Callan, today's portrait model for the Half Dozen Group, showed up looking like a Vogue model from the 1950's. She wore a structured collared frock in burnt sienna with orange spots, a yellow headband and large hoop earrings. We all loved her outfit and strong pose.
I might be able to tackle a painting of Callan later from the sketches and a couple of photos.
Welcome
- Gay McKinnon
- It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. Doo wop doo wop doo wop...hello! Welcome to my art blog from Tasmania, Australia. I post very randomly on my various art projects while also working in plant genetics. For more, please try the links to my various art pages or email me at silvergumstudio@yahoo.com.au. Thank you for visiting!

Monday, February 4, 2019
Saturday, February 2, 2019
Sunday, January 6, 2019
Silk artworks from the Canning Stock Route and Tasmania
These are some silk creations I've been working on, using the technique of eco-dyeing with leaves from Australian native species.
This wall hanging is sewn from lengths of silk dyed along the Canning Stock Route. In the winter of 2018, I was lucky to travel along this historical desert route, one of the most isolated in the world, with Outback Spirit expeditions and a marvellous group of fellow travellers from many walks of life. During the days as we passed through beautiful mosaic vegetation, I collected a few leaves from desert poplars and eucalypts including the evocatively named river red gum, ghost gum, bloodwood, brittle gum, marble gum and coolibah. At night, I wrapped the leaves in silk and boiled them over the campfire in water from the local springs and wells, inside a tin billy which grew increasingly rusty as the trip went on. It was the perfect way to make art - you can't be self-critical when it's pitch dark and you literally can't see the results, but have to hang them on a tree by moonlight and retire to a tent with dingoes howling outside. In assembling the silks at home, I tried to capture the up and down flow of the dune country, the varying vegetation of the swales we passed through, and the soft desert colours. A friend suggested that next time I sew a dress of my journey, which sounds nice but a tad too difficult.
This is a series of smaller landscapes using the dyed silks, an added pink road and freestyle drawing with the sewing machine to represent our tracks:
Lastly, below these is the finally assembled (foldable!) silk field guide to the Tasmanian eucalypts, which I have been struggling to put together since its creation on Eucalyptus Day 2018. I'll have the chance to exhibit this at an upcoming conference on eucalypt genetics at the University of Tasmania. I'll also be displaying my recent research, which combines decades of Eucalyptus genetic research with the marvellous Eucalyptus dye colour data base of artist Sally Blake to investigate the question, 'Can eucalypt taxonomy be used to predict leaf dye colours?' As you can see below, leaves from different species used on the same day vary widely in colour and intensity... and genetics appears to be partly to blame!
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A Canning Stock Route journey in silk |
This is a series of smaller landscapes using the dyed silks, an added pink road and freestyle drawing with the sewing machine to represent our tracks:
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Red range |
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Water hole |
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Salt lakes |
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Desert oaks |
Lastly, below these is the finally assembled (foldable!) silk field guide to the Tasmanian eucalypts, which I have been struggling to put together since its creation on Eucalyptus Day 2018. I'll have the chance to exhibit this at an upcoming conference on eucalypt genetics at the University of Tasmania. I'll also be displaying my recent research, which combines decades of Eucalyptus genetic research with the marvellous Eucalyptus dye colour data base of artist Sally Blake to investigate the question, 'Can eucalypt taxonomy be used to predict leaf dye colours?' As you can see below, leaves from different species used on the same day vary widely in colour and intensity... and genetics appears to be partly to blame!
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A folding silk field guide to the Tasmanian eucalypts, dyed using the natural leaf chemistry of each species. |
Labels:
Canning Stock Route,
desert,
eco-dye,
eco-print,
Eucalyptus,
Eucalyptus dyes,
genetics,
research,
silk,
Tasmania
Friday, December 21, 2018
Experimental fantasy portraits
These are some recent 'fantasy' portraits of myself and friends. I asked friends what characters they enjoyed imagining themselves to be, then added some ideas of my own based on how I saw them. They sent me favourite photos of themselves at different ages, and/or I took photos to work from. In some cases, friends sent photos of their favourite things or places. This has been immensely satisfying, partly for the sheer fun and pleasure of painting, partly for connecting with friends and celebrating their unique personalities. The photos don't really capture the colours - we aren't quite as red or purple as we appear here. However, I did use some unusual colours for the skin tones just to experiment.
