Out of the Box Eyes Wide Clarence Valley

 There is a fantastic project running in the Clarence Valley for the local young people it is called Eyes Wide Clarence Valley and is run through the local council with federal funding.

For a full program and information about all the great things happening with Eyes Wide visit their page on the CVC website   where you will see the huge array of workshops and events on offer, all free to the community.

The workshop spaces are in 3 converted shipping containers, the CAFE box- offers a great value menu , the Tech box- offering computer based workshops including digital photography, film making, sound and audio, photoshop and minecraft and the Art box- the one I share my skills and enthusiasm in along with many other local professional artists. 

Most workshops run for 2 hours and are for youth aged 12 to 18 although other age groups are also looked after in the school holidays and all of these workshops are offered free.

I am offering workshops in ATC's- Artist Trading Cards, hand made stamps , printmaking and  art doll making in the  Funky Felt Mini Me workshop.

The Box's are mobile and move around the Clarence Valley so you will find them in different places at different times, in Grafton, Yamba, Coutts Crossing, Copmanhurst and Wooli, keep en eye on your local shop for posters or sign up at the Eyes Wide facebook page to know what is happening and where, but there are also lots of great competitions, movie screenings, special events and fun.

Gelli Plate

Like everyone in the mixed media world I too have succumbed to the gelli plate madness, oh how did we live without them? 

I have done so many delicious prints I will just share a few.

Gelli printing is so fun and I love the pages I am creating. 

I will be sharing some of the things I do with my gelli prints as well.

Youth Art Classes with Louise Kirby ~ River Girl Art

I am a local artist offering my unique and fun art classes to Clarence Valley youth starting term 4 this year.

Making art is fun and relaxing and in a life where we can so often get it wrong, there are no wrongs in my art classes, just wonderful experiments we can learn from. 

I am offering a colourful,

 creative and nurturing space for kids from 7 up. 

 Classes will be limited to only 10 students so everyone will get lots of personal attention.

The materials we use we will play with, but they will learn as much from the art materials themselves as they will from me. 

I am aiming for your children to find success and pleasure in our art time and at the end of our 8 week terms they will have gained  new skills and ideas and come home with something uniquely their own.

Next term we will be focusing on printmaking, stamp making and book making and you can have a peek at me working with another young artist on my facebook page River Girl Art in the Art with Kids folder, these are the classes we will be doing this term. Please like my page to keep in touch with what I am doing and where I am.  I offer many different classes in different places locally and afar.

Classes will be held at the Grafton Art Club between 3:30 pm and 4:45 pm on Wednesday afternoons.
Dates for the next term are October 9^th and 6^th, November 6^th, 13^th, 20^th and 27^th and December 4^th and 11^th as I have prior teaching commitments in the Blue Mountains for the last couple of weeks in October.  

Cost for the full term is $150 per student this will cover all of your materials and hall fees, there is an additional cost for annual art club membership of $10.

I am also offering an earlier class for homeschooled children between 1 and 2:30 at the Grafton Art Club.

 If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me
email rivergirlart@bigpond.com
or message me on my River Girl Art facebook page.

Blue Mountains

Beautiful  Books  Workshop

Learn how to create your own books like these

Coming to the Blue Mountains on Wednesday 23^rd October

One day workshop making a beautiful coptic bound book.

All materials are supplied please contact the lovely Julie on sparksandflames@gmail.com

 

I look forward to creating something beautiful and sharing creativity with you.

I am also offering some kids workshops while I am there with the fabulous Living Learning  home school group, contact Julie if you are interested in these as well.

Update for River Girl

Hello this is your preoccupied artist popping in for an update.

Its coming up to 12 months that I have been back in the Clarence Valley and being wiped out with the flu for the past week has given me an enforced rest and time to reflect on that year and all that has been happening.

I suppose the biggest thing I have been working on, besides being a home school mother of 2 wonderful boys is the house. I have been working pretty solidly for the last year on renovating our family home. I have had lots of help from various tradesman working with me but I have done so much of this on my own and the boys have both contributed greatly as well. 

We are turning an old ( not ancient or antique ) fibro house that had lots of pretty major problems into a lovely modern weatherboard home using mostly recycled materials from a house we puled down and moved here years and years ago. We have overcome so many issues and it is a constant challenge but it is also so very wonderful to be a part of making it happen, and the boys are thrilled to be out of the tent that was home for months and to have lovely big bedrooms of their own.

 I have also been doing a lot of teaching and sharing my great passion- art.

