You may be wondering what I have brought with me to Australia for my Artist in Residence time which starts next week. Of course you might not be wondering but I'm going to tell you anyway!
My plan, such as it is, is to actually read 2 books that I've bought and follow the instructions rather than just look at the pictures. In addition I am going to do the Making Books and Gel Plate Printing online workshops I've signed up for, but not done anything with. For example, Jane Faase courses on gel printing and Toni Harthill's workshop Unbound.
So of course, I needed to bring gel plates and brayers. There were more gel plates and brayers originally but they were culled due to weight.
With gel plates I need paints. I was going to buy the paints in Australia - another weight cutting exercise - but Hobbycraft had a half price sale so each of these tubes was £2. On Amazon Australia they are around £8 each.
I will be buying a ream of printer paper here in Australia to use, but have brought a plastic bag full of a variety of tissue papers, and 3 Khadi concertina books.
Other media that made the cut were my Neocolor 1 wax oil crayons, 3 ArtGraf water soluble graphite blocks, a Koh-i-nor watercolour palette, Inktense Blocks - I have the pencil crayons but these are lighter, and my favourite Matte Medium.
Choosing a sketchbook has always been my difficulty. I actually use them as workbooks rather than sketchbooks and over the past few weeks various combinations of sketchbooks have been laid out and then discarded. I eventually settled on 2 8" square Pink Pigs and an A6 concertina.
And finally various tools which eventually included paper scissors, a ruler, pens and pencils.
I will be blogging my progress, hopefully twice each week, during the 4 weeks of the Residency.
I applied for this in May 2024. And now it's finally here. It starts on Monday.
Watch this space.
Bernice
