Waiting for Autumn

I'm foolishly hoping that as soon as 1st March comes around this summer sun madness will all be over! It's getting a bit too hot for me sitting at the computer here, so this will have to be short and then I can retreat to my studio which hopefully will be a bit cooler.

I've just taken photos of my most recent etchings and listed some on my etsy site. I thought I'd show them on here too.







Right, too much for me, I'm off to cooler climes.

Fantails For Sale!

Here are a few more new fantail brooches I've added to my Featherstitch Fantail blog. I'm very pleased with myself for working out how to use the paypal thingy! Also I have donated one of my brooches to the Australian Bushfire Appeal shop on etsy which is still full of lots of delightful goodies and all proceeds go to the red cross to help victims of the Victorian bushfires.

Fantails and Frogmouths

I've been goccoing again after a long time of it sitting on the shelf. I've been meaning to try this idea for a while now, and now that I have done it I really like it and need to buy more gocco supplies because I've very quickly run out AGAIN!

If you're new to my blog and don't know what gocco is have a look at my post on the technique.

My idea was to make prints inspired by the colours and patterns in my featherstitch fantail brooches. I've made the print in a number of colour combinations and listed one on etsy. More will be listed soon.
I've also been making lots of new fantail brooches, I try and make at least 6 a week. They are so slow to make and I have so many other things that I should be doing, that when I just sit down to sew I feel I should be doing something else. So they always get pushed to the back of the 'to do' list, which is a shame because I do quite like making them. Here are a few of my favourites at the moment, including an experimental square one. I'm really into the soft yellow these days.

I've changed my Fantail website a bit to make it easier to purchase, there is now a 'buy now' button on each brooch. I've also mentioned that buying my brooches on a friday, saturday or sunday from the website may create difficulties because I take all my available brooches to market with me and I can't update the website until I return home after market (often with a few gin and tonics in me!)




I thought I'd also keep my readers up to date with my Tawny Frogmouth. I was worried last week because he wasn't in his usual tree along the Yarra River, but I walked (even ran some way!) along the river this morning and there he was sitting in his tree accompanied by another Tawny Frogmouth! They were snuggled up together on the branch. I wish I had brought my camera with me, but I only had my ipod and a hanky! I only stopped one person this time to point them out and she was very appreciative and we had a little discussion about other birds we'd seen along the river. I have to keep an eye out for kingfishers apparently.

Bird Spotting

We went for a trip down the Great Ocean Road this weekend and we saw some super birds! This may not be that exciting for a number of people, I am aware that things that cause me much interest cause others minimal. But don't care! The photos here aren't even my own photos, I got them off the Internet because I never had the camera with me when I saw these birds, and I've now realised how small the images are. But anyway...

Well, as usual we stayed at Wye River camping ground and the resident Gang Gangs were making their lovely crunchy screeching sounds. I love these black cockatoos.

Then one of these lovelies landed in a tree beside our tent. A white faced heron. I don't think I've ever seen a heron in a tree before. My friend said it looked as weird as seeing a duck in a tree.

On our way home we could see a cloud of white on the road, as we got closer we saw that it was a huge flock of Long Billed Corellas all eating grain that had fallen from trucks leaving the animal grain warehouse. Poor silly things were eating alongside their fallen comrades who'd been squashed by passing vehicles. 

But the ultimate  spot this weekend was this bird. We were driving along the inland road back from the Twelve Apostles and suddenly this great white bird caught the corner of our eyes. We all saw it and knew, even in that flash, that it was something special. Jeremy did a three point turn and we drove back to the spot we saw it. There it was, a huge white bird of prey sitting on a dead bunny. When we got back to Melbourne I looked him up in my bird book and found out he was a white morph of a Grey Goshawk and that they were uncommon to rare, so we were very lucky to have seen it.

Now I have to go and tidy up my studio because it is a shocking mess and I've started working in the living room to avoid the mess, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a studio.

Sticky Zine

My friend arrived from London on Wednesday last and had to experience the 47 degree heat with us. We are all very saddened and shocked at the terrible fires just north of us in Melbourne and others around the country. I have donated a number of gocco prints to the new etsy shop set up for the bush fire appeal called OzBushfireAppeal. Etsians donate their work and all the money made goes to the red cross bush fire appeal. They might not be listed yet, but keep looking, there are plenty of other great items for sale. I'll be donating an etching also.

This week I've been making a zine for Sticky's target 144. To be honest I'm not entirely sure what it's all about, but the zine shop Sticky Institute (in the subway under Flinder's Street Station) is trying to get 144 zines made in 144 hours and then selling them at the... hold on, I'm not even sure where they are selling them. I've been trying to find out on the net, but nothing seems very clear.
Anyway, here is my zine, after numerous paper cuts and a chipped tooth. It's made of photocopied dry point etchings of all the instruments in our house. After going looking round the house for them I kept finding new ones Jeremy has hidden away!

