We have all started on the Equisite Corpse that I talked about in the last post. The theme we have decided on is Harajuku Girlz! These are the famous Japanese fashion girls who parage on Harajuku Street.

This will be a mixed media swap and at the end we will all get a journal with everyones work in it. The artists who were invited into the swap are Pearl Moon, Suzie MacMahon, Annie Hesse, Me, Rodney, Emanda and Wendy and Pam Grose.

BTW Im not too keen on the name and Im also not too keen on doing skeletons and rotting corpses  UHG………….so I will be planning other kinds of figures.

Ok heres the next one for you.

And The last one

I have finalized the date when the fabric book class will start. Class will start on Monday November 23rd which is just over 1 week away. The price is $60 and you will get around 20 videos to watch showing step by step how to make the fabric book.
PLEASE NOTE: The class videos are taped using a tripod so the video is steady.
I have taught this class only once in USA and the students had the best time. They loved the class and each item they made was different. Its also an easy class for anyone. You do need a sewing machine however!

The class will be made up of many videos that you will be able to watch over and over. I find these classes sooooooo much better than photos and text and am always available for questions.

The Fabric Book will teach you a number of techniques including:
1: Pieceing Fabric together to make wonderful backgrounds.
2: How to make my beaded fabric beads
3: How to Cut sew and embellish faces in pieces onto the background
4: How to use 3 dimensional objects to pep up a page
5: Simple beading
6: Drawing Funky faces
7: Putting the book together
8: Making wonderful cords from threads.
9: beading into cords to embellish the book

Although the class will start in November, you will continue to have access to the class videos till February 23rd. That way if you just have time for a little bit at a time you will still have heaps of time to finish your book.

As soon as you pay, which you can do via credit card or Paypal, I will send you out your supply list and any measurements and patterns you will need. The night before class starts you will be sent an invite via email with the information you need to access the class.

Can’t wait to see you in class:-)
Di

The Fabric Book Class will have many videos and be priced at $60. Here is the video which shows what you will learn.

Just wanted you to know that I have now chosen the 3rd teacher for my art retreat . She is Allison Marano from USA. She will be teaching exclusively for me while she is in Australia. Here is her website so you can see her wonderful work:-)

Hi everyone,
As you will see in the link on the right of the page, I am organising an Art Retreat in Queensland, Australia in 2010. I just wanted to write about it to let everyone who reads this blog know all about it.

The retreat will have 3 teachers who will each teach the same one day class for 3 days running. One third of the students will be in each class so each student will participate in all classes. One of the classes will be a beading class which is fine for beginners onwards, another will be a full on, techniques filled class, involving a figure and the other class is yet to be determined.

We will  have one amazing teacher from USA, Anne Hesse. Annie has been teaching for many years and she is a very talented artist who has a natural flare for colour and texture and  she is also funny, caring and no nonsense. You can see her work at her website Anniedolls and to see what she will be teaching go to dyzee.com

The next teacher is the wonderful Pam Grose. I am sure you all know of her. Her reputation as being one of the most caring , hardworking and talented artists is very well known. Once again go to dyzee.com to see pictures of what she will be teaching.

The venue I have chosen is in Morayfield, which is near my home and about 1/2 hr drive from Brisbane airport going north. It has not only function rooms, but a couple bars for those of you who like a drink and a bistro for food. Nearby and within easy walking distance Take away places like KFC, McDonalds, Hungry Jacks and Sissler. The venue is also very close to a major shopping centre.

The price is not set yet but will be moderate as I am keen to make this event accessible to all. I am dreaming up exciting competitions, suprises and swaps and challenges that you can tale part in at the event. We will also have a teachers trading night, a students trading night and some other things that I cant talk about. Anyway it will be heaps of fun and I really look forward to meeting you there.:-)

My last journal also came from Liz, the lady who makes these. It is a gorgeous Red Hard covered journal with a cut out window covered in gold wire. That one had black pages. The best thing about these is that all the pages are cut with a saw so they have lovely torn edges to the pages. The pages are also high quality paper that is pretty strong and stands up to a fair bit of work!

