Ignite the Park

I had a very lovely break in Bali at the end of July/ beginning of August. Surfed every day. Ate loads.
Here's a taster - there's more on my instagram or facebook feeds.

This week I will have a stall at the Night Markets as part of the Ignite the Park Festival.

Thursday 28 August 2014

4pm to 9pm

818 Albany Highway in East Victoria Park. 

It's Market Season!

Well, there's no rest for the wicked and after a busy three days at the Whalebone Classic in Cottesloe, I'm gearing up for the Made on the Left Art Market on 27 July.

I'll be in Bali, but I will have two lovely ladies manning the stall filled with my prints and other handmade goodies. The market is set to be a success with oodles of delectable goodies from Western Australian artisans and designers.

http://www.madeontheleft.org.au/

Piece for Exhibition

I finished this piece on Friday. We've had all sorts of things happening this week with a dress up party on Saturday to prepare for and a broken down car to get fixed. This piece is for the exhibition, 'Tragedy, Treasure and Trade'. It is titled 'Miserere Domine'. Made from felt, hand dyed habotai silk and free machine embroidery and applique.

Unveiling my website!!

My exhibition opens this Friday!! It is titled Metamorphica! It will run from 5 October - 11 November at the Heathcote Gallery, Duncraig Road, Applecross. If you are in this neck of the woods, please come and visit!

In other news, I have finally got my website up to scratch! I now feel quite happy with it. I have learned a lot during this process, working with photoshop and uploading to the web host. My site is hosted by godaddy.com. They are really cheap and give you lots of space, but a little hard to set up. Every link you click, you aren't sure if it is free or if you are buying something. Still, $3.95 a month for web hosting is pretty good! You should think about it.... Now. Drum roll.......... introducing: http://www.hannahkatarski.com/ I would love to hear what you think!

Finished stuff!

I have been agonising over this piece for ages... finally done! First sort of Australiana thing I've done. But I like it :) I have more exhibition news!! A gallery owner was at the opening of a gallery where I have a few pieces and she is interested in me exhibiting in a textile exhibition in October! October is going to be a busy month. Here is the preliminary layout for the commission I am working on. The photo just doesn't do the colours justice. I love working with this colour and I had a lot of fibres to choose from when selecting what to include.

Don't think it will take me long to put it all together....I just have to not be too precious. I will often deliberate over things for ages, when the result isn't necessarily any better, just more considered. sometimes at the expense of spontaneity. I have also decided on a title for my solo exhibition. 'Metamorphica'. So it is not quite metamorphosis - but stitchety grub, could you e-mail me your address and then I will send you a small thank you in the mail. Having looked up some definitions I feel that it fits my concept so well. Thanks for the help!

Busy like a beaver

I have been busy busy!! Co-ordinated an Art Award and exhibition a few weeks ago so I was just quietly freaking out about not getting of my own stuff done because I was at work or sleeping!!! However, I am back on track now and feeling good about what I have accomplished today. Above is a commission I am working on. I know! A commission! I am really excited about doing this piece and the 'commissioner' and I both love the colour!! It is a little greener than it looks in the photo - my camera gets excited about the flash and tends to overexpose the pic a bit...

This is another piece...even have what I think is a great name for it! It's about half finished I'd say. I've been having great fun discovering a few new techniques and playing with some others. For instance I've been embossing velvet - I've also put embossing powders on top of that. Free machining on organza then cutting it out with my soldering iron - no fraying!! AND!!!!!! I just discovered the joys of embossing on organza! I haven't seen this done anywhere before, so I'm quite excited. Didn't want the powders to blow off or the organza to melt, so I've been heating it over the toaster... Aaaaanyway, the above piece will have gum tree flowers embroidered on it, a lot like the gum nut bag I uploaded a little while ago.

Tyvek flowers -Bernice Langley - who ran a machine embroidery class I went to recently had made flowers with petals like this so I extended it a bit using the fibre/string thing in the centre. This one was a test.

This one was for my mum for Mother's Day. Once again, the camera doesn't like photographing aqua/turquoise. Such a shame!! I have an exhibition coming up in October, but I need a name for the show!!! Perhaps you can help me out with suggestions? I'll tell you about my concept... I was initially going to call it transformations, but someone is having a show before me called 'transformed'. oh dear. so new name. Concept was exploring my internal transformations in response to the transformations going on in the world at the moment...by transforming my materials - sewing, felting, burning etc. Now I feel even more strongly about exploring this theme. Make the viewer consider the impact of what's going on in the environment. I need a name that is short, catchy. Maybe some awesome synonym for transform/transformation. How about I send a fibre postcard out to the person whose name I use? Thank you in advance, Fabulous People!!!

