New work......I've been busy!

Numbers 6, 7 and 8 in "La Femme Encadree" series

Six-panel fabric collage and acrylic painting: "Escarpment"

Two-panel work: "Granite Shore"

.....and a small mixed-media piece: "Artemisia's Breath"

Did I ever happen to mention that I love my job?

A Weekend Away

I took a trip this past weekend with a friend to lake Youl on the Ben Lomond Plateau. Rough walking in scrub and on scree, but worth the effort, as these pictures attest! We camped overnight near the lake - a pretty cold night is was, too!
This is one of my favourite places......it has that subtle beauty of the Tasmanian Highlands........as Bob used to say of this plateau: "It's like the surface of the moon with flowers!" Well, there aren't many flowers in bloom at the moment, but in summer this place is ablaze with colour.

The Making of a Doll in Pictures

And all done!

Mabel.........and other stuff.

Meet Mabel, my brand new great grand-daughter born last week!
She's tiny and perfect......

Here's the old faithful moon........the twenty-fourth.

...........and something I started working on this week:

This 'n That

Late summer storm brewing.......

Subtle autumnal tones - hydrangeas,

On my worktable 1.

On my worktable 2

.........and tea for one.

Fragment

This piece, "Fragment" was what I made to exhibit at "Festivale" (Launceston's annual food, wine and culture festival). As an award winner at last year's Artentwine, I was invited to put a piece into this exhibition for the weekend.
After a false start and a massive fail, here is what I came up with - I experimented a bit with materials, using cement and plasticiser-soaked hessian over a wire form to construct this. I am quite pleased with this as a sculpting medium - not sure about the longevity of this as a medium to make outdoor pieces from, but it did survive some very wet weather over the "Festivale" weekend with no adverse effect. Now I have it at home and I will just leave it outside in the garden and see what happens........I actually think a bit of weathering will add to the feeling I was trying to achieve.

This double face is about a metre in length.

Of Moons and Elephants

As some of you may know, I have been photographing the full moon quite avidly over the past couple of years. It all started when I noticed a fabulous full moon rising as I drove home after my late husband's funeral in April 2013.........so I stopped and took a photograph of it, driven by some compulsion I didn't quite understand, to do so. The next month, there it was again, visible in a clear sky. I might add, that in Tasmania, given that we have a lot of "weather", the full moon is often not visible because of cloud. But astoundingly, for 23 months I have been able to photograph the full moon clearly visible each and every time. It is quite unbelievable to me that I have been able to do so. There have been eclipses and "blood moons", enormous orange harvest moons and she is differently beautiful each time. I have become very moon-aware.

A few nights ago, I recorded the Twenty-third Moon. Next month will be the twenty-fourth......two years of full moons. If she is visible next month, I will take the last of these photographs - I think they have served some arcane purpose and I probably will have got something out of my system - I'm not actually sure quite what!

The different moods of the twenty-third moon.

Back to more down-to-earth matters:  a bit over a year ago, I worked out how to knit a little elephant using four needles and knitting in the round - I wrote down the bare instructions in a kind of knitters' shorthand, then promptly mislaid them. Recently, I found them again, so I knitted up another little elephant. This time I positioned him on all fours instead of with "arms" and legs like a teddy-bear. I've had a few requests to offer this as a pattern, so that means knitting another one and taking progress photos. I will then be able to offer this little elephant as a downloadable PDF pattern in my Etsy store (www.susiemcmahon.etsy.com). Needless to say, I find knitted toys so very comforting and such FUN to make. 

I have a few other ideas for PDF tutorials for my store that I plan to work on in the next few months.

The knitting pattern - found!

Elephant in progress

Finished!

On my hand , to show scale.