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I've had a really busy couple of weeks with art stuff, which has been so exciting!

First off, I joined an artist group based in my hometown in South Australia (the Adelaide Hills Artist's Association) and took part in their first exhibition last weekend.

Secondly, and more excitingly, I'm involved again in the Victorian Fair Trade Festival, using art to raise awareness of fairtrade. Last year I had a three paintings as part of a larger exhibit
and

This year, I had my own stall at the Festival Markets, where I was able to display a few more of my paintings, particularly ones painted in fairtrade coffee and tea, and also to run a workshop on how to paint with fairtrade coffee.


As you'll notice if you've been watching for a while, I am brand new to painting with coffee. I only started trying it out after being invited to run this workshop, and I am seriously grateful for =Gold-Seven's brilliant tutorial on the subject, without which I probably never would have even given it a go! [link]

The workshop was really successful, which was a massive relief coz, let's face it, I am not exactly qualified or experienced enough to be teaching anyone how to paint in coffee! Luckily I had a cheat sheet of a few techniques which work well in both watercolours and coffee that I'd made up beforehand, and I let people who came to the workshop choose if they wanted to learn these techniques, or just play around and experiment with the coffee painting on their own.


The workshop was so busy during the whole market, and so many people visited it and tried out the coffee painting, that the organisers have asked me to come back and run the same stall next week at their Mother's Day event! Yay!*

Fair trade coffee and tea paintings:
         

*I am looking forward to doing more watercolours after this weekend though, I am definitely sure which I prefer out of coffee or watercolours!

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