FIRST big workshop at Fired Art Studio, Newee Creek

Howdy and welcome visitors to this blog for clay nuts

Saturday and Sunday, 5th and 6th November, 2011 at the Fired Art Gallery and studio, Newee Creek.

MY FIRST BIG WORKSHOP

This was a fun event for us ...having a crew of twelve old friends and new friends coming to our place to have a two day extravaganza of pot and sculpture making, drawing, designing and making lots of clay concoctions.  We had great weather, especially Sunday, which was balmy, sunny and windless, giving the garden (which is almost springing out of the beds)  a particularly extravagant display, right on cue.  The Jacaranda tree is in full flower too.  Below is Saturday morning, before the arrivals.

Everyone arrived around 9 a.m. to a quick round of tea and coffee then up into the workshop for a grinding morning of cutting out coloured paper, wielding glue sticks and committing magazine defilement to make some good ideas for sculptures.  This was followed by some basic pottery methods shown of pinch pots, a little demo of slab building and everyone was away with their projects and a busy two days of clay work.

Below are some photos taken by Dirka on the Sunday, well into the workshop.

There are a few images I wish we had been able to get with the camera, like the happy lunches that everyone contributed to, the life drawing session we had on the lawn under the big tallow tree, or Jack skinny dipping in the pool while we were all distracted in the workshop.  Shame.

We will be running two-day workshops on the first weekend of every month as a result of this very successful (we think!) ....and enjoyable couple of days.  Thanks to everyone for contributing to the fun.

Home

It is now two months since we landed back in Oz.  The time has gone so fast, but it's been a time of getting back to the routines and loving it too.  No withdrawals from the travel adventures, just happy, smiling memories.  Now I am getting a plan together for the future, and it goes like this:
Make lots of new stuff!  Start some classes!  Go large, and Go Anything!  Shoot the Moon! With a plan like this, I'm looking forward to 2012.

Getting home to this place, it's not surprising that the withdrawals have been so easy on us, because we live in Paradise, me hearties, paradise.  Australia is alive, fresh, full of trees, rivers, skies, clear and beautiful.  Our gardens are flowering, the birds are going nuts and the weather is getting warm.  Dirk has built a fence around his   veggie patch to keep the wallabies out, and it's already sprouting many new shoots, summer's providence well on the way.
My first weekend workshop is coming up this weekend of the 5th and 6th of November, here at the Fired Art  Gallery and Studio.  I have made up places for eight people to have plenty of room to work, and the theme will be just clay sculpture.  We might do some figure drawing to warm up to some figurative stuff, but it's open to the participants as to what they want to make.

This is the gallery, most recent image.  Visitors are welcome to come and view it any time, although a phone call to see that we are home is probably a good idea.