52 pickup and I get to meet Seth!

Today I had an oasis day - no thinking about work or study (both nuts at the moment - 6 hour teleconference anyone?) - and instead spent the day at a workshop with the wonderful Seth Apter. Seth is an immensely talented mixed media artist: we 'met' two years ago when he asked me to make a piece for his next book. The Mixed Media Artist was duly published in October last year and included my piece Siliqua Lucti.

So I was really happy when I saw that Seth was going to come to Australia and give classes as part of the Art is You mixed media roadshow. I did Seth's 52 pickup class and it was so much fun. we had to turn up with a deck of playing cards, painted with black gesso on both sides.

Seth taught us how to do all sorts of magic with paint and gesso - here's what mine looked like after a couple of hours of playing.

 I edged mine with gold ink.

It was great to meet at last - Seth is a gem. If you get the chance to have a class with him, grab it!

lunchtime in the park

On my work days I try to go for a half hour walk in the park across the road from my building. It's a really good 're-set' time to go and look up into the trees and sky, watch the birds, search for treasures and have some mental space.

I see all sorts of interesting things and small treasures: today's strange find was this oddly spiralled sap.

There were hard lumps and filigrees of this resinous ook that had seeped out of the tree all the way up the trunk. Some bits has fallen onto the ground but there were lots still attached to the tree.

It's opaque as you can see, has no detectable smell and it quite smooth - not at all sticky.Very strange.