My pile of 25 editions waiting to go to Sticky Institute on Friday

The original etched prints.

For the Loan of a Duck

Well, we've all survived that heat wave, poor Adelaide though who continue in the 40s! I hear the UK are knee deep in snow though. My friend Adele is coming over from London to visit tomorrow, I hope she can get to the airport, let along her plane taking off!

I've started going on hour long walks in the morning along the Yarra River, I'm trying to get a bit fit and I'm actually really enjoying it. I was thrilled yesterday to spot a Tawny Frogmouth in a tree while walking. Today I decided to bring my camera with me, just in case he was there again today, and he was! I was so excited that I hung around for about five or ten minutes, pointing him out to other passers by, some of whom must have thought I was a bit odd and possibly weren't quite as excited as I was, but I just couldn't help it. Here is a picture.


On Saturdays after Rose Street Artist Market we all go to the pub for a well earned beer and dinner. At the bar in the Marquis of Lorne in Fitzroy (where we normally end up) I spotted a stuffed duck. Recently I've been trying to paint with one of my fellow rose street marketeers, but I find it difficult not to draw from life. Last week I had been trying to paint from one of my etchings and I just don't think it was working, so when I saw this poor stuffed duck I though Ah Ha! Maybe I could paint the duck! So I asked the bar maid and she said of course I could borrow the duck, as long as I brought something in to replace it in the mean time, just to make a story for it. So next Saturday I'm going to the pub with a gorgeous lamb soft toy I bought in a junk shop who will have a great old time sitting on a shelf in the pub for a few weeks, while stuffed ducky will sit and have his portrait painted!

I had a few funny looks walking to Abbotsford with my duck under my arm!

Oh, For a Bit of Snow!

Life's a bit hot at the moment. I received an email from a friend in Ireland with a photo of their house totally covered in snow. Oh how I wish I was back home instead of this Australian summer! Of course everyone at home is wishing they were here, but still.

Our computer is in our living room which is west facing and gets a real bashing from the sun all afternoon, heating the room up like a greenhouse. That's my excuse for not posting on here lately.

The above sketch was drawn at Wye River. I had gone for a little walk and sat down by the river. This little bird entertained me for about half an hour. He was so skillful at catching flies, he mesmerised me. When I got back home and to my bird book I found him to be a Flycatcher (makes sense really) aka a Jacky Winter (doesn't make quite so much sense.) I'd like to make an etching of him in the future.

To finish with I'll show some photos of our lovely, but warm, living room in our new house.


That's it on the top floor. It's a great house, a bit shabby and full of noisy possums, but I love it. It's just a shame the lease is only for 9 months because it is due to be demolished in September. All the best places get pulled down, it's so sad.

At the Beach

I've spent the last few days down the Great Ocean Road with Jeremy's family, caravaning at Wye River. It's so lovely to be by the beach and have constant bird drawing material at hand! Here area couple of pages from my sketchbook.

And a couple of photos of my playings on the beach

Thirty Minutes

Yesterday I made a new book. It's called "Thirty Minutes in St. James' Park, London" and contains a collection of drawings of (mostly) birds I drew while in St. James' Park, London, last September. I am editioning it out of 50 and they are photocopied on my scanner printer machine from pen and ink drawings and then hand bound.


I have been wanting to make a range of small artist books and zines for a while now. My first one in this range is called "Seagulls Outside State Library" and I was selling it at my market stall before Christmas. I want to sell them on etsy, but I'm not sure which shop to put them in, or maybe I should open a new shop, but three shops might be a bit much! I'm going on holiday tomorrow, to the beach, so hopefully I'll be able to work it all out by the time I get back!

The Currawongs

Ok, so, I charged up my camera battery and put it in, ready to take photos for new years eve and... my camera has finally died. I think it must be all the dropping of it. I've never been very good at holding on to it! So I went into town yesterday and simply had to buy a new one. So I'm all ready now and here we go...

My larger recent work.

I remember first hearing currawongs when I lived in Abbotsford. They actually say "currawong currawong." I think they are lovely looking birds, about the size of a crow but a little bit sleeker. Apparently they are a little bit evil and rather clever.

My original drawings of the currawongs were done with black ink and a brush (see above) and I wanted to recreate this effect in etching by using sugarlift. This process involves painting your image onto the plate with a sugar solution. You let it dry and then paint diluted bitumen over the top and let that dry. Then put the plate into warm water and the areas where the sugar solution was painted lifts off, exposing the copper plate below. An aquatint is then applied by dusting the plate (still with the bitumen covering the areas where the sugar solution was not lifted) with fine rosin grains and melting them with a flame. Aquatint creates texture on the surface of the plate so it picks up more ink and creates an even dark tone. Then place the plate into the acid for the desired length of time. When the plate is ready take it out of the acid, clean off the bitumen and melted aquatint grains and you are ready to ink up and print.