I started an adults art journalling class at the Grafton Art club and have been having so much fun with some wonderful women, I have introduced them to art journals, mixed media, book making, stamp making, print making and lots of other things over the year, sadly though this class is dwindling so I am going to change direction in October.

We have been exploring monoprinting lately using the super versatile gelli plate, and everyone is producing some gorgeous prints.

 We have enjoyed regular weekly classes and week end workshops and I would love to keep this class running but peoples lives change and there is travelling to be done and work that needs doing. I am really open to offering these fun and freeing classes to adults though so if you are interested please contact me and keep an eye on my River Girl Art facebook page  where I post regularly about what I am up to both locally and further afield.

I have also been offering workshops through the incredible Out of the Box program to local youth and have had a great time working with our talented young people in the community. I offer workshops in art doll making, Artist Trading Cards, hand made stamps and will be offering print making workshops when the box gets moved to Market Square very soon.

I do have some very exciting things coming up but they will have to wait as this flu ridden river girl needs to go back to bed.

Beautiful  Books  Workshop
Learn how to create your own books like these

 Louise Kirby from

 River Girl Art
http://river-girls-art.blogspot.com.au/

 Is hosting a fabulous weekend workshop

 at the Grafton Art Club.

365 Dobie St, Westlawn.

Dates: June 1st and 2^nd
Times : 10 – 4 pm
Cost: $70
Bookings: Phone: 6647 3194
mobile: 0458 455 612
email: rivergirlart@bigpond.com

Beautiful  Books  Workshop

Things to bring~

We will be making 2 coptic bound books this weekend using a mix of new and repurposed supplies.
Please bring along anything you would like to include, I know some of you have old art works on lovely paper and I encourage you to repurpose those if you would like too.

I will be supplying one large sheet of Stonehenge printmaking paper ,enough for the book we will make on day 1, you can buy another sheet or two on the day  if you would like to make a book with more pages of this wonderful paper.

Papers- The book we are making on day 2 will be using a quirky collection of papers, I know some of you have collections of things you want to use and this is the workshop we will use them in. I like to include various new papers – various weight sketch paper in white and black, water colour papers, the last few pages I have left in a pad of any art paper, 12 x 12 scrap book papers and various  coloured printer paper and card stock, graph paper, velum, wallpaper etc  then I add a selection of repurposed pages, old art works or pages I have used to protect the surface I am working on- any size is useful, repurposed pages from books, old text books, old atlas pages, these pages need to be roughly A4 or larger when lying flat and its best to avoid shiny surfaces other than that you can include anything.

Cardboard- we will be using this for our book covers, I have used lots of things including cereal boxes, mat board off cuts from the picture framers, repurposed book covers, any stiff cardboard is suitable and we will be covering it so it does not matter what it looks like.

Tools and other items – if you don’t have all of these don’t worry we can share them.
 Awl (or a heavy needle and a wine  cork) , fine hole punch, ruler, decorative serviettes ( these will be the cover on one of your books) book binding cord or  embroidery floss in assorted colours, glue-you want a fairly dry,  glue impasto gel or acrylic mat medium, paint brushes -broad and fine, acrylic paints- brights and black and white , inks, stamps, stencils, artist markers gel pens etc.

We will be making an embossed book plate to title our books and will be using a repurposed champagne foil or yoghurt container tops.

 Workshop Program

Day 1

 -  Fold and tear Stonehenge paper,  and assemble signatures

-cut covers from cereal or mat board or other cardboard

-make book covers using serviettes

-dry

-paint and doodle cartridge papers (whenever you have a break – go and work on them)

-bind day 1 book

-finish cartridge papers

Day 2

 – select covers for day 2 book, cut and put aside

-  sort repurposed pages into signatures including cut down cartridge papers, consider pockets and opening flaps

-make covers including a back pocket and a liner

-dry

-make embossed book plate

-bind day 2 book

Art Journaling with Louise

Life has been busy around here as the boys, and I are working on major house renovations, home schooling, looking after all of our pets and trying to do all the other activities we are inspired to do.

Wednesdays are our town day where we try to do all of our running around and chores before getting to the Grafton Art Club for an afternoon of fun and relaxation.

Art Journaling with Louise starts at 3, and we have been playing with gesso for a few weeks now, learning lots of techniques and creating gorgeous back grounds.

We have a lovely group of ladies working in 2 or 3 art journals and/ or altered books each.

Exploring different products 

and also working on finished spreads.

These are some class samples 

I use for teaching.

If you would like to come along and can get to Grafton on a Wednesday afternoon, please contact me, we would love to see you there.