kings park colour palette

trip to mundaring weir

Hi,

Well winter is really here now in Perth. These photos are from a drive I took with a friend last week to Mundaring Weir. We had a delicious pumpkin soup at the hotel there and went for a little walk. Then I got us lost driving home, but not very lost, and actually I enjoyed looking at the scenery. It just took a bit longer than planned... Hope you are warm and enjoying some wintery comforts.

H.

xxoo

ceramic pieces made on the wheel

Hi

As promised, here's some photos of the ceramic pieces I made on the wheel in the term just gone. I did ceramics last year too, but just hand building, not the wheel. I did have a go on the wheel, but it was really hard! And I was having way too much fun making things by hand to stop, slow down and practise. This year though, I wanted to have a proper go at it. 

I was really nervous when I started that I would be awful at it. Like I expected everyone to be awful at it first, but I was afraid everyone else would pick it up and I wouldn't, that I would be the only person in the class not going anywhere. Weird old fear I guess. While it was pretty hard to get the hang of it, I figured out soon enough that it wasn't impossible. And actually it was fun. It's a really short course, so there isn't time to really practise and get right into it, but it was enough time to get a little bit better! I really liked what I made in the end. It was very satisfying to learn something new, something that had frustrated me before.

Last year I did a million experiments with glazes too, but this term I kept it really simple and only used glazes I knew would work, and tried to make a few of the pieces match each other. So I really liked what I brought home. There's so much more to learn, so far to go... and it's a tricky hobby to have because you need a kiln and glazes etc, it's not something you can easily do at home on your own. But I am really hooked on it. I miss it now that term has ended!

H.

thinking about what's next

Hi!

So, for the last few weeks I have been doing the 'Blog With Pip' course about blogging, by Pip Lincolne from Meet Me At Mikes. You know Pip. I am sure you do. You won't see any changes here yet, but I've been doing a lot of thinking about where to go with blogging. It's been a thought provoking start to the course - things that I'd already been tossing over in my mind are now right in front of me, and being discussed with classmates. In a nutshell, it's been five and a half years that I've had this blog so now I am wondering things like...

• do I want to keep blogging? (um, I think so)
• how much work would it take to make this a blog I really like? (a lot)
• do I know how to make all those changes? (no, but I could learn)
• would I rather start a new blog that better reflects what I do? (yes... I think I might want to do that)
• would that also be a lot of work and involve things I don't know? (yes!)
• do I know what I am doing with any of this? (no!)

I've always stumbled with blogging because while I like taking photos and I like posting them, I don't know what to write about, so I don't know how to keep a focus (which I now understand to mean I have not created a niche, a thing that people can search for, when they are searching for... things). I didn't mind this for a long time. It was a rambling, un-noticed blog and actually that was what I really liked about it! But if you recall, last year I left my job and that has changed everything. It has changed the way I spend my time, the way I take photos, my other creative pursuits, the way I deal with ideas. I feel like this blog needs so many changes to make it what I have in my mind, and that makes me sad, like I am abandoning it! So.... I am not sure what to do!

The other thing I struggle with, and I have mentioned this before, is dealing with the stupid number of photos I take, and how to edit them. I end up with so many photos that I don't post any at all. Part of what I am wondering about is whether to start a new blog that is much more carefully curated, where I choose what I post much more deliberately. Maybe I would keep this one going as a sort of scrap book? Leave it as the un-noticed, rambling, happy, messy, random place it has been for this long but have something new going that is a bit sharper, a bit smarter. Again, I am unsure.

If you have any thoughts on any of this, I'd love to hear them. Leave a comment, or email me, or send a message on facebook.... even if you don't see this post for a while. I've got a few ideas but I am spending too much time trying to puzzle it all out. Any clues would be appreciated like tiny breadcrumbs I can follow. The course is worth doing too, if you have a blog (or want one) and are looking for either technical information, ideas, tweaks, direction... or just a chat with other bloggers. I'm glad I signed up and have a good feeling about blogging again... whatever form it ends up taking!

H.

sunflowers

I grew a couple of sunflowers over summer, but other than being good for photos they weren't that great! Hardly any of the seeds took, the few that did got eaten by caterpillars and the two that made it seemed to need a lot of water or they went all sad and droopy. But I enjoyed watching them unfold and open up. They lasted about a week and now they are all crispy and finished. I'll scattered the seeds and see what happens but I am not going to try very hard with them again!