Quick McLaren Vale sketch

We were collecting some wine on our way home from Adelaide, visit my mother buy some shoes, and while John was organising the wine I sat and did a quick sketch, sort of coloured it later, brown hills and green vineyards.
Busy day, didnt sleep well last night, friend visiting tonight and tomorrow for New Years Eve.

Frenchmans Rock

This sketch is not showing up at all well. I did it while I was on the ferry in black pen and it should be better than this.
The little white domed shaped edifice was built to protect and commemorate the rock on which the Frenchman Nicholas Baudin or one of his crew scratched the fact that they had been there and found fresh water.
The actual rock is now in the visitors center as it was being defaced.
Hog Bay Penneshaw Kangaroo Island.

Rowing boat on the beach

I sketched this while waiting for the ferry to leave this morning, a damp and overcast morning a good way to leave the Island as we had a week of wonderful weather.
Home tired and crotchety!! Miss the view, miss the relaxed feeling, have got home to all sorts of things I dont want to know about.
I know holidays cant go on for ever but I really cherish my days on the island.
Any way all the packing and unpacking is now done and tomorrow, well more racing around.
I hope I have time to keep up the painting and sketching more regularly than I had been in the last few months.

A yacht in the bay

Lots of activity this morning, two yachts in the bay, a helicopter overhead and the ferry running all day. not to mention the pleasure craft fishing and towing skiiers.
Millie went to the beach and had fun in the sand and the waves, the area is so flat that she couldnt get frightened.
I think my yacht is totally out of proportion but remember I am looking at it from the side of a hill and not down on the beach.
We head off tomorrow and Tab and family this evening, lovely to have them. None of us really want to go home.

From my sketchbook

Just a few sketchy sketches I have done in the last day or so.
I did the shells this morning, after I had collected them on my morning walk.
A totally different day today, windy and although not cool overcast and not such a beautiful day as yesterday.
Probably good for all those over indulging in Christmas dinner, we had oysters cooked under the grill with ham and breadcrumbs and soy sauce and sweet chili sauce with them done very quickly followed by a salad and with a very nice bottle of bubbly. Delicious.
Oh and I hope every one has had a lovely day today, we had a late afternoon walk at Pennington Bay, the sea was the most incredible colour but we were walking not sketching.

Today I collected shells

Not a terribly good sketch, not much in the way of shells either really but at least I have had two walks today, once to the shops and once along the beach and back again.
Warmer today and the flies were bad as I went through the sand hills but we havent done much except finally relax and enjoy the wonderful weather.
I sat outside and sketched and thought and did some embroidery, finally this is being on holiday.

From the kitchen window

This is the mainland and the rocky headland along the coast, if I look to my right when standing in the kitchen this is what I can see.
I was trying with some wet in wet and somehow it went all misty and hazy.
We have an easterly wind blowing today which is not so nice, no good sitting outside for drinks tonight.
we went into Kingscote today and did a bit of shopping and had lunch at Roger's Deli, bought some abalone at the fabulous fish place they had, not crayfish at about $100 a kg, these were not cheap either but it is so long since our diving days of just collecting them off the rocks, now you have to have a licencse and they are no longer as available as they were, I believe these are farmed. I hope they taste as I remember them.
Oh for those young and carefree days of weekends at the beach and cooking the stuff we had managed to gather from the sea. we used to camp over here then with the children, a rather hedonistic hippie lot we were in those days, although our drugs were alcohol, and not much of that, and sun and wind and the freedom to camp where we wished.

