Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Autumn.  Or Fall as it is known in the United States.  Apparently in Britain in the 16th century we tended to use the words 'fall of the leaf' or 'fall of the year' to describe the season and in the 17th century the word Fall was taken with those that emigrated to North America.  The word Fall fell out of use here and we embraced the word Autumn.

New England is famous for the colour of the leaves during the Fall and I have been privileged to be able to visit twice.  This year however we decided to make a much shorter trip and visited Westonbirt Arboretum.

I was a little snap happy!

And on the way home we had lunch at this really lovely pub called The Tunnelhouse Inn.

And found this amazing tunnel entrance to a disused canal.

In the meantime, the Maple in our backgarden hadn't done too badly for colour.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

From the land under the land down under

After our first few days in Sydney, Roger & I flew to Tasmania.   We hadn't been before and it was our plan to do the whole island in 5.5 days.  We arrived Sunday afternoon and were leaving Saturday afternoon.   However after Roger had done an in-depth study of the guide book he decided we didn't have sufficient time so we decided not to do the West Coast.   This is a photo heavy post - and there are so many more I could have shared with you.

On Sunday evening and all day Monday we concentrated on Hobart and the surrounding area.  The hotel on the first night was here - the building on the quay behind the boat.

On Monday we drove to the top of Mount Wellington where we almost got blown away by the wind.  The strength of the wind was actually quite frightening, but the view was amazing - if a little hazy!

We went to MONA - the Musuem of Old & New Art.  Apparently it's raison d'etre is to make viewers uncomfortable.  This was the only exhibit that I liked.  Cascading water that wrote words.

 

Everything else was not just uncomfortable, it was so far out of my comfort zone as to make me feel ill.  We left fairly quickly.   Apparently this goldfish installation was okay because they didn't use the same fish for each session!

 I quite enjoyed this notice in the car park.

We did a self-guided walking tour of Hobart.  I liked these sculptures.

Tuesday was an exceedingly hot day and we spent most of it in the air conditioning of the car.   We stopped off at various picturesque places along the East Coast.

And stopped at an ice cream farm set up by an ex-pat Brit.

Wednesday was somewhat cooler and we started off by visiting a waterfall.

We arrived in Launceston and walked into town and along one side of the gorge to the end and then climbed up the side of the gorge to walk back to the town.

The peacock was displaying at the mid-point of the walk.

On Thursday we drove from Launceston across the middle of Tasmania ending up in a place called Hamilton.  It was a bit of a one horse town!   The tourist office had found us a cottage to stay in.  The town supposedly had 4 places where you could eat.  One of them did breakfast and lunch, one of them only did lunch, the pub that served dinner was shut, so that left us with the only place that was open.  Fortunately the food wasn't too bad but if you're travelling through Tasmania I would give Hamilton a miss.  However we did see a wallaby during our travels that day.

On Friday we travelled across the middle some more and down into the Port Arthur peninsular.  We stopped off to check in at the Norfolk Bay Convict Station.

We were so glad we did as the owner gave us lots of advice about what to see in the area.  He also suggested we went on a boat trip which we booked for the next day.   We carried on to the Port Arthur historic site.  A short boat trip was included in the admission and then we walked round the site.

The view from the boat of the convict colony.

The view from the prison although I doubt the convicts really appreciated it.

Then we went to some coalmines where some of the convicts worked.   This was a timeline marked out with chains.

 And the view from a prison cell.

Our last day in Tasmania consisted of a boat trip and the flight back to Sydney.  The boat trip turned out to be one of those fast boats where you get wet!  However the boat was only driven fast between interesting points to take photos and then we were given lots of time to take photos.  The geology was fabulous.

A New Zealand Fur Seal

This wave crashed right over the boat

Australian Fur Seals

Apparently this was a calm day!  Heaven help those who go on a rougher day!

I hope you've enjoyed a short(ish) tour around Tasmania.   There's one last post about the rest of our visit coming soon.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Journal, sketchbook or workbook?

Welcome to day 4 of my 30 day blogging challenge. 

What do you call the book that you do creative things in?  Is it a journal because you write about stuff in it as well as do art?  Is it a sketchbook because you draw in it and make notes of ideas?  Or is it a workbook because you draw, stamp, create, write, make notes about everything and anything?  And there's a 4th category - the Commonplace Book.  You can read about that on my friend Mary's blog or more fully here at His Kingdom Come.  Whatever you choose to call it I hope you enjoying playing.

I don't tend to 'play'.  I get an idea and I start a journal page and I aim to finish it.  It may not get finished in one session but I like to have completed art journal pages.  However when you look at artists, and textile artists in particular, they tend to have workbooks or sketchbooks on the go where they jot down ideas or play with media and materials.  They don't necessarily use the pages in the sketchbook consecutively and they don't necessarily finish a page.

When I was doing my City & Guilds Creative Embroidery course I had to show the development of ideas and I still have the notebook.   However it wouldn't surprise me if I made the piece first and then finished the development work!   For the wall hanging my theme was Venice.  I had been there so I had lots of photos.  I used the shapes in the architecture to draw shapes and cutouts in the page.

These were some of the ideas I had for the wall hanging.

And this is what I actually made.  The three pieces hung on a wooden rod against a card frame.  After my course exhibition it got put in a cupboard.  I recently got it out and through the card away and decided I would recycle the fabric pieces.

This summer I decided I wanted to work on the Venice theme again and ordered some stencils from Michelle Ward that are part of her Gothic Collection.  I already had the Venice map stencil.

Last Friday I had the privilege of spending the day at Ineke Berlyn's studio.  We could take with us whatever we wanted to do and Ineke talked to each of us and helped us.  It was such a great time.  I took a fabric book to finish but I wanted to ask Ineke about keeping a sketchbook.  I felt that what I learned on the City & Guilds course was good but somehow very restrictive.  Ineke encouraged me to start by giving me some pictures out of some art catalogues she had.  I bought a new Pink Pig sketchbook from her and started.  I only had an HB pencil and a black pen with me.  I had a go at drawing knowing that I couldn't rub it out if I went wrong.

On another random page I tore up some fabric I had printed on a previous visit.

I started writing all the words I could think of to do with Venice.

I dyed a couple of pages.

I glued a picture on another random page.

I cut up another picture into strips and stuck it in.  The photo should have ended in straight line but it didn't and for once it didn't matter.

I cut some holes in one page where you can look through to the page behind.

This was one picture cut in half and stuck down so that I can draw another house in between.

Because I've done random things on random pages I feel there's more scope for random development.  Who knows what it will lead to!  Hopefully more play.  I'm going to get the Gelli plate out and play with those stencils.

And the best part of not throwing anything away - ever - is that I found all these stamps and stencils from my course.  Which was nearly 20 years ago!!!!!

Sarah's suggestion for day 4 of the 30 day challenge is to look at making an editorial calendar for your blog.  I've started working on that.  I have determined to write about my Venice workbook every Wednesday.  That will mean that I have to do something in it by next Wednesday to be able to show you something new.   I hope you will join me then.  And all the days in between.

Thanks for stopping by
Bernice