St Batholemew’s – Work in Progress

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graves, gravestones, graveyard, Prospect, soft pastels, St Bartholemews, tonal, tones

Managed to get back to my St Bart’s drawing this week after a couple of weeks break due to school holidays.

I decided I needed to try and tackle the corrugated roof. I really wasn’t sure how to proceed with this, so I sat and looked at the picture of the roof until it came to me to try it this way. I’m really happy with the result. I also quickly marked in some black next to the tower and quickly realised that I really needed to put some more into the sky.

The black of the pastel is much richer than that of the Coulourfix paper so it made an immediate difference to the look of the drawing. I also started to mark in some of the darks in the tree.

This is where I left it after two hours. The roof has added some real movement into this drawing.

I have to do more work on the facade of the church. It is looking really neglected right now.  The grass is looking a little flat and I need to think about how to tackle that too.

It is starting to look the way I envisage it.

(Next time I will photograph this in better light. There is some reflection from the fluoro lights in the art room)

Cotton Crochet Blanket

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afghan, cotton, granny square blanket, organic cotton

Thought I would finally post some pics of the blanket I made for my daughter. I used two different cottons for this blanket – Lion Brand Nature’s Choice Organic Cotton and Blue Sky Alpaca Worsted Cotton.

I had the Blue Sky Alpaca in the bright purple and pink in my stash and was at the local wool shop and found the Lion Brand on sale (they were clearing it out I think). I then had to source some more of the cotton and found it via Yarn Over, an online store who were great and ordered it in specially for me.

This is a really heavy blanket but it is so soft it is so nice to handle. It is about the width of a single bed but not as long – perfect on the end of a bed to keep warm on winter’s nights.

My daughter loves it and that is the most important thing. (If she didn’t I’d have kept it for myself!)

Western Sydney Parklands

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Western Sydney Parklands

One afternoon last week, we decided to go and explore some walking tracks in a part of the Western Sydney Parklands not too far from home.

The Parklands stretch for 27 kilometres from Quakers Hill to Leppington, forming a corridor of green in our Western Suburbs. The Parklands Trust are developing the areas to make then family friendly, and also great areas to exercise.

The area we visited also has a dog park to run your dogs off their leads. It was too dark by the time we got back to that part of the area to take pictures, but I have taken a couple.

These were taken about 4pm. Our days are getting shorter and colder now (finally!) and it was quite cool.

All the tracks have been prepared for walking and riding which is great, but we were pretty much the only ones there at this time in the afternoon, except for a few dog owners, giving their dogs a run.

This part of the parklands is quite near a residential development (a new one) and the people living there have an access walkway. How great to call this your backyard.

There was a small area that led to a bird hide. I really liked the shadows in these trees and thought I’d try them in black and white.

Don’t ask me what these seed pods are on – I have no idea. It’ll be an Australian native, at least I know that much!

I’ve been to a few other areas of the Parklands, now I’ll have to go and discover some more.

 

 

 

The view from up here is not as nice as it used to be

Tags

graves, gravestone, graveyard, Prospect, St Bartholemews

There would have been bush covered hills when this grave was built, now furniture stores and factories litter the landscape.

The oldest graves and the church had to be surrounded by a high fence with barbed wire at the top to prevent the vandals from destroying the graves completely.

Crowded

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graves, gravestones, graveyard, Prospect, St Bartholemews

Once again, time and vandals have assisted in the sad degradation of these gravestones.

 

Crafting Jellyfish

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blue, cotton, crochet, jellyfish, pink

More crochet folks, but at least something new…a jellyfish (well two really!)

(I took the pic at night with the flash and it has washed out the blues a bit – a much nicer colour in daylight)

I had seen a few around on the net, and when I wanted to make something to say thank you to Cindy (who painted the wonderful watercolour E for me) I decided to have a go at making one. Cindy loves jellyfish, you see.

I found a couple of free patterns, worked out how they were done and then tweaked away and made these. Well, actually, I made the blue one, in a lovely variegated blue cotton from Sugar & Creme. My daughter, who seems to love anything I make (she is the one who wanted all of the owls I made) requested a jellyfish too. So a couple of hours later and the pink one was made, with its own variations.

It has been school holidays here so I haven’t been doing much art or craft, just sneaking bits and pieces where I could in between play dates and outings and family visiting. Back to school today so I can get back to work again!

Resting

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graves, gravestones, graveyard, Prospect, St Bartholemews

It is almost as thought the gravestones are watching or waiting patiently for something. They don’t have much of a view though, just a motorway.

Headless Sentinel

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graves, gravestone, graveyard, Prospect, St Bartholemews

I have been drawn to this gravestone each time I go to St Bartholemew’s, Prospect. It is so sad that people feel the need to destroy something that is to commemorate the life of someone.

Sure, time and shifting soil change and sometimes destroy the graves, but at least that is not a deliberate act of desctruction.

St Bartholemew’s Church, Prospect Open Day 2013

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church, graveyard, Propsect, St Bartholemews

On Saturday it was St Bartholemew’s annual Open Day to raise funds for the restoration of the historic church and graveyard.

The church has been restored but the graveyard needs a lot of work still. This is the church and graveyard of which I am doing the black and white tonal drawing.

I try and go to the open day each year and nearly missed out this year as we had family visiting – they all went to swim at the pool while I visited the graveyard.

This year is the 200th anniversary of Lawson and Hargraves crossing of the Blue Mountains. Lawson is buried at St Bartholomew’s and for the anniversary they have restored the tomb/grave of the Lawson family.

There are displays of the history of the church and members of the restoration committee/group dress up in colonial outfits and add to the atmosphere of the day.

I didn’t take as many photos this year as I have taken many in the past, but will post a few more over the next few days.

Crafty Calculations: Calculating yardage used, it’s easier than you think!

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crochet, knitting measures, weight, yarn

For any crochet and knitting nuts (that don’t already know this), this is such an easy way to calculate yardage used when creating a pattern. So useful, I’m sharing it so I can easily find it again! Thanks Darleen

Calculating yardage used, it’s easier than you think!.