The art shop where I work was recently sent a big stack of paper in mill packs. According to the manager of the main warehouse in Perth, the paper was not selling quickly enough and so the line has been discontinued. “Find a way to get rid of it,” we were instructed.

Always curious about paper, I opened some of the mill packs up, and was amazed to find a really beautiful text-weight paper from some mill in Japan. It has a delicate laid texture, and comes in 15 hues —from a dark blue-black to a pale cream color—with yellows, greens, greys, blues, reds, and tints of apricot in between. It reminded me a lot of the old Fabriano Artist Diary that used to be made in Italy by the nearly-300 year-old paper mill Fedrigoni. Those Artist Diaries used to feature 10 to 12 different colors of paper…not just the pale and muted hues of sand, fawn, and so forth, but also bright reds, greens, and a sunflower yellow that never failed to cheer me. Fabriano still makes its Artist Diaries, but the colors these days are restricted to pastels and shades of grey or brown.

I asked my boss if I could buy the paper from the business, a little bit at a time, to make some very simple, strong, rustic-looking journals with strong, unadorned calf leather covers, for use as field and travel sketchbooks. She loved the idea, and I used my lunch hour that same day to fold and cut just enough sheets of this gorgeous paper to make two books.

I figure I have enough calf nubuck from my last trip to Asia to make 20 of these A5-sized journals…and probably some smaller scraps of the same leather to make little A6 ones, too.

For as long as the leather and paper last, I’m accepting orders at my ETSY shop for these. The colors have been listed as options…you can get a book in just one color of paper, or a mix of all the hues available, as the books in the photos are. And if you want to select just two, three, or however many colors? Just arbitrarily pick the “Mixed” option, but send me a message to let me know which colors you want included. Some of the colors are in very short supply, others come in full mill packs (or two!) so it really is first in, best dressed.

For my own journal, I think I’m doing on that is just sunflower yellow and Prussian blue… ooh, yummy!

link to my ETSY Shop RIGHT HERE. Thanks!

My first time at a life drawing class. The model was a petite German lady called Bianka, an experienced artist’s model and a sunny, well-travelled, intelligent pixie. Of course it doesn’t matter how petite and trim a model is, when I draw a woman, she puts on 15 kilos just because, well, that’s how I feel about the pose. I am drawing on what I know, and the drawing is not Bianka, nor is it me, but a hybrid third of all those involved. Heh.

Worked with soft and hard chalks. Some pencil for the last drawings, because I was getting tired and knew that my “zone” moment had passed (but I was thrilled that, at some point, I found myself ‘in the zone’, if only for a brief 20 minutes or so) There are some tiny areas in these drawings that I’m happy with…I’m talking about a few inches here or there. On the whole, though, these are learning drawings, and of no value in themselves.

I threw most of the drawings away when I got home (and one of the better ones was picked up by the wind and whisked into the water…can’t even remember what it looked like, really, I never got a good look at it.) Only kept a few for these photographs, but will probably end up throwing all (but one) away, after I post this. It’s a tactic to keep me attending the drawing sessions: don’t get precious, don’t ‘collect’, don’t get smug, don’t keep anything…it’s the doing that has value, the finished drawings are nothing.

I am so happy I worked up the nerve to go. It was absolutely worth it. The thing I loved the most? The connection, immediate and visceral, that I felt because mind and cleverness were not involved. None of that “start by drawing an egg shape for the head” bullshit. Bianka=eye=heart=hand=drawing. Simple and powerful. There is sooo much work to be done. I hope I can keep the sessions up…to get good at anything, you have to be ready to commit to years of practice.

The Darwin Life Drawing sessions are presented by Shilo McNamee, with the support of the Darwin Visual Arts Association (DVAA). They are held Sunday mornings (check the website or their facebook page to be sure, though, and to tell Shilo you’re coming) at the Winnellie Art Space, 96-a Winnellie Road (next to the large Darwin Bakery/factory)

“Awesome, isn’t it?
Dancing for yourself is the best, and we all (?) know the feeling of something that is so good it should really be changing the world….

Now that we’ve gotten this far, you need to know something: this event was staged. The person dancing is a performer, and what you have just seen is an art project.”

Provoking thoughts about experience and performance, art and self, the public, the commodity, and the private, the everyday, the contrivance, and the sublime. This is the latest post from New Art, who does not write often, but is always worth checking out when he does.

Discuss with your favorite dance partner, or with a reflection of yourself in some large mirror.

Hello, sorry It’s been so quiet on here. I’ve been quite busy making stuff…just didn’t remember to take pictures of anything I was doing, hence nothing to show you or blog about.

Yesterday I started working on a series of mixed media journal covers because I visited my own ETSY shop a few weeks ago, and things were looking very, very lonely and neglected. I am trying to get back into bookbinding now, because I have a dozen or so text blocks of beautiful paper all bound and ready for covers. The covers are always the hardest part (but also the most fun) because I don’t like to repeat myself, and I tend to get stuck for a long time, fiddling with tiny details on every single one.

The subject of this batch of journal covers is tea time; this one’s predominantly lavender. The base is painted artist’s canvas. I’ve used various papers—tea stained pages for the tea cup, and my own marbled paper for the tea, some gift tissue—and bits of fabric. Machine as well as hand stitching. Acrylic paints (and some dimensional glitter paint), acrylic inks, and some shading with colored pencils.

What have you been tinkering with lately?