Deeper Water and News!!

I have been making a piece inspired by water for an upcoming felt exhibition and here it is! not quite finished, titled 'Deeper Water.' It will be a wall hanging.

As of today I am also represented by a gallery!! Will be putting some work in in 2 weeks! It's really exciting. My husband has started piecing a miniature quilt using the fabrics below. Very nice!! Will keep you posted.

Monday Morning

Got up to a bit of sewing this weekend. I am making and ocean/ moon piece to go in my Uncle's gallery. Happy with it so far. I find when I usually get stuff is with the logistics of construction. I know that I will have 3 different sections...but then how to attach them to each other... I bought some big frames last Friday. 6 of them! I'm pretty excited about getting a couple of my pieces put in them. The others are for pieces I haven't made yet - but I have no problems creating a piece to fit in a frame. If I'm not working on Thursday or Friday, I will go around to a couple of the framers I spoke to on the phone and see how I go.

Painting!!

I finished my canvas yesterday. I just gave it a crack and I'm pretty pleased with it for a first attempt. Learned a few things like KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF THE CANVAS. :) Here tis....

Do you need to varnish the canvas with acrylic varnish or is it ok unsealed?? Nexz step is to play around with the squares on the canvas. I'm thinking of using some ribbon to frame them as they are really small in comparison to the canvas. Thanks for the interest in this. I'm keep for any feedback you might have. He are my two babies!! Note the lounge lizard on the left...

Plotting and planning

I have made small 8x8cm squares on hand painted cotton and was thinking of creative ways to market them. Thought about framing, but its expensive. Then I thought about mounting them on canvas! That's cheap! Now what to do to the canvas. I want it to look good. But not detract overly from the tiny focal points (there will be 4 on a canvas) and I don't want to spend as much time on the canvas as I would on a whole new piece of art.

So here are my experiments....
This is a piece of A4 canvas that I played with. I quite like the wash effect and the 'mountains'.

This is 2 of the four squares laid on the canvas to see how the colours go etc. (My actual canvas is 80cm x 40cm so will somewhat dwarf the squares...



Close up of squares...

The two above are designed to continue the image. The top one sits to the left of the bottom one. See?


This last piece is not in this set but in another set of 4 for which I will do a similar thing with the canvas...

Stay posted for results!

Falling into place.

I have just had the good luck of being able to submit some work for the art exhibition at the school I work at! A lot of the Private Schools have annual art exhibitions - not of students' work - but of local artists. So that's all set up for April 2007. Better get cracking. My Moroccan piece is coming along. After we finish the musical at school I'll have more time to sit down and finish it and start a few others. Ces la vie. Maybe Santa will bring me a camera for Christmas so I can post photos more regularly. :)

Art Exhibition and Awards.

I went to the opening Ceremony last night. My friend and I went and 'swanned' around looking at all the wonderful things people had made. There was a great sculptural piece called 'Superhero" that I really liked. It was a lamp made out of mainly wire. My piece sold!!! It's really exciting and nice that someone wanted to buy something I've made :) I realise now that I underpriced it, but pricing art is hard - I've heard lots of people say. However, I would have rather someone bought and enjoy it, than it comes home and I have it kickin' around the house until my exhibition. So next time I won't short change myself. More creating to do!!!

Tree of Life

Well, here we are; all finished. It didn't feel quite done, so I added a few things before dropping it off yesterday at the Melville Civic Centre. It will be judged in the textile category on Friday. How exciting! I'll be sad to see it go...If it goes.

The journey begins

I now have an exhibition date and thus a goal to work towards. Looking forward to starting to create. In April, I applied to be considered as an exhibiting artist in 2007 at a local gallery. I worked really hard on my application, even made a powerpoint of my artwork. The great thing about this gallery is that there is no hire fee because it is government subsidised, so a really great place to exhibit as an emerging artist because it doesn't cost a lot. They do the advertising for you and print flyers and posters.So yesterday they phoned and said they'd like me to exhibit. It's really exciting, I'm stoked. Now I've gotta get to work and start creating. The good thing is that I work really well when I have a goal to achieve and work towards. My exhibition won't be til October next year, so I've got plenty of time to let my ideas develop and to learn along the way.