An exhibition of Feather Drawings at the Upfront Club, Maleny, Queensland, Australia

I warmly invite you to the opening of my solo show Messages. People who follow my blog may remember last year when I started drawing my feather collection for a week.You can see some of the drawings here: one  two  three four five six seven.

In total I have 22 framed pencil, ink and watercolour drawings on handmade linen paper from Creative Paper in Tasmania. I remember saying I wasn't going to do any more. Remind me never to say never :) I got into the swing of it late last year and just kept on drawing the feathers, playing around with line, shading, tone and water colour. Before I new it I had a small series of drawings. Then an opportunity arose for me to show them at my local Music and Arts Hub the Upfront Club. I had a meeting this morning to wrap up all the framing for these drawings. I am so pleased. The framing is going to be very contemporary, simple and beautiful. I have found the most lovely, professional and helpful framer up here on the range her name is Ali Parnell.  Ali lives on a farm and combines an art practice and framing with caring for horses.  Ali did a mock up of what the work will look like. As I am so visual, so this effort was so well recieved and helpful, and I got a real sense of how the show is going to look overall. Thanks Ali!

All I have to do now is send out some hard copy invitations to my local friends and then it's party time.
Candyxx

Build it and they will come

Rhody making paper with Darren Simpson- paper maker.

Creative Paper Tour, Makers Workshop Burnie, Tasmania

I've found the most beautiful handmade/recycled paper in Burnie, Tasmania, 'Creative Paper'. The Makers Workshop a new airy architectural gallery style building is home to 'Creative Paper' some of Burnie's local artists studio's the Paper Mache People which are just wonderful by artists Pam Thorne and Ruth Rees and home to the visitors information centre.

Rhody and I took a tour of Creative Paper, to see how it was made and also made our own paper. It's the edges that I am drawn to, uneven, worn and torn looking, so beautiful. My black and white blurry photographic prints integrated themselves well into the Artist Quality white paper, to make them look more like ink splotches which I was hoping for.
They have different gsm (thickness of paper). And now after trialling some photography prints. I'd like to next trial some thicker card to produce some postcards. I just have to find away of getting the thicker card through the printer. Maybe I will have to buy a special printer.

'Melbourne Marks' my photographic prints on Artist quality handmade paper from Creative Paper


Creative Paper started out as a government initiative to help local people gain skills and employment. It looks like it has really helped to turn the small town around. Tasmania has many of these council/government initiatives in small rural towns, whereby the community is encouraged to participate. They are often artistic in nature. Railton has Topiary gardens, the town has rallied together and Topiary figures are planted and maintained through out the town. You just have to get a map and drive around the town and look at peoples gardens, much like driving around looking at Christmas lights on Peoples houses. Sheffield is the mural town and Wilmot is the letter box town. As a tourist if it wasn't for these attractions I don't think I would have visited and spent my money in the local stores. It is really refreshing to see such community spirit. I'd love to come back to Railton in 10 years to see the well established Topiary gardens.

Paper Bundle wall, Creative Paper Studio

Creative Paper's dry studio area, front wall. I love this paper bundle wall

We drove around for 20 minutes looking for Creative paper and saw this in our travels. I love the text and missing letters.