I finished my ethereal elvish painting last night - amazing how when you are in love with a piece, it just flows. Three days of painting and it usually takes about three weeks to finish one. I couldnt take pictures last night because the light is so bad - amazing that I can paint that way actually. So as soon as I get my turkey in the oven for thanksgiving, I'll get the camera out. It is overcast today - so a great day for cooking and perhaps to start my great paper making adventure.

In the mean time, I've been taking some pictures that I would like to share - I guess it fits the theme of thanksgiving and harvest time.

These were another bucket of apples we were given that made some amazing apple sauce. The kids have been taking it to school and I used it to sweeten some home made granola I made. mmmmm.


These are a pile of crabapples we were given. They were tiny and my little guy loved eating apples that were his size.


This is the wee little pumpkin that we got from our garden - it was green when the first frost arrived so I bought it inside and with the warmth we've been getting, it is starting to change colour.

I love the patterns you find in nature - the curly lines in the little pumpkin top remind me of my paintings.

Well, time for that turkey to go in the oven. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Another lesson learnt.

There was more that I was going to tell you about with what I was up to over the last few weeks. This is another piece in the works basd on the chakra design.

My lesson from this piece is that I am not sure that I like it. And I sat with it for a week and really, I should have moved on to something new. Like the elvish piece I'm working on now.

What I do like about it though, is the way the water section turned out. Water is the element that corresponds to the second chakra, svadisthana.

And when I look at the lines in the elvish piece, I can see that this painting is what allowed that movement in my brush.

So, note to self - allow the energy to flow. Dont get stuck on a piece that isnt moving - put it aside and maybe I'll get back to it... maybe I'll find something else that I fall in love with.

mmmm.

:)

ask and you shall receive!!

So, in the back of my head along with all of the thoughts and projects and plans and dreams, I have always wanted to make paper. A few years ago - god, nearly a decade ago actually, I lived in London with my man and I bought him the most gorgeous lamp from Camden Market one christmas.

It was made with simple balsa wood but the lamp screens were made with handmade paper that was a very light shade of green, hardly noticeable to the naked eye. But when you turn it on, you see the blades of grass and the seeds - it is beautiful and I've always wanted to make my own.

A couple of years ago, I started to make one - having found some beautiful paper with rose petals in it. I got the frame put together... but haven't yet managed to fandangle the workings that would support the light bulb. That would have required power tools.. and that is definetly my man's domain.




So, now that I am off exploring all of my creative inclinations... I am back to the urge to make my own paper. And perhaps while I am here, I might finish this lamp and work out how to make more. My mind is ticking over as we speak.

The first step in making paper is to throw it in the blender to make a sloppy mulch. Something tells me that after doing that, the blender isnt going to clean up that easily. And paper pulp in my kids smoothies - something that probably wont go down very well from their perspective although it might add more fibre to their diet!! So, I needed a new blender.

If I were a garage sale guru like my good friend Monika (who's blog you just have to read!! http://www.mysweetprairie.blogspot.com/) then it would be no problem. I'm sure there must be millions of blenders out there for the picking. So that got me thinking... kijiji!! And there I found it. FREE. My new blender. It is missing the lid - but hey, I can do what the previous owners were doing - throw a tupperwear lid over the top.

Here it is - I guess it shall have to have a name. How about choppy -?? dunno - perhaps after I run it through it's paces and see what kind of personality it has!

So, yippeee - paper making here we come!!

Elvish energy

As per my last blog, I have been distracted from finishing my autumn leaf.. and the reason, another chakra painting. But this one is different.

The story starts with a bump in the road, an incident that could have been heartbreaking, but has actually been the jumping off point for an amazing evolution. I got the chakra painting that you can see earlier in the blog, scanned and then printed. Well, the result was nothing like I had hoped for... it lacked the intensity of the original colours and was flat and uninspiring. The scan had also picked up creases in the paper you cant see with the naked eye and what looks like oil from my hands as I have lent on the paper.

While driving home and contemplating tears, I decided that my friend for whom the print was intended, needed something more magical than this flat lifeless thing. So, I decided to paint her a new picture. I had actually been feeling a little stale with this subject matter, and had been enjoying the change in subject matter. But what I found when I settled in to paint was a renewal in energy and love for this series.

The thing with my friend is that she is a magical being - an intuitive counsellor who reads tarot cards. When I paint these chakra paintings, I feel the energy from the person that the piece is for, and this comes out in the final painting.

I haven't finished it yet.. but here is my favourite chakra - filled with the elvish energy I associate with Terra. I am in love with this painting and the feeling that I am getting whilst painting it.



I can not wait to see it finished. More photos to follow as soon as it is done!!

CATCHING UP!!

