Bower Bird Studio

What a lovely couple of weeks it's been!! We've worked hard (Bruce and I with some welcome help from friends, Tamara and Amanda), we've shifted boxes, plan drawers, drafting tables, suitcases etc etc.... I've spent hours of enjoyment sorting and storing lots of interesting bits and pieces, (and sometimes re discovering long lost fantastical 'things', like my crocodile teeth, puppet heads, marbles, seed pods, old bits of upholstery fabric and a couple of 'Brownie camera's), then many more hours deciding where to store these collections of oddments.......then we've enjoyed a lovely family Christmas break of a few days at home.......also it's been raining!!!! lovely!!!!!






Now finally I'm 'moved in' to the new studio.....the first artists to work in Bower Bird Studio were two young nieces and our two Grandchildren......with lots of chatter, laughter, cutting and gluing, they all created some beautiful 'postcard shrines'..........I also enjoyed a couple of hours there on my own yesterday!!

I plan to work on Tracey's "Journeys" book tomorrow! Tracey the book you have created is very beautiful! I am excited about the prospect of creating my pages within this special book.

I trust you have all enjoyed a peaceful and fun
Christmas with those who are close to you!
Peta

Real Girls Eat

I'm on a roll! Here's a partial photo of my spread in Shelley's Book. This was a departure from the usual for me and I thoroughly enjoyed creating it.

Tamara

Title Page

Found a photo of Shelley's Book sign in page.

Cheers Tamara

Title page

Some More Title Pages!!

Jen's - Paintbox Colours











Peta's - Cabinets of Curiosity - Closed front



Cabinets of Curiosity - inside












Cabinets of Curiosity - back

Determined

Hello All!
I think I have finally been successful posting a photo! Yeh to me...! This is part of my spread in Jen's Paintbox Colours. Just before posting I flipped through all the other marvously pages and giggled when I realised I'd been inspired by Shelley's page. Strange is the subconscious!!

Cheers Tamara

Sign In pages

Olley's - Who Am I? - I Am Who?
















Peta's - Home Is Where the HeART Is from altered book collaboration 2008













Helen's - Bris-Khamen Tomb














Jen's - Paintbox Colours

helens request got me moving

here is my pages for 'while you were sleeping" actually did itself as some are apt to... i am happy with the kooky result. love donna

Request to post title pages on the blog

Can I request if you have one of the altered books at your place at the moment, that you post some of the pics of the title page where the artists have signed in please. I am involved in another project where we are inviting a group to alter a book...and I think that our books have some cool title pages...
thanks

Drawing Breath opening

Had a fantastic night last Friday at Tweed River Art Gallery for the opening of the Drawing Breath exhibition which was conceived about 2 years ago! it is a collaboration involving 2 Brisbane artists (Jude Roberts and I)and 2 Northern Rivers artists Gabriela Soelkner and Michael Baartz. Was so good to see the work up on the walls. the work showed was about a 1/10th of the work we actually produced! We got lots of wonderful feedback and all in all it was a fabulous night all round!!

Finding and sorting ..........

Yesterday another artist friend, Amanda, helped Bruce and I to move the studio furniture into the new space, it was wonderful to have the extra pair of hands and muscles!! Thanks so much Amanda :-)
Today I've been sorting and storing, sorting and storing and also doing some culling, (not too much of this though!!) Tomorrow I'll keep sorting and storing and perhaps be able to get out the labelling machine, oh how I love that little machine......
The bench which runs the full length of the East wall is almost ready for sealing, Bruce has done a beautiful job on it!


I'll post up some more photos in a few days time!!

Moving In!!!!!

I'm on holidays and I'm moving on into my studio!! It's a very exciting time, as well as somewhat exhausting! I am calling my studio, "Bower Bird Studio", those of you who know me fairly well, will, I think agree that it is an apt name!
While I move in the large amounts of boxes, suitcases and crates, Bruce, my fantastic resident carpenter and husband, continues to fit cupboards, build benchtops and shelves, install sinks etc All this in temperatures in the mid 30's with the usual humidity that Central Queensland is famous for! Fortunately the studio is reasonably cool as we have insulated it all around and there is usually a cool sea breeze blowing through the louvre windows.