Chidren on the beach

Yesterday thunderstorms were threatening in the late afternoon and I quickly sketched these children while we were having pre dinner drinks out the front of the beach house.
I didnt have much time for sketching today as we were on the move all day but I have some fantastic photos on my other blog of the re growth of the fires 12 months on. We went to have a look and in some areas were very pleased to see so much young stuff coming on. Of course a lot of our scrub needs a fire to regenerate but some areas were so hot there was a very real worry that regeneration would not happen.
Lots of people people dont realise how big the Island is and it was an all day trip with sandwiches packed for lunch.
We have just had an excellent dinner of Kangaroo Island lamb chops I bought at the market yesterday with a salad and followed by more of the Christmas cake, which in all reality was just a boiled fruitcake but perhaps i put a bit much brandy in as it is delicious!
red wine of course with dinner., but we didnt have any pre dinner drinks or nibbles this time, I may never fit into my clothes again.

Penneshaw Farmers Market

We went to the farmers market this morning asn I bought all sorts of lovely goodies and also spent some time sketching. I did this when I came home, trying for color and movement but made it a bit busy. I will have another go at this.
John's birthday today and apart from walking to the market we had a lovely lunch of oysters and various things to with it that I had bought like aoli and chili sauce etc and then we followed that with a yummy mango and ice cream with a lovely sauvignon blanc.
He is sleeping it off while I play with a variety of things to do, like the altered book I am playing with.
My knee held up with the walk to the market where John caught up with so many people that he knows. I am hoping for an evening walk along the beach.
Sometimes life just doesnt get any better.

Penneshaw bay and the mainland

I have finally found time to paint something small in my sketchbook.
We are here at Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island having arrived on the first ferry this morning, after packing the red ute we arrived and had to unpack it again!
A glass of lovely D'Arenberg Dry Dam riesling with our ham sandwich for lunch followed by a piece of the best Christmas cake I have made and a small nap and all is well with what will probably be a very fat making week!!
We had a lovely trip over watching the small dolphins playing around the boat and going at incredible speeds, leaping out of the water and generally showing off.
No scanner so I will have to take photos of what I paint, this is done in a very small sketchbook from Dick Blick which I bought when we were in America, San Francisco I think.
I will try to get something done every day this week.

From my sketchbook

I was parked yesterday in the car park of the water something or other at Stirling waiting for John to finish his meeting, which went on for an hour longer than he told me it would be so to do something I did some sketches and this is one of them. there are some rather straggly callistemon bushes along the fence infront of where I was sitting.
I cant believe I have done about three things to put in this blog this week, but apart from some pre Christmas cooking which I plan to do next week I have just about caught up on all my presents etc, unless someone gives me something I am not expecting!

Early morning Encounter Bay

With the Islands back lit and the sea dead flat and the pinks and yellows of early morning.
I dont think that my perspective is all that good but it still pleases me.
I hadnt realised how many rocks poke up out of the water there but it could have been low tide.

Watching the watched

We had coffee and this couple were sitting watching the boats in the bay, what you cant see are the yachts who were sailing too but not in my line of sight. the Norfolk Island pine really does have a lean to it too.
I cant find my sketch book I have been doing my across the page stuff in, I have no idea where I put it but I am too busy at the moment to even think about much sketching or painting.
We leave for a week on Kangaroo Island on the 20th and there is a heap of stuff that must be done before then, including hosting a bbq for my grand daughters 21st, the three birthdays, hers her mother and John's are on the 21st but as we wont be there I am doing this for the 18th, have just taken her younger brother out for his 18th birthday. December was a busy month birth wise.

Sketchbook pages

Sorry for some reason I couldnt do any more with the scan below so I am writing this seperately.
I have had very little time to do anything except a few rough sketches in the sketchbook.
Christmas is fast approaching and we head off for Kangaroo island on the 20th for a week so I have to get all my presents organised and delivered before then. I am getting into rather a panic and I still dont know if the Melbourne family are coming over then or not.
Our computer signal has been extremely slow as well for some reason and I spend far more time here than I would normally, an absolute pain but apparently the 3G doesnt like a lot of use and I imagine there are far more people using it than there were and as well as that we are not in a good position for the tower.

