Barbara Hanrahan

I've recently came across the beautiful prints of Australian artist, Barbara Hanrahan. 

I love her style and use of lino, but most of all I find it very inspiring to learn that she was a teacher who studied printmaking at evening courses.  Being a teacher myself, I always feel a lack of time to make my own work after a busy day of teaching, and I am constantly wishing I had more time to myself to create.  I have recently completed a short evening course in lino cutting, and these classes were definitely the highlight of my week.

I thought I would share some of her beautiful artworks here....

Silk Cut Lino Workshops

Last night was the last lesson in a 4 week intermediate lino course at the wonderful Silk Cut workshop in Highett, Melbourne.  I have had a brilliant time and have loved learning new techniques and little tricks for the process. Up until now I've been teaching lino cutting in schools and just fumbling my way through, but I decided I wanted to advanced my skills a bit further and found this course.  I can't recommend it enough.  The tutor, Bridget Hillebrand was full of useful tips and very patient with all the questions I asked. 

I am so inspired to make more lino at the moment, so watch this space!

I thought I'd share some of the things I have made. 

We made a reduction print with 3 colours, using one piece of lino. 

I started the process by working out what colours I wanted on a photocopy of my original drawing.  I decided on this drawing of a teapot that I had done.  I t really helped to colour-in the drawing so that each printed layer was clear in my mind...

This is the final print that was acheived over 3 lessons. 

There are 3 prints on top of each other with layer one being grey, layer 2 being blue and the layer 3 being black.  I'm thrilled with the end result and a few friends are getting some overdue presents...

This is a little tester that I made, simply by skipping the blue layer...and I like this too.  I really love the grey colour on the white and am thinking I might do some more printing with just grey, because it's just so pretty!

I did a couple of mini prints for the last week of the course and loved doing these.  This is a banksia seed pod that I sketched then translated into a lino print...

This is the line drawing that I made before cutting the lino...

This is it printed on a water colour wash...

Bridget showed me this technique last night, which is simply acheived by rolling the lino through twice without re-inking.  I love the ghostly grey colour acheived....

This is a little owl I did too and the lino block that I carved out... 

Just black on white...

And a 3rd rolling of the lino (without re-inking) on a water colour wash.

And this is my makeshift drying space.  I rather like laying out all my prints and looking at them...

Lana Del Rey

I love this song, and the video is pretty good too.  Here is the beautiful girl who sings it...she describes herself as "gangster Nancy Sinatra", but I think she's selling herself short.  She's my new girl crush for sure!

A little summery song...

Man Bunting (munting!)

My man turned 30 last week and I wanted to make some decorations for his party that weren't too twee or too girly.  I ended up going for 'Man Bunting' or 'Munting' as it has become known in the family. 

I used his old clothes - t-shirts, shirts, old boxers (washed of course!) and hankies (again, washed of course!).  I love that the bunting is made out of his old clothes as it's really personal to him.  I also think it is  pretty funny that his old undies are strung up and looking pretty.  It was also a lot cheaper than buying material from a shop.

Here are the old pile of clothes ready for cutting....

 To begin with I made a cardboard triangle template - it measured 19cm across the top and was an equilateral triangle, with both sloping edges measuring 27cm.  Your own bunting can be any size of course.  I cut the triangles with pinking shears, as this meant I didn't have to tidy up any of the edges of the triangles - no frays.  But, if i'm honest, the whole bunting isn't exactly neat and tidy.  I figure it can't really be seen in great detail when it's hung up, and also the messy factor adds to the manly feel. 

After I had cut out all the triangles I arranged them in a line along the length of the cotton ribbon.  I bought this cotton ribbon from a craft shop which i just folded over and pinned, ready for sewing on the machine...

i had some help with the pinning from the birthday boy...

I used a zig-zag stitch to sew the triangles on, a nice little snazzy touch!

And here is the end result hanging up in the house....

(i  wanted to have a photo from the party, but i enjoyed myself a little too much that night, and with all the merriment I forgot to take a photo!)  

I'm really delighted with the end result.  Bunting makes everything a little nicer in my opinion.  I'm also happy that I have bunting in the cupboard now - ready for any occasion.

I got really into the idea of bunting when I was making the 'munting' and thought about using net curtains for a pretty girlie bunting, or some paper bunting with some old books/maps/newspaper.  The possibilities are endless!

Here are some nice bunting ideas....

and a nice little drawing that could be an invite to a party... 

Pigeon x

Lemons, lemons everywhere!

I was amazed when I saw this basket of gigantic lemons on the porch of Karen & Phil's house - they are most definitely the biggest I have ever seen!  Even better still, these babies come from the lemon tree in the back garden!  Coming from freezing cold Scotland, I have never come across so many lemon trees in people's back gardens.  Walking around the suburbs of Melbourne it seems like nearly everyone has a lemon tree with fantastic lemons - how lucky!  One charity shop I went into last week there was even a basket of free lemons - they are in abundance at the moment.  I thought I should make something 'lemony' with these guys so I thought about what I'd like to eat and that was cupcakes!  I got the recipe from BBC Good Food website for Lemon and Poppyseed Cupcakes...delicious in my opinion!  I found that the icing was more than enough for one batch of 12 cakes, and in the end I made 24 cupcakes, the icing was more than enough. 

Here are my cakes, looking all delicious....

Baking Bread with Rowan

Last week my good friend Rowan came around to teach me how to make bread.  I'll soon be 30 and I decided it was about time that I gave it a shot.  Rowan is so much fun to hang out with, and he's also a great cook...friend with benefits!  He also made a brilliant bread making soundtrack CD...I have a lot of love for this guy just now!  All in all it was a really fun day.

There isn't much to it...flour, yeast and water.

This bit was quite tough and a full upper body work out!  I mostly watched this bit and Rowan worked his magic.

Pre-oven.

Post oven and looking good!  YUM!

I made soup to go along with the delicious bread.  Tasty, tasty, tasty!!!