WA Quilt and Craft Show

Last Friday, Saturday and Sunday I exhibited at the WA Quilt and Craft Show at Claremont.  I was really pleased with the interest in the Golden demonstrations and products.

my lovely sister Phillipa helped me on the Friday and displayed her beautiful jewellery

On Friday I demonstrated how to make skins and print an image on a inkjet printer, Saturday painting into wet Tar Gel and on Sunday creating texture with Moulding Paste.

Upcoming workshop will be a 6 week block from 25th August to 29th September each Thursday 10 to 12 am in the Community Hall, Marks Place, Morley.  Contact me by email jackyjohn1@optusnet.com.au to register.

Just a bit of grit

My next workshop draw on grounds will be on 21st July after the Dwellingup Art Retreat with Nina Bagley.

 In this workshop you will create a gritty surface suitable for traditional drawing mediums such as charcoal, graphite, coloured pencils and pastels.  Acrylic grounds allow you to get around limitations of paper.           The following images are samples of one of my students Janine Rea who has done all of my workshops, Janine has taken the techniques and made them her own.  Well done Janine.

       sample of Pours where Janine has drawn into the tar gel while it is wet creating magical layers.

      Poured lines looks like some prehistoric being, can you see the marble effect inside the poured lines.

                                     another poured lines on glass bead gel, thank you Janine for sharing

workshop 7th July

I have had fun doing the sample for this workshop, I used a sample image that I picked up somewhere. The trees are a resist with the cadmium yellow showing through, I am sure I am going to get better at this.  I thought the birds look pretty good, what do you think?

I have only used three colours cadmium yellow, cobalt turquoise (not a colour I usually like, but quite like it here, and a wash of sap green hue which the yellow shows through.  I think I like it, you know what it is like if you look at something you have made you become unsure.

Workshop 23rd June 2011

This workshop called Molten Lava makes me think of lava slowly overflowing a volcano and running down the side.  Of course the colours are different but I do love the way they stand out from the vibrant Cobalt Blue fluid acrylic.  A sparse layer of bead gel covers the blue and is dried, when it is wet it is a white opaque colour but dries clear and the glass beads sparkle.  Pours of Hansa Yellow, Cobalt teal, Ultramarine Violet and Iridescent Bright Gold mmmh yummy colours I also used some yellow Golden Airbrush paint which is thinner than the fluids and this floats between the glass beads giving a ragged edge.  Fun to do, I would like to play more with these mediums but I had a Vintage Fair to run after the June 9th Workshop, very exhausting but quite exhilarating.
If you would like to join this workshop next Thursday email me jackyjohn1@optusnet.com.au

Workshops

Above is the next workshop coming up on 9th June 2011 painting an under painting, pouring tar gel over the top when the under painting is dry and then painting into the tar gel.  Lots of fun with this workshop.

and this quirky little girl was the workshop held on Thursday using Coarse Pumice Gel, very gritty.  The undercoat is Naphthol Red med and Jenkins Green is mixid in with the Pumice Gel,  Titanium White highlights
cute don't you think.  I am having so much fun creating the sample's as they are new to me as well.

journals for sisters

April was such a full on Month, two weeks of which I went on holiday with my three sisters.  I made each of my sisters a journal.

The covers are made from Manila folders, painted using adirondak ink sprays, stencils and white gesso.   These had four coats of Golden gesso and a certain amount of the ink comes up through the gesso. The collage is old photo's from childhood.  The number on each one is the date of their birth. The Gisborne Herald is from the heading of the local newspaper in the city where we grew up in New Zealand.

Over several years in the Microsoft Word program I have been writing a story of our life growing up using the old photo's as prompts.  I printed these out on some nice french paper I bought in a nice sepia colour.  I collated these into three signatures of five double pages and stitched them into the spine of the cover. Altogether there was 60 pages cover back and front. A memory and a keepsake, they all loved them and it was satisfying to give a gift with meaning.

sharing colours

Sample above is light moulding paste on pasteboard.  Light moulding paste creates lovely deep texture when applied thickly this is at least half a centimetre thick before trowelling, just like icing a cake.  Light moulding paste is absorbent and therefore you can create a lovely water effect, make sure you leave it at least 24 hours for the top to dry before painting.  The colours I have used on this sample are Golden fluids Phthalo green, Quinacridone Burnt Orange (this colour is so vibrant photo doesn't do it justice) and Nickel Azo Yellow.  Make sure you wet the surface before applying fluid colour, I kept adding layers to see what depth of colour I could get.  Mmmh I like the colours and texture.

Tip - dont leave your paint brushes in a container next to the sink.  I could not believe that I knocked the container and the smallest brush went whoop and down the sink hole, if I'd tried to drop it through a hole that size I wouldn't get it in a million years.  Husband had to dismantle the drainpipe to get it out.

As it is so hot here at the moment I am finding that my fluids are drying out too quickly when I have them mixed in a container.  I found that if I wet a folded paper napkin and put it on the top the paint stayed wet for a couple of hours.  See above.  This one is mixed with Golden Absorbent Ground.

First workshop started on Thursday, Dancing on the surface, making creative textured surfaces.  I will repeat this workshop again probably mid year.

quote by Albert Einstein
Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death
My thought is the same goes for creative growth
go paint
Jacky

My Golden moment

Hi I am setting this blog up to share ideas and show you what I am doing with Golden Paints. For my first blog I will share with you how I got to this point. I have been using Golden products for over 5 years in fact before they arrived in Australian shops, I bought mine from Auckland New Zealand. So happy when they arrived in Australia and we where able to stock them in our shop Artistic Journey, in Perth which we have now closed down to free up our time to do things just like this. We still teach classes, run workshops, Art Retreats and sell online and at markets (more made products). Last September 2010 I was accepted into an intensive workshop held by Golden and taught by Patti Brady, a artist in residence with Golden.

 The Golden Girls of 2010 Patti with her hands clasped in front of her front row, Margaret in pink jacket and myself behind her, two West Australian delegates.

                    Abbotsford Abbey Convent where the workshops where held, isn't that awesome..........

It was an amazing 4 full days of learning and exploring, a dream come true. I had learnt a lot about Golden by using the product, from books that artists used the products, and workshops with overseas tutors. But this was so much more, you learn hands on things that you never get from a book or even a video.