market.