My name is Robin Cusdin and I have been creating art in collage for many years now. This has been a wonderful hobby for me,  as I have been disabled for most of my life and as a result of this I have not been able to take part in any type of outdoor activity. I started by cutting subjects from assorted magazines and compiling these in to various pictures.

I had a wonderful studio at our home in Whangarei but when we retired we moved to Oakura which is off  the Old Russell Road.  Our garage then became my studio out there, and this is when I started making gift cards in collage.

We have now moved back to Auckland to live as I found it very isolated up North and I love to be amongst people and near to city life.

Looking back on my work, my style has changed somewhat and I now cut most of my work by freehand with all the amazing textured and coloured card and papers that I collect constantly.  There are some great shops and art suppliers around, and I also work with every coloured 'stick on' dot that you could imagine.  My drawer for these oozes with an oversupply of dots.  Perhaps I should have called myself "Dotty Art" !!!!!  I have a passion for all types of paper.

Children's prints allow me to be completely mad with colour in various combinations,  and I also now do floral abstracts along with fruits etc  For a while I worked with silk flowers and artificial fruits and some of these will appear on my website from time to time.  The silk flowers turned out to be very expensive so I quickly went back to my collage work. I have tried to keep my prices down and my husband Peter now does all the framing for me which is great.  We are never bored.
 
I am now creating headgears for a facial sketch done by the very talented Kelly Thompson.  This is now leading me in a new direction of working with beads and jewels and combining this with my collage. Again , my imagination is running wild with ideas.  I  frequently work until the early hours  of the morning of which my husband finds hard at times to understand. My latest work now features on my website .

We ran a B&B at Robin's Nest for the first six years of our retirement which was very interesting and we met people from all over the globe. Robin's Nest is now rented out for holiday rental all year round and is self catering now that we no longer run it as a B&B.

Thank you  for taking the time to read what I have written and feel free to call me on (09) 522 1995


*Prices can be subject to change without prior notice.*

Please see details for Robin's Nest below:
www.robinsnest.co.nz