I would highly recommend these journals if any of you want to buy one.

Her email addy is liz@bookartstudios.co.nz

Here is a pic of the inside..she has even painted the pages for me LOL LOL

Check out this art journal video. Doesn’t look much at the start but I love the pages at the end:-)

Lately I have had a lot of realizations about life and art and I have decided to air them here and make this writing more personal than just adding journal pages. I hope that makes this more interesting to you. I also plan to blog more often as well.

For a while now I have been reading a blog called dooce. It is a funny and very interesting blog. Please feel free to check it out. It helps my day start out very upbeat.

Today I have been checking out Aussie arty blogs. Wow! I never knew so many existed. I think I am being educated about the latest trends in handmade products. Amazing! I will continue to add links to the blogs I like as I find them.

Yesterday I decided to clean up my messy desk, the one I paint and journal on and instead spent half of the day journaling and stamping:-)

Today my first job after this is to clean this desk as I have a visitor coming on Monday, after that I can start again:-) Whenever I an on the computer my persian cat Jesse is always right here with me so today I have managed to get some photos of her. I also got a closeup with out red eye!! In all the time I have had her I have never managed to get one with out her eyes being red so this is a first! She is a pretty grumpy looking cat, but she really isnt like that at all.  She is the most gorgeous cat ever

Hi everyone,

Here is some more newer work.

I have had a lot of fun lately looking and reading other peoples blogs. I am always saying that I can’t find other Aussies doing visual journaling, but recently I have found some wonderful blogs and I am going to share the links to them here on my blogroll.

I am thinking if I specialise in Aussie blogs then we can have them all in one spot.

Have made some changes and got my sewing machine out where I do my journaling as I want to add more sewing to my pages. The only way I can do this is to use seperate pages and them glue them in when they are finished. I like to work this way as if you make a real much up you can always throw the page away!LOL

I love working in cloth and paper together, for some reason I love the look.

Would love to hear your comments here, sometimes I feel that no one comes here until I look at the stats.

I have looked around and just can’t find anything like this on offer  anywhere near where I live, or even in Brisbane. I plan to make the classes very affordable and fun. A great few hours to socialise and  play and learn at the same time.

Winter is on its way and although we are very lucky here to not have too much cold weather, this season is a great time to play with collage, paint, pastals, water colours and textiles and yearn. YUM!

In the next week or so I will announce what the classes themes will be and how you can go about attending them. Just so you know I live in Caboolture, around 20 minutes drive from Chermside in Brisbane. Still close enough to access from the Sunshine Coast along the Bruce Highway.

More details to come soon. Watch this space.:-)

Once again today I have been watching people make art on youtube. Although this is fun it can be frustrating as the sound is not always good or the music can be grating on you.

Its fabulous when you find someone doing something you havn’t seen before. I think I love these little videos so much because I am a visual learner.

I have chosen this video today, as it shows simple transfer methods to make wonderful interesting backgrounds that can be used in your art journals. I hope you enjoy it.

OK I have just found another one of her videos about bleaching background papers and what you can do with them. Its well worth the time to watch.:-)

Hi Everyone,   Wow! we are having some hot weather here in Queensland.

Today I am going to give you a few ideas of how to use tissue as a background. You can use it in your journals, altered books, ATC’s or whatever.

The background in the picture is from tissues I used to clean up my mess after playing with watercolor paints. Yes! you heard right….do not under any circumstances throw those cleaning up papers out. Dry them and stack them for later art work.


All I did then was coat the page with watered down PVA glue ( white glue). Next you quickly rip up the tissue into random small pieces then push them down onto the page.

Dip your brush into the watered down PVA and brush over the top of the tissue as well. Don’t fret as the PVA will dry clear.

Keep doing this till the complete page is covered then brush another coat of the PVA over the top. Now leave the page to dry.

There you have a wonderful tissue background for your pages.

Note: You can also use bought printed tissue for this or even use white then when its dry paint over it with acrylic paints or Lumiere for a wonderful leather look.

Have fun.