We are working to a deadline to have everything moved out of the former studio, which is really our two bedroom guest cottage, before this Thursday, this is when our daughter, Brooke and our two grandchildren arrive to spend a few weeks with us over the Christmas break! There's nothing like a deadline to keep one moving along!

What is everyone else doing?? Is anyone travelling over the Christmas break?
Don't forget that you are expected to have only one book for December and January, I'm pretty sure that you will all enjoy a small break from the collaboration, this will give you some extra time to attend all thoses social functions with family, friends and work mates! We stard round nine at the beginning of February! This means that you should be starting on your ninth book, tenth if you count your own!

Enjoy your Christmas, may it be happy, merry, creative and full of good times! Keep safe whether you are travelling or not! And may 2010 be all you wish it to be.

Peta
xxx

Where will it all go??!!! Stay tuned for more photos.

Helen's "Bris-Khamen" Book

This was fun! I really enjoyed coming up with another part of the 'story' for Helen's book...I find the books more and more interesting, as each one has more work in it as they come to us!

I used some black Xpandaprint paint around the borders here - it's a bit like puff paint, but matte, and once I had heated it to puff it up, I rubbed it with gilding wax to pick up the highlights in the texture. I really wouldn't have imagined that my collection of old "Cowboys & Indians" magazines would have been helpful for this book...but there were wonderful photos of turquoise beads and jewelry...just perfect for the Kings ear-rings!! Sorry about the shiny patches in the photos...nothing I did helped tone them down!

Who Am I? I Am Who? is waiting for my attention next - it is a very cool book with the most interesting self portraits...awesome!

Nanette's Page - While You Were Sleeping

Nanette hasn't quite figured out how to upload photos to our blog......so with her permission I have done this for her! This vibrant page is in JacQ's book, 'While You Were Sleeping', I'm not sure of the story behind this gorgeous page....the colours are amazing! Peta

sign in

heres my sign in for who am i , i am who. i love the sign in pages! i dont think i have put one on mine...but if we do this again, definitely want to...they are like little icings on the cake!
Also, please remember to sign your pages. they so deserve your signature. i feel bereft when i see a page unsigned! But hey, that might just be me. Having fun, all the best, love donna

who am i am who?

This is my page in Olga's wonderful yet thought provoking book "who am I, I am who?

i created it after seeing Glenn Skeins excellent exhibition at Cleveland on the weekend.

i rusted the paper at Petas with Jen's help a couple of months ago.

My page is a 'response' to previous work in the book esp Jen's.

Now its off to the studio to ponder whats been happening whilst i've been sleeping. Love Donna

Anon is a Woman

What an enjoyable postcard this was to alter! As it happened Donna phoned me to have a chat at the very moment I was working on it! And Donna was talking about her love of maps, what an amazing coincidence!! I had already chosen a quote by William Shakespeare which made reference to a map! Hope you like it Donna.

I couldn't resist adding on the 'gate doors'...The map is a colour transparency from a map of Spain, which is where Donna and her partner travelled to earlier this year, (and where Donna collected the postcards from). I was lucky to find a stamp that was also from Spain and used my own rubber stamps to 'cancel' it.

Journeys by Tracey Hewitt

This is my page for Tracey Hewitt's book Journeys. I forgot to photograph my page before I worked on it...so I took a quick pic of the next page. The book is full of interesting burned edged map pages. I have pretty much obliterated my map with gesso, but you can see a trace of it, almost like an aerial view of the landscape. Over this I have painted cloud like shapes...and then worked over it with collaged figures, found feathers which I have stitched onto the pages...apologies to the page before and after, both luckily unworked so they can incorporate the small stitches of linen thread. I was working with surreal inexplicable dreams that take you on mystifying journeys when I created this page.