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Team project: science meets art in an eco-printed silk field guide to the Tasmanian eucalypts
Friday 23rd March was National Eucalypt Day - not Australia's best-known day of celebration, but a very important day nonetheless. Where would Australians (human and otherwise) be without our astonishingly diverse, continent-wide, beautiful and unique tree genus? As part of the nation-wide celebrations, librarians and scientists at the University of Tasmania ran activities and created displays of books, herbarium specimens, live eucalypts, gumnuts, oils, wood, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, and a video of Jeff Wilmott playing Waltzing Matilda on a gum leaf (do check out these links, they're worth it). My friends and colleagues in the eucalypt research group, Dot and Beck, were organisers and asked me if I'd like to run an activity. I thought it would be great to introduce people to eco-printing with eucalypt leaves - a perfect group activity combining art and science. And what better experiment could there be than to attempt to create an eco-printed version of Eucaflip, the very popular field-guide to the Tasmanian eucalypts produced by our resident experts, Robert Wiltshire and Brad Potts?
Eucaflip features panels with life-sized photos of leaves of all 29 (not counting the recently described E. nebulosa) species of Tasmanian Eucalyptus. I knew from experience that leaves from a few of these species would produce prints on silk using nothing but their natural dye chemistry, released by heat. I was very excited at the prospect of testing all the species and getting other people involved. Dot and Beck put out the call to the School of Natural Sciences, with magnificent results. On the day, thanks to the generosity and knowledge of eucalypt enthusiasts within the School, we had leafy branches from 25 Tasmanian species. I cut strips of fine and thick silk to match the size of Eucaflip, and laid out the four lengthwise panels of Eucaflip on four picnic tables outside the Plant Science tea room. We carried down all the branches and invited interested people to form four teams to create one panel each.
First, for each panel, we laid out leaves on a strip of fine, flat wet silk (I bought recycled Japanese kimono lining silk) to match the species' order and position in Eucaflip.
Next, we created a sandwich by layering a strip of thicker, textured wet silk on top. I hoped that the fine silk would receive detailed leaf prints, and the thicker silk would help to prevent bleed-through of dyes.
We then carefully rolled up the silk sandwich around a piece of dowelling. I generally just use a stick, but for this project I wanted to maximise the chances of getting precise prints, so a nice wide smooth piece of dowelling gave a better roll-up.
I asked the groups to tie up their bundles so they could recognise them later. Now it was time for me to run home and boil the bundles for over two hours in plain water in two stainless steel saucepans. I was sorry to miss the eucalypt walk around campus that took place during this time - another popular activity. I checked the pots anxiously every five minutes, wondering if it would work. We made the bundles at morning tea, and I was due back at afternoon tea for people to reveal their experimental results.
Well... it worked! There was great excitement as people unrolled their steaming bundles and matched the leaf prints to the species. The fine silk took very precise prints. Some of the series printed much more strongly than others - for example, the alpine white gums, black gums and yellow gums gave lovely red prints. The peppermints and ashes gave faint, ghostly grey or green prints.
I have made the heavier silk strips into a book, with typed herbarium style labels for the species. I
want to make the fine silk prints into vertical banners. The School
wants to do it all again with EVERY Tasmanian eucalypt species, as a
second-year prac. And I ask myself: Why stop there? After all,
Australia has about 700 species of Eucalyptus. Why not join with people around Australia next time, and do them all?
Thank you to everyone who took the excellent photos - I apologise for not crediting them as I am not sure who took which.