I know, I know. How slack of me to not write. But I was feeling a little down - something I usually blame on the weather. But if you have been in Saskatoon over the last few weeks, you will know it wasnt the weather. It has been gorgeous. So sunny and warm and the colours!! Officially my favourite time of the year - one of the reasons we named our daughter Autumn. With the colours in the leaves and the smells in the air - such a sensory delight. I love the sound of walking in the crunchy dry leaves and cooler mornings with warm afternoons. At home in Melbourne, we also get fog but that is something I dont see here too often. Too dry I guess!! There is something ethereal in being in something you cant quite see through. Very magical.

I just love the contrast of the gold and the blue in this picture.

And of course, this one is pure magic with the red berries.

Looking up through the ceiling of leaves.

so beautiful, unless of course it is your lawn full of them!

I wish I could have seen the wind blown all of the dandelion seeds everywhere.

Some pics from around the neighbourhood. I wish I could have captured some of the red leaved trees as contrast - perhaps I need to get out with my camera some more.

The problem with this amazing scenery, however, is that it just doesnt last long. Literally a week and most of the leaves have gone from the trees. I have been laughing at people trying to rake them all up - an exercise in futility, surely. But with the leaves on the ground, it sure does make stomping in them a lot easier to do.



Anyway, as you can see, it has been very inspirational. Hence, my next watercolour piece - an autumn leaf.



After I was nearly finished, I came to the same question I found with my sunflower. A background!!??!!??

And since this had been a quick sketch that I wasnt overly attached too, I decided to experiement. I'd heard of a watercolour technique where you submerge the entire piece in water. So, into the bath it went!!


(yes, that is a pink bath. Don't laugh - it is a rental afterall)



I quite like the way it turned out - though I do miss the crisp lines from the original. The background could use a little more depth - so it is the next thing to tinker with... but I've been distracted with another piece....and for that I'll have to keep you updated.


Now, if only the uploading of photos would go a bit quicker, then I could be done here and back to the painting.

Hope you are enjoying the weather - whatever side of the planet you are on.

sunflowers and lessons

I finished the sunflower painting during the week - and couldn't decide if I would paint some of the sky in the background.

I left it until the next morning - planning to use my preliminary watercolour sketch to try it out. I liked the result and dove straight in to adding some intense blue to my main painting. But, about halfway through, I became very disappointed. As the paint dried, it was obvious to me that it didn't belong there. It took away from the detail in the flower and was very blunt and juvenile in application.

Taking a deep breath, I left it. Believing that there are no accidents (or coincidents) I thought about it and did what any modern girl would do... I googled it!!

Now, the interesting part of this story is that before I walked away from the painting, my daughter who was on the computer next to me, was playing a tune - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. That song always reminds me of my sister - she would sing it to my kids over the phone and at the airport the last time we left Australia. She would sing it to them in restaurants, not caring who would hear her, and she sang it to my baby boy, when we were in the hospice with her before she died. Hearing this song was like her hand on my shoulder, telling me the piece was beautiful, just not finished yet.

Anyway, what I found when I googled watercolour techniques, was a way to absorb some of the excess ink and distress the background, bringing the sunflower back to the foreground. Not my intended outcome - but I am happy with it now.

But more importantly for me, I found information about a technique that will help me in a painting I have been doing for my sister. Before she died, she wrote four books - and my brother and I would like to have them published. I will be doing the artwork for them, but have been stumped. A lack of time and a lack of confidence have left me with just ideas. But now that I am finally painting, those ideas are gathering steam and are becoming manifest.

The fact that the answer to my latest stumbling point came when I wasnt looking, with a sign from Angelique that all would be ok, well... it is another little miracle in my daily life. A little thing that was always there, but that you only appreciate if you stop, pay attention and look.

And this my friends, is the latest road in my artistic pursuits - an exploration of spirituality in my art, of miracles and of faith. I dont know what will come yet, but the ideas are bubbling to the surface.

Namaste

The prairie landscape

I was just reading a friend's blog and in it she explained how much she loved the prairie landscape, the spirit in the sky and the open plain and how for her, this was her religion. I heard her and smiled, for I have heard it before, from many of my friends, in love with this land. There is a magic here, I feel it and know that this is what led me here and holds me in this place. But I can not love this land. My heart belongs to another. And so I wanted to share with you, my love of the Australian landscape, especially of the mountains and eucalyptus trees of my home state, Victoria.

I love the colours in the trunks and the fluidity in the limbs of these ancient trees. I feel their souls and hear their song as the wind dances in their leaves. This land is my home, and every sense within me remembers and aches to be there.



This is how I imagine my prairie friends feel about their beautiful open skies. I wish I could take them all for a walk around Wilson's Prom or up in the Dandenongs.
Perhaps, one day.

In the meantime, some pictures to help...




These are all images from Wilsons Promontory - my favourite place on earth. The landscape changes as you walk through it - after five minutes you can be over a hill and the topography and plants have changed totally.

And these are images from the beautiful Dandenongs - the mountain range nearest to my childhood home. Twenty minutes drive takes me from suburbia to another world. Moist and cool and filled with giant tree ferns that are centuries old and snowgums that reach towards the sky.

I love this land.