Rolling Hills

I had a bit of time today and played around with some stronger color, I really like the depth of color in this small painting, we have lots of these rounded looking hills around here, they are getting more trees planted on them but I love their outlines. They are called the Bald Hills although this has rather a lot of artists license in this painting.
It is warming up again, hoses on after our small amount of rain over the weekend.

Cape tulip

I cant remember how many petals a Cape tulip has, this was done from memory. They are a terrible weed here, came in soil that was ballast in the sailing ships from South Africa.
I wanted to do something bright and colorful.
Would probably make a good wallpaper design!
We have actually had a shower of rain, but it has just got cold and windy and I dont think there was much in what we had.
Friends for dinner tomorrow night so discussions on food and a bit of tidying up being done.

Shades of blue and yellow

I am not terribly happy with the color definition that my scanner is giving, this should be much stronger.
A funeral today, a visit to my mother yesterday.
tired and a bit down
So playing with blues and yellows in a scene I do often and may do even more often. Wright Island and the Bluff.

Double page spread

Here is another of my weekly double page spreads. The left hand side is ink and watercolor, the other is ink with watercolor pencils.
Just odds and ends of my week jotted down and then colored later.
Staying at my friend P's and drawing what I could see outside, Oscar asleep in the sun room, the cockle train, some gum leaves and blossom and my mug that I drank tea from.
Nothing very exciting.

Part of the Anchorage

Two posts in as many days, this must be a record for a while any way.
I sat with my little sketchbook out while John ordered the coffee this afternoon. Not sure why things are looking a bit soft in these sketches, they normally look brighter.
Any way enthused by going to see two art shows today, one which was absolutely outstanding at Strathalbyn, part of the Fleurieu Biennale curated by friend and well known artist David Dridan it was beautifully presented in the town hall and the paintings, sculpture and basketry were fantastic. Would have dearly liked to have bought something but alas no money.
Any way a lovely day and finally I think I am achieving something here as well, I have cut out 10 bodies and 10 sets of wings , so small Christmas presents are on their way.

Sketch in Adelaide

While I was waiting on King William Road for John to have a beard trim I managed to sketch the front fence of the house that is next to the hairdressers.
I never tire of the lovely stone and cast iron fences that suddenly appear around Adelaide. The purple was a cascade of bouganvillia that was growing through the fence. An old garden. I coloured it when I got home.
Not an interesting day today but it has cooled down a bit, tired from all the galivanting around I have been doing.

Mitcham Buildings

I have finally finished painting the sketches that I did, this is for the across the pages weekly challenge and I am very late with this as I have had overseas visitors.
They dont show up very well in this format I have discovered.
The first is the back of the stables belonging to the house but I did this one in the car park behind and then walked around the block to find the house they belonged to.
After some very pleasant weather it has suddenly warmed up. My visitors were from Holland and were out here to judge at our All Welsh Pony show, we did very well under them and considering they had never heard of our stud before we were doubly pleased, especially when we took out the Champion mare and stallion or colt in both Section A and B and also took out the Supremes in both sections. On top of that the two cobs and the one who went Supreme of Show were bred by my other daughter. One owned by her and one by my daughter in law so it was rather a family affair.
All in all a very busy few days.

Melbourne Cup lady.

This woman with the matching hair and jacket won the best hat at the Melbourne Cup lunch I went to on Tuesday.
I won the door prize, lots of bottles and lovely goodies.

Week three of Nina's Challenge

Here is my week 3 of Nina's challenge, not much else in the way of sketching or painting has been done. I did this one all in black and white, a few little bits of my week, gathered when walking, flowers from the garden, a sketch of the Willunga hills, a hanging pot and some dolls I am doing.
A very busy week.

Mitcham street scene

Yesterday we were in Adelaide for my mothers Birthday, but as we were a little early we sat under a shady tree in the car and I sketched the houses up from us.
Not a terribly good sketch but at least I did manage to do something.
time for sketching has been pretty minimal for a while.
I think my mother had a lovely day, she was 96, what an age! We had a both her nephew and niece and their partners along too, and she hadnt seen them for a while, of course whether she remembers who they are is a moot point but it didnt seem to matter.

