My kids are exploring using bits of nature to create a built personal environment that represent a response to difficulties in life - cathartic!! This my demo piece in progress. I've still got to cover it in latex and put a biomorphic body organ inside it...sort of suspended. Sticks, hot glue, elastic bands, latex- "Human Nature" Project

29th October 2008 - pastel, oilstick and bitumen paint with turps. 1metre high, behind glass and in a frame.

the 2008 term 3 holiday is 1 day from finishing

Saturday night october 12 2008: Had a fantastic relaxing and funny evening with 2 wonderful friends Fi and Nat. Its wonderful to be human, thanks!

Teacher's Note : 2 weeks till holidays. Have been working on some self portraiture at home will post them when complete. I'm looking forward to the holidays to get into it. I have had a little let down feeling over the last few weeks, it happens every year and I just realised what it is. It takes untill term three for me to realise that some of my TEE students are not as interested in Art generally as I believe them to be. Earlier in the year I interpret their struggle as a workload issue predominantly. By term 3 I realise that they never really enjoyed art, they did it for all sorts of reasons and that its not too high on the priority list. The commitment to work beyond simply dabbling and socialising is just not there. I find myself busting a gut trying to work out what the inertia is. Its really strange and frustrating. This isn't all of them, just most. Got to focus on the positives.....Yep!

Chunky gold assemblage jewelry I made as an example for my ed-support class. Its made of paperclay, found objects, polyurethene glue and flywire. Good fun to make.

Photo of a tree at my workplace. I really like trees. I didn't use to. I woke up one Saturday morning about 2 years ago and was suddenly interested in trees and planting natives. Before that morning, gardening was just a laborious pain in the trunk. I don't understand it. Something went click. Now I have natives everywhere. I talk to them, invite them in for coffee, and a game of cards....you know I've stretched the truth. Anyone who knows me is aware that I hate and despise card-games of any description. Card-games are like sleeping pills, along with their cousins, computer games.

Drawing/mixed media painting

The picture was a part of a series related to the human nature. We're always either putting our hands into something we shouldn't or trying to extract them. Sometimes its all a bit ambiguous. Sometimes there is that frozen state of inactivity where you are neither in or out.

This is an image I created of Ian, a friend. He is a funny humorous chap so I modified his mood using photoshop.

A collection of oil stick drawings, again, self portraiture experiments in a studio area. Really enjoyed them as a process. Most of them took about 3 hours approx.

Bitumen paints,

white chalk,

oilsticks

turps

acrylic paint, pencil

charcoal.

I think thats all.

This is a piece I did at uni 5 years back. I was exploring self portraiture and though it isn't accurate, it is expressive. It expresses childhood. You move on don't you! yay!

This is part of an object that I made from floating floor lining, painted with latex, squashed under a photocopier, cut out, and placed on a mirrow and photographed. I even added simulated hair but this is a bald patch of it.

These are a few forms I made by stamping objects into clay. They're not flash but they are part of a demo I do for little midget year 8 students. They are simple.

Talk about going from the sublime to the ridiculous.

I work as a high school art teacher so last year I created this bit of gaudy crochet and taught a class of year 11 teenagers to crochet. All I can say is the torture was exquisite and very rewarding for me. I had the idea to post this image because I was looking at the perfect crocheting technique of a friend, Fi, posted in her blog.

mauman