PJ Day

Today I plan to do some of this: Read a lot of this:Knit a bit of this:Eat the rest of this (thanks, Taph!)Probably while watching a swag of this (thanks, Happy Spider!):Sounds like a pretty perfect day, really...

I could have saved almost two hours last night

If I'd just stayed home and watched this:

Then again, The Yarn-o-meter doesn't get a look in in this version...

Tittering at Twilight

Have I mentioned before how much I love The ANU Film Group?

We went to their screening of Twilight last night. The whole theatre spent a good part of the first half in gales of laughter, which I'm not sure was the intended response. But in between the giggles Taph and I noticed something. This movie rated high on the Yarn-o-meter.

There were Bella's mittens
(pattern here, if you're in the mood to replicate them). I counted 4 knitted or crocheted hats, 1 ugly green and white crochet afghan, 1 scarfand 1 zip front cardi/jacket I never managed to get a good look at.

No one was actually seen knitting in the movie, alas...

Meanwhile, at the next seat along...

I'm rather envious...

She sketches secondhand seashells at the CIT

(Try saying that three times fast!)

Merci Sarah!

A while ago I go an email from sarah.boirin saying:

"The dolls house fairy has spotted that the back of your Carolines Home does not have any shutters! Is it missing some? The dolls house fairy has some spare and wonders if you would like some ? (pas d'argent necessaire - un petite cadeau de france)"

And today a packet arrived which contained more than just windows and shutters to complete my housemuch much more!

Among the treasures was a bedroom set which is perfect timing as I had moved the Triang furniture I had in the second bedroom into my Triang V lounge:I'm particularly thrilled by this beautiful Dol-Toi book rack and book: Thank you so much for your generosity, Sarah!

All class...

Thanks to classmate Chris, you get to see me hard at work on Monday night:A most unflattering shot. I promise I'm not about to be sick at the sight of my work!

Here's the blind contour drawing I did of Chris:my first effort with ink and a brush:and my completed ink and stick drawing (the bust and skull had to overlap on the paper):
(The eyes weren't meant to be crossed but there was an unfortunate incident with a stray ink splot which I had to work with...)

Chim chiminey

Me. Tonight. After I go home from class.

It brought back memories of my years at The Evening Post Library where we'd head out to lunch with faces smudged with newsprint from the cuttings we were indexing: in the days when indexing the paper required 14 copies of that day's papers, a cutty knife, a large container of paste and a wallpaper brush...

Creeping into colour

Today's practice sketch:

Modern Miniatures on Monday: a random round up

So many great mini-related things have popped up in my email or Bloglines in the last week or so. If I dedicated one post to each I'll be here forever so instead, here's a monster random roundup...

1. Rebecca's Collections, a new mini blogger from Darwin, shared pictures of her 1960s Lundby house with legs (a close cousin to mine) 2. Altera's Mini World showed us her amazing modern kitchen scenedining room settingand fabulous DIY Castiglioni Arco Lamp

3. MY MINI-PLAYGROUND stumbled across some gorgeous pictures which she shared of the Area 12 Contemporary Dollhouse on FLICKR

4. And I got an email from Paris Renfroe letting me know he now ships his eBay listings worldwide.

Seven Things Spring/ Summer 2008 Week 25

In:

* 9 old art print catalogues (gift)
* 2 magazines (subscription)
* 1 magazine (newsagents)
* 1 tackle box (Kmart)

Total In this week: 13

Out:

* 6 lots buttons: donated to a colleague at work
* 15 books: Lifeline Bookfair

Total Out this week: 21

Shake-it-all-about:

* 1 Art bag

Net items out so far during Seven Things Spring/ Summer 2008: 245

Sleepy Saturday

I've spent the day at home pottering around with the drawbridge well and truly up. An afternoon nap is on my mind and seems to permeate the pictures I've rounded up from my computer that I realise I've not shared with you yet:

First up, the daisy rug and matching cushions I bought from Victorian dolls houses a couple of weekends ago to mark the return of the Kaleidoscope House to it's rightful place behind my sofa:Secondly, the cleaned and furnished Triang S house.

Hallway,kitchen,lounge and bedroom(I knew I'd find a home for that Czech kitchen and lounge furniture and the Kage bedroom setting eventually! And recognise the upstairs rug?)

Thirdly, I may have just found the perfect way to blend my love of scooters, my desire to own a caravan and my need to travel frugally into one perfect package:(Photograph by Thierry Bouët, spotted in AU marie claire)

Fourthly and finally: (this has nothing to do with beds except for the tenuous link that I knitted a lot of it while sitting in bed.) I can reveal photos of Dad's birthday vest now that it's arrived safely in New Zealand: Bendigo 8 ply from their back room. A lovely tweedy purpley-bluey wooland a very easy knit.

I've started the ribbing on this year's winter jumper for myself but have ground to a screeching halt until I make some decisions about what the finished design is actually going to entail...

Probably not the best choice of movie for someone wanting to explore colour drawings more...

J & I joined the ANU Film Group for the year last night and saw Persepolis, a movie which I've been wanting to see for about a year.