2nd week of a spread of sketches

Here is my second week of a spread of sketches that Nina challenged us to do.
I have a new printer/scanner and i am still trying to work out how it works, took me ages to get this far but I dont know if the scan is large enough. If you click on it it will enlarge.
An odd assortment from a bush in the garden the scene of the Bluff and wright Island done on a walk, pegs to indicate I was hanging out washing, the clematis which is flowering so well and the little blue wrens that we call flying mice who inhabit all areas of the garden and then the fairy shoes I am making.
Still very hot and dry but not as bad yesterday as the weather bureau was predicting thank goodness.

Play with spray paints

I rather like this and it was fun. I am not sure if it quite belongs in this blog but here it is.
I have some wonderful new spray paints called shimmering mists or some such name and I was using them to spray some textiles/mixed media stuff and this was the base of what I was spraying. It looks absolutely luscious.
I have been doing a small sketch a day to go in my sketchbook spread but that is about all I have time for as suddenly the weather is hot, that means trying to keep the garden alive, and there are a heap of birthdays which means presents etc, and then Christmas is coming and I usually make presents for that and at the moment I am absolutely stuck for ideas.

My week long spread

Here is my small watercolor journal with the first of my weeks spread in it.
The second page had sketches done on the beach at Pt Elliott, and a piece of brain coral I found and sketched,a few of my collection of fish in ceramic and tin, the opium poppies who are flowering in my garden at the moment and roses on the front terrace with a bit of the wrought iron.
None done in great detail, some just for fun, but when time is of the essence at the moment this id keeping up my interest.
After yesterdays heat and wind today it is quite cool and damp and misty, lovely but not a great deal of actual measurable rain.

Half of a weeks spread

Nina on EDM put out a challenge to do a weekly spread across a journal page, doesnt have to be finished, well here are 4 days so far, I have not had time to do much at all, nor lets face it the inclination, so this has at least started me back on a few small sketches.
Last sunday on our walk we saw this very strange down pipe on a small shelter, then gum leaves off the tree out the front, my short sansavieria in a pot in the sun room and this old shearing shed right by the road where John stopped to have a pain killer on the way home from Adelaide and the dentist!
A small offering.

Flowers in the garden

My back is not being kind to me so not a lot is getting done but the Irises and valerian in the garden looked so nice around the pergola post that I had to paint them.
It is warming up so things wont last very long, the subsoil is dryer than last spring so summer doesnt bode very well I am afraid. the rain has just not been there and we can only hope for summer rains to come, and we usually only get them if a cyclone has formed off the Western Australian coast.
What a world we live in, but I still love where I am and what I have.

My bedroom at Geelong

My scanner is back!! Hooray.
This is a very sketchy sketch of my bedroom while I was at Geelong, there was never much time to sketch or do anything so it was a miracle I even got this done. My student hadnt attempted to move much out of his room so I had very little space.
Cold and damp here, been pretty busy and still not getting much done which is frustrating, typical of spring when there is so much to do and no time to do it.

The garden shed

I have finally resorted to using the camera which I dont think does such a good job as the scanner but as I am still without the scanner I was feeling I really needed to put something up.
I think it looks better this size, if you enlarge it you will see all the dreadful things I did to it!!
This probably looks a bit dotty but that is the way I see the geraniums and succulents that are surrounding the garden shed, not to mention the trees which are now all coming out into leaf.
A very busy time since I got back from Geelong, a new baby great grand son, visitors, my birthday, heavens how did I get so old!!
Lots of birthday celebrations although the big seven o is next year. Actually I think the birthday celebrations got mixed up with the baby as well.
I have had very little time to paint or sketch and when I have I am afraid I have been feeling a bit tired but today I did actually manage to get some sort of paint onto paper.
Thank you to all who sent congratulations on both the baby and my birthday, it is lovely to think that people sometimes do read my blog.

