Drawing: Fading Beauty Completed

Tags

florals, Flowers, soft pastels

Finished this drawing today – yay!

Photography: A different kind of nest

Tags

gum tree, nest, termite

A termite nest in a gum tree in a neighbour’s yard near one of my family’s home (I couldn’t get closer to it, but had to take a picture – I’ve never seen anything like it)

Photography: Pom Pom

Tags

Blossom, Pom Pom tree

Blossom from a Pom Pom Tree

Photography: King of the Neighbourhood

Tags

cats, gardening, musings

Today has been Mothers Day here in Australia. My mum and step mum came for lunch and we had Roast Lamb (my mum would correct me to say we had roast hogget not lamb! lol) and baked veges, a great lunch on a cool autumn day.

As it is time to plant our spring bulbs, my step mum and I spent some time in the garden planting out tulips, ranunculus, daffodils and anemones, which was a nice way to spend the afternoon. My mum stayed inside in the warmth knitting and talking with my daughter and husband. It was pretty chilly this afternoon, so I wouldn’t have minded that either.

At our house there is no gardening without an overseer – namely one cat named Raindrop, who perched himself up on the neighbour’s shade tent, just over our back fence. The other two hovered around, but Rainy very often sticks his nose in to see what weeds we have dug up or to nibble on the grass.

For those of you who haven’t followed my blog for long, a couple of years ago, a stray cat visited our backyard. I went out to chat to her and try and get her to come over when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, some movement in the bushes to my left. And what should I find but a litter of six kittens. The mother, now called Honey, slowly let us look after her and them, and we kept them all for 8 weeks, humanised them and then arranged for homes for 4 of the kittens through the Animal Welfare League of NSW. We kept two kittens and the mum (as she was feral she probably would have been put down if we had handed her over). There are quite a few pictures of the kittens on this blog under the categories of Cats or Pets if you’d like to see the mayhem we had a couple of years ago.

So with our assistants, we planted about 100-150 bulbs I think. I’ll share the pics when they bloom in Spring.

Happy Mother’s Day! Mine was splendid.

Painting: Watercolour Tulip study completed

Tags

painting., tulips, watercolour

I finished the small watercolour study of the tulip today in class. I did start the larger version but because of needing to allow it to dry naturally so as not to lose the natural movement of the colour on the paper, I had to do some of it and then leave it aside to dry.

There are definitely imperfections in this, but this is a study so this is what I am practicing on. Not really happy with the shading, but hopefully this will improve on the larger version. There is more I could do to this, but I am going to leave it here and finish working on the large version.

I have decided whilst doing this class that for each larger painting, I will do a smaller study to test out techniques. I think this will work well for me as I am definitely looser on this study as it doesn’t matter too much if I succeed or not and that makes it better for the final version.

And on a side note, I went to my graduation for my fine arts certificate course last night and happily discovered I came first in my course. Felt very chuffed and it made all the hard work last year really worth it. I caught up with some of my friends, some of whom have gone on to do the Diploma. I wish I was doing it with them, but maybe next year?

Painting: Watercolour Tulip WIP#2

Tags

painting., tulips, watercolour

Preparing for class tomorrow, I have played a bit more with watercolour. Using Rose Madder I have played with glazes and dropping colour in to try and create the tulip.

My brush marks are a bit messy to my eye, but I think it is beginning to look interesting. I have to use some water and a bristle brush to lift out some colour on a couple of the petals, but I have to wait for it to dry some more first – and I want to leave it to dry naturally this afternoon.

I’ll work on the larger edition of this tomorrow in class. It will be interesting to see the difference when I have the tutor to give me guidance.

Photography: Post Office and Letter Box

Tags

Art, letterbox, Picton, post office

Visited friends near Picton on Saturday. Driving past I took a quick snap on my phone of the post office (and had a play with it in Photoshop as well!) and whilst out on a walk spotted another unusual letterbox.

 

Photography: Pair of Gumboots

Tags

Art, gumboots

Painting Light and Shadow

Reblogged from Oh My Gouache!:

• 

How to Paint Light and Shadow

 Painting light and shadow can be tricky!  As I have discussed in the blog before, this is made easier by understanding what I like to refer to as “color families”.  By learning how to mix the “warm” and “cool” shades of each local color, any painter can achieve bright luminous paintings.

Color families are a range of the same color. 

Read more… 675 more words

Really good explanation of light and shadow in paintings - well worth the read!

Inspiration: Margaret Olley

Tags

Art, Artists, Interiors, Margaret olley, still life

I have just finished reading “Margaret Olley” by Barry Pearce. It is a beautiful hardcover book containing many, many Margaret Olley paintings, several essays about her, and interviews with Margaret Olley on her painting process. The book was a very generous gift from my stepmother (for my birthday and Christmas this year!) and I was thrilled to receive it.

Cover Photo courtesy of Booktopia

There have been several other books about Margaret Olley but I love that this goes into why and how she painted; that she was inspired by Morandi, Chardin, Manet, Matisse, to name a few; that she spoke her mind; and that she painted some wonderful still lifes and interiors, some of which I had not seen before.

She is a real inspiration and I know I am going to spend many hours poring over this book.