Another Art Journalling Class

So I’m still in Australia waiting for my visa. Therefore I took the opportunity to attend another art jounalling class with Rochelle. Once again she managed to help the group of us complete (or almost complete) 2 double page spreads.

Colours are hard to truly capture. It’s more green in real life. This will have some words added at some point.

If I was doing this again I’d sketch in pencil lines to make sure that my background colours radiated a little better.

I realise my photos aren’t as clear as they could be 😛

I’m happy with how these turned out. It was lovely seeing everyone’s interpretation of the techniques and inspiration pages. If I’m still in Australia next well I’ll go to the next class.

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Another hat

I’m still working away on little African Flower hexagons and pentagons to turn into another hippo, but I have also snuck in a quick finish.

Here’s another hat that will be winging it’s way to frozen Michigan.

Here are both hats.

Not sure what I’m going to do with the last few grams of yarn.

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Art journalling

I’m trying to take advantage of my time in Australia and do some things that I can’t do in PNG. So today I went to an art journalling class run by my very talented sister-in-law.

We made two double page spreads. It was really interesting to see how each person’s work turned out completely individually even though the same materials were used by everyone. Watching other people work also gave me ideas that I can use when I’m on my own.

This is the first page we did.

Mine has a few extra hearts because I tried to be spontaneous and doodle…

I’m much happier with this spread.

The little birds were part of a care package from Kate.

I drew the branch in free hand. I think the page may need a little more on the left. But I’m going to cogitate on that for a while. I know I’ve got a long way to go with my pages, but I learned some new things today and got a little more confidence to break out on my own.

If I’m still in Australia next week I’ll go to the next class and learn some more.

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Surprised

A month ago Gorgeous Man and Gorgeous Girl went back to PNG without me. I’m very grateful to generous family members who have let me stay with them and for friends who have been keeping me busy and out of trouble,  but I’ve been missing them a great deal. Gorgeous Girl also racked up quite a few firsts while we’ve been apart. First day at a new school, first missing teeth, first music lesson (drums) first individual swimming lesson, and so on and so forth.

Anyway, a friend asked me to go out with her and some of her friends. When we got to the place we were supposed to be eating (Eat Street Markets – well worth a visit) she suddenly stopped and started fussing with her bag and phone and then pointed behind me and said “Who’s that?” I turned and got the shock of my life when a certain Gorgeous Girl came running through the crowd.

Gorgeous Man and Gorgeous Girl had flown down for a few days.  I was a touch overwhelmed and tears were shed. Gorgeous Man wins Valentine’s day this year.

They flew home today and I’m still in Australia waiting for visas to be sorted out. But I’ll be home in another few weeks and all will be right with my world.

In other news, there has been knitting.

This is a child-sized hat. It’s going to a friend of mine in the north-east USA. She is a registered foster parent and is part of a network of foster parents in her area. The idea is to give her a stack of hand-knit hats, scarves, mittens and baby blankets to keep on hand for foster children that come into care. The knitted items will be one less thing that foster parents need to provide and in addition to keeping the children warm it is something they can take with them when the leave that foster family. A few of my Ravelry friend have joined me in this project and we are going to see how many we can make. Sadly there is a large demand in the county my friend lives in.

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Happy Hippy Hippo

I made this little lady for a friend of mine and she’ll be heading off in the post tomorrow. I’m really pleased with how this one turned out. It’s a little smaller than the other two, but they are both in PNG, so no comparison shots.

Look at that face…

These are such clever designs. I have two more of these to make: one a thank you gift and one a commission. As much as I love this design I’m itching to knit and do something else. It’s very unusual for me to repeat a pattern so often and in such a short time-frame.

My visa process is one step closer to being finalised, so a few more weeks in Australia and then I should be able to head back to PNG. In the meantime Gorgeous Girl has lost two teeth and started a new school and we are all missing each other.

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