Stone work at Geelong Grammar

This was a hasty sketch done while waiting for dinner. It is part of the stone cloister that is between the church and another part of the building. There was a cold wind blowing in from the bay so very quickly done.
I had a lovely week away but came home to visitors, who are very good friends but a house in a mess. I have washed floors and done a few things while waiting to see if my grand daughter has gone into labor or not.
A week away at a Fibre Forum is great fun, totally exhausting and rather uplifting, you come home with new friends and lots of new ideas.
Geelong grammar is set in one of the loveliest positions overlooking Corio Bay and is a lovely place to walk around and if one had time, sketch, I took lots of photos and hope to do something from them. There is very little time to just sit and relax during day light hours!!
The main problem is the at least 9 hour drive to and from it.

While waiting for the Physio

I had a few minutes up my sleeve when I went into Victor this morning and parked the car by the sea and did a quick sketch. It was very rough but Wright Island and the Bluff were over the water and one of the huge old palm trees that line the shore caught my eye.
After the gales and wet weather it was nice not to be buffeted around it is still cold.
My back feels marginally better after my visit to the physio this morning.

Last night

A bit more excitement than I needed last night, a fire started in my grand daughters bedroom in the house on the property that my daughter and son in law live in. Luckily it was confined to the one bedroom. Unluckily her precious cat was in the room.
About 5 fire appliances, 2 police cars, at least one ambulance as well as other assorted fire vehicles.
No one had been in the house for several hours and as far as we can work out a not on but not unplugged blow heater started the blaze.
The house is a dreadful mess after black acrid smoke went through it, and nothing very salvageable left in the bedroom.
This is a not very good sketch of what I remember.

The Breakaways

Another painting of the Breakaways, called that because they looked as if they broke away from the northern Flinders Ranges, or so I was told.
Rain last night and a warm north wind this morning, I am full of hay fever and no sleep as John has an upper respiratory tract thing and snored all night!
I just love the different colours in these old hills.

The Breakaway Ranges South Australia

I sketched this very typical mesa formation as we went to the Breakaway's north of Coober Pedy, I just loved this area with its colours of ochre and talc and red dust and black formations. It is an area where the aborigines traded the coloured soils which are used in important ceremonies.
This is where Mad Max and Priscilla Queen of the Desert were filmed and we found, after about 15 years star spangles that had fallen off her dress. I must have another look at that film.
Still having problems with a foal I found late whose mother had rejected it, 2 hourly feed but the mare is finally calming down and letting it drink. I feel rather as if I have been run over, the nights have been hell.

The big Winch Coober Pedy

I drew this while sitting on the patio at the conference, our motel was on the other side of this, we were told we could walk up and over but it wasnt open, so a long walk for nothing.
A disastrous day today, the girls up at the show, first one foal who was pinched by another mare, and then one I had somehow missed whose mother doesnt want to know it.
I am tired and I ache all over and I dont know what will happen to the second foal, the first was succesfully reunited with her mother but this last one has me beat.

Red Sandhills

I drew this from the bus as we were going towards William Creek and painted it later.
This is what so much of the drive out was like, red sandhills and in places a bit of sparse bush, after about 10 years of drought there is not much.
These odd little rock cairns were all along the side of the road, some were circles, some looked like Stonehenge, I presume the grader drivers had been having fun at lunch stops on the way. Huge miles of unmade roads to grade in this country. Some areas were filling with bulldust and were going to be interesting to get through in a few weeks/days time.
It is as easy to get bogged in dry sand as in wet.