It was beautiful.I was entranced by the drawingsand all the different effects that were produced using only black and white.I wanted to run home immediately and experiment with using white conte crayon on black paper.Oh dear. Perhaps I should have watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory instead?(Perhaps not...)

Oh, and for those who keep tally of such things, there was knitting:

US, US, US!

Yesterday I mentioned that we'd been given a brief in class which I'd failed to follow. Here's the brief in full:

"Investigation of the interaction of:
* line and plane
* plane and volume
* volume and line

In your visual diary make 3 descriptive (and speculative) drawings of an imagined sculpture that explores each interaction. From these drawings chose one drawing and construct a small sculpture with the material provided.

Once you have completed your sculpture make an observational drawing of the sculpture with coloured textas on a large piece of cartridge paper."

First up: the good bits: I drew my original sketches in my visual diary. My sculptures displayed examples of each interaction.

As I mentioned yesterday, I then went off the rails and drew 17 sketches. Coming back to the brief I see that the brief is somewhat confusing (do they want 3 drawings of a single sculpture that has all three interactions in it? Do they want 1 drawing of a single sculpture for each interaction? 3 drawings of a single sculpture for each interaction? Or 1 drawing of 3 sculptures for each interaction?)

No matter what the brief intended, 17 is too many. *sigh*

It gets worse. Does this look like "chose one drawing and construct a small sculpture with the material provided."?

(left to right: line and plane, plane and form, line and form)

But wait! There's more!

(form and line)

I could, of course, have declared it was all part of one sculpture but that would be bollocks...The final nail in the US column:

"Once you have completed your sculpture make an observational drawing of the sculpture with coloured textas on a large piece of cartridge paper."

I used my visual diary. And I had no coloured textas (in my defence, they weren't on the list for that class). Even if I had, it's kinda hard to draw a black and white sculpture using coloured textas, right?

So even though I have four sculptures that I was rather pleased with, it wasn't what was required. Kind of like knitting a beautiful jumper, several sizes too small for the intended recipient. Or cooking a wonderful dinner: three days before your guests are due to show up.

The weird thing is I'm very happy with the outcome as I feel I've learn one very important thing: read, understand and stick to the brief.

Class four: Volume, line and plane

Tonight at school we played a game to (hopefully) learn the design elements and principles of organisation. It was fun. There was shouting and gleefulness and secret hand symbols under the table and once I realised I could use the pedantic grammar drummed into my by the sisters at Villa Maria and the skills I picked up when I momentarily studies linguistics at varsity (uni) it all fell into place for me.

Although the poor teacher seemed a bit shocked when I said "so the visual and physical attributes of form are just adjectives, and the design principles of organisation are adverbs, right?"

The exercise tonight was to sketch three ideas for sculptures based on three combinations of form generators, make one of them in real life then do an observational drawing of the sculpture with coloured textas. If I was being marked on meeting the requirements of the design brief I'd get a big fat US (the criterion has not been satisfied).

Does this look like three descriptive and speculative drawings to you?My only excuse is that we were talked through the assignment before coffee break and I didn't re read the brief when we returned. And I had so many ideas that I just kept drawing. Tomorrow I'll show you the next way I failed to stick to the brief. Pah!

Thanks for your feedback on the art bag. Based on your input, may I present Art Bag 2.0?I've been asked if I can create a version (of 1.0) that can be used while riding a push bike. At first I thought I could create a backpack version but I'm worried that it would end up like this...

A big bag

Starting school always means buying stationery. Which I love. On day one of my course I trotted to class with a small A4 sized pouch containing a tin of pencils and erasers, a visual diary, and my course book plus a roll of butchers' paper.

For class two I'd added a tackle box with extra supplies inside and an A2 pad of cartridge paper as the list of necessities grew. I'd worked out a system: messenger bag across my body (as always), A2 pad tucked under left arm, with pouch balanced on top and roll of butchers' paper balanced in hand. Right hand carrying tackle box and water bottle.

I left class three with a list of more things to get for class four. I could balance the extra things on my head. I could go buy an expensive ugly folder thingy from the art store. Or I could be a good little Design Fundamentals student and design myself a free solution.

I chose the latter option. Introducing my new art bag:Made of black drill from Stash Mountain. Originally I planned to have the outside pocket in a contrasting pattern (and maybe create a lining in the same fabric) but decided to keep with plain black as it would go with whatever I was wearing. It's designed to hold an A2 sized pad, which supplies the stiffness to keep the bag in shape.

The front pocket is the perfect size to hold an A4 visual diary, and is ideally positioned to be able to grab the diary at a moment's notice. With one hand, if necessary.
Inside, on the edge closest to the body, is a pair of elastic straps: one to hold that pesky roll of butchers' paper, the other for the 60cm steel ruler that's on my list and which hasn't arrived yet as a friend has offered me his for free. The straps are positioned so the paper and ruler stick up just behind the bag handles, out of harm's way.Finally, because I'm guessing the bag's going to get a lot of use, there's double and triple stitching galoreplus the whole thing's completely machine washable.

I'm feeling quite chuffed. Especially as I suspect my sewing mojo may just have returned after a prolonged absence...