a peek at my DaD book for 2006 .....

You can always tell when I am not completing anything in my studio - I revert to showing you peeks of things already done.  That is not to say that I don't have plenty going on in my studio - too much started really and not enough being completed!  Many ideas and some of these, finally, are working their way through to fruition.  Etchings mostly - and I find the who process time consuming and involved.  There is absolutely nothing like the marks we make with etching though - and the gorgeous plate tone, scratch marks on the plate which I love to leave as they tell their own story and the way you can blend your inks, different ways to wipe the plates etc.  Obviously a print lover!

And a book lover ..... In 2006 I decided to bind my year of drawings into monthly volumes.  I only made ten, though I will finish two more for the set.  I have bound them with a series of different bindings and will make a perspex box for them ... a showcase really of stitching techniques which will be helpful when I teach.

As you can see, I actually rusted or manipulated many of my pages before working into them as I found this way less intimidating that facing a blank page every day.  Very often what was on the paper suggested my drawing for the day.  In my former home we lined the road leading to the house with liquidambers.  I was told not to expect too much autumn colour here in tropical Queensland but you should see the magnificent colours each year.  (I now live a couple of hundred metres from this home so each time I drive by, I still get to enjoy the autumn colour.)

One of the techniques I love working with is using white ink on translucent paper over my drawings.  Now I pierce and scratch the transparencies but it is lovely to be able to look back through my DaD books and see when those ideas took root.

I have always really loved this drawing - the manipulation of the paper did much of the work and I only had to draw into it a little to suggest the dandelion.

I am a Andy Goldsworthy fan.  This was inspired by his 'Time' book.  Towards the end of 2010 my partner Steve and I went on a six day Art Refuge walk in Haute Provence, in France  - doing the walk with a guide, looking at various works Andy had installed in the region, actually sleeping (not that we actually did get any sleep on the hard floor) in one of the art refuges and being able to see his installation in both the evening and morning light.  Bliss.  The experience was one of my most favourite travelling experiences.

2006 led up to my divorce and there were plenty of these black hole days!  The nice thing about drawing a day, which is usually a very personal visual diary (until you post it on your blog!) is that you can indulge in these 'poor me' drawings and keep up the pretence on the outside!

This would be another of my favourite drawings because it encapsulates what the DaD project is all about - not meant to be little masterpieces but sketches that reflect your day.  I was obviously cleaning and being spring, bees had flown into the house and died on the window sills.

I use a number of  'symbols' repeatedly in my serious work.  (One day I will have a web site organised and share images from some of this work.)  Vessels and the elongated seed pod shape are two that I use for woman (the vessel) and man (the seed pod).  I have an on going body of work 'The Art of Language' where I have used these shapes in my etchings many times.  They appear in my large drawings too.  I also have a thing for crosses and squares!

I never would have thought I would put anything personal out there on the web - and look at me.  Think I am now just in such a happy part of my life that it no longer matters.