William Creek

this not at all good sketch was done under great difficulty, too many things to hang on to and no where to put stuff down. I did it in the early morning waiting for those who were going on the bus to get themselves organised.
It was done from the gymkana grounds looking over the airstrip to the town. All got too wet and so went misty and hazy on me, but the color of the earth in front is right.
We had the most incredible experience, going from the sea last week end to this on Wednesday night, we flew up to Coober Pedy and were then bussed 2 hours out to William Creek, population 3, there is a pub and the largest cattle station in the world, Anna Creek not far down the road.
We watched calf roping and bare back steer (heifer) riding and slept in tents and had good company food and drink and music.
Off early the next morning back to Coober Pedy and those who were conferencing did that and those of us who were not went on a fantastic trip to The Breakaways. More on that later.

Second Valley sketch

It was freezing cold and blowing a gale with rain when we went with the museum geologist to Second Valley, about half an hour from here.
So this is a small sketch I did and then I took lots of photos. If you go to my back valley seasons blog you will see why we were there.
Complaints from a friend that I am not sketching much, well no I am doing a few other things at the moment, and I am not able to do everything even though I try to.

Storybook card

I am painting a few cards, from my imagination, but this is probably a remembered picture from a book as a child.
Not a lot of time but trying out a few painting theories.
In other words I had fun painting this and it pulled together all I like, clean lines and houses in mountains!

Ruin at Mambray Creek

I am not having a lot of time to paint, so as I was at home today I went through some of the photos I had taken while at Mambray Creek and chose this one of a little building.
I need to have a lesson or at least sit and work through some lessons as I am not getting what I want but at least it is something.
I am busily trying to finish a heap of sewing and that is taking a lot more time than I thought it would.
I cleaned the house this morning watching the incredible feat of the Kenyan winning his gold in the Marathon at the Olympics. I felt very little pain thinking of what he would have been going through to win in the record time he put up!

Flinder's Ranges

I have been away and then I have been ill so nothing for a while. I still dont feel much like sketching.
This is from the front area, cant really call it a garden, of the house I was staying at while I was at Mambray Creek. They had about 3/4 of an inch of rain while we were there and the rain water tanks were overflowing so they were very pleased but I coudnt get out to walk or do much sketching while I was there.
This little thing took me three days to finish when I got home, I have been feeling so off.

Near the mouth of the Inman River

Somehow I got my perspective wrong, well call me Granma Moses!!
The samphire was really red and somehow it looks wrong, I fiddled with it for too long.
John not at all well so no Adelaide trip for the Waterhouse Prize do we will have to pay to see it sometime if we can find a day.
It is always interesting as it is specifically a natural history art prize.

Quick sketch

While waiting for our coffee to come this morning I sketched this from the front verandah of the Anchorage.
We have had lots of rain and it has been cold but today it was sunny for a while and very pleasant when we walked.
Looking across the lawns to a bit of Granite Island with a Norfolk Island pine in the foreground.

The Point at Basham's beach

Quickly done in my sketchbook showing the lovely colour of the rocks.
We had a frost this morning after a damp night so John found a small icicle in the rain gauge this morning when he went to measure the rain.
Cleaned and washed and did very boring things and have Tabby and John coming for dinner.
A casserole in the oven and frozen raspberries defrosting.

Potted colour

This wonderful plant whose name I am having a complete mental blank about is growing in our sun room and flowering its head off. (Impatiens, why did I want to call it Balsam?) A friend gave me a cutting and it has gone from that. The flowers are parti coloured red and white and the leaves deep green to bronze.
I have finally got the new bookcase full of books, the cookery books have moved from the kitchen and then a heap of others found there way into it. It is very large and we had to re arrange the hall for it to go in.
John has been taking heaps of old files out to the new metal cabinet he bought which is in the shed, that might take some of the weight from the center of the house, although I think I have just put it all back.
We both feel rather worn out, and it has rained, quite a lot so that is making us both a bit happier as well.

Adding color

This is my sketch of the shearing shed with some added watercolor.
I didnt have a lot of time today but as the sun room was warm and sunny I felt like spending some time out there.
I think the red on the roof is rust not paint as it is in an odd area.