Eucaflip features panels with life-sized photos of leaves of all 29 (not counting the recently described E. nebulosa) species of Tasmanian Eucalyptus. I knew from experience that leaves from a few of these species would produce prints on silk using nothing but their natural dye chemistry, released by heat. I was very excited at the prospect of testing all the species and getting other people involved. Dot and Beck put out the call to the School of Natural Sciences, with magnificent results. On the day, thanks to the generosity and knowledge of eucalypt enthusiasts within the School, we had leafy branches from 25 Tasmanian species. I cut strips of fine and thick silk to match the size of Eucaflip, and laid out the four lengthwise panels of Eucaflip on four picnic tables outside the Plant Science tea room. We carried down all the branches and invited interested people to form four teams to create one panel each.
![]() |
Setting up leaves on fine silk |
Making a sandwich with heavy silk on top |
The rollup |
![]() |
Well... it worked! There was great excitement as people unrolled their steaming bundles and matched the leaf prints to the species. The fine silk took very precise prints. Some of the series printed much more strongly than others - for example, the alpine white gums, black gums and yellow gums gave lovely red prints. The peppermints and ashes gave faint, ghostly grey or green prints.
The big reveal |
Matching the print to the species |
I'm VERY excited. |
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So is Rob Wiltshire (back right, in blue shirt) |
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The four panels of Eucaflip, eco-printed onto silk using only natural Eucalyptus leaf chemistry! |
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The alpine white gums page |
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Prints from the black gums and the unique shrub-form alpine yellow gum, Eucalyptus vernicosa |
Thank you to everyone who took the excellent photos - I apologise for not crediting them as I am not sure who took which.
Labels:
eco-dye,
eco-print,
Eucalyptus,
leaf dyes,
silk
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Painting in the Victorian high country
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Tobacco drying huts near Bright |
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Granite boulders on a hot day at Mt Buffalo |
There were cries of despair as rain fell on the Bogong High Plains and created 'cauliflowers' in people's perfect paint washes. I decided to embrace the cauliflower and use it in this painting of heathland flowers. We were actually just over the road from some rangers spraying weeds, but painting can edit these things out.
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Heathland flowers in the Bogong High Plains |
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Boulders in the Bogong High Plains |
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Cope Hut, Bogong High Plains |
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Fantasy rendering of a Beechworth cottage |
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Tea Towel |
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Boulders, eucalypts and black sticky tape |
Would I go on another plein air painting trip? You bet. Sign me up. With good company, someone to handle the boring logistics of travel, and the chance to be immersed in landscape, shape and colour ... I think I might be hooked. But meanwhile, this Friday is Eucalyptus Day and there are art activities afoot - about which, more later.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Exhibition at Kingston LINC in February
Please drop by and see my exhibition of illustrated poems at the very nice Kingston LINC in February (starts 1st Feb, ends 28th Feb.) The poems are mostly funny and short, and were written by Ray Kelley (thanks, Dad!) and myself. The illustrations are all new, as I've done them specially for the exhibition. The three shown here are for the poems Such Darling Dodos, A Bit Thick, and Please Vacate the Boardwalk for the Wombat (this last is rather a long ballad about the hazards of Tasmanian bushwalking, too long to fit in the display cabinet, but I hope to fit the picture in.)
My work will be in the foyer cabinet and there will be works by other illustrators on display around the library, including some lovely pictures by my friend, Andrea Potter.
Here's a taster of one of the poems:
Ray Kelley
My work will be in the foyer cabinet and there will be works by other illustrators on display around the library, including some lovely pictures by my friend, Andrea Potter.
Here's a taster of one of the poems:
Wake in Fright
Into my midnight roof the bison drill
Their hooves in a stampede to wake the dead;
And I'm the one dead to the world, until
They jolt me from my bed.
"It's not a herd of beasts, it's only one,"
My wife assures me, as I quake in fear.
"To reach his tree he has to take a run --
It's just our possum, dear."
Ray Kelley
Labels:
animals,
illustrations,
poetry in post or comments
Sunday, July 2, 2017
National Tree Days: 28th and 30th July
National Tree Day brings together communities to plant and care for trees, particularly native vegetation. You can join a pre-existing event, register an event, enter a schools competition and/or share Tree Day stories. You can even take a photo of your dog with a tree to enter the 'Dogs Love Trees' competition. Get involved by visiting the National Tree Day website.
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