Screen Printing Workshop

I participated in a 1-day screen printing workshop with Angela from Milli&Fink on the weekend.  I had such a great day, I learned a lot and got to take away a few pieces that I'd printed.  I was amazed at what we accomplished in 1 day!  Angela was a great instructor, I highly recommend these workshops, no wonder they sold out fast!

I'll post a few more photos later in the week of my finished pieces, but for now, here are a few quick shots I took on the day.

Clockwise from top: Original cat sketch, cat design on a screen, cat print on paper, second design on a tote bag.

Clockwise from top: Cupcakes and lamingtons provided :), setting up for printing, Angela demonstrating gold leaf using a screen, screens and prints drying.

Colour Swatch

I'm halfway through an Illustrating course from Nicole's Classes, and was inspired by the colour swatch palette that our tutor, Alma Loveland uses.  I generally create a new palette for each design, often using Pantone colour swatches as a base, which can be time consuming now I'm doing a lot more illustrating and pattern work.  So, I created a similar colour swatch of about 200 colours which has already made my life easier for you to download :)

The Accelerating Universe

Last week, I was fortunate enough to go to a great lecture on the Accelerating Universe presented by 2011 Nobel Laureate for Physics, Professor Brian Schmidt.  He spoke about his research and how his team came to their conclusions about the universe accelerating.  It was definitely the highlight of my rather bleak week (mostly spent sick in bed).  Professor Schmidt was a great public speaker, I learnt about the difference between theorists and experimentalists within the field of astrophysics, and that some astrophysics still like to include Pluto in the list of planets in our Solar System (go Pluto!).  I had to leave early, but question time at the end was conducted through twitter #uqastro.

UQ's School of Mathematics & Physics calendar always has some great event on (like the Quest for Extremely Large Telescopes or the Transit of Venus events that I went to last year).

Professor Schmidt will also be offering a free online astronomy course at ANU through edX.org next year (read about it here and here).  MOOCs are really coming into their own at the moment which is so exciting for someone like me who loves to learn and study!   I really enjoyed the Intro to Astronomy course I did through coursera.org/Duke University over the Christmas Holidays (I still have a couple of units to finish).  Astronomy has got to be one of my favourite things to learn about, I am such a space nerd at heart!



Images of Pluto taken by the Hubble Space Telescope via NASA.

Design Workshops

I seem to have an insatiable thirst for learning but this year, I'm taking a year off formal study (although there is always mid-year entry).  I have however, signed up for a few workshops instead.  Hopefully, the fun and short nature of these workshops will be less stressful than full time study but I have managed to book in quite a few!

So far I'm enrolled in:

• 'Type by Hand' - Australian Type Foundry
• '1 Day Screen Printing Workshop' - Milli and Fink
• 'Watercolour 101' - Nicole's Classes
• 'Illustrator: Illustrating' - Nicole's Classes

Can't wait :)

Image  via  Australian Type Foundry

Astra Taylor on the Unschooled Life

I found this great lecture via Marvelous Kiddo about what it was like to be raised as an unschooler.  I must admit I am totally fascinated by this idea if not convinced.  The video is about an hour long and i listened to it while doing some of my Drawing projects for my course on the weekend and found it totally worth a listen, even if it's only for a little bit.