Spirits Dancing

I’ve been making yoghurt for a couple of months now, and I’m still blown away by how easy and good it is! I got my recipe from searching Down to Earth.

Here’s what I do:

• Mix 1 1/4 cups of powdered milk into 750ml cold water. (Or just under a litre of any kind of milk; if powdered, mix according to recommended proportions and add an extra 1/4 cup of powder)
• Heat milk in a saucepan until it is really really about to boil over.
• While the milk is heating pour boiling water into the pot the yoghurt will set it, and its lid, to sterilize them. I’m using a kg pot left over from when I last bought yoghurt.
• Tip the water out, pour the milk in.
• Put on the lid and let the milk cool to only just warm; this takes an hour or more.
• Stir in three or so tablespoons of good fresh live-culture natural yoghurt.
• Put on the lid again, wrap the pot in a towel and leave it untouched in a warm place for about 12 hours.
• Voilà! Yum!

I’ve taken to making this while I am preparing dinner, then it sits by the fire overnight, and is ready in the morning. But I’ve also had success with putting the pot in an esky with some containers of boiling water. And yes, once you make one batch you can use it to make the next.

Tags: homemade. how to make yoghurt, make, recipe, yoghurt

How to makedo – extended from MAKEDO on Vimeo.

I’d love to have a play with these cool Makedo reusable connectors!

Tags: make, makedo

Earlier this year I made the set and props for Flotsam and Jetsam, a production for children which tells stories about living on Australian lighthouse islands in the past. The script was written by Greg Lissaman, from recollections gathered by Chrissie Shaw, the actor. Catherine Roach is the director.

The set is an island, panels painted in a pointalist style, which can concertina into different shapes and be dismantle for touring. The lighthouse is modelled on the historic lighthouse at Cape Otway in Victoria, and Tasman Island in Tasmania was among other sources of stories and images, such as the flying fox access to the island. There were numerous props – seaweed, wooden chests, a porcelain doll, an albatross, and a sea buoy. There are more photos of these in my  Flotsam and Jetsam photoset.

Touring dates and booking details for Flotsam and Jetsam are listed at Chrissie’s site. On 19 – 21 August it has a short season at the Maritime Museum in Sydney, and then it will tour coastal community venues in NSW. Chrissie also performs The Keeper, an adult play also based on lighthouse stories.

Tags: flotsam and jetsam, lighthouse, props, set, theatre

Tags: cutters, knives, scissors

I chanced on these ceramic precision cutters by Slice the other day in a Howard’s Storage shop. I’d never heard of ceramic cutters before, and I’m still a bit in the dark about what exactly the ceramic material is, but they are very effective. The blade is tiny when compared to hobby knives, ideal for fine work that doesn’t require much depth of cut, and for opening those horrible plastic packs that electronic gear comes in. The overall design is cool and nice to handle, too. OhGizmo has a review of the Slice range.

Tags: ceramic precision cutter, tools

This suggestion of a seagull skeleton is a prop for a new play I’m working on, but I rather like it as an object for itself. It’s given me some ideas for making some stranger ones when I get some time later.

By coincidence, today I happened across Chris Jordan’s photographic collection Midway: Message form the Gyre, a photographic documentation how albatross chicks on Midway Atoll ban in the middle of the Pacific Ocean often die because they end up being fed heaps of plastic junk. It’s shocking – only look if you are feeling strong.

Tags: albatross, bird, make, prop, skeleton

Tags: face, make, sculpture

Tags: make, scultpure

This is some new experimental sculptural work I’m busy on at the moment.

This face is essentially calico over foam.

The following one is foam at the moment, but I am going to try a cracked surface on it.

Tags: faces, sculpture

I have some catching up to do on posting about my work projects.

First up is the cross-section wheat seed that I made for CSIRO Plant Industry, for their annual display at Floriade in September. In other years I’ve made a caterpillar and cross-section flower for them.  The wheat seed is carved out of polystyrene, and surfaced with a mixture of materials: fabric, paper mache, paint and latex. There is a photoset of the process.

I was pleased when I realized I could use a strange stretchy and very synthetic fabric for instant and variable cell textures.  I had used this fabric for skin texture on a goanna puppet in a TV pilot years ago.  At the time the pilot program was taken to a childrens’ program market in Cannes, and there was hopeful anticipation of it being sold to China. Someone with dollars in their eyes advised buying up extra fabric against the day when we went into full goanna and other animal puppet production, but there I was ten years later cutting into it for the first time!

The unlikeliest thing about the wheat seed was how cute it was. Everyone who picked it up cradled it like a baby, and admired its cute little tuft of bristles!