I am off to TAFE: Thanks Babs
I am still obsessing about a fab artist Barbara Hepworth. And my favourite colour is red.
This is a three-colour registration exercise produced using a paper stencil.
Thanks, Babs.
I am off to TAFE: Making marks
A lot of art is making marks (on canvas, paper, fabric) in different colours, combinations, directions, mediums and with varying effect. We have been playing around with monoprinting at school – inking a plate and placing objects (fly screen, leaves, corrugated cardboard, lace etc) between the block and paper etc.
Here’s what I came up with:
I am off to TAFE: Learning to see
I think I have talked before about adult inhibitions when wielding a pencil/stick of charcoal/drawing implement. I am doing a Drawing class that essentially is about teaching us to see (and try to replicate it reasonably accurately on paper).
Hah! I hear you say, I can see just fine, thanks. Reach out for door handle, open and pass through, admire coat on person infront, shovel coins in ticket machine, pick up takeaway coffee cup, look at watch – see; all done without thinking (every day).
But what are you really seeing – what is the shape of the outline of that cup, what exact shade of red is the coat, what’s the detail on the door, the font face of the numbers on your watch? We are all in autopilot and so familiar with our routine that we don’t see a lot of the detail. And trying to replicate it on paper is quite tricky.
Anyway, here’s one of my attempts at drawing a still life in class. One of the better results - the crappy ones will never see the light of day.
Poor Yorrick
Fruits of labour
A nice new website that I helped develop has gone live. Yay!
There might be a bug or two still lurking.
I’m off to TAFE. Week three: Just add colour
The results of my first paper stencil screen print are in. See ‘em for yourself.
Red amoeba:
Ode to Barbara Hepworth:
I’m off the TAFE - Week 2: Fruits of labour
Ok, so you have been listening to me going on about liberty, creativity, youth being wasted and all that. Here’s some of the stuff I have been doing in design classes. The shoes morphed into small 5×5 square designs that were copied and then glued together (badly - must learn to cut straight) in repeat patterns. You might see me in a shirt that looks a bit like this in future:
or this
or this
Feedback not necessary!
I’m off to TAFE - Day 3: Colin McIntosh
Will the real Colin McIntosh please stand up, please stand up….
Ok, it doesn’t work with that rappy rhythm thing, but that’s the name clearly printed in my lab coat, to be donned according to strict OH&S rules in the screen printing lab. At TAFE. Colin wore it, so it is good enough for me - forest green, handy side pockets and a left hand side breast pocket for pens, hanky, smokes. What more could a gal want? O Week over and i feel ready to start creating stuff. Textiles stuff.
First daze
It’s great to hear of Melissa’s exploits in her first days back at school. For me at the moment there’s this parallel universe thing going on as I watch, and try to support, my younger daughter’s entrance into primary school. As much as you think you can help them prepare for it, it’s really difficult to comprehend just how big and new everything is. Big kids. Big playground. Big buildings. New spaces. New routines. And this even in a school environment that sets out to shelter the kids a bit and let them explore the world rather than bringing the world to them and shoving it down their throats. She’s doing really well but still having moments of uncertainty and anxiety- we try not to overreact to these and help her find ways to cope. Also lots of extra ‘incidental’ cuddles, kisses and encouragement. It’s pretty gut-wrenching when you pick up your kid from school and she says “I didn’t cry today”. Often as a parent you’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re doing (Should she have a day at home to rest? Should we spend more time with her in the classroom?) So you follow your heart and hope for the best and somehow or other you muddle your way through…
I’m off to TAFE - Day 2: St Valentine’s Day and an egg and bacon roll
Day Two.
I thought that my fellow Textile students would dazzle me with their creativity and witty repartee. At the O Week breakfast this morning a couple of classmates debated if was more healthy to eat no breakfast or fried eggs and bacon everyday. *sigh*
The cafe went ‘all-out’ to acknowledge the most romantic of days with watermelon pink donuts. Couple one with a fairly dire coffee and you know you are back in the education system…
Went to my first class - Design Elements & Principles, which tested all my adult inhibitions and high professional standards. The exercise - draw a pile of op shop shoes and find an interesting pattern in a section of the resulting work. The poor perspective and disfigured result will be coaxed into a repeat pattern design. You’re no doubt waiting with bated breath to see the result. I know I am.
Playground observation: The commercial printer guys don’t mix with the girls and boys studying fashion, footwear, textiles etc. They prefer to clump outside their (butch) blue building and chuck stuff at each other.
I’m off to TAFE - the story of a girl who decides to give up desk dwelling and try the student lifestyle. Again.
Day One.
Cool kids everywhere in tight clothes. And hair. Sticky outy, layered, multi-coloured, tied back bits of hair. Behind me a gang of girls talk through the intro-session-for-new-kids and miss the important bits and then ask “What’d she say? What was that?”. And kick my chair. The mobile phone ban in class is for those girls. Who gasp at the devastating news that footwear must be covered in labs (no regulation thongs). I remember when people sniggered about going to TAFE (maybe they still do) because it was rolling in resources, over-funded and a bit of a dawdle. Lots of guys in overalls. As a new Studio Textiles student I face 25 hours of classes and have been promised much homework. Maybe fulltime work wasn’t so bad after all. I am friendless, clueless and happy as a pig in mud.